The Aftermath: Lessons from Terri Schiavo’s Life and Death

While the world’s attention is focused on saying farewell to John Paul II, a great man who died peacefully last weekend, the world is finding no peace in what it has done to Terri Schiavo. The controversy over the decision of judges to starve her to death is not going away anytime soon—and that’s a good thing.

Many commentators are suggesting that the legal fiasco surrounding Terri was foisted on us by Christian zealots. This view is totally untrue.

In fact, the most compelling argument for saving Terri was made, not by a Christian, but by Harriet McBryde Johnson, a disabled lawyer and self-professed atheist.

First, she says, Terri Schiavo was not terminally ill. This case was not about “end-of-life” decision-making; it was about intentionally killing a disabled woman by denying her food and water.

Second, Terri was not on life support. She was simply being fed through a tube. Is this method of feeding fundamentally different from feeding someone with a spoon? As Johnson puts it, “No matter how you answer that, it has nothing to do with whether a person should live or die.”

Third, Terri’s case is not about a patient’s right to refuse medical treatment—not, that is, unless we call eating and drinking “treatment.” If we do, then all of us, every time we eat a meal, are acting to artificially extend our lives.

Fourth, Terri was incapable of making a decision to refuse treatment—and had never made one before. Should someone else be allowed to make decisions for her regarding the simple act of eating and drinking?

Fifth, advocates of killing Terri claim that she was unaware of her situation and thus incapable of suffering. If that’s true, Johnson argues, then her death cannot be justified as “relieving suffering.”

Sixth, Terri left no living will, so her death cannot be justified on the grounds that it’s “what Terri would have wanted.”

Seventh, Terri, like all disabled people, is entitled to statutory protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act. She had the right not to be treated differently because of her disability. For the sake of consistency, would we now have to deny or remove feeding tubes from everyone?

Some good can come out of Terri’s tragedy. I suspect that people will go rushing to get living wills in order not to be put in Terri’s position. I recommend the one found on the National Right to Life Committee’s website. Terri’s murder might also inspire federal legislation to protect the rights of future Terri Schiavo’s—to ensure that lives are not snuffed out because they are inconvenient, because the spouse wants to inherit money, or for any other arbitrary reason. Congress should pass a Terri Schiavo law that would guarantee that the rights of the disabled, who, as Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) put it, “live in the shadows,” would be protected.

Life is precious; it is made in God’s image. The modern utilitarian notion that someone’s worth should be judged by what he or she can contribute to society is an abomination.

Thank you, Terri, for awakening us to the duty before us: defending human dignity and the sanctity of all human life.

As I write this, my mother-in-law is dying in a hospital of a failing heart and kidneys. Her left foot is septic, and she was told she needed amputation to extend her life for some unknown period of time, but her organs are failing in any case.

She was lucid this morning and discussed the subject with her son, my husband, and her doctor. Her choice is no amputation and sooner death from sepsis rather than later death from heart/kidney failure. Her choice was clear (she already had executed a living will, in any case). There is NO DOUBT at ALL about her clear wishes, and her wishes will be followed. For those who might be concerned about this, she is receiving very effective pain meds.

Terri's case was completely different. She was in no way dying, and her wishes were very unclear with a husband with a huge conflict of interest claiming her wish to die and friends and family claiming otherwise. Terri did not fit any humane model for withholding basic care such as hydration and nutrition. As a matter of fact, my husband is insisting that his mom be kept hydrated till she dies.

I post this to show the clear difference between an appropriate approach to these life-and-death decisions and a horrific one.

KDD,

You wrote: "You're into the state dictated forced feeding of vegatatives?"

One doesn't have to be "into" someone else's problems to acknowledge that person's right to exist. I am not particularly into loudmouths who can't spell "vegetative," "state-dictated" or "forcefeeding," but I wouldn't want them to be exterminated. If we lived under a more dictatorial regime, perhaps people like you would be assigned to recycling on the grounds that they don't yield sufficient return on the state's investment in public education. The examiner's assessment might read: KDD; lazy; undisciplined; culturally minimalistic; empathy-deficient; tolerance-deficient; excessively suggestible; prone to mob-participation; Prognosis: unpromising; Recomm.: terminate.

