Wonderwench and lekatt..... Celebrating ignorance!!!

[tritumi]

I am going to take advantage of the generous temporary posting option. ww advised that she has migrated here and so I have peeked in. this argument is a repetition of that recently conducted on the list from which ww has migrated. i offer no comment on the exchanges themselves.

viewing this at a long distance (from tokyo) within the frames of media as the latest in a long running series of symbolic issues which both the media and the political manipulators require for ratings, it has distinctive american characteristics.

a friend of mine here, a gentleman in his early 70s whose wife has late stage alzheimers, perhaps 20% function, has moved them both into a hospice for people in her condition. meeting him periodically, i see the deterioration in his own condition from being the only fully sentient resident of this facility. but he has chose to follow the responsibility to the end. he is, nevertheless, a believer in euthanasia and has begun a correspondence with the representatives of organizations writing on that topic.

the two claims are made in this case:

• that the husband properly represents the claim of the wife to the legitimate expectation to die with dignity.
• the claim of the parents that no such expectation exists and the husband’s claim to represent the wife is illegitimate

no legally obliging evidence exists to support either contention, is that right?

in the instance then, the law is on the side of the legal guardian, the husband, as a default setting. As a consequence the obligation upon other claimants is to prove their case. they could not do so, despite trying various strategies.

ww makes various claims respecting the evidence presented by the claimants and is wrong in each particular that is examined. hers is an entirely sentimental argument, founded upon a desire for unrestricted respect for life to be the basis of policy and law at all costs. of course her sentimental desire is also in contradiction with her policy recommendations in other cases, as any longer term interlocutor will soon discover, but that is another story.

nevertheless, on the whole, i am inclined to the view that this is a case more highly flavored by a claim of the state to support euthanasia than it is a case resting solely upon the default setting of a legal guardian making a claim. that the state takes upon itself the role of arbitor of life and death, be that for specific individuals or specific classes of people, is indisputable. we grant the state that authority and the state prefers to be a monopolist of this role of arbitor of life and death.

so, for me, the issue here is in the simple fact that the state prefers to obscure its role. it does so because the issue is not the role, but rather the question of who should the state kill or allow to die from state action or inaction. that question is of course political.

the contribution of the state as practitioner of euthanasia and, where mroe convenient, murder, but without accepting the admission of that role is more the problem. we prefer not to see ourselves in that mirror and the deformities of specific cases are inflated as symbols for denial of that mirror. such is my view of the present case.

thanks to the policy here for the guest opportunity.

[Miller]

@wonderwench

Which previous cite by Holmes?

This cite. You said the court and Michael Schiavo refused to allow a swallowing test to be performed on Terri Schiavo, with the implication that this showed they had no interest in her welfare. However, this ignores the fact that mutliple swallow tests had been performed over several years, and she had failed all of them. Are you willing, in light of this contradictory evidence, to retract your previous claim?

But you do raise an interesting conundrum. On the one hand, some have said that Terri’s right to die should be honored because she wouldn’t want to live like that. If she was a stalk of celery, then what suffering was there to alieve?

None at all. The issue is not about putting her out of her misery, it was about respecting her clearly expressed wishes for what level of medical care she wanted to receive should she be incapacitated in such a fashion.

Again, all you are doing is showing that opinions in the case were deeply divided based upon core values.

The question of what Terri Schiavo wanted to be done if she were in a persistent vegetative state is not a matter of “core values.” It has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that she did not want her life to be sustained in these circumstances. Wether those wishes should be honored is a legitimate point of debate, I think, but to argue that we cannot know her wishes is disingenous, at best. She expressed her opinion on the matter multiple times, to a variety of people. People, it should be noted, who have absolutely nothing to gain by lying about the subject.

I saw a bio-ethicist on TV claim that Terri was not human. That is a sad commentary on our society, and highly indicative of the disregard for life that pervades our culture.

I wouldn’t take the word of one TV pundit as indicative of anything more than the opinions of that pundit.

