Terri Schiavo is not a vegetable
Why is it that many people are trying to say that to take Terri Schiavo off a feeding tube or not is a private matter and now that the federal government passed a bill there is doubt whether other private matters will remain private?
This case is not like many others that people are trying to say it is like. Dori Monson, a right-wing talk show host from KIRO-Radio in Seattle claims that no one was fighting for his relative in the final months of the disease that took her life. He said it was a private family issue and he is glad the government did not interfere. The difference that Dori is overlooking includes the fact that his relative was in a terminal illness and even with machine would die in short order. Dori is also ignoring the fact that in Schiavo’s case you have a public issue. It has been in the courts for years and there are questions whether justice is being served. In Dori’s relatives’ case there was a choice for no machines. So there was no argument, there were no issues. In Schiavo’s case there was no living will. There is a husband who claims she said she does not want to live that way, but there is also an affidavit from a former co-worker of Schiavo where she made a statement about someone else being taken off of life support and how the person should not have been taken off of it. Leading people to believe that maybe she was not against life support.
Many people are trying to compare apples and oranges in this case. In most cases the family makes a joint decision or there is a living will that states the person's wishes. Schiavo's case is different.
In this case you have her parents who say she is responding and there is hope. You have a husband who claims she wished not to live this way and is only trying to follow her wishes. In my view it is not in writing so it did not happen. I say that because we are talking about a life and death issue and we should err on the side of life if there is nothing in writing. Maybe the day Schiavo told her husband that she did not want to live on machines was an anomaly and she would actually prefer to be given every chance. I think the lower courts have made some presumptions that I would hate for someone to make on my behalf. Also, I could not imagine how hard it would be for the parents who want to give Schiavo every chance to rehabilitate. I think of the situation of Nick Berg. He was decapitated in Iraq. His parents were helpless as someone else made decisions about his life and his parents were only able to sit by and watch him die. Schiavo's parents can see their daughter, hold her, feel her, and are able to do something to stop her from dying, but the court said no, she will die. That would just eat me up inside.
I spent some time at http://www.terrisfight.net and watched some of the videos. This was after listening to a Nobel Prize-nominated doctor in the field of head injuries. He spent more than ten hours with Schiavo and said she can be rehabilitated. That she can swallow and eat. That she could watch movies and interact with people. But she has been held back by her husband who has not allowed those things to happen. The doctor spoke of things she was doing I had no clue she was doing. I have always thought she was a “vegetable” just lying in bed doing nothing at all. That is far from the truth. Now more than ever I think that if she dies it will not be a nice thing for her finally, instead that it will be a tragic situation where a life was cut short. There is no reason she should die right now. She needs to be given to the custody of her parents who will work with her and rehabilitate her.
