Terri Schiavo's eyes and tongue are now bleeding, [View All]

[Mobius]

Well, Terri Schiavo's eyes and tongue are now bleeding, and her
flesh is flaking off. Nine days without food or water will do that
to a person.


I must say, If I ever felt alienated from my own society, the
horrendous mishandling of this Schiavo case has made me even more
so.


Most people have some pretty strong opinions about this case. And
I'm sure that you all have seen it and heard of the arguments on
both sides. Here are my thoughts, which I give with a heavy heart.



I am not an extremist when it comes to the concept of the "Culture
of Life". But it is a concept that I believe strongly in. What do I
mean by "Culture of Life"? It's very simple:


"When there is reasonable doubt, or unanswered questions, we as a
society will choose to err on the side of Life."


That's it. It seems pretty simple.


Do I believe in Euthanasia? Sure. If a person in a condition near
death who has no hope of recovery desires death, and if that person
is of sound mind to make such a decision, they should be taken off
life support.

Even though it is illegal for our doctors to actually give drugs
that will end a person's life quick and painlessly, denying life
support and giving cautious "big doses" of drugs like Morphine (or
other drugs) can hasten the end.

My mother in law is a nurse, and she has seen elderly people die
after their doctors secretly gave doses of morphine that they knew
were a bit much, but they also knew of the wishes of the family and
the suffering person.



But this Shiavo situation defies most judgement. Let's look at a few
reasons why:



1. Terri is not in a coma; she is in a state that (up till now)
we've never had a legal battle over.

2. Terri is not on life support. She simply gets nutrition and
hydration from a tube- which is only a hair's difference from
severely mentally handicapped people that I myself have been
employed caring for- people with IQ's in the range of 30 and 40;
they spent their lives sitting still and staring, and had to be fed
and hydrated by nurses.


Terri rather seems to be in the same position as a severely mentally
handicapped person. There is no law allowing for the families of
severly mentally handicapped people to tell the staff at a care
center to stop feeding them or giving them water, "because they
wouldn't want to be this way."


But let's go a bit further. The Husband says she wouldn't have
wanted to live like this. If this is true, it's really a fucking
shame that Terri didn't leave a living will behind, no written
evidence, nothing. Do I trust the husband? Yes, to an extent. I
don't think he's in this for money. What he says Terri said may in
fact be true.


But the situation still isn't so simple.

1. They are starving and dehydrating a person to death. The same
system that will be "brave" enough to give her up to a slow death
won't be fucking brave enough to give her a shot that will kill her
painlessly and quickly.


2. This woman's eyes move; she has facial expressions, she makes
noise. They claim she laughs, and that she has cried on more than
one occassion.



So, some REALLY brilliant doctors assure us that she is
a "Vegetable"- she has no "Self awareness", no "consciousness".

My question: How in THE FUCK could they possibly know that? Did they
leave their bodies, enter hers, and experience life as Terri? There
isn't the first shred of evidence for their claim; they don't know;
they just think it. They may have some grounds to think it. There is
little to no activity in her Cerebral Cortex. Fine.

But the brain (like the body) is an amazing thing- when people get
brain damage, the damaged part's functions tend to be taken over by
another region. There is every bit of opportunity for Terri to have
another "Seat of awareness" in her damaged brain than just the one
that they claim is damaged beyond repair.


How many damn times do people come out of Comas and claim that they
were totally aware of what was happening around them? How many
others claim that they dreamed, and report other life experiences?



But let's go back to the Culture of Life.

It has been said, by both ancient and modern commentators, that a
society can be judged by how it treats its most helpless members.
When they say "Helpless", they mean both the handicapped, the ill,
and prisoners.

When another person's Fate is in our hands totally, how we treat
that is our test. It says something about who and what we are.


The Judges in this case don't have their daughters laid up with a
feeding tube. Is Terri self aware? To be honest with you, I don't
give a shit if she is or not. She's alive, and this means something
to me. It implies a responsibility on our part.


My critics say that there is a difference between "Life"
and "Living". They say that she may be Alive, but she is not Living.


I really hate this kind of talk; once again, how in the hell could
these people know? A person can live a life within themselves; I do
it all the damn time.

But who gets to decide what "living" means? Are you not "living"
until you can work, talk, pay taxes, or something like that? Do you
have to laugh on demand at clever jokes and watch TV? Do you have to
be able to feed yourself before you are "living"?


