Posted on 04/04/2005 9:12:57 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Terri Schiavo was not dying, so she could not be "allowed to die;" she had to be killed.
Why the desperate insistence that Terri Schiavo die?
The claim of honoring her wishes won't wash. She may have said -- as we've probably all said, at one time or another -- that she "didn't want to live like that." But if she was really in a persistent vegetative state, then it's not mere sophistry to point out that she wasn't "living like that," because she was incapable of suffering. And since suffering requires consciousness, if she was suffering she wasn't in a persistent vegetative state.
She wasn't a burden on Michael Schiavo, both because he had the malpractice award to provide for her, and because he had the options of divorcing her or turning her over to those who were eager to assume her care.
Since she required no more extraordinary support than a feeding tube -- and here let me interject that I've placed many such tubes myself, and once was guided on a flyfishing trip by a man in whom I'd placed just such a tube a few weeks before -- she was no more on life-support than you and I. And she was not dying, so she could not be "allowed to die;" she had to be killed.
Michael Schiavo, his lawyer, and the various judges were thus demanding the killing of someone who either was not suffering or who was actually conscious but severely disabled. Why was that so affirmatively necessary when he could have walked away a free man? Why the fierce pursuit of her death? Why the demonizing of those who wanted her to live, and stood ready to assume the burden?
By the 1850s, slavery had become the exquisitely tender American boil that could not be touched. For the slaveholders, it was not enough that slavery remain legal ; any proposal which could, however remotely, be construed to suggest that slavery was anything less than perfectly normal and moral had to be met with adamant opposition. And anyone who made such proposals was vilified in the nastiest terms. In the halls of Congress a Southern legislator brutally beat an antislavery colleague. New states or territories could simply not be allowed to join the union as slavery- free entities, because why else would slavery be prohibited in those places except that it was fundamentally wrong? Politicians tried desperately to avoid the subject altogether, and whenever cornered they produced some of the shabbiest and most convoluted legislation in our history.
By the 1930s it was obvious that Germany was rearming and that Hitler was preparing to embark on the conquest of Europe. Sick and tired of war, the members of the League of Nations, and most European politicians, were determined to pretend otherwise. Winston Churchill's reward for speaking bluntly about the Nazi menace was to be ostracized and insulted with an intensity much like that visited upon today's right-to-lifers.
When, in the 1940s and 1950s, Whittaker Chambers denounced the evils of Soviet communism he was similarly slandered and ostracized. An international community determined to ignore the famines, show trials, and persecution at the hands of Stalin simply could not tolerate the probing of Chambers and his allies, few though they were.
The advocates of abortion have always been similarly touchy. Abortion must be an absolute good; there cannot be any restriction such as a waiting period, pre-abortion counseling, parental notification, or paternal consent. Even the most hideous forms, such as partial-birth abortion, must not be restricted. And those who propose restrictions are heaped with snarling abuse, and condescendingly sneered at in the media.
So today with the Schiavo case.
When a society is determined to look the other way, it always responds with fury to those who draw attention to the crime of the day. The supporters of evil are forced to alternate between declaring it a positive good and pretending it's not there at all. It's a very delicate balancing act, poised on a thin rope above a deep chasm.
The tightrope walker cannot tolerate the lightest touch or the softest breeze. And Michael Schiavo, Judge Greer, and the American media could not abide the slightest hint that Terri Schiavo deserved anything but death.
Conservatives worry about the Slippery Slope -- if Terri Schiavo can be killed, then it becomes easier to kill others.
But the Left fears the Slippery Slope as well -- if Terri Schiavo is human and deserves life, then what other helpless creatures who depend on sustenance from others also deserve life?
I really think this case is like Dred Scott. It was decided wrongly, but it will wake people up and they will ask "What kind of society are we? Do we value humans as little as that?"
I wish I could share your optimism.....
I think so too. And may eternal shame be on those in the media who tried so hard to validate this brutal and barbaric act.
Why was only one man, Judge Greer, the determinant of the facts in Terri's case?
In most other cases, it is a jury that determines the facts. Certainly the facts in all capital cases are determined by a jury, although the defendant could select trial by a judge if he were so inclined.
Qualified individuals can make wise judgments. An individual can also make horrific judgments. Our society has determined that groups of individuals are more likely to be wise. That is why we have city councils, company boards of directors, and jury trials. Groups of people tend to be "less imperfect" than single individuals.
Setting aside personalities, as distasteful as they appear to be, having only one person determine the facts seems to be the central failing of the judicial system in Terri's case. For the future, that failing could be solved by legislative action.
The author is deperately trying to associate "living like that" with "suffering". Why? Well we know why.
Terri said nothing about suffering. She stated to at least three people that "she wouldn't want to live that way". After listening to sworn testimony, Judge Greer had "clear and convincing" evidence that Terri would not have wanted to live the way she was living and ordered the feeding tube removed.
And so it is even on Free Republic. It is demonstrated every time a "right to deather" comes on one of the Terri threads. These, in my opinion, belong to the part of our own society who are "determined to look the other way."