[tritumi]

kaylasdad99 presents a very convincing presentation of the positions and, as a result, it is telling that no one followed his lead to consider their position. this is in line with my assumption that the mirror is unpleasant. one other poster suggests that the government (state) is not in the euthanasia business, a claim i reject.

miller does ask another useful question, does the form of the human entitle the form to the full panoply of rights obligations and concerns that we reserve to the human and from which we exclude all that is non-human? suppose that human form was at some point inhabited by a concious human, being both homo and sapiens?

the claims for euthanasia are not disimilar to the claims on behalf of abortion and, i suspect, that is the problem one sees in the mirror…

[Squink]

@wonderwench

they believe there is enough doubt about her condition that we should err on the side of life.

I love this phrase, ‘err on the side of life.’ People use it as if erring is a good thing. Is it not better not to err at all? With fifteen years of examinations and uncounted court cases, I think we can safely say that we came as close as was humanly possible to establishing the facts of the Schiavo case. Short of a mathematical proof, or a handwritten note from God almighty, we did not err.

[Darth_Nader]

@wonderwench

And now, mes amis, as much fun as this has been. Adieu. I have dinner plans.

OOOH!

Are we having chicken ?

[Aholibah]

@wonderwench

First, thank you for engaging in a civil discussion.

You’re welcome. I’m not the only one, you know. I’d be interested in seeing you engage some of the points raised by Kaylasdad99 and look!ninjas, who have also been quite civil in attempting to get your attention. (By mentioning them specifically, I’m not intending to exclude everybody else). Perhaps tomorrow – I hope you enjoy your dinner.

@wonderwench

Many disabled rights advocates have taken the side that she was. Given the inability of some disabled people to communicate or make there [sic] wishes known, they believe there is enough doubt about her condition that we should err on the side of life.

When it comes to assessing Mrs. Schiavo’s status, I am more inclined to trust the judgment of the specialists who examined her than I am to accept the word of disabled rights advocates who never saw her and are not qualified to make medical pronouncements about her condition.

@wonderwench

Even if Terri could not suffer (which is indispute), the prolonged agony of her family witnessing her whither away is incredibly inhumane.

@wonderwench

The original judge stated in his decision that the removal of life support was also for the convenience of the family. I believe that this consideration “took over” the agenda for subsequent decisions.

Leaving aside the question of the desirability of active rather than passive euthanasia, I’m having trouble reconciling these two statements. Can you help me understand what exactly you’re criticizing here? The first quote seems to suggest that you would rather spare the family the suffering of watching Mrs. Schiavo die from starvation/dehydration, and the second seems to find fault with the judge for taking the family’s feelings into account rather than focusing exclusively on Mrs. Schiavo’s wishes. Do you see my problem?

@wonderwench

If Terri had left a Living Will in which she specified that she wished to refuse assisted nutrition as a medical treatment, then the state would be complying with her wishes.

So you deny that state-administered euthanasia of the severely disabled is unconditionally wrong. It is acceptable for the state to euthanize someone if that person really wants it?

@wonderwench

That is a far different matter than someone saying, in the absence of clear unrefutable evidence, that her life was not worth living and that she should be put out of her misery. The latter is euthanasia, imo.

But see, the courts never, ever adjudicated the question of whether or not her life was worth living. They adjudicated on whether or not she had any reasonable hope of recovery and whether or not there was clear and convincing evidence that she would wish life-support to be withdrawn. Here you have veered into hyperbole and mischaracterization.

@wonderwench

What I have said, ad nauseum at this point, is that the wishes of the patient should be respected. In the absence of proof beyond a Reasonable Doubt, we should err on the side of life. I have stated this several times.

And what many, many people have said is that it appears that the wishes of Mrs. Schiavo were respected in this case. Mr. Schiavo did not, as he would have been within his legal rights to do, request or order the removal of the feeding tube. He petitioned for the courts to appoint a guardian for Mrs. Schiavo, asking for disinterested parties to determine what Mrs. Schiavo’s wishes were. The guardian made his determination, the judge accepted it, and the ruling was affirmed all the way up the chain.

