The philosophical implications of the Terri Schiavo case

[TruthSeekerRM]

Lately, with all of the media coverage on this dilemma, I have been pondering the philosophical considerations of the Terri Schiavo case. Obviously, there are ethical considerations to be had: What is life? How do we define the human being? Other questions, perhaps in social and political philosophy, concern the function and role of government: Does the gov’t ever have the right to intervene in private moral issues? Can morality be legislated?

I’d appreciate some dialogue on this issue. I am inclined to think all of the fuss over this dilemma is politically fueled. Nonetheless, it raises interesting philosophical questions.

Anyway, what do you all think?

Rich

[Nick_A]

Hi TS

I’d also appreciate exchanging some ideas since this whole incident appears extremely revealing as to human nature and not in an inspiring fashion.

Anyhow, what strikes me is our lack of collective agreement in regards the value of human life.

Regardless of whether she should die, it strikes me as horribly callous not to just kill her in a humane fashion with an injection if it is somehow agreed upon that that she should die.

Regardless of what some doctors say, I’ve seen her enough and read enough to know that this woman is aware and feels pain. To allow her to slowly die of dehydration and starvation because we cannot take responsibity for injecting her is frightening. It appears we are guided and lead by a legal process open to corruption rather than any common sense of compassion.

To be allowed to die is one thing but to be slowly killed in such a horrendous fashion with so many oblivious to it preferring instead the rationalizations of some “experts” proves to me how little we understand life and human life in particular and how we avoid becoming open to the question. Sure it makes one think and realize how little is really understand but damn, how so many can turn off and become so cold is excruciatingly revealing.

When it happens in war it is easier to excuse since we explain it away as aroused passions, obeying orders and the like. But in a case like this where it is obvious that she is not in a vegetative state but with clear emotions and having said the word “pain” during a menstrual cycle, turning the other way and relying on “experts” says much about us that has been shown before but in this case, I believe in a very vivid manner.

People talk of world peace but when incidents like this happen, it is obvious that we lack the appreciation for human life and its purpose to allow for anything even close to it for it to ever take place. When the best solution that can come into law regarding Terri’s condition is starving her to death, I don’t see the sense of speaking of concepts requiring cooperation based on more than our self interests like world peace. It is clearly impossible.

[detrop]

To be honest I rarely watch TV or read the news paper. I know about the general situation but not about the details. Correct me if I’m wrong.

In Terry’s case her husband gets to decide whether or not she lives, not her family. This is because of some techinical clausing in the law, I assume, which puts her husband in charge?

The husband, in turn, cannot get out of his marital contract if she is still alive, and is trying to “move on” and pursue another life, so he wants her dead?

At this point I don’t see why he couldn’t just divorce her. Then again, I might be totally wrong about the situation.

In any event, the requests of the party in charge should be over-ruled and Terry should be kept alive until she is either fully recovered, conscious enough to request her own death, or naturally dead.

People have been known to emerge from comas twenty years later. If the only costs for “waiting around” is the price of an electric bill and a nurse’s wages, I’d say its a good trade.

[tentative]

Although this particular case is extremely sad and painful for those close to the situation, it bring’s right to the front burner all the issues involved with defining life, life with dignity, the limits of medical intervention, etc. Hopefully, after the dust settles there will be an opportunity for national dialogue. At the moment all we have is cynical political opportunism, and diatribe.

One of the most striking things about this whole issue and one that could affect any family, is that medical science is in the terrifying position of maintaining the body indefinitely regardless the wishes - communicated or not - of the patient. 50 years ago the Schiavo case could never have happened. The lady would have passed within 30 days, not 15 years. We need to spell out what is life and what isn’t, and the limits of both medical and governmental interference with that process. We are all vulnerable to this nightmare.

JT

[psyque]

This is what I love about the US gov’t and media. How many people are going to actually read or hear about this story??? [read below, with most important parts bolded by moi]

The television networks’ nightly news broadcasts have ignored the story of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s (R-TX) own experience with end-of-life decisions regarding his father, even as it gained significant attention across major newspapers and cable television channels.

