[QUOTE=Sunrazor]
I have to say that Shoshana and Lil Pluck raise a point, but one I’m willing to argue with. On the one hand we revile the Congressmen who intervened to keep Terry Schiavo alive and on the other we revile those who would let a Jehovah’s Witness die for lack of medical care because of her religious belief. I think the argument has to be something other than “government intervention because government knows best”. We don’t know what was on the poor woman’s mind as she lay dying, knowing she’d never raise her children, knowing she could have raised them if she’d believed differently. Perhaps she really did want to live, but was prevented from voicing her desire to live by her husband, family and church officials. Did she have second thoughts as she succumbed, in those last moments of lucidity? We’ll never know.
What we do know is that fighting such ignorance and insanity with government intervention is a no-win situation. A few lives may be saved, but it won’t persuade anyone that some zealot’s mis-interpretation of ancient Jewish dietary laws is amateurish theology at best and needs to be abandoned. Only when the JWs have more to gain by giving up a belief (as the Mormons did when they traded bigamy for statehood) will they turn their backs on this 19th century anomaly.
Until the, the rest of us just shake our heads, and Richard Dawkins chalks up another sad statistic.
[/QUOTE]
Well, I have to say that I don’t see where you’re arguing with me, since, for the most part, I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said here. And, certainly, I’d never argue “government intervention because government knows best” since I wouldn’t trust the government to tell me which way an elevator was going if I gave them three guesses (credit to “Hee Haw” for that one).
Of course we revile the congressbastards who tried to intervene WRT Schiavo. They attempted to insert their so-called culture of life theology into a situation where it didn’t belong, and all to appease the wishes of Ms. Schiavo’s parents who, despite irrefutable medical evidence that their daughter would ever improve, refused to let her go. But, more importantly, they were trying to override the wishes of Ms. Schiavo’s husband who, as her husband, was presumably more qualified to make life-and-death decisions for his wife.
As for reviling those who would let a JW die for lack of medical intervention because of her religious beliefs, I’d say that it depends on who those people are. If you mean healthcare professionals, I don’t see how they would have any choice but to accede to the wishes of any patient who is a competent adult. Family members of the JW? Again, if the patient is an adult who is capable of making that kind of choice, what else can they do?
Now, in a case like that of **Wallet’s ** friend, where the person is an incapacitated adult and therefore can’t articulate their wishes, it seems that the only choice is to follow the wishes of the immediate next of kin. And, sometimes–as is the case here–that sucks.
Even in the case of Annie-Xmas’s sister, where the sister’s (presumably adult) daughter was willing to sacrifice her mother for some religious BS, I don’t know if the hospital would have been required to check with other next of kin. Don’t get me wrong–THANK GOODNESS that they had the presence of mind (and, possibly, the guts) to call **Annie-Xmas ** so that *she * could decide–but if the daughter was legally an adult and the immediate next of kin, I don’t know that they would have been wrong in the legal sense to abide by her wishes. (Again, IANALawyer.)
(This case with **Annie-Xmas’s ** sister serves to highlight *yet again * why gay marriage ought to be legalized since, presumably for liability reasons (and, all-too-possibly, outright homophobia), the hospital wouldn’t treat the sister’s partner as next of kin for the purpose of making medical decisions. It also highlights why we should *all * have living wills on file. That way, there’s little to no question about what our wishes are in these kinds of situations. I really need to remember to have one drawn up for myself as soon as possible.)