This entire case stinks of rotting feces. The Legal aspect of it
rots. This woman and her family were given appeals, and yet, her
tube was not re-inserted until all her appeals were up. What the
fuck do you call that? Miscarriage of justice.


I already hated the Bipartisan system that we have. Now I hate it
more. Why is Terri about to die? Because a judge who was appointed
by Clinton was given the power to decide whether or not she should
live or die.

Yes- this is a case of Republicans vs. Democrats. That's all. There
is no judge here willing to be FUCKING OPEN MINDED and really look
at both sides of this case. The parents were hoping their appeal
would go to a Republican, knowing that such a judge would say "put
the tube in". It went to a Democrat instead, who said "take it out".

And that's it. These judges are deciding on party lines, not based
on the REAL ISSUES at hand here. There is no one willing to really
look at this case outside of their bullshit party agenda. This is
why we NEED a third and fourth party- independants, progressives,
whatever, SOMEONE to break this deadly stalemate that chokes our
country.

All we have are the republicans (capitalist asshole warmongering
fundy christians) and the democrats (capitalist asshole utopian
sorta christians) and both parties are in the pockets of the same
big, evil corporations. No decision is made in our country that
doesn't go back to some corporates getting rich. Not one. The good
of people is secondary. Our reprehensible prison systems, our lack
of funding for education, the environment, lack of funding for crime
fighting, all these things prove it: our priorities are far from the
good of common people.




1. There is no criteria for Terri's condition. A case like this is
unprecedented. There have been two others similar, but none that
have these exact conditions, these mitigating circumstances. Terri
is not in a coma; she is not technically on Life Support. She is a
profoundly mentally disabled woman that needs to be fed and
hydrated. That is it.

2. There are clear reasonable doubts in this case. Terri and her
Family are Catholic, a church that is against Euthanasia. We have no
proof that Terri would have wanted to be cut off from nutrition and
hydration. If she DID want to be, well, she may have just lucked up.
But if she didn't we are witnessing a crime of terrible proportions.



I have to side with life in cases of doubt. I think that any
reasonable or compassionate person should and would. People say she
has no life; that she is alive but not living. I say that I don't
care. I say that this sort of talk is the first step towards de-
humanizing people who can't speak and eat on their own, people who
are disabled and helpless, just so we can save some fucking money
and kill them.


I believe in giving the voiceless the benefit of the doubt. I also
don't think that you can ever go wrong siding with life.


Once, a very wise man from India (who called himself "Buddha") was
asked if a man who had murdered several other people should be put
to death. The men who asked Buddha this question wanted to trap him;
they knew if he said "yes" or "no" they could criticize him- if he
said "yes", they could claim that he didn't believe in non-violence
and compassion as he claimed he did; if he said "no", they could say
that he was against justice and a supporter of crime.


Do you know what this great man's answer was?


"Yes, if this man did as you say, I agree that he deserves to die.
But this is not to say that he should be killed- in life, many
situations will arise that are difficult, and we will not always
know what is Wise- but we always know what is Compassionate. And
ultimately, a person cannot go wrong siding on the side of
compassion."


That same sage later had to face a dangerous man that had killed a
thousand people, and who seemed as though he was going to kill
Buddha, as well. Buddha told him that he didn't mind dying,
especially if the man could use his dead body (which the man
intended to; this killer collected the fingers of his victims and
wore them on a long rosary) but Buddha asked him to grant him a
final request- he asked the killer to hack a branch off of a nearby
tree. The killer did, and then Buddha asked him to re-attach it.

When the man laughed and told him that he could cut but not re-
attach branches, Buddha said "if people can destroy but not create,
then they should not destroy. For a child can hack a branch off, and
be quite destructive; this takes no bravery. But only a master can
re-attach it."

The killer realized the error of his ways at this point. He ceased
cutting people's heads and fingers off.



I think that these stories echoe long down to us today. Do we know
what is Wise in this situation? It is hard to know. Do we know what
is compassionate? Sure. To at least not harm this woman is
compassionate. Are we the masters that authored her life, and can we
give it back to her? No, we are not, and no, we cannot. Should it be
taken? It seems not. At any rate, this is our test. I fear that we
are failing.



I hope that the Gods grant Terri an easy passage and that her
unknowable destiny beyond this life remains a peaceful one, for all
time. I regret having to be a mute, helpless person watching another
person die for political reasons, prejudices, and the idiot
blindness of a society that has lost touch with the roots of life. I
believe in the eventual triumph of life despite all this.