The Los Angeles Times reported on March 27 that when DeLay’s father was “badly injured in a freak accident at his home,” leaving him "in a coma, kept alive by intravenous lines and oxygen equipment … the congressman quietly joined the sad family consensus to let his father die." The paper noted DeLay’s prominence in advocating the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube.

The Associated Press filed a story on March 27, as did The New York Times. Reprints of the Los Angeles Times and Associated Press stories appeared in newspapers across the country, including the Seattle Times, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Washington Post.

The cable news channels discussed the story as well. CNN featured the story numerous times, once on March 27 and then more often on March 28, including on its American Morning, Inside Politics, and Crossfire shows. Fox News Channel’s Special Report with Brit Hume discussed the story on March 28. The story appeared on the March 28 editions of MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews and Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

But the story did not air on any of the major networks’ nightly news broadcasts. It appeared only on NBC’s Today and ABC’s Good Morning America morning shows, on March 28 and 27, respectively. CBS did not run the story at all.

From the March 27 Los Angeles Times article:

More than 16 years ago, far from the political passions that have defined the Schiavo controversy, the DeLay family endured its own wrenching end-of-life crisis. The man in a coma, kept alive by intravenous lines and oxygen equipment, was DeLay’s father, Charles Ray DeLay.

Then, freshly reelected to a third term in the House, the 41-year-old DeLay waited, all but helpless, for the verdict of doctors.

Today, as House Majority Leader, DeLay has teamed with his Senate counterpart, Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), to champion political intervention in the Schiavo case. They pushed emergency legislation through Congress to shift the legal case from Florida state courts to the federal judiciary.

And DeLay is among the strongest advocates of keeping the woman, who doctors say has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, connected to her feeding tube. DeLay has denounced Schiavo’s husband, as well as judges, for committing what he calls “an act of barbarism” in removing the tube.
In 1988, however, there was no such fiery rhetoric as the congressman quietly joined the sad family consensus to let his father die.

“There was no point to even really talking about it,” Maxine DeLay, the congressman’s 81-year-old widowed mother, recalled in an interview last week. “There was no way [Charles] wanted to live like that. Tom knew – we all knew – his father wouldn’t have wanted to live that way.”

[psyque]

One more damnation of the US media [again, for easy reading, I’ve bolded the key parts]:

The media have largely ignored a March 26 Miami Herald report that representatives of “agencies answering directly to Gov. Jeb Bush” were headed to Terri Schiavo’s hospice on March 24 “to take her to a hospital to resume her feeding.” According to the Herald, "a team of state agents were en route to seize her [Schiavo] and have her feeding tube reinserted – but they stopped short when local police told them they would enforce the judge’s order" that the feeding tube not be reinserted. Journalists have also neglected to press Bush on the story, despite having the opportunity to do so.

The story was reprinted in several other Knight Ridder newspapers, including the San Jose Mercury News and The Charlotte Observer, and was picked up by the Associated Press. The Los Angeles Times mentioned the report in a March 26 article on the status of the case, but to date the story has gone unreported in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and (save a mention about the lack of coverage of the story in Paul Krugman’s March 29 column) The New York Times. On network and cable news broadcasts, only MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has mentioned the report, noting on the March 27 edition of Scarborough Country that “there were actually state agencies that were going toward a hospice on Thursday night to remove her [Schiavo’s] body.”

Prior to the Herald report, The New York Times ran a March 25 article of the possible impact of the Schiavo case on Bush’s political career, titled “In Polarizing Case, Jeb Bush Cements His Political Stature.” But the Times did not see fit to follow up by noting that Gov. Bush’s administration reportedly acted to remove Schiavo from the hospice and reinsert her feeding tube, a highly controversial action explicitly opposed by the presiding judge in the case, who in response directed “each and every and singular sheriff of the state of Florida” to enforce the court order that the feeding tube not be reinserted. On March 29, the Los Angeles Times reported on the ramifications of the case for Bush and other Republican politicians in Florida but did not mention the story either.

Additionally, journalists with the opportunity to question Bush about the state’s reported attempt to “seize” Schiavo have apparently not done so. Bush has spoken with the press at least once since the March 26 Herald report – a March 28 interview with CNN – but he has not been asked to address the substance of that report.