Bookmarked.
Who would? But does that equate to, if "I'm in that state I want to be killed?" I, too, found the argument that someone in a PVS must be killed to end their suffering rather amusing and as easily disproved as the author has done so.
Of course, the most important question is not what Terri's wishes were, but that we think it is morally right to kill someone under these conditions. Euthanasia is an atrocity, and the laws allowing it must be changed.
Except that in the three cases where she is said to have said this, not one of them was a case where a patient was in a PVS state but otherwise perfectly healthy and not in any other need of medical attention.
IN other words, none of them were comparable to the state she was in.
This just means you need a different argument.
On the merits, assuming all facts as given by the pro-death side, she was not suffering in any way because she couldn't suffer because she wasn't really there.
Her parents gave up 20 years of their lives to raise her; if she isn't even THERE anymore, and they want to keep her around even though she's not there, is that too much to ask?
Maybe it is. I've told my wife that after putting up with me so far, if I'm PVS and she wants to keep me around another 20 years, it's the least I can do for her.
I am probably on the side of people who are conscious and suffering to decide their own treatment options. If they are dead and gone, I don't see "dignity" as having any bearing on what happens to them. Dignity at that point is a moral concept, and life trumps dignity.
Charles
Whoa!
That WAS the issue in the Terri Schiavo case. You would simply discard her wishes and substitute your own?
What if her wishes were in writing (ie., Living Will or Durable Power of Attorney)? Would you discard those also, and substitute your own?
Euthanasia may indeed be an atrocity. But a much bigger atrocity are people like you who would impose their will, by law if necessary, over the legal and constitutional will of the individual.
You scare me.
It's legal to kill yourself in the US now? If so, America is on the skids.
However, none of those three seemed to remember the conversation until about eight years after she was incapacitated, and others remember other conversations that, when coupled with her religion, would tend to prove that she would not want to die that way. In order to make sense, your argument also has to question and answer to the motives of those so eager to see her die. To mindlessly accept their "recollections" and to just as mindlessly reject others' testimony, is to find a cheap and easy way to make "logic" match your opinion.
Make the case as you might, you will not change the fact that the "guardian" who demanded that the death of Terri Schindler Schiavo occur was in such a relationship with another woman as to have entitled that woman, under the law, to have legally claimed to have been that guardian's wife (aside, that is, from the technicality that bigamy is - so far at least - still illegal). Or that the parents and siblings of Shindler-Schiavo were hurt by the action of the judge.The rationale for Mr. Schiavo's status as guardian was a farce, and the use of that status to mandate the death of Shindler-Schiavo was a travesty. The only people who were affected by the life of Shindler-Schiavo were her natural family. How anyone would have been injured by her continued biological functioning is a case that cannot be made.
The terminating of the life of Shindler-Schiavo is justified under color of sanctity of the husband-wife relationship - but for that very reason it is a cynical, profoundly anti-family, action.
First thing came to my was, the open Mexican border..
However; the Schiavo affair might well be a RHINO...
Rhinos and Elephants do take a dump on the same savannah..
One has the Constitutional "right to life". You people who twist it to read a 'right to death' scare me.
When it involves trying to get someone to kill her, yes.
What if her wishes were in writing (ie., Living Will or Durable Power of Attorney)? Would you discard those also, and substitute your own?
Yes. Terri had no right to have someone else kill her. No one does. I'm speaking from a moral, not a legal sense. The laws of every state in the Union allow someone to have themselves killed if they are in a PVS. Abortion is also legal, but I find it to be evil as well.
PVS wasn't a defined condition until 1994, so no, none of those patients qualified. One was in a coma, I believe. One was Karen Quinlan, I think.
Be that as it may, that was precisely the reason Michael took this to Judge Greer in 1997 and said (in effect), "Here. You figure it out."
Judge Greer was required by Florida law to examine the evidence, listen to sworn testimony, and determine if there was "clear and convincing" evidence as to Terri's wishes. He did so.
Now, maybe you would have made a different determination, since none of the cited examples were PVS cases. Fine. But it wasn't your call.
"Her parents gave up 20 years of their lives to raise her; if she isn't even THERE anymore, and they want to keep her around even though she's not there, is that too much to ask?"
No. But it is too much to give.
You see, Terri had expressed to her husband, to his brother and to her best friend that she didn't want to live that way. In my opinion, if her parents truly loved her they would have honored her wishes.
"I've told my wife that after putting up with me so far, if I'm PVS and she wants to keep me around another 20 years, it's the least I can do for her."
Cool. But what if your parents thought it best that you be put to rest. That it was a real financial and emotional burden on your wife (though she denied it). What if it was emotionally devastating to your mother, and your father was insisting that you be allowed to die for the sake of your mother. What if your parents even went to court?
Should your parents prevail? Or your wife?
Bears repeating.
And there were at least three others who said Terri had said otherwise. So your point seems to be that, when you have a judge that is an activist on the part of 'right to die' causes, some hearsay evidence carries more weight than other hearsay evidence.
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