Yet another new Terri Schiavo thread
| April 5th, 2005As the previous Terri Schiavo thread threatens to reach 500 posts, I thought I’d start a new thread. Please use this thread to continue any discussions started on the three previous extra-huge Schiavo discussion threads.
To start us off, a few links:
The Gimp Parade has a collection of links to articles by disabled activists about the Schiavo case and its related issues. From Harriet McBryde Johnson’s Slate article:
There is a genuine dispute as to what Ms. Schiavo believed and expressed about life with severe disability before she herself became incapacitated; certainly, she never stated her preferences in an advance directive like a living will. If we assume that Ms. Schiavo is aware and conscious, it is possible that, like most people who live with severe disability for as long as she has, she has abandoned her preconceived fears of the life she is now living. We have no idea whether she wishes to be bound by things she might have said when she was living a very different life. If we assume she is unaware and unconscious, we can’t justify her death as her preference. She has no preference.
I think Johnson has a good point regarding changing preferences. However, if we accept that point, then why does it make a difference whether or not someone leaves a living will? If someone who is not yet disabled lacks the information needed to make an informed choice about life while disabled - and it seems to me that is probably true - then they don’t magically become more informed if they leave their wishes in the form of a living will, rather than in the form of talking to their spouses and loved ones.
See also this Washington Post article, which respectfully quotes disabled activists on both sides of the Schiavo issue (is that fair because it doesn’t pretend that all disabled activists agree, or unfair because it gives undue prominence to marginal dissenters from a genuine consensus?), and this critique of the disabled rights argument by Cathy Young. (Like Young, I just can’t get over my belief that there is a substantial difference between being disabled and having no cerebral cortex to speak of). Both links via Disability Law.
An “Alas” reader George F pointed out this article, “Before the Circus,” by a journalist who visited Terri Schiavo several years ago.
Back then, both sides were civil to one another. No one disputed that Terri was in a persistent vegetative state and had been for a decade. Or that an eating disorder probably had led to Terri’s cardiac arrest and collapse, not physical abuse by Michael as some now contend.
Nobody was a murderer, an abuser, an adulterer, a fanatic, a liar. They were just family, trying their best to do right by their daughter, wife, sister. [...]
After all these years, what haunts me is something Terri’s brother once said: “If Terri knew what this had done to this family, she would go ballistic.”
And he told me that before things spun out of control.
And, finally, a Schiavo-inspired post from the blog Transterrestrial Musings, which is noodling about with the question of self and soul. If we replaced someone’s brain with a mechanical brain, but the person still “feels” like herself, then does she still have a soul?
To the degree that I understand the concept of the soul, I can’t believe that it is associated simply with a body, living or breathing. To the degree that I believe in souls, I think of it as a different word for “mind.”
April 5th, 2005 at 7:50 am
And yet another link: This newspaper article looks at events from the point of view of workers and residents in the Hospice. Via Thrown Back.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 5th, 2005 at 12:28 pm
Ragged Edge has much better coverage of the disability perspective than my little blog. This article addresses the persistent question of why so many disabled folks insist that, cerebral cortex or no, Terri’s case IS one about disability rights.
This comment was written by blue.Report this comment to the moderators
April 5th, 2005 at 2:21 pm
Regarding what Amp says here:
This is the problem of the living will and the advanced directive. I’ve had the repeated experience in my life of getting — physically speaking — to a state of bodily impairment I didn’t think would be good to live with and then simply realizing that, regardless of my situation, I am not done with this life yet. This is the common experience of disabled folks. Despite this, no disability activist I am aware of has been advocating against legal documents defining the personal choices of individuals. If you want to bet your life on how you’ll feel about a situation you’ve never been in and put it into writing, that is your choice.
But this is not what happened in the Schiavo case. As Johnson states, there was genuine dispute about Terri Schiavo’s personal wishes. And in the end the courts decided that casual comments she made based on a movie her sister-in-law could not even recall the name of (or any details to identify what movie it might be) were enough to have her killed. It may very well have been a movie like Million Dollar Baby, which purposely dramatized spinal cord injury and it’s aftermath so grimly — and also so inaccurately — that euthanasia seemed a logical response. Propaganda rather than a living will decided Schiavo’s fate.
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April 5th, 2005 at 6:38 pm
Blue, first of all, thank you for this link. As a non-disabled (or maybe I should say not yet disabled?) person who has been trying to understand the disabled activist case regarding Terri Schiavo for a while, I found that the single clearest, most helpful thing I’ve yet read.
That said, I really don’t think that the article “addresses the persistent question of why so many disabled folks insist that, cerebral cortex or no, Terri’s case IS one about disability rights.” I mean, it sort of addresses that issue. It explains why disabled rights activists must care, and are right to care, about how Terri’s case is talked about and thought about in society.
But the article doesn’t lay out any philosophical basis for saying that it’s wrong to consider someone dead once their cortex is dead. And it really bends over backwards to assume nothing but the worse about anyone who they disagree with. For most disabled people, it is irrelevant if they will never recover, just as the article says; but for someone who is, in every way that counts, dead, it does matter that they will never recover.
The article seems to assume that anyone who thinks the lack of a cortex matters probably believes that anyone with a serious disability who will not recover would be better off dead. That’s just not true.
You’ve been misinformed (probably by propoganda). The court heard testimony that, at multiple situations such as (for one example) the funeral of a relative who had been kept alive past hope of recovery, Terri emphatically said she wouldn’t want to be kept alive that way.
The casual comment based on seeing a movie was on the “save Terri” side; there was testimony that Terri had seen a movie about Karen Quinlan (sp?) and said that she didn’t think KQ’s treatment should have been halted.
Especially now that the Terri Schiavo case has happened, it seems to me that this distinction between a living will and spoken comments to spouses, relatives and friends is weaker than ever. Almost everyone now knows that saying “I’d hate to be kept alive like that” may someday be used as evidence in court.
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April 5th, 2005 at 10:00 pm
I admit, I am not myself disabled, only the sister of a disabled person. So I guess it’s hard for me to understand the paranoia (even if often justified) of being euthanized against one’s will.
I guess what I would want, as a pro-choice type person, is to know what limits we should place on keeping people alive. I have heard of anti-abortion people smugly proclaiming that even ectopic pregnancies (which inevitably kill both mother and fetus) should not be ended. Is this the type of stance that disability rights advocates want to take for fear of the slippery slope?
And, yes, I have to admit that the following paragraph made me feel very defensive as a non-disabled person:
We’ve heard from many disability advocates whose physical disabilities have gotten worse over time while their mental state has remained the same. I realize how foolish this question will sound at first glance, but do we have testimony from people who suffered severe mental impairment? I suspect many disabled people are projecting their own situations onto Terri Schiavo’s but assuming they will retain their same mental capacity.
