Terri is not on any machines. She's only fed by a gravity tube 3 times a day.
Posted on 03/06/2005 10:36:52 AM PST by Houmatt
I loved that chirping little chick, all downy yellow, pecking away in its box. I'd rub the chick against my cheek, hold it and give it a love squeeze. Maybe a little too hard, because sometimes it would try to squirm out of my grasp. Until the day that it jumped and landed on the floor head first. It started convulsing, chirping wildly, and then its little eyes closed and it lay perfectly still.
It couldn't be dead, I prayed. No, no, and no. In search of a miracle, my 7-year-old brain came up with a plan. I would put the chick in a pan on the stove, over low heat. Like a premature baby in an incubator. The chick started to move erratically. I was pleased with my quick thinking, but once out of the pan, it was clear there was no life to it.
That was my first experience with death.
I've never told anyone what happened - well, except a priest. It was the first sin I listed in my first confession. I was a murderer. And a liar - I had told my mom that I found the chick dead in its box.
It's an odd thing to share, I know, but there's a lesson in my sorry tale. It may help explain why I remain so conflicted about what to do when people are terminally ill. At my core, I'm always praying for a miracle. I'm not alone in wondering if people should be allowed to "choose" death with dignity. Millions of Americans struggle with what is ethical, moral and just in fashioning laws giving people the "right" to die.
A living will is an easy call. If I'm brain dead or can't breathe on my own, don't hook me up to machines, thank you very much. Using science to prolong "life" that can't think or feel is anathema to life itself. But what if it's your child whose brain no longer functions past involuntary twitches? How many parents have faced such a terrifying choice? Some parents of adult children, like Terri Schiavo's, refuse to give up.
As agonizing as those decisions are, though, there's a certain spiritual satisfaction in letting a loved one who's suffering, or simply not feeling anything, go to a better place. That's the other side of the wrenching Schiavo drama.
What if you are terminally ill and your doctors have given you six months to live? Should you, being of sound mind and broken body, have the right to get your doctor to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to die?
Oregon's Death With Dignity Act allows what some believe to be state-sanctioned suicide. Why should it matter to you or me what other people want to do about their own bodies? Grab a gun or rat poisoning. Skip the middle man. Except. We want to die peacefully. Most of us want to make the call about our quality of life when ill, so help us God. And good doctors already help horribly ill patients die every day. Just a bit more morphine not only eases the pain but eventually weakens the heart until it gives out.
One man's suicide can be another's death with dignity, can't it? That's the fundamental question the U.S. Supreme Court will decide in the Oregon case, though it need not go so far. It only has to address the legal issue of whether the federal government's Controlled Substances Act can usurp Oregon's 1997 law. The Bush administration argues that Oregon's doctors can't use medications meant under the federal law for a "legitimate medical purpose" to help patients die.
To me, Oregon's law is narrowly tailored for ex tremely ill people and doesn't cross over the ethical line to assisted suicide for people not as gravely ill. As it stands, only 171 patients have opted for it since 1997. And it should be their choice.
Yet with his intervention in Oregon, President Bush wants to put his own spiritual imprint on medi cal care, deciding how we should die. We have souls to save, he implies, and suicide is a ticket to hell.
If choosing death with dignity is a sin, let that be between me and my maker - and you and yours. Gov ernment shouldn't play God.
As agonizing as those decisions are, though, there's a certain spiritual satisfaction in letting a loved one who's suffering, or simply not feeling anything, go to a better place. That's the other side of the wrenching Schiavo drama.
Shows you what Ms. Marquez knows about Terri Schiavo, which is nothing at all.
Should you, being of sound mind and broken body, have the right to get your doctor to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to die?
Uh, no. If you want to commit suicide, then do it. It's when you include a second or even third party in the mix that it stops being the act of killing one's self and turns into something entirely different.
Government shouldn't play God.
But Ms. Marquez hasn't any problem with doctors playing God.
And, yes, they already are. In the Netherlands, they too had something quite similar to Oregon's law. But now they are ready to mutate that into where other people will literally decide who will live and die in that country. Anyone who thinks it will not happen here are even more brain dead than Ms. Marquez claims Terri Schiavo to be.