Incidentally, f I asked you to toss out the expression “err on the side of life” and find some other way of expressing what you mean, could you come up with something? Because that is a phrase that is becoming increasingly meaningless to me with each repetition (and I don’t mean only repetition by you). It has become a politician’s phrase, full of sound and fury and signifying I know not what. I suspect it of meaning “use all possible measures to keep a breathing body breathing, forever.” Is that what you mean when you say it?

@wonderwench

To me, parents and siblings claiming that she never expressed a wish to refuse medical treatment is compelling enough to cause doubt. A few off hand comments while watching a made for TV movie about Karen Ann Quinlan is a bit thin. If that is enough for you, then so be it. Sadly, it was enough for Judge Greer.

I understand what you’re saying here, but here’s why I don’t have the same issue you do. There are lots of things that I have said to my significant other, and to some of my friends and acquaintances, that I’ve never said to my parents and siblings. If I were married to my SO, I would hope to rest assured that I need not verbalize every wish, priority, and need to my parents because I would trust that my husband is the proper repository for that information. I think it would be far sadder for the institution of marriage in this country if Judge Greer had ruled that Mr. Schiavo was, in the eyes of the law, less likely to know his spouse’s wishes than her parents were.

[Voyager]

@tritumi

the two claims are made in this case:

• that the husband properly represents the claim of the wife to the legitimate expectation to die with dignity.
• the claim of the parents that no such expectation exists and the husband’s claim to represent the wife is illegitimate

no legally obliging evidence exists to support either contention, is that right?

If by legally obliging, you mean a living will, that is correct. However the court heard testimony on her wishes, and decided that the proponderance of evidence was that she did not wish to remain on life support in these circumstances.

Also, Michael gave up his claim to be the arbiter of her fate to a neutral third party, understanding, I assume, that some could consider him biased in one way or the other. So, whether his claim to represent her was legitimate or not, he waived it. And unlike some of what you have read here, his testimony was not exclusive.

nevertheless, on the whole, i am inclined to the view that this is a case more highly flavored by a claim of the state to support euthanasia than it is a case resting solely upon the default setting of a legal guardian making a claim. that the state takes upon itself the role of arbitor of life and death, be that for specific individuals or specific classes of people, is indisputable. we grant the state that authority and the state prefers to be a monopolist of this role of arbitor of life and death.

so, for me, the issue here is in the simple fact that the state prefers to obscure its role. it does so because the issue is not the role, but rather the question of who should the state kill or allow to die from state action or inaction. that question is of course political.

In this case the state was thrust into its role. In fact, except in the cases where the state of Florida attempted to interfere in the process, the state was not a party to it. The court did not order the tube removed, the court removed the obstacles to it being removed put in place by the parents. I trust you appreciate the difference.

the contribution of the state as practitioner of euthanasia and, where mroe convenient, murder, but without accepting the admission of that role is more the problem. we prefer not to see ourselves in that mirror and the deformities of specific cases are inflated as symbols for denial of that mirror. such is my view of the present case.

thanks to the policy here for the guest opportunity.

I’m not sure what you mean by mirror here, can you expand on this metaphor? But again, the state was not a practitioner of euthanasia (and I disagree that this is what it was, but that is not important to your argument.) The doctor pulling the plug was the practitioner. The state (the court) got out of the way.

We should also distinguish between parts of the state. The role of the courts is to decide the facts of the case (that is if she was in a PVS, and if she expressed the desire to be removed from life support) and to ensure that the laws were followed. The legislative and judiciary branches of Florida and the US tried to interfere. One of the Florida laws was ruled unconstitutional, the one passed by the US Congress surely would have been, but it is now moot and will never be tested.

BTW, thank you for a very reasoned post.

[Aholibah]

@tritumi

one other poster suggests that the government (state) is not in the euthanasia business, a claim i reject.

