How I would have described this incidents? No. But certainly fits the language these people have been using. Apparently, when they yank people off life support or let them die for want of very simple proceedures, it’s nobodies business, and is in perfect keeping with their heralded “culture of life.”
It would appear that the main difference between DeLay and Schiavo is the Delay family agreed to let Mr. DeLay die on his own, where the parents of Schiavo do not wish their daughter to be taken off life support (regardless of whether or not you agree with her chances of recovery). There was no court battle over Mr. DeLay because all the family agreed that he should be allowed to die, whereas some of Mrs. Schiavo’s family wishes to keep her alive (regardless of your definition of “alive”).
My family had to make a similar decision over the fate of my sister. We decided to take her off life support as she had no brain function. I don’t consider this decision to be hypocritical, I think if the Schindlers wish to keep their daughter alive for whatever reason they should be given the option.
My father and I both have living wills that decree if we are basically fucked with no brain function and no chance of survival (and no way to communicate these wishes) that pulling the plug is fine by us. We have nobody who wishes to try to keep us alive were we to be in such a state. But Mrs. Schiavo has some family who does wish to keep here alive. I don’t see the harm in that.
Sorry, I haven’t really followed the hundreds of posts on the subject, or followed it in the news other than knowing that she is brain dead, her husband wants to take her off life support and her parents do not. If she had a living will, they should honor it.
I personally do not know what here wishes were, nor did we know what my sister’s were. But we took a more practical approach to my sister’s future, being called a hypocrite for doing so was what raised my ire.
FWIW, I am conservative, never been to church a day in my life, am not religous whatsoever.
I’m not calling you a hypocrite. I don’t think anyone here is calling anyone who’s had to make such an awful decision a hypocrite. I’m very sorry your family had to make that decision for your sister.
DeLay and his ilk are hypocrites for making the extremely personal choice to remove life support for their own relatives, and then turning around and saying that Terri shouldn’t HAVE that choice for herself, despite the court’s finding that she didn’t want to be sustained artificially and that the tube should be removed. This isn’t about what Michael Schiavo or her parents want. Michael acted according to his wife’s wishes, over her parents wishes, and now he’s being called a heartless murderer for it, by people who we now find out have made the same call. THAT’s the hypocrisy.
Yes, the big difference between Terri and DeLay’s father is that there was no argument over the course of action. But the court has ruled that Michael’s and others’ testimony indicate that she didn’t want to live like this. If there’s no harm in defying a dead or dying person’s wishes, why should people bother making out wills?
In Delay’s father’s case, it wasn’t even obvious that the man had any advance directives at all. They just offed him (even though he had more brain activity than Terri does) and sued for money over his self-induced accident.
I think that the Schindlers are mistaken in their efforts.
That said, there are differences between the various cases cited, here, that argues against the “hypocrisy” charge.
As long ago as the 1950s, Pope Pius XII noted that there was no requirement for “heroic” measures to merely preserve life. Technology such as ventilators and similar devices, without which a person would immediately die, were perceived as “heroic.” On the other hand, feeding tubes and IV nourishment were not considered heroic because a person does not immediately die when they are removed. Breathing and other metabolic functions continue after such devices are removed, only failing after a number of days, during which time the decisions could be reversed or alternative methods of sustenance could be employed.
Medical science and technology (both to maintain the body and to diagnose traumas and possible recovery) have advanced far beyond the capabilities of decisions made in the 1950s and revisited in the 1970s and 1980s. So some ethical decisions, today, are affected by earlier decisions under different conditions. While I suspect that Delay (and probably Bush) are, indeed, grandstanding for their perceived constituencies, it is also quite possible that they actually believe their own rhetoric. Under such a situation, claims of “hypocrisy” tend to be voiced by people as ignorant of the history of how the current arguments were shaped as the Schindlers are ignorant of the current medical situation.
(When the feeding tube was removed, several medical pundits predicted a peaceful death within 36 to 72 hours. It has now been eight days, or so, and Ms. Schiavo lives. This is the issue that leads supporters of the Schindlers to conclude that she is being starved to death. I can disagree with their assessment, but I do not see hypocrisy in their position.)
Then explain why any of these differences are relevant in the face of the absolutist rhetoric that was used?
Delay’s pop had more brain function than Terri. But, yoink goes the plug!
All the Friar’s founder needed was an intubation and medication to fight the buildup of fluid. Yoink!
It is precisely BECAUSE situations are so complicated that these people are hypocrites. They have used rhetoric that basically paints the very idea of accepting that someone is gone to be murderous, base, and evil. And yet all of them seem to have given up fighting and either refused further medical treatment for a loved one, or refused very minimal treatments to keep alive a loved one who could have survived longer. And all seem to have had more brain function than Schiavo. Also, none of them seem to have had made any advance directives or suggestions as to whether they’d want to be kept alive or not in such circumstances.
Well, in the end, doesn’t this come down to very subjective definitions of what constitutes “heroic” measures?
Also, while the Schindlers are Catholics, and so are presumably (and understandably) obliged to let papal decrees have a measure of influence on their decisions, surely the same thing doesn’t apply to all the Evangelical Protestants who have weighed in on this issue. Hell, most of them are happy to beat up on the Catholic Church when it suits them.
I agree with the fundamental philosophical point that you’re making, i.e., that someone who believes what they are saying, and who sees no inconsistency in their own positions, is not literally being hypocritical.
If folks like Delay and Bush actually articulated a rational position on what do and do not constitute acceptable situations for removing life support (of any sort—feeding tubes, ventilators, whatever), and made very clear where their own subjective positions were and how they differed from those of, say, medical professionals or even other religious groups, i might cut them some slack, even if i continued to disagree with their position. But their every public word on this issue has been overblown, absolutist rhetoric that makes no concession to the fact that reasonable people can disagree on fraught issues like this. They parade their particular set of moral beliefs around as if they constitute some timeless and transcendent truth.
What’s even worse, i think, is their consistent unwillingness even to entertain the possibility that this is what Terri Schiavo herself might have wanted, despite the multiple court rulings to that effect. And it’s not as if the various courts that have ruled on this case have all been hotbeds of “activist,” “liberal” judges who eat the Constitution for breakfast.
Even if hypocrisy might not be the perfect word to describe Delay et al., whatever those guys are up to is similarly reprehensible.
36 to 72 hours?
I’m not doubting that you did hear or see such figures, but in all the stories i’ve read the period being touted was always 1-2 weeks.