Our brain-dead daughter would not have agreed to have her feeding tube removed to allow her to die, had she read the recent writings of the Pope.
That is the lamest thing I have ever heard of to be adjudicated in a courtroom. There’s more legal folderol regarding the disposition of Terri Schiavo, whose persistent vegetative state has been the subject of countless legal and political maneuvers for nealy 15 years now. You may remember, Jeb Bush intervened and the legislature passed a special bill to keep her feeding tube connected against the wishes of her husband, who was making medical decisions on her behalf and decided to discontinue it. Terri’s side of the family also opposes her husband’s decision to remove the feeding fube and allow the body to die.
This AP story discusses one more legal hurdle that has been removed from the path of the husband. The Supreme Court of Florida has ruled against the state and upheld an earlier decision declaring the specially passed law unconstitutional.
And at least one more hurdle is left. Somehow the family got a hearing scheduled about how best to determine Terri’s wishes were she able to decide for herself. Terri was, so they say, a devout and practicing Catholic, and regardless of what she might or might not have thought in 1990 when she became comatose, she surely would have changed her mind given what the Pope said last March. The Pope said positive things about continuing to feed the comatose. BFD.
It is a shame that people will fight to maintain the shell that once was a person. This presents an interesting and disturbing twist to the issue of a living will-that other family members can challenge the administrator who attempts to act at the will-maker’s behest.
Having lost a girlfriend to cancer, I’m unfortunately acquainted with being in that position. She survived the operation for which the will was drafted, but never obtained what I would call significant ‘quality of life’. Unable to leave a bed, unable to hold your children, the morphine pump your 24 hour associate isn’t living at all.
Grant me death with dignity, save the time, energy and resources for the viable.
The major problem here is that she DIDN’T have a living will. Her husband is not attempting to carry out her pre-specified course of action, he is making the decision as her nearest family member capable of making choices for her. That’s not to say, however, that this huge trainwreck wouldn’t have happened anyway. If the family can get the governor to throw in with them, and get the Pope’s opinion judicially noticed in a courtroom, they could probably get her living will ignored too… at least for a while.
I suppose I’m being unfair to the courts. They seem to have been fairly consistent in denying the claims of her parents. But the parents keep finding some judge or another who will grant them a hearing for some half-assed reason, and they get another 6 months or a year delay until their motions are rejected.
This site purports to be a neutral reporter on the facts and background. I can’t vouch for it, but it does seem to jibe pretty well with what facts I recall from past news stories. The blogger quotes a judicial opinion on Terri’s contemporary medical state:
Well, as far as that goes, it’s a bit difficult to describe what she is going through as suffering. Her widowed husband, on the other hand, is going through a living hell.
I’m not claiming that this is a walk in the park for his in-laws, of course, but I do wish they were less susceptible to manipulation and exploitation by opportunistic vultures with political agendas.
What I want to know is, why was she even put on the feeding tube in the first place? When she first suffered brain damage, why wasn’t something done THEN?
I’ve been following this case in the news for some time now, and my heart breaks for everyone involved. What a nightmare for all of them. Still, in my mind, the decent thing to do is to let this poor woman die – keep her comfortable, but let her die. She is never going to get well. Ever.
If nothing else good comes of the whole mess, at least it’s got people talking about their own end of life wishes. . . Maybe somewhere down the road a family will be able to avoid this type of situation because they discussed it in advance.
