- If you were in a persistent vegetative state, would you want to live 15, 20, 30 more years?
- If your spouse told you unequivocally that they would not want to be kept alive under such circumstances, how would you feel about spending 10 years in court to carry out their wishes?
- Do you really want the state to have that much control over your family's medical decisions?
- Did you know that when he was governor of Texas, George W. Bush signed a law that expressly gave hospitals the right to remove life support if the patient could not pay and there was no hope of revival, regardless of the patient's family's wishes?
Monday, March 21, 2005
Questions
I have some questions for those who think the government should step in and require that Terry Schiavo's feeding tube be re-inserted.
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5 comments:
Further questions:
Now that a court has made the decision to terminate Terri's life, that decision being placed in the hands of the court by Michael Schiavo, by the way, why is she being starved to death?
What kind of society says it's okay to slowly let her die over a possible two-week period, but it's not okay to give her a lethal injection and end it quickly?
Why isn't the person making the decision on life or death actually performing the act? Some poor nurse had to pull her tube, I'm sure. Some poor nurse is there day-to-day caring for Terri as she gradually dehydrates and dies.
Why are we more humane in killing our aged pets than we are someone like Terri?
Why do the most complicated and tragic aspects of human existence have to be boiled down to a political agenda?
Romi
Romi:
I personally believe that Terri Schiavo should be given a lethal injection. I don't think she should be starved to death, even if she doesn't feel anything.
This *is* complicated and tragic. Which makes my blood boil when someone like Tom DeLay, himself at the center of an ethics storm, calls Michael Schiavo "a man of questionable morals" and Terri's case "medical terrorism."
How dare he. How dare he.
Romi:
I'm also interested in your personal answers to my questions in the original post.
If I were in a persistent vegetative state, would I know that I had lived 15 years? I wouldn't want my family to go through it. If there's no hope, they should let me go and move on, hopefully through a better method than starvation. I don't want my husband spending years sitting over me wiping drool off my face. He deserves a life.
If my family believed there was hope for my improvement, strong enough that they would fight for it, then I say let them try. Either it would work or it wouldn't, but they would feel like they gave it everything they could. If that gives them relief, why not. If I'm truly PVS, it would cause me no harm.
I would not want my spouse spending years fighting in court, for any reason. If my family had doubts about his motivation or my chances for improvement, I would expect them to fight for me.
The state takes control all the time in these types of decisions. This isn't new or out of line. If there's a conflict, I think it's the state's duty to decide the best interests of the patient. Ideally, everyone agrees and it doesn't get that far. As we see, that's not always possible. I don't think it should go further than the state level.
I didn't know about the Texas law until recently. On the face of it, I don't like it. I haven't read the text of it or heard much more, so that's all I can say about that right now.
Romi
Obviously now the case has nothing to do with Terri herself and everything to do with the Republican politcal agenda and how many votes that can get out of this.
The sad thing is, now, I wonder how much taxpayers have dished out over 10 years for state and government lawyers. And how much is it costing us everytime the Schindlers appeal, which has been about three times a day for the last few weeks. It's time to let that woman go.
And personally, I would be furious if my family ever did that to me. Good grief, if I don't come to after a few years, please let me go have a decent death and move on to whatever else is after.
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