• Welcome to BookAndReader!

    We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!

    Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.

right to life - right to die

Can someone please explain to me why it's more humane to allow a human being to exist in this condition for 15 years, and then to be fighting for her to continue to live in this condition for another 30-40 years?????

It's not a question of when she's going to die. We are all going to die. It's about quality of life. Ther is no quality for Terri. Her parents might have some quality in caring for her, but she has no quality.

Who here would say that they would want to be kept alive in this fashion? I've not met one person who would wish that fate upon themselves.

A lot of people state they would rather have a pillow put over their head or a bullet put in it before they would allow themselves to go through that.

Yes, starvation is bad, but is it worse than 40 more years of what she's already been through?

This is a no win situation for everybody concerned. The difference is the time it takes all those involved to heal. Keeping her alive prevents the healing from taking place.

There is no Terri Schiavo. She died 15 years ago from an eating disorder. Her body remains, but the person is gone. They need to let the body go too.

Isn't it interesting that she ended up in this condition because she had an eating disorder, and that she'll probably die from the inability to eat? Life is strange indeed.
 
Anyway, if the doc said she wouldn't suffer, they're probably giving her some powerful drug like morphine which will prevent her from feeling anything at all, let alone hunger. They're not going to pull the tube out and shut the door and wait. Be realistic.

People technically starve to death in hospitals all the time. My father in law stopped eating entirely when he was ill with cancer and would not take food in the hospital (in UK). He had a morphine drip, that's it. Died peacefully.

Let's try to apply a little of our own realistic experience here. No doctor is going to walk away and leave that woman feeling pain and hunger for weeks. Families face these situations and difficult decisions all the time, to varying degrees, in privacy and with dignity. If that family could agree on what to do, it wouldn't be an issue. This three-ring circus is ridiculous.
 
Well if they decide to let her die, then what is the point in keeping her on morphine for two weeks, why not just end it right away. Who has anything to gain from those two weeks?
 
It's the difference--a very important distinction in law--between actively killing her and passively letting nature take its course. What we have to gain from it is upholding a person's constitutionally protected right to live.

The right to die does not apply, because she has not expressed her wishes. The laws of assisted suicide, which is legal in some states, do not apply because she has not expressed her wishes. That's why the case is problemmatic. The primary question has been argued in law since the famous case of Karen "pull the plug" Quinlan in the 1970s. The decision in that case was that the life-support systems were not considered part of the life and it was permissable to remove them. The same law applied to Schiavo as well, and it would have been over and done with had her parents not brought their suit.
 
Yup, I agree. And supposedly this case has sparked a lot of people going out and making theirs. I just think it's very dangerous to start defining what is and what isn't an acceptable quality of life. Of course, no one wants to be disabled, but when we sit here and label such and such as no or poor quality of life, I think we get into a very sticky situation ethically. Just my opinion. :)

This is such a tough case because she doesn't have any documented living will. All you have is the record of what her husband claims. Which may very well be true. Or it may not. There're just several red flags that go up for me where this whole case is concerned. And it may be the result of paranoia, listening to certain sides of the issue. But I think it all just needs further investigation on his side, personally.

At any rate, I truly feel for her family. I think at this point, they can probably appeal all they want, but she's been off nutrition for what...5 days? And they say usually a person lasts 1-2 weeks? It's just very sad, I think.
 
I don't want to get into the "morals" of it all. I just don't think that the Congress and our President should be able to play God in this manner. If the husband is this upset about it then he needs to get a court order and divorce her; not stay and fight this if it's just going to be taken this far. Me personally, I would never want to live that way and my family knows it.
 
I don't want to get into the "morals" of it all. I just don't think that the Congress and our President should be able to play God in this manner.
Click to expand...
I get SO VERY sick and tired of hearing this. ALL the President and Congress did was ask the court to look at the case one more time. That's it. They didn't change any laws. They didn't ignore the Constitution. They were simply trying to save an innocent woman from being starved to death. And yes, I'm sure that morals make things messy for some people. Morals mean having to take into consideration that there is a possibility we might have to answer for the decisions we make. And that's obviously impossible in our extremely warped and sad society.
 
I haven't read the entire thread, but I'm gonna throw in my 0.02 anyway.

I think anyone has a right to die, but I also happen to think starving someone to death doesn't exactly scream "I love you". Someone (?) said the doctors would make sure she didn't suffer, but... well, I'm sceptical, to say the least. Now this may sound harsh, but since there appears to be no such thing as legal, active euthanasia, I'd say that, if the husband really is trying to give his wife what she wanted, he should've done it years ago. This sounds as if I'm advocating murder, but I'm not. It's slippery territory, that's all.
 
I've heard from so many "experts" about this case that I feel like I could consider myself one, now.

Even if Terri doesn't feel a thing, it's still the court-appointed death of an innocent person.
 
What does the fact that she is innocent has to do with anything?
She is "living" a life I wouldn't wish for anyone, why not end it for her.
 
sweetsymphony said:
Because it's wrong.
Click to expand...
all it comes down to is what you believe. I think it's more wrong to let her "live" like this, and that they have let her do so for so many years.
 
sweetsymphony said:
Is that directed toward my comment about her being innocent?
Click to expand...
Hmm. I take that back. I was thinking about an article I read that referred to her as an innocent woman being killed.
 
Well, honestly and frankly, I resent that. Anything anyone on either side of this issue could be accused of demagoguery. Besides, I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. I gave up on that a long time ago.
 
Isn’t it just as wrong to keep an empty shell of a human alive who rightfully should have died 15 years ago?
Hindsight? Yes. Cold? Yes. Truth? In my eyes and heart, yes.
Her brain is dead. There’s no debate there. She’s not Terri Schiavo.


Sweetsymphony, do you have a living will? Have you instructed your family to keep you alive at all costs no matter by what means, and no matter what condition you maybe in for the rest of your life? Even if it means you are a vegetable in a hospital bed for 30 to 40+ years? Are you saying you would want your family to do to you what’s been done to this girl?
 
sweetsymphony said:
Well, honestly and frankly, I resent that.
Click to expand...
Apparently, you were quicker in posting than I was in editing, so... All I meant to say was that, in regards to people saying Schiavo is an innocent woman being killed, she's just a woman being killed. Innocence doesn't factor into it, IMO.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top