You wrote: "...against their wishes?"

Ah, you absorbed some soundbites from the popular media. You have to be careful. Very little of what you see or hear between commercials roots in fact. The information about Terri's "wishes" leaves much to be desired. It is based on Michael Schiavo's spontaneous recall (after previously not remembering it for 13 years) that Terri, "sometime in the mid-1980s," had told him that she wouldn't want to be kept alive "by anything artificial." ...And that after watching a hospital-type TV series!

You obviously also swallowed the sham PVS diagnosis given by Dr. Cranford, a guy that makes his living appearing in court and testifying for the party that pays him. This medical prostitute did not administer the MRI and PET scans that are routinely used by neurologist for assessing brain damage. Medical experts are on record saying that their observations of Terri's behavior are inconsistent with signs of PVS.

You wrote: "...keeping a hole through their stomach and into a hole in their intestine that never heals and is always a serious open wound?"

"Keeping a hole through their stomach and into a hole...?" Could you make up your mind, please? Is it "keeping a hole" (whatever that may mean) or "into a hole," and if so, what? You know, it's a bit taxing to follow you sometimes. Anyway, you would presumably also recommend that the 25,000 vets in VA hospitals that have similar holes and open wounds should be expedited into eternity. When done with them, you might put the 2,000,000 regular folks that are in hospitals with holes and open wounds out of their misery too, right? But of course you'd make sure first to have Dr. Cranford do the rounds and tell you they're all vegetative.

You wrote: "Applying such torture to those who do not even having the cognitive ability to acknowledge the person wiping their butt and changing their diaper for 15 years or longer?"

"Do not even having?" You are really pushing grammatical ineptitude to the limits here, KDD. By the way, where did you pick up the impressive term "cognitive ability?" Is that something you researched? It would be interesting to learn which people told you that they had not been acknowledged by Terri, or is this just something that popped into your brain out of nowhere? Does it happen a lot to you? I've read affidavits from nurses saying that Terri was quite graceful in acknowledging them. Are you possibly just parroting again?

You wrote: "And if you agree with the Schwindlers,...

Ah yes, the Schwindlers. They must be the people who devoted their entire lives, their retirement money and every available resource to protecting their daughter's and sister's life for all of fifteen years. Some swindle! You know what, KDD? I'm not sure whether you're worth the energy it takes my fingers to hit the keys. You're a despicable, bigoted, worthless excuse for a human being. I am probably hundreds of miles away from you and yet your reek sickens me. I'm afraid your moral necrosis has progressed too far. I'll skip trying to rehabilitate your opinion and go throw up instead.

"Just a judgement that is perfectly reasonable given "

Get Real. This was murder. She wasnt sick. This was a crime against a disabled person. More neurologists
agreed she was NOT in a PVS, that makes this HORRIFIC. It was the Hemlock Society Neuroligist. What a freakin monster he is. She wasnt even given a chance, shut away in a room with no light for years at her loving husbands COMMAND. GIVE ME A BREAK!!
She wasn't even given the lastest tests for a PVS because it was not published at the time of their examinations.
Who are you to say that a life is not worth living? Her parents were there and they chose life, they knew her better and loved her unconditionally. Her husband was is a monster.
I can't stand how you must think. What about folks who loose the feeling in the legs and have to wear diapers? Paraplegics, Quads, are you saying their lives are not worth living OR are you really saying that it is YOU who would not find life worth living and therefore everyone must think as you do? Well, to insure that this doesn't happen to you, check the laws in your state.Some States don't accept Living Wills, but a Medical Power of Attorney. And FYI, a majority of the people did NOT agree it was ok to Starve Terri to death. The one crumb of kindness shown to the parents from that awful Judge is ordering the disgusting piece of crap of a husband, to let them know where their OWN DAUGHTER is buried. I cant wait to see CBS rendition of this, poor adulterous husband. Makes me sick.
Speaking of bags or tubes, what about the folks who have a closotomy?? They should die too? Incredible!!

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