The following is two separate blog posts I wrote about the Terri Schiavo saga. The first I wrote on Saturday and the second part was written today, to clarify my stance a bit in response to some comments on my blog and some emails.
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We've been discussing the Terri Schiavo saga in our house all weekend and it's prompted us to make living wills. I'm of the mind that laying in a vegetative state for fifteen years is not living at all and I would rather my family not try to keep me going in the hopes that one day I'll suddenly sit up and say "Hi mom and dad!" when in fact, if I did wake up, my first reaction would be to yell at my family for making go through that just so they didn't have to deal with my death.
Fifteen years of not being able to feed yourself, think for yourself, form a verbal thought, get dressed, tell anyone where it hurts, plead for medication, read a book, sit at a family dinner....that's not living. That's being kept alive. There is a difference, in my mind.
Obviously, I'm not a medical expert. This is all my own opinion. But I tend to think that even if Terri is cognizant of any of her surroundings at all (which is something I find rather unlikely), she can't be too happy at being who and what she is. Is that a way you would want to live? For fifteen years? Would you want to be trapped inside a useless body all that time, watching events unfold around you, knowing that you are a financial and emotional burden to those you love, that your parents and immediate family have lived every minute of the last fifteen years fighting to keep you in this vegetative state? Personally - again, my opinion - I would want to be dead, buried and a memory.
I hope that if it ever came to a situation like this one, the government would choose to stay out of my business. Who is Congress to step in and make rules and regulations about this one particular person, this one particular life? What about six month old Sun Hudson, whose breathing tube was removed this week, against his parents wishes? Well, there was no mass media coverage of little Sun's death, so why would there be any politicians around?
The political grandstanding going on in the Schiavo case is sickening.
Article comments
1 - jadester
i couldn't have put it better myself.
I either want to be cremated when i die, or have my body donated to science. And i'd much rather go into the unknown 15 years early than hang on to "life" in a vegetative state.
2 - Tom Johnson
Imagine being held down, underneath layers of dirt or stone or maybe in a wooden box. You see a pinpoint of light above. Just out of reach. You can hear muted voices above you; there are people out there. Living, breathing people who are going about their daily lives while you are trying to claw your way out of your trap, while you are trying to shout to them. But no one hears you. No one knows you are in there.
Beautifully put. This is exactly my feelings on this - if you're laying there for 15 years, and you happen to actually be somehow able to grasp what's going on, those 15 years are pure torture.
However, in Terry's case, she doesn't even have cerebral cortex - it deteriorated to nothing long ago and its space has been filled up with spinal fluid. All that's left is the most basic of "animal brain" components - the very basic control over some body functions like the heart and lungs. She's experiencing and knowing nothing because she has no ability to do so anymore. There's no coming back for Terry, outside of an absolute, confirmed miracle that somehow not only replaces the majority of her brain, but also brings back all her memories. Let this poor woman die. Or at least let her body die - she, her "self," died long ago.
3 - Joel Caris
Meant to comment on your blog, Michele, but here will work just as well. Just wanted to say that I agree with most everything you say here and thought you did a great job of summing up your thoughts on this case.
Oh, and I really hate it when people take personal thoughts like this and then extrapolate them out to completely unrelated situations and make judgements in regards to those situations. Sometimes people are really stupid.
4 - e
Terri should be allowed to die!
5 - Eric Olsen
do you mean she should be allowed to stay dead?
6 - Mark Saleski
only with her parents' consent.