Erm, if you mean me, I actually wasn’t making a factual claim about whether or not the government is in the euthanasia business. I was expressing my opinion that the government ought not to be in the euthanasia business. Later in the post I attempted to explain that I thought the courts’ adjudicating the question of withdrawal of life support in individual cases did not constitute state-administered euthanasia, but I think I fell down on the job a bit there. Sorry for any confusion I’ve caused in this regard.

In other news, I liked kaylasdad99’s approach, too, and now, beyond urging wonderwench to engage it, I will respond to it myself. If I’ve got his schema right, I am a [2] – I believe the “clear and convincing” standard is less rigorous than the “reasonable doubt” standard, I believe it is sufficient for determining the morally/ethically correct action in withdrawal of life support cases, and I believe it was met in the case of Terry Schiavo.

[Voyager]

@tritumi

the claims for euthanasia are not disimilar to the claims on behalf of abortion and, i suspect, that is the problem one sees in the mirror…

Actually these are quite different.

Abortion rights proponents argue for the rights of the mother, as opposed to the supposed rights of the fetus. In this case Mrs. Schiavo was the only one whose rights were at issue.

Abortion opponents make the claim that though a fetus (perhaps one of a few cells) has no brain activity, the fetus will become human without intervention. In this case it was clear from medical evidence that Mrs. Schiavo would never again be a thinking entity.

I suppose that some of those who emotionally oppose abortion for religious reasons had the same reaction here. But the overwhelming support for pulling the feeding tube indicates that many abortion opponents were not opposed to letting her die in this case.

[Maendosa]

I believe that the posters to this thread are being jerked around by a person who really has no sincerety towards the position they are holding.

And if you don’t agree with me, then you’re simply being closeminded, hate liberty, are a filthy stinking liberal and subscribe to a Culture 'O Death.

So there.

[ivylass]

Ahem, I think you guys missed it, but wonderwench lost.

@wonderwench

Tell me, when do you start handing out the brown shirts?

Isn’t that invoking Godwin’s Law?

[tritumi]

i’ll restrict myself for the purposes of brevity to two points.

the objections to errors in ww’s logic here (and usually elsewhere as well) are reasonable, but so also is the diagnosis that her position in essentially sentimental. if she is in error, as many claim, the reponse is that such error is often the perogative of (and as often the very definition of) being human. to err is human.

so i am not so hasty to discard the claims of sentiment, even or especially when it dresses itself in claims to human values that are overarching, or are said to be so. (of course this tact makes one moderate and as such hateful to the extremes, neither of which prefers language that removes the belief in the necessity of their positions as the truth).

which is to say, my position, as i have unfailingly reminded the constantly outraged ww, is that of the pragmatic existentialist.

i think a great number of sentimentalists seize upon the character and presentation of the husband as being weak. i have never seen the fellow and do not have the media on for such things as this. nevertheless, his claim to represent his wife’s desire is “in evidence” flimsy, but his position as the legal guardian is indisputable. i cannot accept a charge against him as failing that responsibility, a charge many wish to make based on observation of his lifestyle or other perceived failings.

in essence one question is of whether a court washing its hands of a claim so that the standing of a guardian who will exercise an option to advance the time of death of the person under their responsibility, whether such a court in so acting shares the responsibility of the death being pronounced. (hope that sentence scans!) i would say it does and for just that reason justice is blind. The court acted responsibly is my final consideration and carries responsibility.

(for clarity, i should mention that by ‘state’ i do not mean Florida, but rather the authority operating as the controlling interest, presumably, of the people. hence the necessity for respecting that some aspects of the state are blind as a principle of justice and others blinded by passion and mob rule even, or especially, when that mob is congress.)

which takes us to the question of the mirror as a metaphor as voyager requests. i mean nothing complex here, simply that there are any number of moments throughout the day which, upon examination, may show us life, our lives, as individuals and a society, writ large. mirrors are for vanity. such views seldom complement. one may choose not to look or to imagine the mirror shows just what one pefers.

