Everyone wants a piece of Terry Schiavo. Some want her alive; some want her dead. What's a woman in a persistent vegetative state to do?
Horribly tasteless humor aside, the Schiavo case, which I have barely been following in the past year, has become unavoidable--even from Scotland--in the past week. Parents v. Husband, Republicans in Congress v. the Courts. A recent leaked Republican memo confirmed what everyone knew, that a belief in the sacredness of life alone isn't motivating the opposition to letting Schiavo die after 15 years of being brain dead, the memo confirmed that even when condemning the woman's poor husband as a murderer, the Republicans are looking to gain political capital. I don't even have to wonder anymore why I no longer want to be a politician.
My thoughts on the issue are conflicted, but I tend to support the court system and Terry's husband on permanently removing her feeding tube (she is unable to eat on her own) for several reasons:
1) Terry told her husband, or so he says, that she wanted to die if she was stuck like this. Republicans claim he is "curiously obsessed" with killing her, but I fail to see how in the world a man could be seen as anything more than a dedicated and loving man for spending 15 years of his life fighting to fulfill what he saw as his wife's wish.
2) The courts have, time and time again, rejected arguments for keeping her alive. Now her parents are trying, again, to become her guardians permanently. But let's think about this. Your parents stop being responsible for you after 18 (or maybe 21, i'm not sure on the legal status); as an adult, the personal you are legally closest to is your spouse. Thus, I see absolutely no legal right backing up her parents' attempts to take her out of the hands of her husband, who does not appear to be incapable of rational decision-making in any way.
3) this decision is not one of precedence--hospitals have pulled the plug on brain-dead patients in the past because of inability to pay costs or just the consensus after years that the patient will never recover. Every argument in this case is highly political--Peggy Noonan wrote in the WSJ that Republicans would be punished by supporters at the polls and in their hearts if they failed to save Schiavo. That kind of argument is what is really motivating men like Senate Maj Leader Bill Frist to venture a guess (as a surgeon, not a neurologist) that Schiavo may not "really" be brain-dead. There is absolutely no basis to that guess, but it makes for one hell of a political soundbite. Democrats are going to be hurt by this controversy over "pro-life" voters regardless, but hopefully they will benefit among those people who respect the nearly unanimous legal opinion siding with Schiavo's husband and who realize that the politicization of this issue makes it all very crass.
4) the whole "right to life" as a universal good is a whole load of baloney. Coming from the only state in the US that allows for doctor-assisted suicide for the terminally ill, I like to believe I have a good (and in my mind, enlightened) sense of the issue. While I can understand the motivation for the debate on abortion, since we do not know what degree of consciousness is present in the womb, I think that it is much different for a human being who has lived and is near death or incapable of living life without agonizing pain to choose to end their suffering. Activists see the right to life as "good", but, and now i'm thinking about Schiavo, what about the individual who is dead but can't die? People live and people die in our society, that is one of the only constants. If the legal guardian of a brain-dead individual wants to keep that person alive, I'm not sure there is much that can be done, if the money is present to pay for the care. But when the legal guardian of a 15 years brain-dead individual has been saying for years that his wife did not want to live this way, I honestly think that is a wish that should be respected. Schiavo's husband is being vilified, but what is a husband? The person a woman (or a man, i'm pro gay-marriage of course) chooses to spend her life with and devote herself to--you can't get any more serious than that. Schiavo's husband is not just a man saying a woman should die--he is Schiavo's soul mate saying she didnt want to live this way. I hope the courts respect that (I also hope, btw, that the Sup. Court finds in favor of Oregon's Right-to-Death law when it hands down its decision, but that's another matter).
The federal judge hearing the case now said in court yesterday that he wasn't sure it was even possible for Schiavo's parents to convince him to reinsert her feeding tube against the wishes of her husband; while the appeals will continue, hopefully the legal sensibilities will continue to win out over a politically-motivated legal decision (if it goes to the Supreme Court, there is no telling what will happen).
