Dean's World

You said it.

Anyone ever read "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" by Jean-Dominique Bauby??? It's about a French editor that has a stroke and is locked in a body that no longer functions. His body is the diving bell and his mind is a butterfly. He wrote the whole book by blinking his left eye to an assistant who read the alphabet to him.

I work with dying patients daily, I'm not a big fan of extending a suffering life. My first instinct with the Schiavo case was to think "let her go". I am no longer so sure. If she was on a vent for all these years, I'd say pull the plug already. I have a much harder time pulling nutritional support. I don't know if Terri is "there" or not, but if she is, starving her would be cruel and inhumane. Since no one really knows for sure I think I have to side with the family, let them work with her. At the same time, I have a hard time demonizing the husband, as most of us would proclaim that we'd rather be dead than "live" like Terri.

Scott,
"The Religious Right has leapt on to this case, and I'm a bit concerned by seeing Terry Randall - former spokesman for Operation Rescue - associated with this case"

Why are you concerned? Can't religous people and athiests agree on anything? Are we afraid that if religous people are for something there will be a knee jerk reaction against that thing by athiests?

Michael
You're absolutely right. If atheists are turned off by the God comments, they really need to get over it. I have no problem with religion per se; my beef with (the existence of) God is personal.

Atheism used to have a higher morality attached to it. However since Sartre it has become nihilistic to the point where one should hesitate for calling oneself atheist, given the worst atrocities done on the planet have been caused by atheists.

I completely understand a right to lifer's support of Terry's family's side in this case. Very consistent. I sympathize with them as this must be a horrible thing to go through.

What I am fairly sure of is that we are not hearing the full truth out of either side of this case. Nor will we ever, I doubt either Michael or Terry's family has the ability to recognize truth in this matter. Is that even possible when so many issues and emotions are involved?

I can hardly call Michael a demon in this case. It's one of those that will never have a clean ending.

I don't like Randall Terry either, he is one of the "Christian Reconstructionists", post-millennialist Calvinists who believe that God has commended them to establish His Kingdom here on earth through government, in other words, establish a theocracy in which homosexuals, adulterers, idolaters, etc., will be, quite literally, stoned to death. I oppose that, obviously. Jerry Falwell is not, to my knowledge, a Reconstructionist, though he is in the same quadrant of an ideological spectrum, and the same with most others of the so-called "Christian Right" (Moral Collectivists). The Reconstructionists are a minority within that quadrant. As to fundamentalists: most of them are, and have long been, pre-millenialists.

But, as they say, a stopped clock is right twice a day, and my enemies on the Right, being the smart cookies they generally are, are right more often than that. Randall Terry is certainly right about this. I don't have to like him in order to align with him on this issue.

Scott Kirwin ,
Thanks for the clarification. Its good to know that we can share a consencus on important things even if we disagree about other important things.

It seems as if most of the discussion on this case revolves around the “right to life” issues. But a significant aspect of this situation is that it is also a “defense of marriage” issue.

I think that aspect isn’t getting as much discussion as it deserves. Based on what I have read, the courts have basically ruled that the bounds of matrimony outweigh the bounds of the family. Apparently, the law is pretty clear on that.

I truly don’t want to disrespect Terri or the family here, and maybe I am wrong in not holding my tongue till a better time. But I see shades of another contentious topic here. What if, instead of a husband and wife, we were talking about two homosexual life partners in a case like this? For better or worse, I suspect the dynamics of the case would change drastically.

"Right to die" cases are almost always messy. The husband-wife bond has NOT so far as I know been declared the ultimate and only arbiter in these cases. In cases where someone wants life support withdrawn, other sources are often consulted.

The family alleges that Schiavo is simply attempting to kill his estranged wife, says they were estranged before whatever caused her medical problems. The family has doctors who say they think Terri can be treated and might learn to talk and feed herself again with the proper therapy. Her husband won't even let them try. They also allege a lot of other things about how he's treated her.

I have not been comfortable with generalizing about Mr. Schiavo, except I note that public responses of any kind from him have been almost nonexistant. His family has been publicly alleging these things for a long time. Has he bothered to sue them? To make public statements to even refute them? I don't see anything except a stubborn insistence that he wants her to die and doesn't want her to receive any therapy that might help her recover at least partly from her impairment.

If this is the law, then the law is an ass. Husbands and wives do not own each other.

For reference, I just went through a somewhat similar situation a few weeks ago. My Grandfather became bedridden several months back, and degenerated to the point where he was kept alive by continuous medication. They gave him “a few months to a few years” life expectancy. After several months, he said “Enough is enough. I don’t want the medicine anymore. Just let me die.”

His mental state seemed fine, but the hospital wouldn’t follow his wishes. After various attorneys sorted it out, the conclusion was that, ideally, both my Grandmother and Grandfather should sign the papers. But if my Grandfather couldn’t, then just my Grandmother’s signature would be enough to legally stop medication.

I realize this isn’t the exact same situation. The request was written, and not just verbal. And my Grandfather’s future prospects were most likely shorter than Terri’s. But the consent issues seem to be the same.

As a postscript, they stopped all medication almost 4 weeks ago. They predicted he would die within a day or two. He wasn’t able to eat, and his body wouldn’t accept food intravenously because of fluid build up. The first few days were very rough, but then something changed, and his body started to accept the IV fluids. His condition has actually improved a bit, and he is still living as I write this. So yes, these things do always seem to be anything but cut and dried.

I apologize for making another post, but I wasn’t as clear as I wanted to be in my previous post. My Grandfather’s request to die wasn’t written, it was verbal. He was physically unable to write at that point.

The Religious issue... This has been a big concern of mine too and was the reason I posted about Terri at Dean's world. Liberals and or the non-religious are being turned off by the religious slant this is taking. I AM TURNED OFF BY IT TOO! It's important to look beyond that and get as much support from both sides because this IS A MORAL issue. The Schindlers are using religion to save their daughter/sister. They'll use whatever they can to save her as they should. Myself, I am very liberal and quite agnostic, despite being raised Catholic. I'm the only one out of 9 like myself (ok, the only one in generations) My father founded the Hyscience blog which is quite conservative just as my father is. Yet I completely support him in this because it is the right and moral thing to do. You have to look beyond the religious slant it's taking. See it for what it really is. Terri is about to be served the greatest injustice. She needs help. It's that simple.