to look and say what is requires the view that here is a case of a brain dead woman being permitted to die in a way which we would find actionable if perpetrated upon a dog and that we recognize that the state requires this method as a matter of conformance with the law. no other form of death is permitted if the state is to avoid the full burden of the claim of euthanasia. the state grants this remit to the legal guardian. we would all wish to spare the family the pain of such a gruesome dying of a loved relative. but any enhancement of the death process would implicate the state in direct euthanasia, hence one poster correctly calls it passive euthanasia, the pilate approach.

i am not making a case of immorality here. i would make these cases:

the law is an ass and clarity is often lacking. but of course no law can hope to cover every case. for that reason we rely on blind justice. logical or sentimental or oracular.

personal and family tragedy and end of life judgements are brought into the political process improperly and that is immoral.

the sentimental has a role and must be allowed its share, even if such share is grieving.

all for now from me, thanks.

[DoctorJ]

Actually, the reports are that Michael did not allow such treatment.

If you have a reliable cite for this assertion, I’d love to see it.

Yes you did. And other doctors dispute you.

I’d ask them the same questions. It’s hard to take a doctor seriously who advocates feeding an unconscious patient by mouth. I heard numerous calls for a PET scan, but I’m still not sure what information anyone expected to get out of it that might have changed her diagnosis or her prognosis.

There’s no easy or kind way to put it-- the doctors who were being paraded around on the news stations and at the rallies who supported the Schindlers were just utter quacks. Their proposed treatments were unsupportable, and their conclusions regarding her condition were ludicrous. What else can you say about a doctor who hypes himself by falsely claiming to have been nominated for a Nobel Prize?

What are your thoughts about the comments made by John Ford of Harvard?

I find it unfortunate that advocates for the disabled such as Mr. Ford have hitched their wagon to the Schindlers and their crusade. I see no analogy between Mr. Ford, who is severely physically disabled but can participate in his own life (attending Harvard, even), and Terri Schiavo, who could not.

[GIGObuster]

@wonderwench

Ick. But to each his own.
What did you just wrote?

That Lifetime has better information than the one you are giving us here. (Lifetime had virtually nothing to offer to this discussion, just like you.)

It is barely English as a Second Language.

Guilty as charged, I was rushing and giving the semi-prepared replies that you deserve, and that is more than the effort that you do on your replies, you are constantly failing to even mention the bankrupt sources of your information.

I recall a time in this country when the Progressive Left actually stood for protecting those who are too weak to speak for themselves. I do not get my values from TV - perhaps you would be better of finding another source as well.

Neither I am you idiot; the information I base my opinion was found on many sources on the web, the press and court documents. The Lifetime (getting values from TV) I mentioned, was a whoosh that your idiocy took seriously.

[GIGObuster]

Besides, I prefer to have trouble in grammar rather than being like **wonderwench ** and deliberately telling the whole world that she has a propensity to lie as a core value.

It was a lie to say there was no test for swallowing, it was a lie to say no scan was made, the PET scan **wonderwench ** mentioned as not being done, was deemed not necessary since a CT was made, omitting that bit of information is lying in my book.

And to top it off, repeating items that elsewhere were discredited. Grammar is not a problem here when trust in a source is.

[Fritz]

I have been puzzled by WW’s behavior in this (and the other) thread. How can this person be so obtuse as to ignore and refute the best facts put before her?
As I was reading through this thread, the following few words from WW’s post #123 jumped out at me (bolding mine):

@wonderwench

I have stated several times that the issue is one of deeply rooted core values - you are not going to convince me to alter my beliefs - nor do I expect you to alter yours. I do have the right of expression - which those on your side of the debate seem to be unable to tolerate.

Vive la difference.

This caught my eye as it seems to indicate why WW is so close minded about this. As I read “deeply rooted core values”, I interpreted that as “deeply ingrained bias and prejudice which I have never closely examined or even thought about”, and it struck me that this is why, perhaps, that WW is so close-minded about this whole issue.