This comment was written by Mnemosyne.Report this comment to the moderators
April 5th, 2005 at 10:33 pm
In my experience with my clients, writing down such a preference is often made with no more reflection than the “acual comment” Terri’s parents talked about. (Thank you, Amp, for pointing out the inaccuracy there.) It is very easy, and very common, to say exactly the same sort of unreflective thing in writing.
But….is this necessarily the wrong answer? Terri wasn’t capable of changing her mind, because she had no mind to change. There is the occasional younger person who becomes severely disabled, but most of my clients who are thinking about such things are elderly, and what’s going to happen to them is an unstoppable slide towards total disability, a very painful one, probably as a result of cancer. And there really is a point on that slide where further treatment just makes everyone miserable, more miserable than they need to be. In other words, this was - obviously - a very unusual case.
I don’t know if Terris’ parents’ website is still up, but if it is, I’d read it with extreme caution. There are many just plain inaccuracies there, and I have to assume that that was deliberate. It isn’t intended to inform, it’s all about advocacy.
Does anyone notice how quiet Michael Schiavo still is? I respect that in him. I imagine he doesn’t want his new lady and their children exposed to any more media attention than necessary.
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April 6th, 2005 at 4:39 pm
Thanks for the interesting link and comments, blue.
People with disabilities can fear with more than a little justification that some attitudes to their care are very dangerous - to them, their loved and loving ones, and society at large. And I’d share many of those fears, and I’ll go on opposing both euthansia and assisted-dying.
To label Terri as “disabled” is in my view stretching the word way beyond its legitimate boundaries.
Of course some people change their minds about what degree of medical intervention they want and in what circumstances; others do not. But does that justify assuming that any one person would have changed their mind - I think not.
I’m wary of absolutes - most of the time we end up having to balance several different principles - and we have to draw a line somewhere, and provide a way to decide where each case lies with respect to the line. It’s common to provide as part of that decision process a “presumption” often “rebuttable” - so the general rule is “this side of the line if there’s no evidence one way or another”, but “that side of the line if there’s evidence to such-and-such standard of proof”.
I could accept as a starting point a presumption along the lines of “medical treatment and care should be continued” but that it should be rebuttable by the patient’s wishes in exercise of a right of self-determination.
I think that to insist that the only acceptable evidence of wishes (of someone who is unable to express, let alone form, current wishes) is that it should be WRITTEN, is going too far and unreasonably curtails the right of self-determination.
And this is where I return to what happened: the legislators had legislated, the court considered Terri’s wishes applying the legislated standard of proof (which happened to be the highest), made a determination, and eventually after many attempts to overturn it, ordered implementation.
This comment was written by Acrossthepond.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2005 at 9:31 pm
Hi there, Across, I’m over here now (Edinbugh) for a bit. (Ordinarily I’m in California.) Maybe I should rename myself?
Florida requires, as you point out, a very high standard: “clear and convincing” evidence of the person’s wishes. The default is to continue treatment. This is as it should be.
However, as Mnemosyne points out so acutely, extreme positions produce ridiculous results:
This is in fact the “official” position of Roman Catholic right-to-life folks. Or, in a more nuanced form, the entire affected fallopian tube can be removed, but the misplaced pregnancy cannot be cleared out with a drug (which can be done now, preserving not only the mom’s life but her fertility) because that would be murder.
When does common sense kick in?
It doesn’t.
A woman who wishes to have her 8-month fetus dismembered and removed does not belong in the same category as the woman who will die within a day of an ectopic pregnancy (hey, that was me in 1980) if something radical isn’t done immediately. Terri Schiavo and the blind student who just got an MD similarly cannot be treated alike.
blue, I loved your reference. It really opened up my head.
This comment was written by Susan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 7th, 2005 at 6:17 am
How would the Schiavo case be viewed if the issue were reframed? Two examples:
Jay Nordlinger of National Review prints this letter today:
And another:
This comment was written by Jack V..Report this comment to the moderators
April 7th, 2005 at 6:19 am
OK, I screwed up the links somehow. Sorry about that.
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April 7th, 2005 at 6:42 am
I would say we would have had an even greater media frenzy if Terri had been a lesbian etc..
This comment was written by Brad.However, while this points out issues that need to be looked at for the future, it really would not ( OK, SHOULD not ) have changed the case that we just saw. The law would stipulate that the parents were the legal guardian and that there was nothing to disqualify them from that standing. The parents view of Terri’s wishes would have been granted.
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April 7th, 2005 at 8:08 am
Jack, your hypothetical doesn’t make sense. You cast the parents as guardians, and seem to assume that it was the guardian (in the real case) who made the decision.
stop stop stop. It wasn’t “Michael Schiavo’s view” of what Terri wanted that mattered. He wasn’t even the most important witness in the court’s determination. It was what the court decided, by “clear and convincing evidence”, that Terri wanted.
It follows that if Terri had been a lesbian, or a Buddhist, or a fire-worshipper, or whatever, it shouldn’t and probably wouldn’t have made any difference.
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April 7th, 2005 at 9:45 am
Uh huh - no.
The parents’ EVIDENCE (if they had any) might have been ACCEPTED.
(to Susan - I hope you’re enjoying being this side of the pond again. Now you can enjoy the inanities of a British election!)
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April 7th, 2005 at 10:20 am
Across,
Well, if we could warm Scotland up a bit….
Terri’s parents’ evidence was accepted as it was. It just wasn’t as convincing as the evidence arguing the contrary conclusion.
(How - and even more why anyone would live in this climate is quite beyond me.)
This comment was written by Susan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 7th, 2005 at 11:23 am
Susan - we live here because it’s character building.
Even so, I’ll enjoy the next 4 weeks in the Mediterranean.
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April 7th, 2005 at 10:59 pm
What if it were Terri’s purpose to cause everyone to rethink these issues? I’d say she was successful. What if it was Terri’s purpose to simply make her family happy by being alive in some sense? If so then some men exercised their free will and Terri didn’t or maybe did fulfull her life’s goal. Maybe this was a test for Michael and/or Judge Greer and they failed. Maybe Terri was supposed to do her pennance on Earth for some time. My point is here that all things follow God’s grand plan. We exercise our free will and make choices through out our lives. God already knows what we are going to do and we all have to live with the concenquences of our choices. The choices we make help to develop our Spiritual beings either towards goodness or evil. My mother, after a lengthy illness, refused food and water on her own. It was not easy for me as she also wanted to be brought home and I cared for her until she died. I wanted her with me no matter what shape she was in. I was willing to care for her even though my children were small. She, on the other hand, did not want to be a burden and did not want to live bed ridden. She sufferred before she died. I am sure she did her pennance then and went straight to heaven or what ever anyone perceives heaven to be. If Terri could not feel pain, discomfort, or even know she was disabled, what difference would it had made if she were allowed to live? If not for Michael, then why not for the family? I perceive the ultimate conflict in this situation is the one concerning the power struggle that ensued. I too had once been married to a control freak and when I observe Michael S. I have memories which make parts of the family’s testimony seem plausible concerning this husband. In summary, for my spiritual self, I would prefer to error on the side of life than on the side of death. My LW will say to resucitate.
