In class, there was mild discussion about Terry Schiavo. The discussion was specifically about whether or not the courts were justified in giving her husband the choice to let her live or die, and also whether or not this choice was morally acceptable.
Personally, I still believe the decision was incorrect, but that's a different topic than I want to address now.
We did not talk about the method of her death--how she died. I say this because she was not, according to her condition, incapable of surviving if given the means that every human is given: food and water. She was not given a lethal injection, or something similar. Her feeding tube was removed, they stopped giving her water, and she died from dehydration/starvation.
After the final decision to remove her feeding tube once and for all, it took her 11 days to die. Aside from a small crumb of a Communion (Catholic Eucharist), she received no food or water those 11 days. Her parents, and everyone else, weren't permitted by law to give her any kind of nourishment. I again ask the following question: why not give her a painless death such as lethal injection?
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo
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I agree. Even if someone believes that the choice to end her life is okay, why must we torture her? How can someone justify the fact that she was forced to suffer for 11 days. This is not the first time that Terri was put through this type of mistreatment either. On three seperate occasions Terri's feeding tube was removed. Why are we as Americans concerned about malnourished animals like dogs and horses, yet we allow human beings to starve to death? People who mistreat their pets are brought to court for animal cruelty and yet the courts decided to permit the doctors to let Terri die. It seems to me that our courts are telling the American people that an animal is more important than a human life. Is this really how it should be?
ReplyDelete"It seems to me that our courts are telling the American people that an animal is more important than a human life."
ReplyDeletethat statement makes a good point. originally i was going to name off some reasons for how a pet dying of starvation is different from Terry's case. my main point was going to be that pets depened on their owners for food and water because we keep them in places like houses and fenced in areas. but then i realized that you could say the same for Terry who was confined to a hospital bed.
i agree that starving her to death was the wrong way to go about ending her life and think that lethal injection should be considered the right way to end cases like this.
While off topic, I'm going to say this anyways.
ReplyDeleteI think it's important to differentiate Terry Schiavo's case from any other euthanasia. The general idea is that there's some old, unwanted person who is surviving on a machine that is replacing some mandatory organ or other (normally) natural body function.
Terry Schiavo's parents wanted Terry to live very much. She was not allowed to due to one final court decision that her husband had the legal rights to decide her fate.
And the method of her death, I'll say again, was the remittance of food and water.
I just want to point out that there have been many people who were in a comma for many years and woke up years later and said they understood what was going on around them the whole time. People have reported that while they were in the comma they could not do anything, they were trapped in their body, but still knew what was going on. This means that just because a person appears "brain dead" does not mean they should be denied their rights as a person.
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