There may be people reading this that may know individuals that hold prejudices against Blacks or Hispanics (or Jews, Japanese, etc. - take your pick). Such individuals usually come by their prejudices at a very early age, usually as very young children. All they hear from Mom and/or Dad is “Blacks are (insert ethnic slur here)” or "Hispanics are so (insert ethnic slur here).

A lot of people are able to examine these prejudices when they are grown adults, either by thoughtful consideration or by unpleasant confrontation, and eventually root out and discard these “deeply held beliefs” (read “deeply rooted core values”).
But there are some who do not.

It seems to be getting rarer these days, but I do remember times when I would encounter an adult and otherwise intelligent individual that still held personal prejudices that were shocking when exposed.
Gentle questioning provoked a litany of “Blacks are (insert ethnic slur here)” or “Hispanics are so (insert ethnic slur here).” Any further questioning about the validity of those beliefs provoked stronger and stronger recitations of the same ethnic slurs, and more and more defensiveness. These individuals were replaying a tape - a recording - that was made at a much earlier age and, for that individual, at much less enlightened times. Each reiteration of those beliefs was accompanied by more and more hostility, as it seemed to the individual that the questioner was criticizing the individual’s unquestioning beliefs, or their “deeply rooted core values.”

I applaud those that explore their own early conditioning and root out these memes that are passed along with “Mother’s Milk”, and only reveal themselves at surprising times. I still catch myself when a little snippet of “recording” pops out of my mouth. Careful and probing thought may reveal the source of the recording, or at least the fallacy of the message contained within the recording.

Those who fail to question themselves in the face of such universal criticism as
represented within this thread (and the other GD thread) are cowardly. Worse, as the recording is being replayed in her own head, she is also crafting her children’s recording. The same prejudices, bias, and “deeply rooted core values” are being written into the minds of the next generation.

wonderwench, there are some “deeply rooted core values” that are good, and there are some that are bad. Ignoring clear and precise evidence put before you by a body of very smart people is a bad one.

[dropzone]

@tritumi

the two claims are made in this case:

• that the husband properly represents the claim of the wife to the legitimate expectation to die with dignity.
• the claim of the parents that no such expectation exists and the husband’s claim to represent the wife is illegitimate

no legally obliging evidence exists to support either contention, is that right?

No, there is testimony by the husband and some friends that she expected that her husband would ensure she died with dignity. This was demonstrated to the satisfaction of the judge and the parents never could prove she did not say that.

in the instance then, the law is on the side of the legal guardian, the husband, as a default setting. As a consequence the obligation upon other claimants is to prove their case. they could not do so, despite trying various strategies.

Yes, that is true.

ww makes various claims respecting the evidence presented by the claimants and is wrong in each particular that is examined. hers is an entirely sentimental argument, founded upon a desire for unrestricted respect for life to be the basis of policy and law at all costs.

Yes.

nevertheless, on the whole, i am inclined to the view that this is a case more highly flavored by a claim of the state to support euthanasia than it is a case resting solely upon the default setting of a legal guardian making a claim.

That is how Wonderwench is painting it with her accusatons of “legalized euthanasia.” Initially it was merely Mr Schiavo saying, in his role as legal guardian, that as all else had failed Mrs Schiavo wishes should be honored. The courts agreed.

so, for me, the issue here is in the simple fact that the state prefers to obscure its role.

I disagree, though a democracy in which the state did not prefer to disguise its role would be unusual. The state usually prefers that its citizens believe all decisions are their idea. That makes things so much simpler at election time.

thanks to the policy here for the guest opportunity.

Dude or lady, as the case may be, you are so polite that if you cannot pay the membership, for financial or international exchange reasons, email me and it would be my honor to pay for you. I want to encourage other points of view, despite what Wonderwench says.

Why can’t the rest of you bums be so nice, huh? :dubious:

[cj_finn]

tritumi, brevity is not one of your strong points.

This issue is incredibly simple.

1. Americans, and apparently especially Floridians, have a right to reject medical treatment.
2. Three separate witnesses testified that Terri Shiavo indicated that she did not want to be kept alive by tubes and that she did not want to be a burden to her family. (BTW, the whole ‘burden’ issue comes up because Terri said she did not want to be a burden to her family and the court considered this as part of the determination of her wishes.)

