Culture of Life?
I had promised myself to stay out of the Schiavo debacle, but after reading and hearing a great deal of half-baked opinion I decided to find out for myself. I headed over to Abstract Appeal to see some of the documents in the case, on the principle that six theories are not worth one experiment.
One of the most enlightening documents is the Guardian Ad Litem report that had to be filed under Florida’s Terri’s law(which was later found unconstitutional). Several sections spoke to the Schindler’s motivations. Here’s the most horrifying:
Testimony provided by members of the Schindler family included very personal statements about their desire and intention to ensure that Theresa remain alive. Throughout the course of the litigation, deposition, and trail testimony by members of the Schindler family voiced the disturbing belief that they would keep Theresa alive at any and all costs. Nearly gruesome examples were given, eliciting agreement by family members that in the event Theresa should contract diabetes and subsequent gangrene in each of her limbs, they would agree to amputate each limb, and would then, were she to be diagnosed with heart disease, perform open heart surgery. There was additional, difficult testimony that appeared to establish that despite the sad and undesirable condition of Theresa, the parents still derived joy from having her alive, even if Theresa might not be at all aware of her environment given the persistent vegetative state. Within the testimony, as part of the hypotheticals presented, Schindler family members stated that even if Theresa had told them of her intention to have artificial nutrition withdrawn, they would not do it. Throughout this painful and difficult trial, the family acknowledged that Theresa was in a diagnosed persistent vegetative state.
My sympathies for the Schindlers dried up right about here, out of fear, I think. Or horror. They would keep a mindless, limbless husk in a bed, because it would make them feel joy?
Dear God.
March 23rd, 2005 at 1:00 pm
Cartoonist David Rees has weighed in, too, with his extra-heavy dose of ZING.
March 23rd, 2005 at 1:08 pm
Com’on now. If you’re able to read the legal bullmanure, you should be able to understand that people under terrible stress cannot be held to account for abstract questions about possible worlds. Jesus. There are, in fact, points in this question that simply do not add up very well.
My information (rather limited as it is) is that she appears to suffer from hypoxia. Such people exist all over the world. If your plane gets hit by a small meteor (say while you are in a commercial jet) — you will have it. It generally persists. The people can and aften do walk around and babble. No one really knows what they perceive. Should we really just kill them all?
Why worry about how the parents handle weird abstract questions? People are being starved all across this nation who are fully concious. They just have no one to speak for them. Surely someone must. If I were on a jury that considered the fate of this woman, I know that I would not quite be ready to let her starve. If you want to end it for her, why not contemplate strangling her with your own hands? (It’ is an abstract question, but you are not under the terrible strain…)
March 23rd, 2005 at 1:26 pm
Blues, taking you at your apparent word, and trusting that you are not trying for irony, I can only determine that you are really really stupid or really really perverse. In either case, there is one sentence in your screed that IS true: my information (rather limited as it is). Yes, it is. Educate yourself, then rejoin the adults.
March 23rd, 2005 at 1:36 pm
That was truly the most horrifying thing I’ve seen yet. Much worse than the brain scan.
Whatever state the Schindler’s are in, I want to be at least one state away.
March 23rd, 2005 at 1:47 pm <