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Schindler family members stated that even if Theresa had told them of her intention to have artificial nutrition withdrawn, they would not do it.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
I’m updating my living will this week. And giving copies to everyone I know.
March 23rd, 2005 at 3:05 pm
I feel for the Schindler’s, Michael Schiavo and Terri. It’s difficult to judge someone else based upon what you or I would do. We’re not in their situation. This is a tragic and very personal matter that only ought to concern the people involved, but which become a public circus with ramifications beyond the family’s situation. Specifically, does the Bush administration and the GOP have the right to overrule the courts, which are acting in Terri Schiavo’s behalf, and invade the family’s Constitutional right to privacy in a violation of the separation-of-powers doctrine?
March 23rd, 2005 at 3:13 pm
They are either sick motherfuckers, or being played like violins by the crackpot right to life zealots.
March 23rd, 2005 at 5:20 pm
Great minds thinking almost alike. I just posted this on my blog:
It seems cold, but I think most people instinctually know there’s something seriously out of whack going on with the Schindlers, even if they can’t articulate what it is. That’s one reason, I think, the enormous majority of Americans think the government should butt out.
March 23rd, 2005 at 7:31 pm
I agree with Barbara. I have watched four people die. In order: a younger half-brother, my mother, my father, my step-father. At those moments, it’s not about “I/us/our ‘joy’”; it’s about them.
March 24th, 2005 at 12:15 am
So why did Robert Schindler have his mother removed from life support? She’d had pneumonia at age 79 and experienced kidney failure. The Guardian reported this a year or so ago.So why did Robert Schindler have his mother removed from life support? She’d had pneumonia at age 79 and experienced kidney failure. The Guardian reported this a year or so ago.So why did Robert Schindler have his mother removed from life support? She’d had pneumonia at age 79 and experienced kidney failure. The Guardian reported this a year or so ago.
March 24th, 2005 at 1:25 am
Sorry. That hyperlink didn’t work the way preview indicate it would!
March 24th, 2005 at 10:12 am
Selfish people are very easy to manipulate. I wish on her parents a painful disease with no access to any medication.
March 25th, 2005 at 3:47 am
It’s really very strange to have people calling me “stupid” just because I don’t agree with them on an issue. I could call people stupid, too, but that wouldn’t constitute much of an argument. (Would it?)
It’s not just a question of the husband’s position on ending Terri’s food supply. There are many bigger things going on in the background. You should know that the government has save hundreds of millions (more likely billions) on Medicare and Medicaid expenses by allowing tens (perhaps hundreds) of thousands of us essentially be terminated. MANY OF THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT IN NEARLY AS POOR CONDITION AS IS TERRI, BUT THEY WERE TERMINATED ANYWAY. You should know that the nationwide “Hospice” system is a conduit for tens (or more!) of billions of government dollars. For many people, no medical assistance of any kind is available unless they enroll in a Hospice program. But you actually CANNOT enroll in a Hospice program unless you agree to end all restorative therapy. These Hospice programs actually (in almost all instances) will take your agreement as indicating an effective agreement that you will actually “die on schedule.” (Any other outcome has severe effects on the economic bottom line.) We are talking about billions of dollars here. People who seem “neutral” may not be “neutral” at all. This has been going on for several decades, and the gigantic cash flow has created an astounding array of “side players.” People who have dealt with the issue report that institutions as seemingly irrelevant as the Church of Scientology (the group that seems to support a huge anti-Prozac campaign) are deeply involved in support of this “Hospice movement.” I won’t say that I know anything about the Church of Scientology specifically. They are regarded as ferociously litigious. Anyway, the multi-billion dollar cash flow has had it’s effects.The Hospice system receives seemingly unlimited support from every direction, including the judiciary, media, governmental, etc. systems.
As far as I know, Terri Schiavo appears to be suffering with a syndrome associated with a short term oxygen-deprivation event. These are astonishingly common. You could get it from inhaling carbon monoxide. Or from being in a 747 that looses it’s pressurization, Etc. The syndrome is always a matter of degree. After about a year, your condition probably won’t change much. Some people only bear trace effect of it. Some can walk around and mumble, but do not speak, or do anything very sophisticated. We probably all suffer from this syndrome. Each of us has presumably lost some margin of capacity from some minor event. Obviously, a question arises regarding where “lines are drawn” regarding the matter. But the syndrome is always on a continuum, from you and I, to Terri Schiavo, to people who are even more incapacitated. No one knows how much of the brain is required to fulfill the various mental functions. Neurology is frankly mysterious, since, while there are specific areas vaguely associated with functions, most people have some functions located in atypical areas. (Speech areas, for example, vary enormously from person to person.) The famous doctor Louis Pasteur seems to have done his best work on immunization after having lost about half of his brain to an infection. No one really has any idea of what the reality of a person having a severe case of the syndrome is like, although they do tend to seem to experience little or no pain. It seems fairly clear that the most relevant question is “How much will we pay to keep them going.” Of course, with our Kafkaesque medical billing scheme, it does tend to get expensive, since, unlike, say, people with cancer, they do not get worse. It is to be presumed that these are “high value” targets for the hospice movement.
I think the question of determining the point at which we will no longer allow these people to live should be determined by special juries, not by doctors, hospices, family members, judges, and so on. Knowing what I know about this particular individual, I am just about certain that I could not vote for her to die. So that is my take on the issue. Why the rush to let her die Just to save the cost of a few cans of Nutra-whatever?
March 25th, 2005 at 3:42 pm
Well, I guess my first message did not go through. Too bad. I’m too offended to do it again. But I do want to tell you, Blue, that you show your true colors in your last sentence. As ADMITTED BY HER FAMILY AND HER SUPPORTERS before the religious maniacs took them over, Michael Schiavo has spent EVERY PENNY he received in caring for his wife. She is now indigent, on Medicare, because after 15 YEARS OF CARE
March 25th, 2005 at 3:44 pm
Note to self: don’t type when angry
to continue: after 15 YEARS there’s nothing left but a little less than $50,000. GOT IT.
Enough. I’m not in the business of getting you educated before you make judgments. Whoever was missed.
March 25th, 2005 at 8:36 pm
If you are of the progressive persuasion, and would want Terri Schiavo to stay alive, or would have trouble deciding the issue (even if you think you would stop her food and water), this might be a place for you.
(Regarding the above, I was speaking of the true social cost of keeping her going — the issues concerning the husband have not been covered in my comments. I think it very strange that you should think that I somehow owe it to you to agree with everything you believe.)
March 25th, 2005 at 8:40 pm
Posting the link didn’t work. Try it this way (I have “dot” here instead of “.”)
If you are of the progressive persuasion, and would want Terri Schiavo to stay alive, or would have trouble deciding the issue (even if you think you would stop her food and water), this might be a place for you.
http://progs-care-terri.blogspot.com/
March 28th, 2005 at 12:34 am
SORRY TERRI : THE TRIBE HAS SPOKEN.
Like I said, it’s not about the husband. I was speaking of “true social cost” — not the costs created by our absurd American medical billing racket. The real physical requirements for someone in Terri’s condition is not all that great.
Looks like the blind and crippled are next. Then the Jews…