I get morally irate for a moment:

[shirenomad]

I've been avoiding talking about Terry Schiavo, mostly because I haven't been sure of the right course of action myself. Even the conservatives aren't agreeing on this one (the Corner writers have been doing some heavy debate on the matter and are still split). However, something I do have to say: if you believe she's suffering, then don't compound it by starving the poor girl! End her pain quickly and mercifully. Even our worst criminals get a lethal injection and are gone in less than a minute; Terry's been dehydrating for nearly a week!

(And the ironic new item of the day: Apparently cows that would have slaughtered anyway get more protection than Terry...)

Comments

[surgo.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely sure on the legal status of euthanasia in Florida. If it's legal, then I completely agree with you. If it's illegal, then you can't really fault the doctors for not doing it, just the people who made it illegal in the first place.

But yeah, I entirely agree on just ending it quickly.

[shirenomad]

Well, I know it wasn't legal in Florida to starve patients to death until the courts said "Yeah, go ahead in this case." I don't see why the same courts couldn't have ruled to go with the more merciful option.

[shadeykins.livejournal.com]

I think it may be the difference between purposely killing them (giving them something to cause death), and allowing them to die (taking away something that had been keeping them artificially alive), but it's all semantics... I dunno.

[shirenomad]

I fail to see the distinction. Someone who deliberately withholds food from a child until they starve to death is still guilty of murder.

[shadeykins.livejournal.com]

I said semantics, didn't I?

Still... I can sorta see a distinction. This isn't a child. This is somebody whose cerebral cortex has been liquified... If not for an IMMENSE amount of interference by doctors, their body would naturally have died long ago (I want to say "as well" but I cant know for sure that there isnt some partial piece of her... somewhere... left of her within that shell. And that's what makes all this hard).

Of course, then you also have to say, at what point does it become ok to let nature take its course? Doctors save people from impossible circumstances all the time, by their interference.

I don't have an answer as to what's right either. So I say: *shrug* :/

[westmarked.livejournal.com]

A few points of clarification:

I'm going to actually agree with Shadeykins here: Generally speaking, there is a distinction held between denying treatment (or a patient refusing treatment) and taking active measures to end a patient's life. For example, it is legally permissible to refuse a respirator invasive life-support techniques, even if not using it will result in a patient's death. Terri, however, is not on that level of invasive life support. She is merely being fed artificially, which--despite what the press might say--is not life support in any commonly held sense. So the question to ask is, "Does feeding constitute treatment?" If it does, then it should count like refusing a respirator (assuming this is what Terri actually wished). If it doesn't, it should count like moving a patient to a room with no oxygen.

We should also keep in mind that Terri is supposed to be in a persistent vegetative state (PVS). Hence Shadeykins' comment about the cortex being liquefied. I have a bit of cause to doubt this assumption, but if we assume that she is PVS (which is the primary justification for killing her) then starving is not an inhumane option. Being in a PVS state means, quite literally, that Terri is no longer there--whether merely being permanently unconscious or being actually gone (but this distinction gets into metaphysical issues which aren't that crucial to our discussion). If Terri is indeed PVS, then she is incapable of suffering because she is completely unresponsive to the world around her. That's what being PVS means.

Of course, if she is PVS, than any claims that ending her life is somehow to relieve her suffering are also BS. If she can't suffer the agony of dehydration, then she isn't suffering from being brain-damaged and bedridden either. She can't suffer anything at all. Just for reference.

[westmarked.livejournal.com]

Three other useful (and relatively non-partisan) articles:

Charles Krauthammer on the trouble of being true to the law.

Harriet McBryde Johnson (a disability-rights advocate) on why this issue truly matters.

Douglas Kern on the inadaquacy of living wills.

[jordanis.livejournal.com]

Personally, I'm just irate that the conservatives in Congress are pontificating and butting in on it. Frankly, the issue has been settled. Several times in progressively higher courts. It's no business of Congress', and making a law or whathaveyou applying to one person is patently unconstitutional.

So yes, I'm mostly just annoyed at them for violating their supposed principles of states' rights and government non-interference when they smell an opportunity to grab votes.

Moving on, though, I rather doubt euthanasia is legal in FL, since that's a traditionally 'liberal' issue. Which is quite silly, if asking to have the feeding tubes removed /is/ legal. Idiotic laws...

[shirenomad]

Well, I think the courts were equally looney for not erring on the side of caution, especially considering the irreversability of their decision... and the circumstances (yeah, she said she didn't want to be a burden to anyone. And you first bring this up a couple years AFTER you get yourself another woman, when before you were all "I'll do whatever it takes to keep her alive!") But that's me.

I'm waiting for the "Ripped from the Headlines" Law and Order where someone gets their food tube disconnected, then someone else blows her brains out and argues before the jury that "hey, it was quicker!"

[jordanis.livejournal.com]

I think the only thing we can really take off this whole thing is to remember to have a document that specifies what you want. It should never have been such a big public issue in the first place.

None of our business, and trying to legislate it would be the biggest mistake possible. Legislating morality takes all the point out of being moral, however you'd like to define such.

