Again, life is mysterious. Medicine is full of happenings and events that leave brilliant doctors scratching their heads.This is part of Peggy Noonan's piece on Terri Schiavo and her struggle for life. As your aware, the judge in Florida allowed Terri's husband to instruct the doctor's/nurses to remove her feeding tube. Unlike DNR or cases on removing respirators where the patient dies immediately after the machines are turned off, Terri will have a feeding tube removed from her belly and she will endure some two weeks of hell where she will end up dying of massive dehydration due to the lack of nutrients and water. To make matters worse, Terri's parents(who have constantly cared for her while her husband Michael went gallivanting with a new girlfriend not to mention their two children) cannot even give her a sip of water because they would be providing her sustenance, which would be breaking a court order.
But in the end, it comes down to this: Why kill her? What is gained? What is good about it? Ronald Reagan used to say, in the early days of the abortion debate, when people would argue that the fetus may not really be a person, he'd say, "Well, if you come across a paper bag in the gutter and it seems something's in it and you don't know if it's alive, you don't kick it, do you?" No, you don't.
So Congress: don't kick it. Let her live. Hard cases make bad law, but let her live. Precedents can begin to cascade, special pleas can become a flood, but let her live. Because she's human, and you're human.
I know I've held back my comments on Terri Schiavo but after watching the debacle in Florida, I couldn't bite my tongue. In various conversations with friends and family on this case, I've brought up the argument about death row inmates. Think about it, the MSM always has an story of people or groups moving heaven and hell to prevent a person from being executed. You'll have countless hours of morning TV shows like NBC's Today Show and ABC's Good Morning America, on a convicted murderer and his family's bout to keep him or her alive. Even though the convicted killer has sat on death row for countless years, filing considerable appeals throughout the state's courts and even onto the higher courts, possible stays of execution by the governor. On the flip side, you have a person like Terri Schiavo. While cable networks like FOX News, CNN, MSNBC and Court TV devote countless hours on this story, the national networks provide a petty couple off minutes to the story. Aside from a brief snippet in the quick newsdesk segment, most news shows decided to devote their time to MLB steroid hearing before Congress. Just look at the Today Show, instead of devoting airtime to the Schiavo story they focused more time on Mark McGuire's silly "I'm not here to talk about my past" testimony as well as precious airtime to the promotion of Crossing Jordan.
Lets see, If you brutally murder a couple of people and are on death row then you'll have all of the national media falling all over you or your family to get an interview on how you feel. But if you have a severe heart-attack and you are about to be starved to death by your husband, who has a second family and is expected to reap a financial gain from your death, you get bumped off by a one hour crime-drama that will be solved before the ending credits. Its a sad day in America that you can kill an innocent human quicker than you can a convicted murderer.
While we can bicker till the cows come home about federalism, federal intervention, the right to die and countless other issues, the biggest problem is that Terri will endure a horrific death because her husband says she told him she didn't want to live like a vegetable. From anyone who doesn't know, I have the life threatening disease Muscular Dystrophy that robs me the use of my muscles. As with this disease, I have to face the future when my lungs cease doing their job. Already, I have to use a C-Pap at night over my nose to breath and if I get congested, I have to wear it hours or days until I clear it out. While I've done a better job at preventing sickness, I've had my bouts with pneumonia and been in the hospital several times since 1996. When I first went to the hospital at the age of 19, I told my mom I didn't want to have a respirator and I wanted to prevent their suffering. I continued to have this mind-set for the next visit to the hospital some eight months later. While I recovered from my bout with phenomena and seemed to survive unscathed, I would end up in the hospital some six years later. Unlike the previous two visits, I had changed my mind-set on these like saving machines. I kept on thinking that while I'd have a cumbersome tube and a bothersome noise maker by my side, I'd still be living and enjoying life. I guess during my six year hiatus from sickness, I experienced a change in opinion. Whether it was through my enjoyment of life in college, the birth of my nephew Johhnathan or just through the natural aging process, I gained a newfound love of life. Well, my point is, people might feel or oppose the prolonging of one's life and the life saving technologies one day but have a different opinion the next day, year or decade later. Terri Schiavo might have wanted to be taken off a respiratory/life support mechanism as being her only means of living before she had her heart attack but I think she might have another thing to say if she knew she was going to be starved to death. While I don't speak for Terri or even try to understand her thoughts, I still know that she could have changed her mind over these 15 years if she could only talk.
I guess some people are more than willing to throw their arms up in the air and say they give up but I can't fathom the thought of anyone starving. When your in the condition like I'm in, you look around and see your friends move away from home, get married, start families and do their own things while your unable to participate in all of these joys. While most people couldn't imagine losing their ability to do these various things, I just see it as a great lesson of the importance of life. Yes, I'd be more happy if I could leave my home for brighter horizons to share it with a wife and children but I prefer life above all of these pleasures of life. While you can't chose the hand you've been dealt, you can still play the hell out of that hand and possibly win out in the long run. No matter what people might say, life is one thing that all humans share and find precious. Just look at our legal system, it identifies murder as a serious crime that is punishable with death. If life wasn't so precious, then you'd never have people serving life in prison or sitting on death row awaiting their fate. This whole concept of life being precious is the whole argument for the preservation of Terri Schiavo. With Terri's death being a precedent, expect a large outpouring of "right-to-die" cases to be forced on the courts in the next coming months. Also expect the onrush of the euthanasia movement in the United States, which is rampant throughout Europe, see here, here, and here. I guess this country is inching closer and closer to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. After today, I expect an explosion of similar situations. Lord, save us all.
For more on Terri Schiavo see here, here, here, here, here, . Also, check out Blogs For Terri to receive up to date info on Terri. To get a conservative Catholic perspective on Terri, got to Ignatius Insight.
Also, please pray for Terri. The good Lord might be the best intervention for Terri.
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