Since she had the right to refuse care and it was clear that she did not want to continue care under the circumstances, removing the feeding tube was the correct decision, even if it does pull at the heart strings.

Where difficult decisions such as those made by the Shiavos have to be made, sentimentality has no place at the table. If your wishes regarding your personal end of life affairs are based all or in part on sentimentality, that is your lookout. My sentimentality has no bearing on your wishes, just as WW’s sentimentality has no bearing on Terri Shiavo’s.

It is precisely because sentimentality is so counterproductive that Florida follows a three part test that requires that 1) the patient’s oral declarations are reliable, 2) the patient does not have a reasonable probability of recovering competency (in which case the whole issue is moot as we can simply ask), and 3) any conditions imposed on the patient’s wishes are considered and satisfied. These factors were satisfied.

You should also take care with your metaphors. I do not think that “blind justice” means what you think it means. Furthermore, the words “logical or sentimental or oracular” make no sense when used in conjunction with the term “blind justice.”

I would also ask whether you mean that the law is an ass in general or in this context alone? Your use of that quote in this manner is unclear.

I am also confused about your pronouncement that “personal and family tragedy and end of life judgements are brought into the political process improperly and that is immoral.” I can only hope that you are not implying that there is a ‘proper’ way of bringing personal and family tragedy into the political process. Were you trying to make the point that it is immoral to use personal or familial tragedy for political gain?

Your Pilate metaphor is also a bit off the mark. No one is washing their hands of anything in this case. Terri Schiavo neglected to leave explicit, written instructions regarding her end of life wishes (not that it would likely have been sufficient for her parents). Accordingly, the lion’s share of the responsibility for the mess which her husband and family found themselves in was hers. That the courts have ready-made mechanisms to clean up messes like this is not evidence of any policy of or proclivity towards euthanasia. The courts do nothing but determine whether there is clear and convincing evidence of a person’s wishes. They do not make value judgements; nor do they impose their own morality or wishes. If the court determines that the evidence is not clear and convincing, then the default pathway is to keep the status quo. The court bears no responsibility for the dispute or the outcome, other than their duty to follow the law.

Hate to write and run, but I’m to bed.

CJ

[Zoe]

tritumi, you have a gift for the language. I hope that you will stay around.

in essence one question is of whether a court washing its hands of a claim so that the standing of a guardian who will exercise an option to advance the time of death of the person under their responsibility, whether such a court in so acting shares the responsibility of the death being pronounced.

My understanding is that in this case, even if the husband had surrendered guardianship to the parents in the final days, life support would still have been removed since the court had determined that that was the wish of Terri Schiavo, the woman in the PVS. The court never washed its hands of it.

(If I am mistaken in my presentation of the facts, I hope that someone will correct me.)

“You have a right to your own opinion. You don’t have a right to your own facts.” – old saying

[tritumi]

Cj writes:

tritumi, brevity is not one of your strong points.

Yes that is true, but at other times not.

This issue is incredibly simple.

1. Americans, and apparently especially Floridians, have a right to reject medical treatment.
2. Three separate witnesses testified that Terri Shiavo indicated that she did not want to be kept alive by tubes and that she did not want to be a burden to her family. (BTW, the whole ‘burden’ issue comes up because Terri said she did not want to be a burden to her family and the court considered this as part of the determination of her wishes.)

Dropzone makes the same point as you. I am unfamiliar with the evidence here and simply accept what you both say at face value.

Where difficult decisions such as those made by the Shiavos have to be made, sentimentality has no place at the table. If your wishes regarding your personal end of life affairs are based all or in part on sentimentality, that is your lookout. My sentimentality has no bearing on your wishes, just as WW’s sentimentality has no bearing on Terri Shiavo’s.

I agree with you here in principle. In fact, as the family was split a refusal to allow a sympathetic hearing would be counterproductive. I agree that all parties were in fact allowed a sympathetic hearing and that justice was served.