This comment was written by Catholic beliefs.Report this comment to the moderators
April 8th, 2005 at 12:14 am
The consistent throwing in of ‘faith’ as legitimate evidence is really disturbing. Not only is it incredibly Christian-centric, it’s also incredibly disrespectful of people with alternative beliefs.
What exactly is it that makes people feel so entitled to throw facts to the wind in lew of proselytizing? Not only is it insulting, it’s downright fucking annoying after a while. I feel molested by each and every post I read that goes on and on about what God would dictate/think/judge on issues. Please stick to the facts, thanks.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
April 8th, 2005 at 5:44 am
Catholic,
This comment was written by Regina.Are you aware of the violence involved in being resucitated at any cost?
If you are 70 or 80 yrs old and your LW says to resucitate, you know that when they do, they will be breaking your ribs and other bones to get your heart beating again? It is a not an even trade.
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April 8th, 2005 at 8:19 am
If Catholic wishes resuscitate in her living will that is her choice. A lot of that is subjective, and it is quite difficult to anticipate how we would feel about events that we can at this point only anticipate. From my limited point of view, I do not have a warm fuzzy feeling about M. Schiavo, only my opinion. Conversely, there is a lot I did not see first hand, the role of a guardian is not often an easy one.
It’s time for me to update my will for other reasons; the Schiavo matter is a catalyst, to include an appropriate clause.
So in my own case, I will do the best to make decisions so my daughters will not have to. All considered, it promises to be similar fun to write the will, as to having bronchitis, and doing income tax. Suppose I should start the will, while I’m finishing up the other two, for even more intense pleasure.
Kim, congratulations on the use of the f word, it does liven things up a bit. As far as feeling molested, I don’t see quite how, frankly after a week of bronchitis I wish I could feel some molestation from reading this stuff. Usually, all I get is irritation.
For the most part agree or not, this is interesting, and most posts seem to come from a more intelligent cut of the population, than from what I’d seen on some yahoo message boards.
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April 8th, 2005 at 9:30 am
While I can not locate a link to the original story, there was a man who died in Oregon in similar circumstances. He was on the Oregon Health Plan, which was cut severely a few years ago. He could not afford to buy his anti-seizure medication, had a grand mal seizure that broke major blood vessel(s), and went into PVS. After some months in ICU and hospice, his feeding tube was disconnected, and he died.
The irony of saving less than $20 per month in medication then spending over a $1,000,000 in hospital and hospice costs has been addressed by very few people in our state. However, the state legislature has reversed itself on paying for medications for adult patients.
Though he knew about his condition, and did his best to cope, he was young and left no written directives. His family was devastated, but agreed with the decision to disconnect life support. They couldn’t have afforded to pay for his care, or a lawyer, and I guess didn’t have the nerve to set up an internet site and beg for money. Where were the protestors at his bedside? Where was the media, the state governor, the federal government, the president of the US?
Which brings me to my point. This happens every day in our country. Someone’s feeding tube is disconnected without conscious volition on the patient’s part, without written directives. We had a media circus around the Schiavo and Schindler families, but nothing for those who are unable to exploit the internet and stir the pot. For those of you who are concerned disconnecting life support may become common, it already has become so. For those of you who are concerned that directives may be overturned in the future, I don’t think you need to worry. Only the noisey get the attention.
My personal views? For heavens sake, don’t anyone attempt to prevent my husband from kicking the plug out. I’ve promised to do the same for him.
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April 8th, 2005 at 9:47 am
Kim,
It’s not only the tossing in of THE ONE TRUE FAITH that’s offensive. It is the ignorance about one’s own faith that is truly appalling. I think it is safe to say that Catholic beliefs is a Catholic. It is my understanding of Catholicism that suicide is an unredeemable sin that condemns one to hell. Cb’s mother committed suicide by refusing food and water, yet Cb writes:
She sufferred before she died. I am sure she did her pennance then and went straight to heaven…
This flies in the face of the tenets of Cb’s own religion. It makes the tossing in of faith over fact so much more offensive when the writer then shows itself to be above its own faith. You know, according to my religion X, but I can believe Y and be absolute in my faith that I can do Y even though my religion explicitly refutes that.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 8th, 2005 at 12:14 pm
We’ll all be a lot happier here if we stick to our own knitting and leave off judging other people.
Jake, Cb’s mother didn’t commit a sin if she - the mother - thought what she was doing wasn’t a sin. Even if she was wrong. According to Catholics. Intention is everything. None of us has met Cb’s mother, and Cb is certainly entitled to think well of her.
Kim, someone stating their own beliefs is only “incredibly disrespectful” if that person is trying to force that belief on you. If the other person just makes a simple statement of his or her own position, any offense you feel has its roots somewhere in you, I would think. For example, if I state that I believe in God (I do), do you find that “insulting” and “annoying”? Whyever? I don’t feel insulted and annoyed when you say that you don’t (if you don’t).
I will say further that if one does believe in God, that fact - the existence of God - has to be taken into account in making decisions. If it isn’t, I’d question the sincerity of the belief. Does this bother you for some reason?
This end-of-life stuff is a very personal decision. That’s why everyone went to so much trouble over Terri Schiavo - to make sure that her own opinion, not the opinion of her husband, not the opinions of her parents, not the opinion of the Pope, not the opinions of a bunch of wise-acres here on the internet , Terri’s opinion - was respected, and her own decision carried out.
If Cb wants to be kept alive at all costs, that is its right, both legally and morally, whatever the reasons for the decision.
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April 8th, 2005 at 2:44 pm
I want to thank each of the contributers to this discussion. The ideas and thoughts of each of us are important.
This comment was written by Kathi.I am sad for Terry S. I am sad that she was emotionally disturbed enought to develop an eating disorder. I am sad that she suffered extreme brain damage as a result of her heart attack which was in turn a result of her e.d.. I am sad that her life turned into a public circus as well as a private torment to her family and husband.
I understand why the conservative christian activists felt obliged by their beliefs to become involved in what truly was none of their business. Yet I am offended by their very temerity; did not their god give humankind the right to choose in what to believe? Do not they themselves recognize that sometimes their god’s answer to prayers is a resounding NO?
I am outraged at our government for their blatent grasping for political collateral at the expense of Terry and her family. And I am once again disgusted with our media’s relentless pursuit of “dirty laundry”.
If we accept that Terry’s conscious brain was dead, that she would never recover consciousness, and that she made her wishes known in regard to her care in such a situation, then we must accept the outcome of the litigation.
It is sad her parents could not see beyond their will for her.
For myself and my family, her situation served as a catalyst for discussion. We all understand each other’s wishes more clearly now. God(s) willing, we will find the strength to accept the inevitable if it should come.
