The Terri Schiavo Case
I was struck by something about Terri Schiavo's case the last time her feeding tube was removed, several months ago, when the issue came up in Usenet newsgroup discussions.
And this time around many others have seen it as well.
There are liberals, many but certainly not all, who feel compelled to take the side of death in this case. They are positively committed to the idea that this woman must die, and that her death will somehow serve the greater good.
This case has defined a fork in the road of the American conscience. Bob and Mary Schindler, the parents of Terri Schiavo, along with other members of her family, have affirmatively stated their desire to care for Terri as her guardians. They claim that Terri is very much present within her damaged body, and that to kill her by starvation and dehydration would be to kill someone who they say is aware and wants to live. They base this judgment on their knowledge of her as her parents and their direct experience of her in her current state.
Holding out against this claim is Terri's husband, Michael Schiavo, who claims that Terri made her wishes known to him (though she never made them known in any legal instrument) that she did not want to be kept alive if she fell into a state of disability like the one she is in today. He is supported by doctors who insist, despite Terri's appearance of wakefulness and her parents claims that she is responsive to them, that she has no cognitive abilities and has ceased to exist, essentially, as a thinking human being capable of knowing her own experience. She is portrayed by the medical types as no more than an animated corpse kept alive for no purpose at all.
Not an easy case, but clearly not that difficult to resolve. As President Bush said in a statement as he signed the law that will allow the Schindlers to ask a Federal judge to order the feeding tube reinserted, the legal presumption should be in favor of life.
The final moral argument in favor of Terri continuing to live is that the signs that she shows of wakefulness and awareness mean that she is entitled to die in her own time, not dispatched by starvation because she has become an inconvenience to her husband, who has moved on with his life. There may well be other cases where feeding a person in an advanced state of disability would be clearly unnecessary. The case of Terri Schiavo is not such a case. Doctors can say what they want, but Terri shows wakefulness and some minimal awareness to her parents, and that is reasonably confirmed by video recordings of her.
I am as amazed by her life and the love her parents have for her, as I am appalled by those who are desperate to see her die. I very much get the former. I very much do not get the latter.
And this time around many others have seen it as well.
There are liberals, many but certainly not all, who feel compelled to take the side of death in this case. They are positively committed to the idea that this woman must die, and that her death will somehow serve the greater good.
This case has defined a fork in the road of the American conscience. Bob and Mary Schindler, the parents of Terri Schiavo, along with other members of her family, have affirmatively stated their desire to care for Terri as her guardians. They claim that Terri is very much present within her damaged body, and that to kill her by starvation and dehydration would be to kill someone who they say is aware and wants to live. They base this judgment on their knowledge of her as her parents and their direct experience of her in her current state.
Holding out against this claim is Terri's husband, Michael Schiavo, who claims that Terri made her wishes known to him (though she never made them known in any legal instrument) that she did not want to be kept alive if she fell into a state of disability like the one she is in today. He is supported by doctors who insist, despite Terri's appearance of wakefulness and her parents claims that she is responsive to them, that she has no cognitive abilities and has ceased to exist, essentially, as a thinking human being capable of knowing her own experience. She is portrayed by the medical types as no more than an animated corpse kept alive for no purpose at all.
Not an easy case, but clearly not that difficult to resolve. As President Bush said in a statement as he signed the law that will allow the Schindlers to ask a Federal judge to order the feeding tube reinserted, the legal presumption should be in favor of life.
The final moral argument in favor of Terri continuing to live is that the signs that she shows of wakefulness and awareness mean that she is entitled to die in her own time, not dispatched by starvation because she has become an inconvenience to her husband, who has moved on with his life. There may well be other cases where feeding a person in an advanced state of disability would be clearly unnecessary. The case of Terri Schiavo is not such a case. Doctors can say what they want, but Terri shows wakefulness and some minimal awareness to her parents, and that is reasonably confirmed by video recordings of her.
I am as amazed by her life and the love her parents have for her, as I am appalled by those who are desperate to see her die. I very much get the former. I very much do not get the latter.
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