Reply #10: You could show empathy with her position, but also reason. [View All]

[CBHagman]

I am currently debating what to write back to a dear friend who differs from me on the Schiavo case. My friend is a devout Christian and generally progressive in her political stances. However, she doesn't agree about withdrawing life support, and I can certainly understand her position. She's not a posturing politician and she's not trying to impose her beliefs on others. It's taking the step to bring about death that she disagrees with.

As far as the case goes, maybe you could talk to your mother about how there is a tendency to oversimplify things and create victims and villains in any case, only to have the popular view shift over time.

From what I read about the case, Terri Schiavo is brain damaged to the point where she only experiencees a few bodily functions, and that's it. No memory, no emotions. And even the bodily functions are limited (no swallowing, for instance, and of course no chewing). Insertion of a feeding tube is intrusive and can cause infections.

What has crossed my mind is that people are using her for a symbol, even her parents, no matter how good their intentions might be. Could their actions have more to do with their own needs than Terri Schiavo's? It has crossed my mind.

And imagine how the people at the hospice must feel, now that there are these 11th hour claims of ABUSE. For crying out loud, the woman has been under care and scrutiny for 15 years, and now there are claims of abuse? It just doesn't pass the smell test.

The same goes for the sudden claim that Schiavo was misdiagnosed. The new "diagnosis" came without a medical exam. Who would you trust: the doctors who ran various tests on the patient or someone who was produced at the last minute and spent an hour observing the person?

The other thing that's overlooked in this is that A) families go through these sorts of heart-wrenching decisions all the time (Tell your mom about the baby boy taken off the breathing tube in Texas, against the wishes of his mother) and B) literally thousands of unnecessary deaths occur virtually every day due to disease and the like, but you won't get massive media coverage or celebrity/politician intervention. Are we losing our perspective?