It is precisely because sentimentality is so counterproductive that Florida follows a three part test that requires that 1) the patient’s oral declarations are reliable, 2) the patient does not have a reasonable probability of recovering competency (in which case the whole issue is moot as we can simply ask), and 3) any conditions imposed on the patient’s wishes are considered and satisfied. These factors were satisfied.

no argument there

You should also take care with your metaphors. I do not think that “blind justice” means what you think it means. Furthermore, the words “logical or sentimental or oracular” make no sense when used in conjunction with the term “blind justice.”

“blind justice” is your construction cj, mine was that “justice is blind” and I agree these two are not to be confused. Since you misconstrued me here, perhaps it would be a blind tangent (!) to track that thought. A quick flashlight peek up the alley way though suggests that (1) logic was served by the decision (2) sentiment was served by the process (3) the oracular was served when the ritual established that a solomonic outcome was not possible and cathartic tragedy would be the result. Hope that helps a bit.

I would also ask whether you mean that the law is an ass in general or in this context alone? Your use of that quote in this manner is unclear.

I’ll agree that I was running out of steam by this point, having exhausted myself on the previous! Perhaps it is related to the point I made about the state’s interest in keeping some aspects of its role unclear. Dropzone seems to agree with me on that.

I am also confused about your pronouncement that “personal and family tragedy and end of life judgements are brought into the political process improperly and that is immoral.” I can only hope that you are not implying that there is a ‘proper’ way of bringing personal and family tragedy into the political process. Were you trying to make the point that it is immoral to use personal or familial tragedy for political gain?

yes to your question at the end there. I’d have to give more thought to the first question. My doing so would follow the general principle (from Harold Lasswell that ‘personal interests are displaced upon public objects and are then rationalized as being in the public interest’. Personal interests by necessity include tragic and personal occurrences. So, yes, I would probably say that it is less a matter of “implying that there is a ‘proper’ way of bringing personal and family tragedy into the political process” than of saying this is the most common activity characteristic of the political process. If one is in agreement with that basic observation then the question of rules of the game and appropriate actions do indeed become the theme.

Your Pilate metaphor is also a bit off the mark. No one is washing their hands of anything in this case. Terri Schiavo neglected to leave explicit, written instructions regarding her end of life wishes (not that it would likely have been sufficient for her parents). Accordingly, the lion’s share of the responsibility for the mess which her husband and family found themselves in was hers. That the courts have ready-made mechanisms to clean up messes like this is not evidence of any policy of or proclivity towards euthanasia. The courts do nothing but determine whether there is clear and convincing evidence of a person’s wishes. They do not make value judgements; nor do they impose their own morality or wishes. If the court determines that the evidence is not clear and convincing, then the default pathway is to keep the status quo. The court bears no responsibility for the dispute or the outcome, other than their duty to follow the law.

I agree that the mess was Terri’s making. Now we can argue the toss on the question of whether the courts have a proclivity toward euthanasia. I think you phrase that nicely. Your recapitulation of the process describes precisely what I meant by “justice is blind”, (not “blind justice”). So we are in agreement there. In this case, the quality of the evidence informing justice seems very much stronger to you than it does to me and absolutely more so to the sentimental ww. I freely grant that I am poorly informed on the evidence, so my description is based on impressions and a measure of my own sentimentality.

However, I would never wish to disallow a public body from the responsibility of its decisions. That applies to a court as well as any other public body. So I am not yet convinced that the state’s interest and position is quite as logical and devoid of its own interests as you present. I do not believe anything I have said here suggests that those interests are immoral or illegitimate. On the contrary, I suggest that these interests are such that, particularly to the sentimental, the mirror they hold up to our values is a most discomforting one.

Thanks also to zoe and Gigobuster who also raises a key point, (but since this is too long already, I must stop here).

Thanks for the notes in response, Yes, brevity is a problem (I am polite as behooves a guest. Not always the case, I assure you.)