I have friends in Oregon who have told me about a couple of the cases where the person who 'died with dignity' didn't have any choice. It was their children who were tired of the burden. As I understand it, all one needs in Oregon are two doctors willing to sign the prescriptions, not that one needs to have told anyone ahead of time that one wants to go. It is the slippery slope for sure.
No one wants to see warehouses full of Terris being kept alive indefinitely on machines. Do they?
Many of your colleagues don't feel bound by the part that talks about abortions.
I don't understand this either....
"And likewise I will not give a woman a destructive pessary"
I don't understand this either....
"And likewise I will not give a woman a destructive pessary"
Terri is not on any machines. She's only fed by a gravity tube 3 times a day.
X 14 years.
Which means exactly what??????
In April 2001, her death by dehydration was ordered to begin, and the day her feeding was stopped her brother and sister came by with a spoon and a cup of pudding, asking a nurse to try to feed her by mouth. The nurse refused and reported the request to others. When Schiavo found out he demanded that Bobby and Suzanne be removed from the list of approved visitors, and Greer rubberstamped his request.
Five months following their banishment from the Hospice, Bobby and Suzanne Schindler had their visiting rights restored, but only on condition that they not attempt any spoon-feeding.
"I don't want anyone trying to feed that girl," Greer thundered.
I've lived a good, active life. I've raised a bunch of kids and even more "Hell." Things are changing though. I can't do many of the things I've enjoyed over the years and I know that list will only lengthen as I grow older. As a young man I pretty well defined what I thought a "fun" life should be and now I'm drifting inexorably further and further away from that standard.
On top of the physical deterioration, I find that my memory is failing too. My aunt died a couple of years ago from Alzheimer's and I know it's a possibility for me too. I don't want to go there.
As a young man, life was fun. In middle age, it was pleasant. Now, it's painful but bearable. My legs hurt. My hands need frequent applications of various salves and oils to keep them limber. Life isn't fun anymore.
Will I ask for 'the pill' when I've had my fill of all this? I don't know. I have a gun, but that would be messy and I wouldn't want to make my wife have to clean it up. It's a difficult question and one that detached moralists can't answer. Not only that, unless they have a dog in this fight they shouldn't even be expounding on the subject. Until a person is old and infirm and staring death in the eye they have only hearsay evidence by which to form an opinion.
I guess it can best be said by turning an old phrase: Instead of "walk a mile in my mocasins," try 'shuffling to the bathroom in my slippers.'
I don't think that government should play God, I say leave that to God. From a biblical stance, when Jesus was hanging on a cross by nails in his hands and feet, he told the thief next to him that 'Today you will be with me in Paradise'. That thief's time had come to die.
Perhaps Terry's time has come to die, perhaps not. There is no way of knowing. Either way, she should not be forced to die a painful death by starvation and dehydration. But sometimes, even though it's hard, you just need to let go and hand things over to God.
One small problem.
TERRY ISN'T DYING!!!!!!!!!!!!
She is merely disabled and has been held hostage
for 5 years, without fresh air or sunshine.
The criminal ghouls who are profiting from her abuse
will undoubtedly receive the justice they so richly deserve, in His perfect timing.
Life is precious but death doesn't need to be fought at all costs.
If God wanted Terri, man couldn't stop Him.
Terri is not ill, only disabled. Death isn't being fought at all costs. Terri simply eats via a tube. So where do we draw the line for euthanasia? The Judge will not allow any food by mouth. So that's Terri's crime that she should be starved?
Btw, if you don't believe she's healthy consider that the last time the tube was removed, Terri lasted 6 and 1/2 days without food and water. If she were at death's door, she'd have been through it.
I'm not surprised nobody has responded to your well thought out post. You're right, of course. I only hope that if and whent the time comes to make a decision you do it the way you, your family and your God choose and I pray no strangers have the audacity to come in and tell you what to do. God bless you.
Terri ping! If anyone would like to be added to or removed from my Terri ping list, please let me know by FReepmail!
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