Terri Schiavo, personal vs state responsibility

I don’t see the Terri Shapiro issue as a state issue, but one of personal responsibility. Her husband is the one who should take responsibility, and IMHO his decision should stand and he will have to live with his choice. By involving the state, I see it as a way for him to wash his hands of it, he is no longer morally responsible for his decisions. When we are not morally responsible for our own decisions people will tend to chose the immoral route more often.

(I personally think he should give over care to her parents, but it’s his decision to make)

I see this very similar to when a parent is brought up on charges for accidentally leaving their child in a hot car and the child dies. Their actions, or inactions they will have to live with the rest of their lives, but if they are prosecuted it once again takes away personal responsibility, they can paid for the crime and eventually be free. Involving the state in such issues devaluates human life by removing morality and in some cases assigning a ‘price’ that can be paid for personal actions.

Just my humble O

This argument makes no sense to me. You could say the same for any crime. Why does a state sanction have anything to do with personal remorse?

I can understand your point, but I believe that sometimes the harshest thing the state can do is nothing and let the person live with their actions.

You don’t appear to understand the basic facts of the case. Her husband did take responsibility, and make the decision to withdraw the feeding tube. This happened several years ago. Ever since then, Terri’s parents have waged a no-holds-barred legal battle to prevent her husband’s decision from being carried out. Politicians have become involved only because they appear to think they can score a few points amongst the uninformed over the affair.

Actually I do understand this, and I feel it’s the way it should be (him taking responsibility). My objection is that the state is interfering with it. This muddies his moral responsibility.

My understanding is that he could have made the decision unilaterally, but he did not; because there was a dispute, he turned the decision over to a mechanism that allowed the court to weigh the evidence and decide what the patient would have wanted. They decided that there was “clear and convincing evidence” that Terri would not have wanted this.

I’m not certain that I agree with the OP’s reasoning or analogy, I agree with the primary point–Michael should have made the decision himself, based on what he believed his wife’s wishes to be. That’s 20/20 hindsight talking, though; I’m sure he never imagined that it would turn out like this.

And you believe this is the case for someone who kills their children? Would you say this is true for Susan Smith, who drowned her children in Texas? I still have a tough time understanding why one thing precludes the other.

No, accidentally leaving a child in a locked car causing death is a tragic accident, physically drowning a child is murder.

The relationship is that the state is removing personal responsibility by imposing itself as the final decision maker. This shifts moral responsibility away from the person to a body which can be (and some will say has to be) immoral or amoral. A price is assigned to actions by the state and people get the message that if they can pay for it they can get away with it, ‘if you can do the time, do the crime’. People feel if the state is satisfied that they are morally off the hook.

This ability to pay for ones immorality devaluates it.

I think if you’d talked to a parent who was responsible for the death of their own child you would find that your basic premise if false.

Moving this from IMHO to Great Debates.

Terri is alive in the sense that most of the cells continue to live. She is NOT alive in the sense that she is a “vegetable” am imdesireable term for a person who is in a vegetative state where there is NO quality of life and the brain is markedly damaged.

If the family wanted to pay for all the debt applied to her care and repay all the debt that the State of Florida had to pay, I say they should have her.

But for our congress to spread out their moral wings because they learned in the last election the @85% of the voting citizens are religious and place “life” over everything. This is a dangerous precedent…the religious right who have so much power over our congressmen are controlling this entire process.

How about having the state siese her body and auction her off to the highest bidder?

It is a dangerous precident that has nothing to do with the religious right or the non-religious left, nor the a-religious bottom, but rather that personal issues should not be taken over by the state.

Devaluates immorality?

Unfortunately it has everything to do with the religious right.
If the religious right wasn’t such a big part of your constituency, no politician would have touched this case with a 50-foot pole.
They are only interfering to convince pro-life voters that they are the ones to vote for.

I can understand why the religious-right would want to intervene to save a life, what I don’t understand is why the secular-left stands idly by and gives this the silent-treatment, that is, unless they really are “pro-death”.

Because we believe this decision should be made by the individuals involved, not by politicians exploiting a tragedy?

[nitpick]
Her name is neither “Shapiro,” nor “Schiaro.”
[/nitpick]
just my two cents…

I think “they” are not so much “Pro-death” as “Anti-life-at-any-cost.”

However, the second “they” open their mouth, the republican/evangelical right propaganda machine will immediately brand them as “pro-death,” neatly evading the issue with a tight, tidy, easily-remembered epithet that even the dimmest of their ranks can remember.

Yeah, kinda like how “they” hurl the “Nazi” epithet.