In regard to medical science, I must quote Jurassic Park; just becaus we can doesn’t mean we should.
Thanks for reading my first blog.
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April 8th, 2005 at 2:57 pm
This is the crux of the issue right here:
Seems you’re more than willing to impose your wants and beliefs on others while at the same time reserving your own right to choose. That is exactly the “difference” you inquired about.
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April 8th, 2005 at 2:57 pm
Susan,
Thanks for the correction. It is always good to learn new things.
I don’t feel insulted and annoyed when you say that you don’t (if you don’t).
Wow, that’s a first for me. Most people do feel insulted if you say that you don’t believe in god. And it is almost understandable. For a lot of people, saying that you don’t believe in god strikes at the core of their self-identification and, as such, is not only insulting but also threatening.
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April 8th, 2005 at 3:34 pm
Oddly enough, Susan, I’ve followed your posts and seen the occassional references to devout catholocism. I even considered posting that you were one of the few within these discussions that has seemed consistently capable of seperating the two. It’s likely that a great deal of my spleen venting in the last post was due to having just read the Michael Schiavo is everyman thread, in which the bible is thumped with a fervor.
Perhaps I should more clearly define my position, that I think that spiritual beliefs while often being a very core part of a person are for the edification and comfort of the person that has them, not for the spewing of everyone around them. Religious diatribes, no matter how poetic or poignant are misplaced in these discussions, as they are attempts at avoiding facts and using unproven hypothesis in lew of genuine logic, debate and understanding of a subject.
As the squid said, if I had come out swinging everytime a person in these threads started proselytizing with anti-Christian or anti-God rhetoric that was supportive of a different religion or worse yet no religion and used that as the basis for my arguments on the Schiavo case, I’m sure it would have shocked and offended many of the more sermonizing types into some really caustic posts.
That said, the constant interruption of the discussion by these posts has just worn thin on me.
Dan,
Sorry if the use of the word fucking offended, it simply was the most appropriate epitaph I had at the moment to vent away the genuine feeling of religiously motivated belief-molestation I feel when reading some of these posts. Couple that with being in the later stages of my first trimester and having a nasty cold, and I tend to be a bit edgy and biting in my commentary.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
April 8th, 2005 at 6:28 pm
Check this one: http://www.terrisfight.org/documents/wf-Schiavo.pdf
Maybe the response to question #40 is in their favor, other than that I can but wonder why they put this on their site. But then again, I guess it’s intended for their devoted followers, sharing their definition of conflicting “evidence”, being disabled, etc.
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April 8th, 2005 at 8:34 pm
Kim,
I took no offense at all, kind of got a kick out of it. Growing up in an Irish Catholic midwest farm family, I learned a lot of epitaphs (we called em cuss words), bet I know a few you might not. One was Sh_t & Molasses.
Bronchitis is making me a grouchy also. I just wonder, if any of us would be writing any of this if we were all on the beach somewhere sipping a drink of what ever. Hopefully, I’d have enough sense to leave the notebook in the room.
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April 8th, 2005 at 10:48 pm
Kathi, thank you, I’d have to agree with everything you say about the Terri situation. The part everyone seems to have been anxious to avoid talking about, but one important lesson for the living, is eating disorders can kill. It’s important that anyone with an eating disorder get treatment immediately. And yes, my family and I have done some talking about what we would want too, and my clients no longer start for the door when I mention Advance Directives for Health Care. So there is that too. Some good may come out of this deplorable tragedy.
Squid, my man, I can’t imagine why anyone would be offended by your statements of non-belief.
In extensive discussions of this topic (I’ve been around a long time, and once I was an undergraduate even) I’ve heard this statement on innumerable occasions, and I’ve never been offended by it. Interested, yes. I always ask someone making that declaration to expain to me the god he or she doesn’t believe in. Invariably I find that I don’t believe in that god either, so we have that much in common, for starters. If you were here, we could go out to the pub (I’m temporarily in Scotland) or the Starbucks, your choice, and have a great talk. If by any chance you’re in Edinburgh, notify me immediately. Really. It’s an oldie, but it’s still one of the most interesting discussion topics around.
Kim. Oh, you’re pregnant. If this helps at all, you’re at the very worst part. Things only get better from here. Yes, I know all those women hobbling around big as houses look miserable, but they’re not as miserable as you are. Hang in there. (For all I know this is your fifth child and you already know all this.)
I find religious ranting and raving nearly as distasteful as you do, possibly because the hidden - but not very well hidden - message is usually I am better than everyone else or some such. And because I am better than everyone else everyone has to do as I say. Jesus of Nazareth, whatever else you may think about him, loathed people like that, and said so on every available occasion, which is a big part of why he got killed. That type hates being called on it.
I’m on holiday, that’s why I have time. But I post anyway even when I’m not. Probably I’m feeling a bit isolated when I’m not on vacation. When I’m at home I work a lot, and I raised a seriously disabled child, now 23. In the course of that experience I sort of lost touch with a lot of my friends, and my kid was so odd that most of my neighbors avoid us now. And I work alone. Possibly I should join a firm, if only for company. I’m with my elder daughter and her family in Edinburgh now, and she has a 4 year old and a 1 year old, so actually I don’t have as much time to post as I do at home.
The discussions on this blog are certainly a cut above the ordinary, and for this forum, we thank you, Ampersand.
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April 8th, 2005 at 11:54 pm
An article from Socialist Worker on disability activists and well-known liberals like Jesse Jackson and Ralph Nader siding with their enemies: Liberal allies of the right in Schiavo case
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April 9th, 2005 at 12:13 am
Susan,
This is my second pregnancy, in fact! To give you a bit of background, I’m one of Amp’s housemates (my husband, daughter and I live in the garden-level apartment of the house), mother to the lovely Sydney Quinn, whom often makes pictorial appearances on the blog after Amp and my husband have gone on wacky snap-shot binges.
Interestingly enough, I was probably the most hesitant in the house with regards to concluding that Terri Schiavo’s wishes were being honored. I started out with a healthy dose of skepticism and finally came to the conclusion like you, that ultimately we had to put our faith in the courts that they reviewed the case (which they did repeatedly) to the best of their abilities to discern what she would have wanted. I would not have objected if the courts had decided the case warranted more scrutinization, but they did not, and this decision alone, when considering the seriousness of the case was enough to convince me that each of the courts had done their job and there wasn’t anything left to conclude.
I hate that she didn’t have a living will, I hate that we don’t allow euthenasia such as we have in Oregon, but ultimately I came to the conclusion that whatever moral issues I have about the actions of the Schiavo’s, the Schindlers, the lawyers and in general manners of euthenasia, the only opinion that truly mattered was that of Terri Schiavo. Being that I’ve attempted very much to restrict my own moralizing, I’m grouchy at people who don’t, and worse yet, people who flagrantly moralize and leave all fact behind. On this board, that seems in most cases to be people that are thumping their bibles while they do so.
