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Thursday, March 31, 2005

Be at peace, Terri Schiavo
Posted by Jill | 10:32 AM
MSNBC is reporting that Terri Schiavo has died, hours after her parents' last appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court.

This is not a happy day for anyone, not even those of us who were appalled at the political circus that grew around this case. I'm at an age now where it's hard to see people my own age die, let alone someone younger. And yet, I feel that the time to grieve for this woman was fifteen years ago, when her relentless efforts to conform to society's view of what a woman's body should look like took their toll and robbed her of her very selfhood.

At this point, I have to separate out my contempt for her parents for their willingness to be part of the Christofascist agenda, and their cynical selling of the names of the people who believed in their cause, and their clear regard of their daughter as property; from the kind of human sympathy one has for parents who lose a beloved child. Despite the hoopla, this has been an ordeal for them, and at least for now, it's time to lay off.

As for Terri Schiavo herself, my own spiritual beliefs tell me that this was a task she had to complete during this incarnation; and it's not for us to try to understand why this is. At any rate, I hope she finds peace and that better things await her next time around.

Now I think we as a society have to focus on exactly how we're going to deal with medical technology, and what constitues "life." And anyone who doesn't currently have a living will (and that includes me) had damn well better get one, PDQ.

A commenter at Kos posits some very good questions we need to address NOW:

  1. How much of a brain counts as 'human enough' to preclude questions of whether to sustain life-support? At what point should it be a state decision? At what point should it be up to the spouse or immediate family?

  2. How much hope of partial or full recovery is needed to justify continued life-support?

  3. When should a feeding tube deemed extraordinary care? Now that the pope has one, this question will receive global scrutiny.

  4. What sort of people should be making the decisions that result in the death of a severely damaged/disabled human on life support? Lawyers? Judges? Police? Families? Anyone who wants to preserve the life that others are willing to allow to expend?

  5. Should people who believe in miracles and supernatural powers be allowed to intervene in the affairs of those who don't? What's the right of a 'faith-based' community to trump a 'reality-based' family or group on a matter of 'life'?



My answer would be that such decisions should be made by the individual, which is where the living will comes in. For those who have none, some kind of "hierarchy of responsibility" needs to be set up. I'd hate to think that, for example in a gay couple, parents from whom one is estranged would be able to trump the partner in making such decisions.

What I fear, though, is that even making one's wishes clear in a living will won't be enough for the folks who pushed this case into the limelight. How far will they go?

A journalistic note: The photograph of Terri Schiavo taken soon after she became incapacitated, one which was routinely cropped and mistakenly used as a "before" photo, is shown in full on MSNBC's site, and now it's clear that this is not a photograph of an intact person.
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