[chubbypanda.livejournal.com]

From the Center for American Progress:

ENCOURAGING ACTIVISM: President Bush has endorsed the use of federal power to discourage so-called "activist judges," but in the Schiavo case, Bush and congressional conservatives passed "extraordinary legislation" exhorting the judiciary to intervene, a maneuver which "encourage[d] the sort of activism that they had long condemned." As the Washington Post's David Broder pointed out, "No one in the truncated congressional debate suggested that the Florida judges had been biased or negligent or anything but conscientious" in their evaluation of the Schiavo case. "The majority simply did not like the result of the case, and decided to intervene."

ABANDONING FEDERALISM: The result has been a "credibility gap for the Bush administration, Republicans in Congress and social conservatives." Charles Fried, a conservative Harvard law professor and former Reagan solicitor general, chastised conservatives for embracing "the kind of free-floating judicial activism, disregard for orderly procedure and contempt for the integrity of state processes that they quite rightly have denounced and sought to discipline for decades." He said Congress's intervention in the Schiavo case marked an "absurd departure from principles of federalism." Former Reagan and Bush I justice official Douglas Kmiec noted, "Congress' desire to get a particular outcome led it to invite the courts to be activist, and the judges have properly refused."

(This bit from me.)

According to recent polling from several credible news agencies, the opinion that Mrs. Schiavo should be kept alive is decidedly in the minority, even amongst conservatives and in "Red" states. Mrs. Schiavo no longer evinces any higher brain functions, based on her CAT and EEG scans. You took ICS173. There is no activity anywhere but the most basic portions of her brain. She's even failed a "swallow" test on three separate occasions (1991, 1992, & 1993). The soul of the woman that was Theresa Schiavo has either been gathered to God's bosom already, or is trapped in a shattered shell of flesh that can only be kept alive by the intervention of man playing God.

According to in-depth investigations conducted by the courts, the husband tried very hard to find a cure for her during the first seven years, and was obsessed to the point that the nursing home she was at asked for a restraining order against him. He kept checking and her and asking about her care, and they felt he has beginning to interfer with their operation. Mr. Schiavo even flew Mrs. Schiavo out to Florida to have a tiny device implanted in her brain in the hopes that it could stimulate her heurons and essentially jump start her higher functions. He's turned down several offers to pay him money to relinquish guardianship to the Schindlers and divorce Mrs. Schiavo (one notable one for $10 million and one more recently for $1 million). He only started dating after seven years, and only because the Schindlers, Mrs. Shiavo's parents encouraged him to and counseled him to get on with his life. He even made it a point to introduce the women he was dating to his in-laws, becuase he considered them family, and was up front with those women about his situation.

I think you need to re-examine the evidence in this case before making holier-than-thou judgements. The husband has been very stand-up for fifteen years. Congress, President Bush, and Governor Bush have abused their power in attempting to coerce the overturning of over 20 separate rulings by predominantly conservative, Republican judges. I'm personally very disappointed by any legislator that voted to pass that craptacular law, especially the Democrats.

[shirenomad]

Hey, did I say the husband was up to something? No. In all likelihood, he's doing exactly what he believes is best for Terry. But I think the judges were FAR too quick to move to judgement given that a woman's life is at stake.

As for the evidence over whether Terry's still conscious or not, I can go to war with you with my own batch saying the exact opposite, but given how much your entry ticked me off, I'd rather not push the issue given how much I consider you a friend. If I inadvertantly annoyed you with my own beliefs on the subject, my apologies.

[chubbypanda.livejournal.com]

Ok, ok. I answered a knife with a flame thrower. Mea culpa. Sorry buddy. I guess I'm just so tired with people talking about this down here (everyone and their dog is doing it). I do think the judges spent plenty of time deciding. Over five years in court, dozen of affidavits, over twenty rulings, and oodles of medical examination and testimony. This issue was been dragging on for years, and the ruling to give the right of decision to the husband has been upheld by judges, the appelate court, and the Supreme Court (which is what it essentially means when they refuse to reconsider a previous verdict). So yeah, I think it's a very tragic situation, and I feel for the family (husband + parents), but I think it's his right, sanctity of marriage and all.

As for your experts, feel free to fire anything that isn't anecdotal or based on someone's interpretation of morality my way. I'm always open to considering differing arguments and adjusting my opinion when strong points are made. However, I love our country. I'm a strong believer in our Constitution, the tri-branch separation of powers, and the rule of law. As far as I'm concerned, Mr. Schiavo's right to decide his wife's fate has been settled in the court of law with more than adequate due process.

I think in comparison, these two cases are far far worse.

[shirenomad]

I guess I'm just so tired with people talking about this down here (everyone and their dog is doing it).
Well, all I get up here are the news media, who are all saying the courts made the right choice (and tossing around totally incorrect terms like "on life support" to describe her state). Want to switch? :P

Just so I'm clear, btw, I think Congress overstepped its bounds too. But that doesn't mean I can't also think the courts screwed up big time in their decision.

(And yeesh. *looks at the linked cases* Now that's just horrendous. If everyone in the family is willing to keep paying for treatment, with no one even suggesting that being cut off is what the patient would want, who are the doctors to argue?)

[chubbypanda.livejournal.com]

Yep.

So now that you're working and all, ya saving up money for Anime Expo? =D

[shirenomad]

I wasn't making enough to do that last year when I was working full time. So no. -_-

[shadeykins.livejournal.com]

From what I understand, they probably would like to have it be as quick and painless as possible (assuming there is enough of anything left of who Terry is to feel it anyway), but they *can't*, this is the only way. Lethal injection isn't legally an option.