Hope that provides a bit more insight!
Best Regards,
Kim
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
April 9th, 2005 at 1:44 am
Well, good luck with this pregnancy too, Kim!
There is a certain cast of blog posters - fortunately rather rare on this blog - who just scream the same thing over and over, “based” on their personal view of morality. These folks just don’t listen to reason, or to anything else. You can explain the rule of law to them a hundred times, but it never registers; they want the rule of Themselves. This comes, often enough (but not always) cloaked in “morality,” but in fact it is not a moral claim, it is a claim of personal infallibility, which is anything but moral.
These people should logically be criticizing Terri Schiavo as a suicide, but that’s too complicated for them, so they demonize her husband, the courts, you, me, whoever.
The courts determined, after several exhaustive trials, that Terri wanted that tube pulled. That’s how we determine disputed facts here, and I personally don’t have any suggestions for a better method, so we go with that. Whether I agree with it or not. Because it’s not my life, it was hers.
That’s what bothers me about the moralizers. They are perfectly free to hold and implement their own decisions about their own lives. What is not legitimate is to force those opinions on other people. The Peter Singers of this world are just as obnoxious as the bible-thumpers; however, that type hasn’t shown up on this blog.
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April 9th, 2005 at 2:02 am
Susan,
Your statement that intention is everything in the Catholic Church needs a bit of qualification. As the Catholic catechism puts it: ‘no one is deemed to be ignorant of the principles of the moral law, which are written in the conscience of every man.’ There are serious sins that remain serious sins whoever commits them and whatever they think about them. Even non-Catholics cannot be excused by invincible ignorance, an ignorance of the law that cannot be removed by any effort that the person can reasonably be expected to make. Murder, I think, would come in this category. It is a serious sin even if the person who commits it has managed to convince himself that it is not.
Then there are serious sins that are sins for everyone but that non-Catholics would not be at fault for committing if they did not think they were sinful. Contraception, I think, would come in this category. It is considered a sin against the natural law but not against the basic principles of natural law.
Then there are serious sins that are sins only for Catholics. Missing mass on Sunday would be one of these.
Which category does suicide fall in? Not the third, obviously, but I am not sure if it would come in the first or second.
For Catholics there is a further complication. If they commit a sin in the second category, believing that it is a sin and knowing that the Church teaches that it is a sin, then they are guilty. If they genuinely do not believe it to be a sin and are unaware that the Church teaches that it is a sin they are not guilty. But what if they know that the Church teaches that it is a sin but they genuinely do not believe it to be sinful? There is no clear Catholic teaching on this situation. Some theologians and priests say one thing, some another. The catechism could be interpreted either way.
Thinking about the Catholic teaching on serious sin has made me wonder if it explains the behaviour of the Schindlers. I have been horrified by their treatment of Terri but perhaps it is explained if they thought they might be keeping her out of Hell for a while. Terri was a Catholic but she did not attend mass regularly and I understand she used contraception. Therefore it is quite likely that she was not in a state of grace when she had the heart attack. If she never had a functioning mind after that she would have been incapable of contrition. The Schindlers may have thought that they could be delaying her eternal torture for a few years. This is pure speculation on my part. I have read nothing to suggest that they thought that way at all but it would explain a lot.
This comment was written by Katherine.Report this comment to the moderators
April 9th, 2005 at 7:19 am
Washington Post
This is, of course, the same Phyllis Schlafly who earlier this week said:
Schlafly
Good thing she’s tone deaf b/c the cognitive dissonance is overwhelming.
This comment was written by Regina.Report this comment to the moderators
April 9th, 2005 at 7:22 am
Kim, do you know my friend ideath? Ouroboros?
Just checking. I know Oregon’s bigger than one small town.
This comment was written by Susan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 9th, 2005 at 7:27 am
Phyllis would benefit by a refresher course in high school civics, which she obviously failed the first time around.
This comment was written by Susan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 9th, 2005 at 7:43 am
That’s not precisely true, Katherine. Or, it may be true enough, but we don’t know which sins those are exactly. First, you’re assuming that all these cases are more clear-cut than they tend to be; second, you’re assuming everyone is sane and furthermore in full possession of his or her faculties.
For example, it is allegedly a “natural law” that suicide is gravely sinful, but it is not a “natural law” that cutting off artificial feeding tubes is suicide - quite the contrary. Theologians disagree quite a bit on that one. Suicide is gravely sinful, but….what if you are too mentally ill at the time to form a fully sane judgment? The Church will excuse that, just as the law excuses murder in the hopelessly insane. It is a “natural law” that murder is gravely sinful, but when is deadly force justifiable in self defense? in war? in family feuds? is it murder to turn off the respirator? What if the murderer is a paranoid schizophrenic, and really believes the victim is a grave danger to himself? what if this happens in a cultural context in which the killing is expected and accepted by everyone for some reason, as elderly parents were said to be abandoned on the ice by the Inuit? Doesn’t the intent of the parties bear in on this situation?
In other words, the Catholic Church recognizes the “big picture”, the easy calls, just as everyone else does. It’s pretty obvious to the normal person that if someone who is perfectly sane and in control of himself jumps on a stranger out of a dark alley in peacetime, in one of the modern western industrialisms, and slits his throat, this is not exactly OK. But when we get to the tough questions, all this business of intent comes into play to muddy up the waters.
For this reason among others Jesus instructed us not to judge other people. If some hierarchs in the Church have forgotten this piece of advice, well, maybe they should go back and re-read the gospels.
This comment was written by Susan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 9th, 2005 at 7:44 am
Susan,
Although we haven’t always agreed, I also have a learning disabled child (daughter of 28), so it appears we might have a couple of things in common.
It seems the subject has changed a bit, to Catholism. I really wasn’t trying to be mean, when I hurled that phrase back to you, but I did. I don’t consider myself a shining example of a devout Catholic.
Since then, I’ve thought about what it means to be a good Catholic, the best I can come up with, is trying to act in the manner in which Christ would have. He seemed not to bent on materialism (getting ticked at some vendors doing business in church on Sunday), he was not especially enthused over rock tossers or groups of many picking on one, his choice of friends I believe included working class, and an ex-prostitute. From what little I know he seemed not to give a damn about what the generalized popular view of society was at the time.
He had courage to literally die for his convictions. All in all he is a tough act to follow morally. Then there are miracles.
So for me on the Schiavo matter, I wonder what Christ would say. It’s a tough question, with limited information, from over a thousand miles away, and with only my puny human brain to think with. I’m not even going to guess what he might have, said. My base instinct on the matter is that wrong was done.
This comment was written by dan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 9th, 2005 at 9:42 am
dan,
What would Jesus do, huh. Well, now you’ve made me think some.
