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.
theres a good reason why they make you take that oath as well. Sorry, but I would never see a doctor who didn't take that oath seriously.
From another:
Jay Wolfson was just on television (Channel 28) building up Greer, that DCF never had any complaint until now, saying that Terri never had a bedsore and that he visted with Terri for a full month.
Ch 28 said I am the only one who has called.
813-354-2800
+++
From me:
DCF needs to investigate this in their probe re: Terri Schiavo - AHCA Coverup
Information, materials, etc. pertinent to crimes being perpetrated against Theresa Schindler Schiavo and pertinent to a current DCF investigation listed below:
http://tekgnosis.typepad.com
Let your Congressman and Senator know and tell them to vote in favor of the Incapacitated Person's Legal Protection Act as well.
NOTE: Free faxing for entire Washington D.C. area:
http://www.tpc.int/sendfax.html (send a free fax from your web browser)
Format of number to input is:
(ex. Pres. U.S. [POTUS]) -> 1 202 456 2461
(ex. Ashcroft) -> 1 202 514 1009
Vice Pres. Dick Cheney 1 202 456 2710
U.S. Senators and Congressmembers, etc.
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
This is commonplace in the Netherlands too. I saw a cartoon years ago, where an old lady on her deathbed suddenly jumps up and tries to strangle her son, telling him, "I knew I should have aborted you TOO!" It's all in the money, as the liberals said in Watergate.
We're supposed to be polite here, right?
I cannot be. What I have to say would not be the least bit polite. What I would like to do would get me in quite a bit of trouble.
I have an odd habit of laughing and tapping my fingers when I don't think something is the least bit funny. I laughed and tapped a lot at the above.
What I would like to do is to go down into the basement and open a few boxes. I better not.
You know, as we grow older, our bodies do tend to fall apart, and our minds are not always as sharp. But it's still life, and having been bedridden at one point but received the therapy to recover from my injuries, I have the perspective that comes from experience. At first I thought it was unbearable. I took great joy in the few things I was able to still do, like sit up in bed with help, and eat (without help). I couldn't walk, but I could sit. I watched TV a little, read a lot, and prayed a whole lot more. I learned patience and humility like I had never known before. I am a better person having gone through a severe injury.
Each day I learned how to cope and deal with my problems. I had to communicate with my family differently. They could not afford to tend me every minute, or even every hour, but I was grateful for every thing they did even if it was an hours old request. Being disabled is not the most horrible thing in the world. We can make it through these difficulties in life if we keep our faith in that what we have become is still important, worthwhile, and good.
I've always loved life, much as you say you have, but I now have a deeper appreciation for my blessings. I learned to count each and every little blessing I had, and knowing that I was loved and treasured by God is by far the most important blessing I've been given.
If God gives me a cross to bear, I am going to try my best to carry that cross until He calls me home. It's His decision, not mine.
We all do, sooner or later. Not necessarily on our own schedule.
I have been working on my "final book". It has been turning out to be more complicated than I expected.
I intend to make several copies and pass them around.
Thank you for sharing that with us. There is value even in the 'winding down' parts of life. Many times, we are just too busy to take the time with each other, just to be together and to share whatever life has for us, with each other. It's so good that you were able to spend that precious time with your mom!
I hear ya'. This situation is so cockamaymie that's it's hard to understand why others don't see it. What's so wromg about feeding her by mouth? It makes no sense.
Another Freeper told me the judge was probably afraid she'd choke. I had no words for such an inane answer.
There are different levels of disability. I'm glad you are able to deal with yours and have prospered spiritually from it. But that doesn't mean everyone can, or everyone is as blessed as you were.
How can we judge anothers blessing? Or whether their life is blessing someone else? How can we claim someones life has no value without debasing our own?
we can't. All I'm saying, and have always said, is that it should be up to the patient him/herself.
My smarter half is now cancer-free having gone through surgeries, radiation and five years of Tamoxifen.
Twenty-five years ago she remained with her sister as her sister's cancer metastasized throughout her body.
My younger brother ten years ago came back from virulent testicular cancer with a new chemotherapy from IU-PUI.
You describe your mother's vision enlarging even as her life was being withdrawn.
When we are in the presence of the miracle of life, it stills all mocking, leaving only awe.
I don't know the actual percentage of physicians who perform abortions, but I do know it is very small. Most people in the medical profession are repulsed by the procedure and avoid work in clinics specializing in them.
That's one of the reasons some activists try to get bills through legislatures that would force med schools supported by government money (all of them) to train students in abortion. However, that would not be an answer to the problem because it's not that doctors don't know HOW to do them, it's that they don't WANT to do them.
I agree that there are different degrees of disability. I disagree that not every one can learn to deal with it. It's matter of will. IMHO. Just like with anything else in life, if you say "I can't do it" then you surely won't. But if you say "I might be able to" you open yourself up to the possibility of accomplishing that which you previously thought may have been unattainable. Sometimes the struggle is hard, yes, but not impossible. Impossible happens only when we give up hope. Hope is part of faith. Do you believe God can do all things or just sort of? (I'm not asking you personally, it's rhetorical.) It's just something I thought about a lot while I stayed in bed healing.
I will always be curious as to what shape Terri would be in today if she had been allowed the therapy she was entitled to.
If Terri was asked (and taped), in front of unbiased persons, I think it would be a solution. But we both know that won't be allowed. Unfortunately.
Some people just don't have the will...why make them suffer? why? Why not let their inner spirit free? And you are absolutely wrong about most people being able to deal with it. You're wrong. But why can't we just respect people enough to not second guess their wishes? That's all I ask.
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