This is Schiavo something like 15 or 20 years ago:
This is her more recently:
More later, these are just rough thoughts
Horribly tasteless humor aside, the Schiavo case, which I have barely been following in the past year, has become unavoidable--even from Scotland--in the past week. Parents v. Husband, Republicans in Congress v. the Courts. A recent leaked Republican memo confirmed what everyone knew, that a belief in the sacredness of life alone isn't motivating the opposition to letting Schiavo die after 15 years of being brain dead, the memo confirmed that even when condemning the woman's poor husband as a murderer, the Republicans are looking to gain political capital. I don't even have to wonder anymore why I no longer want to be a politician.
My thoughts on the issue are conflicted, but I tend to support the court system and Terry's husband on permanently removing her feeding tube (she is unable to eat on her own) for several reasons:
1) Terry told her husband, or so he says, that she wanted to die if she was stuck like this. Republicans claim he is "curiously obsessed" with killing her, but I fail to see how in the world a man could be seen as anything more than a dedicated and loving man for spending 15 years of his life fighting to fulfill what he saw as his wife's wish.
2) The courts have, time and time again, rejected arguments for keeping her alive. Now her parents are trying, again, to become her guardians permanently. But let's think about this. Your parents stop being responsible for you after 18 (or maybe 21, i'm not sure on the legal status); as an adult, the personal you are legally closest to is your spouse. Thus, I see absolutely no legal right backing up her parents' attempts to take her out of the hands of her husband, who does not appear to be incapable of rational decision-making in any way.
3) this decision is not one of precedence--hospitals have pulled the plug on brain-dead patients in the past because of inability to pay costs or just the consensus after years that the patient will never recover. Every argument in this case is highly political--Peggy Noonan wrote in the WSJ that Republicans would be punished by supporters at the polls and in their hearts if they failed to save Schiavo. That kind of argument is what is really motivating men like Senate Maj Leader Bill Frist to venture a guess (as a surgeon, not a neurologist) that Schiavo may not "really" be brain-dead. There is absolutely no basis to that guess, but it makes for one hell of a political soundbite. Democrats are going to be hurt by this controversy over "pro-life" voters regardless, but hopefully they will benefit among those people who respect the nearly unanimous legal opinion siding with Schiavo's husband and who realize that the politicization of this issue makes it all very crass.
4) the whole "right to life" as a universal good is a whole load of baloney. Coming from the only state in the US that allows for doctor-assisted suicide for the terminally ill, I like to believe I have a good (and in my mind, enlightened) sense of the issue. While I can understand the motivation for the debate on abortion, since we do not know what degree of consciousness is present in the womb, I think that it is much different for a human being who has lived and is near death or incapable of living life without agonizing pain to choose to end their suffering. Activists see the right to life as "good", but, and now i'm thinking about Schiavo, what about the individual who is dead but can't die? People live and people die in our society, that is one of the only constants. If the legal guardian of a brain-dead individual wants to keep that person alive, I'm not sure there is much that can be done, if the money is present to pay for the care. But when the legal guardian of a 15 years brain-dead individual has been saying for years that his wife did not want to live this way, I honestly think that is a wish that should be respected. Schiavo's husband is being vilified, but what is a husband? The person a woman (or a man, i'm pro gay-marriage of course) chooses to spend her life with and devote herself to--you can't get any more serious than that. Schiavo's husband is not just a man saying a woman should die--he is Schiavo's soul mate saying she didnt want to live this way. I hope the courts respect that (I also hope, btw, that the Sup. Court finds in favor of Oregon's Right-to-Death law when it hands down its decision, but that's another matter).
The federal judge hearing the case now said in court yesterday that he wasn't sure it was even possible for Schiavo's parents to convince him to reinsert her feeding tube against the wishes of her husband; while the appeals will continue, hopefully the legal sensibilities will continue to win out over a politically-motivated legal decision (if it goes to the Supreme Court, there is no telling what will happen).
This is Schiavo something like 15 or 20 years ago:
This is her more recently:
More later, these are just rough thoughts
posted by The Oracles @ 11:32 AM
1 Comments:
At 9:04 PM,
Ben A. Johnson said…
My Oregonian-ness has been shining through throughout this case as well. Though, it's interesting that nobody has really talked about this in the way we Oregonians do, that is: a right to die. It's all couched in "right to life." I'm surprised you didn't mention the only other constant though (ie, taxes), but perhaps it's just too cliche. Nice post Brian.
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