This question makes me think of a story. I don’t know if anyone remembers James Kopp - you can still Google him and get a website praising him as a hero and a martyr. I have some astonishingly right-wing Catholic friends, and I actually knew Jim, and corresponded with him some while he was hiding out in France.
Jim was into shooting abortion doctors. He winged a few, and finally he killed one, by accident he said, but it was bound to happen sooner or later. How many times can you shoot people from a distance before you kill one? This is an accident? The authorities caught up with him, and he won’t be seeing the outside of a prison, ever, I hope. While legally sane, Jim’s actually nuts. He said if they let him out he’ll do it again, and I for one believe him.
There are actually people who idolize this man, analogizing his killing of a physician by shooting through his lit-up kitchen window with a high-powered rifle to the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler. Jim killed a mass murderer, is how they see it, and as a result some unknown number of innocent babies survived. Believe me, I’ve heard all the arguments.
But no matter how I twist my head around, I just can’t see Jesus out there in that guy’s back yard in the dark with a rifle in his hands.
Is Terri’s case like that? What would Jesus have done about Terri? I picture him there, and he miraculously heals her…but that’s not the answer. He’s not available for that usually these days. And he didn’t have to deal with technology like ours. In his time, Terri would have died that first night, end of story.
Does he stand at her bedside and say, keep this empty shell of a body alive for another 40 years, her soul is still in there, she has something to learn yet, and something to teach?
Perhaps he does. Yes, perhaps.
But this isn’t a Christian country in the sense that the ideals of Jesus guide the state. (There is no such country, and never has been, to my knowledge.) If it were, I think we could all agree that this would be a very different place, and I don’t personally think the survival of Terri Schiavo would be the biggest change. (There’s the little matter of wars of aggression, for example…) And while most people think love is a good thing, not everyone thinks it “practical” (whatever that may mean).
I think we did the best we could, given the givens. But now I too, like you, wonder if somehow the wrong side won.
This comment was written by Susan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 9th, 2005 at 9:42 am
Susan,
I think you may have misunderstood me. I was not saying that the status of particular sins is clear-cut for the Catholic Church. I am sure theologians could probably spend years arguing about every case. I was disagreeing with what I took to be your view of Catholic teaching, that nothing can be a sin if the person committing it thinks it is not a sin. This is definitely not the Catholic view. I mentioned murder as an example of a serious sin that remains a sin whoever commits it. On reflection, it was not a good example because of the difficulty of deciding whether a particular killing constitutes murder.
Yes, you are right about mental illness. The Catholic Church would say that a person who is so mentally ill that they are incapable of forming a normal judgment about the morality of an action could not be guilty of serious sin.
The suicide that Jake was talking about, however, that of Catholic beliefs’ mother, did not involve mental illness, as far as we know. Neither did it involve a feeding tube. It seems to have been a straightforward suicide, though carried out for the most charitable of motives. Any Catholic priest, if consulted at the time, would have said that this suicide involved grave matter. Most would, I think, add that it might well be a mortal sin, even if Catholic beliefs’ mother thought it was the right thing to do. Like Jake, I am puzzled that this does not seem to have occurred to Catholic beliefs.
I should add that I am not myself a Catholic. I do not believe that there is such a thing as mortal sin or such a place as Hell. As I see it, Catholic doctrines are untrue and the cause of enormous suffering in the world. I am glad Catholic beliefs is not worrying about her mother, although I am puzzled by it, and I hope that I am wrong in thinking that the Schindlers may now be worrying about Terri.
This comment was written by Katherine.Report this comment to the moderators
April 9th, 2005 at 10:04 am
Ah, but Katherine, we don’t know the whole story. You assume that mental illness was not involved, but that’s only an assumption. There are any number of other factors which we do not know, and which bear very much on this situation.
This is a confident statement. There are something like 40,000 Roman Catholic priests in the United States. It is my experience that you can find a priest who will say anything whatever that you want him to say if you look long enough, and sometimes you don’t have to look too far at all.
Furthermore, if the mother sincerely believed she was doing the right thing, then it wasn’t a sin. According to the Catholic Church, officially. She may have been mistaken in her belief, but that’s an entirely different matter. There is no way, according to Catholic theology (about which I know quite a bit, by the way) that you can commit a sin if you really and truly believe that you are doing the right thing. Suicide is “objectively” gravely sinful (whatever that may mean) but that does not mean, according to the Church, that everyone who deliberately destroys himself has committed a grave sin, or any sin at all.
Saying that “murder” is always a sin, of course, assumes the conclusion, as you recognize.
If you are not a Catholic, perhaps you don’t know as much about Roman Catholic theology as I do, who have been a Catholic for sixty years, and have studied theology.
This comment was written by Susan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 9th, 2005 at 12:02 pm
In my OPINION: T. Schindler’s mistake was not in not leaving a living will but in not leaving a living creep.
For anyone to even remotely imply that at it’s root she committed suicide by eating disorder is simplistic and repugnant. Ditto for blaming her parents for causing her to be emotionally dysfuctional.
My concern about this whole case is this: In the absence of my leaving a credible and tangible directive (readable or viewable) to allow me to die with no intervention or comforting supports in the event of a catastrophic health condition, or in the absence of my having been duly convicted of a crime, should any court in this land have the legal power to orchestrate my death, especially by what I consider to be a cruel and unusual punishment?
There are legal minds who have questions as to Judge Greer’s efficacy in reviewing all evidence and making a truly objective ruling. If this is indeed the case, then laws need to be changed to prevent such . Thinking people are aware that judges and juries are not perfect and are influenced by unconscious biases and overt agendas. Innocent persons languish in prisons for years, put there by the best available evidence at the time (which often did not have the standard of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ applied), only to be freed later because of DNA evidence or the recanting of witness testimony. Who knows how many of the innocent have been executed? To my way of thinking, one is too many.
It is also my opinion that individuals who “label” others with whom they disagree are resorting to art of “smearing,” reprehensible method of attempting to discredit those against whom they cannot launch a well analyzed rebuttal.
Interesting reading at: http://myopiczeal.blogsome.com/2005/03/25/cast-of-characters-in-the-schiavo-case/
This comment was written by dispassionate reader.Report this comment to the moderators
April 9th, 2005 at 12:28 pm
It occurs that most of us on here have really struggled with this, I don’t envy the judge, at all, tough position, so easy to toss a nay word at him. I think not so easy to sit in his shoes.
I believe once Christ said, something like “Whatever you do to the least amongst you, you also do to me”. So if Terri, was least, so far in mental strength in that situation, was she freed to go to her spiritual home as her former self probably did state, or was her life ended prematurely, denying her some elemental joy felt each time her family came near. Tomorrows science will be better, someday we may find things that would have changed our view of this situation entirely. It’s really quite a quandary, maybe what counts is that anyone with conscience did agonize. Maybe it’s a test of all of us, that we gave enough of a damn to care, and struggled with what was right.
