"Bush Signs Bill That May Let Schiavo Live" – ABC News. No, it’ll allow her body to continue to vegetate. The ‘living’ stopped around 15 years ago.
I know this is a contentious assertion: that’s rather the point. This case involves a major disagreement between the people who (claim they) believe withdrawing life support involves killing a real person, and people who think that it doesn’t. Given that, the ABC headline is rabidly biased towards the former, religious-Republican perspective, which is odd given that we know the mainstream media is Evil and Lib’rul.
On the plus side, the American people have demonstrated a surprising [*] degree of sanity over the whole case: "70 percent of Americans say Congress’ action was inappropriate and 67 percent thought the elected officials were trying to keep Schiavo alive were doing so more for political advantage than out of concern for her or the principles involved".
[*] Surprising because pseudo-moral shit-stirring often leads to the public claiming to believe ridiculous things, not because I expect Americans to be any more stupid than members of the public elsewhere.
Update: via Simon in the comments, read this Obsidian Wings post.
Obviously we are not helping her keeping her alive, but we can also draw the distinction between actively killing her and not doing everything we can to keep her breathing what ever the cost. There is a dark side to all this, I tell you.
The living didn’t stop 15 years ago. Cabbages are alive; mushrooms are alive. There’s an argument, certainly, that she has ceased to live a human life.
Have you seen these videos of Terri? She may actually be aware, and if she is, a death by starvation and dehydration will be horrible for her.
S2: fair point. Nonetheless, the headline is off base. Were the case centering around what happened to my body in in 15 years’ time, I (now) would not consider it reasonable to view this as a question of "Bush Signs Bill That Might Let John Band Live". John Band would have gone a long time ago.
Sine: I have. Have you ever been around people who’ve lost all human brain function? A lot of the cues we take as recognisably ‘human’ behaviour are not; they are reflexes at about the same cognitive level as breathing.
(digressionally, in the very unlikely event that I were to be both in her position and aware, I’d certainly choose for the ‘a few days of starvation’ option over the ‘an eternity of wishing I were dead but instead having to inhabit this body that prevented me from in any way exercising any of my basic humanity.)
John, are you really sure enough that "A lot of the cues we take as recognisably ‘human’ behaviour are not; they are reflexes at about the same cognitive level as breathing." to take the chance of Terri suffering terribly? (Why not a painless euthanasia in that case?)
Persistent Vegetative State?
Woops, I should’ve linked directly to Cait’s Oz Blogs
I agree with you, John: if that were me and I were aware, I’d choose death. Thing is, that’s what living wills and DNRs are for, neither of which Terri signed. Her husband’s claim that she wouldn’t have wanted this is entirely reasonable and believable, but it was her decision, and she failed to do anything about it. Forget all the humane arguments and the red herrings about consciousness. My response to Terri Schiavo is, basically, "Tough." I support the right to suicide, but I don’t think anyone has a right to push a decision that momentous and final onto anyone else.
S2: there are two points here. One is that if it were me and I were alive in any kind of human fashion, I would choose death; the other is that I don’t even think this issue is that complicated. I’ve yet to see an explanation of why the case is different from switching off the life support of someone who’s never going to recover, which happens uncontroversially all the time.
One (probably the only) good thing about this case is that it’s certain to encourage people to get living wills…
This post at Obsidian Wings is a useful rejoinder to most of the right-wing talking points on this story.
One thing I find very annoying about this sort of debate is the way that either side gets labelled as left or right-wing. There’s nothing right-wing about the idea that courts should preserve life by default. Terri Schiavo’s parents’ desire to keep her alive is, I’m sure, nothing to do with their party political beliefs, whatever they are. I don’t think there’s anything right-wing about the idea that withholding treatment is not the same as withholding food — or anything left-wing about the idea that they’re essentially the same thing.
Squander Two – I agree. However, it’s fairly unarguable that most of the people taking Schiavo’s parents’ side on this issue, from George W Bush downwards, are right-wing. I was referring to the political character of the arguers, not to their arguments.
(And also: there are plenty of legitimate moral and political arguments why people might support the re-insertion of her feeding tube; the OW post deals with the illegitimate ones)