One figure I always thought a bit more villainized than he should have been in history is Pontius Pilate, from what I remember, he argued, and eventually gave Christ over, but only after pressure, and he washed his hands of the matter. So perhaps he was a man of some conscience, maybe what counts, is that he once agonized, does he now reside with Christ?
This comment was written by dan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 9th, 2005 at 1:04 pm
dan, as you probably know, there are two ancient (and contradictory) traditions about Pilate.
All we know for sure, from the historical record, is that he was removed from his post a few years after Christ died, for unnecessary cruelty and corruption. Considering the rather low standards of the Roman occupying power for required honesty and compassion, he must have been quite a piece of work that even Rome couldn’t tolerate him.
The one tradition says that shortly after that he killed himself. The other tradition says that he became a Christian.
Perhaps he is us. We’re not quite sure, but like Pilate, we do agonize about it, so I think there is something worth saving in Pilate and in us too.
This comment was written by Susan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 9th, 2005 at 3:00 pm
Susan, I agree, although I didn’t remember that about him. I don’t hold any respect for anyone who would shoot at a doctor simply because he or she performs abortions. I imagine, those same doctors may have also saved some lives.
Thinking about Terri, in the last days, bothers me, as I’m somewhat visual in nature, and they say that a body bleeds at the eyes. I remember what Christ said about doing to the least we do to him. To be honest it does form a lump in my throat, a tear in my eye, and I really don’t like that.
We have a friend, female, an ex-stripper. I was going to invite her to my wifes surprise birthday party (as a friend, not entertainment), and all of her friends I asked about it told me not to, later my wife told me that I was wrong, that I should have invited her. That is what I felt also at the time, but I was weak, and went with their view.
Later on I ran across the woman, and apologized to her. She said she understood, adding that society kind of sucks. So you see in my view, I was not a very good Catholic, for not inviting her. I guess there are always diverse ways of looking at things.
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April 10th, 2005 at 12:28 am
dan,
Well, you’ve very right - there are always diverse ways of looking at things, and it’s sometimes hard to find the right path. As to your friend, you were trying to find the right thing to do, the loving thing to do, and maybe you got it wrong. But I’d think that you get credit for trying.
You say that Jim was wrong to shoot the abortion doctor because the doctor probably saved many lives as well.
I say that as a society, we can’t live with people who decide to shoot at anybody in the dark of night for any reason whatever. For that same reason. That there are a lot of ways of looking at things. For Jim, Dr. Slepian was a mass murderer, and taking him out was a virtuous act. For someone else, someone like me who occasionally defends people who don’t want to pay their taxes may be a traitor to the Homeland, and then I get shot. For someone else, Ampersand, who runs a mildly liberal blog, is the Antichrist, and then he gets shot. And so forth, until the only guy left is the guy who’s the quickest draw with an AK47, and God alone knows who’s been caught in the crossfire.
I have to oppose that for the same reason that I defended the cessation of Terri’s feeding tube: I believe in the rule of law. I’m pledged by oath to believe in it and defend it, but I believe in it anyway. It’s not the Kingdom. It’s a slimy, dirty business. It makes a lot of mistakes. But it’s the best we have, and the alternative, so far as I can see, is a society where people ambush one another in supermarket parking lots with shotguns, or shoot through lighted dining room windows late at night.
So even if Dr. Slepian had spent all day every day performing partial-birth abortions, I can’t approve of what Jim did.
There are heroes, moral heroes, who break the law in a good cause, and who are willing to suffer for that. (I don’t include Jesus here, because that whole “trial” was trumped up, and the charges were fabricated.) I can respect that. I think. But I’m personally glad that Jim Kopp is locked up.
This comment was written by Susan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 10th, 2005 at 1:07 am
In response to Katherine:
They may have believed that, but it would be a very bizarre belief, and most of all, not actually supported by Catholic orthodoxy. Just so it’s clear, I’m not here to “defend” that orthodoxy, I only have experience of it from being raised a Catholic, in fact I am quite busy undoing the effects of a strict upbringing, so whatever non-flattering opinions of Catholicism I may have now, I do know some little bit about it.
The “state of grace” in the Catholic doctrine is not dependent on acts, so it’s not dependent on sins, it’s believed be a gift from God, and the believer can only accept it or refuse it. They cannot engender that state themselves.
Amongst other things, as everyone knows, Church disapproves of contraception, homosexuality, sex before marriage, and encourages believers to go to mass every Sunday - but ignoring these teachings is in no way presented as an entry ticket for hell. In fact there’s nothing in official teachings that says, if you do this and follow all the rules even on the most venial matters, you’ll be guaranteed a place in heaven; if you don’t do this, you’ll go straight to hell.
Not even with suicide - priests still officiate funerals for suicides, and they don’t prounounce words of hellfire condemnation for the deceased, not just out of respect for the relatives and friends attending the ceremony, but because no priest can do that. Not even the Pope can do that. Sure, unlike Protestant churches, Catholicism insisnts on figures of religious authority to the point it gets close to personality cult, but not even they are not supposed to pronounce divine judgement on the salvation of a single individual.
The Pope even forgave the man who tried to kill him. How could Terri’s parents think that use of contraception could be worse than attempted murder?
Not even murder is considered automatically unforgivable. Nothing is unforgivable, in Catholicism. It’s all up to divine mercy, ultimately. The preaching on sins, coupled with the sacrament of confession and absolution, is supposed to be an indication for believers, and also work in terms of social control, like a set of laws, a bit like Islamic shariah but without the actual physical punishment for violations - even with the most serious offenses are committed, the judge sentence remains unscrutable because the judge is believed to be God, not those who are believed to be its representatives.
So, it’s quite unlikely Terri’s parents had that sort of belief if they knew anything about Catholicism, besides, even if they had gotten such a warped version of it to be really convinced their daughter would be going to hell, it would not really make sense for them to believe keeping her in that state for another forty years would change anything.
(It feels surreal to be even saying that…)
Honestly, I don’t think her parents, for all they can be criticised for, were that much of a walking caricature, really. I would imagine a far simpler explanation for their behaviour: an extremely obstinate refusal to accept what had happened to their daughter. That would seem to me a more likely and more understandable reaction, even if the outcomes were not, really.
This comment was written by monica.Report this comment to the moderators
April 10th, 2005 at 1:12 am
I enjoyed reading your comments very much, Susan.
“In his time, Terri would have died that first night, end of story.”
Exactly. Amazing how that little detail gets completely forgotten by those who think that if Jesus had been in the place of judges (!) he would have definitely “ruled” differently.
Not to mention, no one, believer or not, can say what Jesus would have done if he’d been there, because it’s impossible to answer that question without bringing our own individual beliefs, experiences, habits and social and cultural background into the answer. Unless we believe that our thoughts and convictions can be the direct product of divine intervention - not even inspired by, but 100% straight from the mind of God; which is a bit of a dramatic statement to make for anyone who is, um, not God…
So anytime someone says, Jesus would have or would not have done this, they’re not answering the ‘what would have Jesus done’ question, but ‘what would Jesus do if he was me’, which is the same as, ‘what would I do if I was Jesus’. So we might as well be honest and just say, this is what *I* would have done and this is how *I believe* the teachings of Jesus should be *interpreted*, and leave all other speculations about the actual behaviour of Jesus out of it.
Sorry to get so pedantic on you all. I always thought, it’s quite frustrating already that Jesus spoke in parables that have been passed on via second-hand reports and translated and re-translated across different languages and eras, but that’s not reason enough to go and complicate it even further by *trying to guess* what else he *might* have said in very specific terms on very specific issues he didn’t have to deal with at the time…
Whatever happened to individual moral conscience? That’s still acknowledged even in Catholic catechism. People make their own decisions. It’s “dangerously” close to relativism for the teachings of such an authoritarian church, so that’s probably why they don’t advertise it that much, but it’s there.
This comment was written by monica.Report this comment to the moderators
April 10th, 2005 at 1:49 am
Just another thing - on the suicide vs. removing feeding tube debate, and on the gospel teaching about not judging others, what Susan writes is the way I understood it too, though I’m not a theological expert.
I also recall hearing about a theological debate on the fate of Judas, there are those who suppose he might still have been saved, also because his betrayal was instrumental to the grand masterplan…
So even with clear-cut suicide with no “mitigating circumstances”, while it’s definitely considered a sin, it’s not considered an unforgivable one, because, again, the idea is, only God can know what’s in the heart of an individual, the ultimate absolution is in the hands of God. So even someone who always lived by “the rules” has no “guarantee” of anything. There’s a lot of parables on this in the gospels. And besides, the idea in Catholicism is everyone is a sinner, so everyone has to accept they can only have faith in divine mercy.
Catholic teachings can be very stifling, but, to be fair, it must be said that there is also a great emphasis on that concept of forgiveness.
Also, on the specific case and pronouncements of the Vatican: statements of that kind are not dogma, they are as much political stances as anything, besides, the Cardinal who condemned the removal of the feeding tube said even for the Pope, all would be done to keep him alive. But the Pope went and decided he would not go to hospital and would not accept to be kept alive artificially when he knew he was dying anyway. So that kind of screwed up the cardinal’s statement a bit.
But seriously, apart from that, there are indeed disagreements even in Catholic circles because no one can draw a direct equivalence with removing artificial life support with murder or suicide. Terri’s case is not about euthanasia. And it’s not clear at all that a feeding tube for a person in a vegetative state is *not* an unnecessary life support measure like breathing machines. Many, even in the Catholic church, argue it is.
There was a case in Italy a few years ago when a man, whose wife was in hospital with terminal cancer, broke into the hospital room with a gun, to threaten anyone who’d get in his way, got to his wife’s room and pulled the plugs of the equipment that was keeping her alive. She was in great pain and had expressed to her husband that desire not to unnecessarily prolong her suffering, but the doctors would not take such a step themselves (laws are a lot muddier in Italy on this). The courts recognised this and acquitted the husband. He went home to mourn his wife and asked journalists to leave him alone, he never even said anything outside of court. It was a sensational case, but basically everyone recognised the extreme sadness and pain of the situation, how the husband had acted out of compassion, and I don’t even recall a single word of condemnation from the Vatican. I may have missed it, but I honestly don’t recall them taking a position on that. Maybe because it wasn’t a politically hot case and there was no dramatic divergence of opinions and no political involvement? I may be cynical, but I get that impression.
This comment was written by monica.Report this comment to the moderators
April 10th, 2005 at 3:59 am
dispassionate,
So, you want a legal requirement that directions about end of life care be in writing or on videotape. Not such a big change in the law as all that. Write your elected representative. At the State level, please, the federal government has no proper place in this debate.
So what, in your view, do we do with people who have neglected to provide us with that evidence? Do we keep them alive by whatever means, for as long as we can? That, too, can be written into law (though you might give a thought to just who is going to pay for all this when my generation, the boomers, are all on life support). You might include that thought in your letter to your state senator and representative.
As you note in your name, there is no reason to rant and rave here. Do be prepared, however, to lose this one if the majority of your fellow citizens are of another opinion.
This comment was written by Susan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 10th, 2005 at 5:17 am
Susan,
It may well be true that you know a lot more about Roman Catholic theology than I do but it is possible to know something about a religion without belonging to it or even liking it.
You say that: ‘There is no way, according to Catholic theology …. that you can commit a sin if you really and truly believe that you are doing the right thing.’ Perhaps that is true but presented like that, without any explanation, the sentence gives a misleading impression of Catholic teaching. It depends, I suppose, on what you mean by ‘really and truly.’
Invincible ignorance does remove guilt but invincible ignorance is not always present. No one can be invincibly ignorant of the basic principles of natural law and some would argue that invincible ignorance of the sinful nature of an act is not possible for a Catholic who knows the teaching of the Church about that act.
Even where invincible ignorance is possible it may be that the ignorance is vincible. Vincible does not mean unreal or insincere; it refers to an ignorance that could be removed by actions that the person could reasonably be expected to make. It does not remove the guilt from a sinful act. Some forms of invincible ignorance do reduce the guilt but other forms do not and may even increase it. As the catechism puts it: ‘Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.”? Feigned ignorance here refers to affected ignorance and not pretended ignorance.
This comment was written by Katherine.Report this comment to the moderators
April 10th, 2005 at 5:26 am
I would like to correct something in my last post. I meant to write: ‘Some forms of vincible ignorance do reduce the guilt but other forms do not and may even increase it.’
This comment was written by Katherine.Report this comment to the moderators
April 10th, 2005 at 10:49 am
Katherine,
Dishonest ignorance isn’t honest ignorance? How startling.
This comment was written by Susan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 10th, 2005 at 11:18 am
monica
Indeed they are. I suppose political figures (that’s who we’re talking about here - surely you didn’t imagine that most Cardinals are spiritual leaders?) are entitled to make political statements. And we’re entitled to take them in the spirit in which they’re given.
This comment was written by Susan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 10th, 2005 at 11:20 am
monica, you’re my kind of Catholic.
This comment was written by Susan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 10th, 2005 at 11:49 am
It will be interesting to see what they have to say about the results of the autopsy. Doubt if it settles much of anything, suppose it might give rise to new arguments.
Susan,
“I say that as a society, we can’t live with people who decide to shoot at anybody in the dark of night for any reason whatever. ” Your quote there, and I agree 100%, other than for defense of life.
This comment was written by dan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 10th, 2005 at 12:10 pm
Self defense, and defense of ones family, friends etc.. Didn’t want to be missunderstood, as to including beyond that.
This comment was written by dan.Report this comment to the moderators