A Postscript

Terri Schiavo has died. No real surprise there. The doctors said she'd last about two weeks without any nutrition or hydration, and she died 13 days after her feeding tube was removed at her husband's insistance.

I remain entirely skeptical of his claims to have been acting in accordance with her wishes, for reasons I've already posted, reinforced by seeing his behavior at and after her death. He would not let her parents be in the room with her when she died. He insists that her post-autopsy cremains be buried in Pennsylvania, not in Florida (her parents wanted to be able to visit her gravesite easily . . . his decision puts an end to that). His words, through his spokesman/attorney, maintain that his sole concerns were to follow her wishes and give her peace and dignity. His actions, however, contradict that claim at every turn.

The whole thing leaves me very, very sad. No one should have to die by being starved and dehydrated to death. It is a matter of simple human dignity. We wouldn't let someone do that to a house pet; we certainly would prosecute anyone who did that to an enemy combatant, even a proven terrorist; how can we just look the other way when someone wants to do that to a spouse?

Everyone must eat and drink to live. If withholding food and water is the only thing that will kill someone, that someone has a life beyond machines, and that life should be allowed to continue till its natural end--not hastened by cruel starvation.

It would have been much different if Terri had been on a ventilator. In that case, she would not have been able to breathe without mechanical assistance . . . and in that case, I'd have no quarrel with removing the artificial stimulus keeping her alive. She would then either die or breathe on her own--a natural death or survival. Nobody needs a ventilator to live in the "regular" world. A decision to "pull the plug" in that case is understandable and defensible.

But to starve someone to death? That cannot be OK, even when done to someone supposedly in a persistent vegitative state. Look: her brain function was not entirely gone, else she would have needed a ventilator. Maybe she didn't have much if anything of higher brain function left. She had enough to be awake and to live without abnormal, intrusive, extraordinary mechanical assistance. Struggling through thirteen days of slow death by starvation and dehydration is neither peaceful nor dignified.

All our lives have been cheapened by what has befallen Terri. Beware! If you suffer a catastrophic injury, you might be next! After all, the first people the Nazis systematically destroyed were the physically and mentally ill.

Seriously: make and keep an up-to-date living will. Ensure that everyone knows about it. Don't just keep it in a safety deposit box--append it to your medical records at every place you have them. If you travel, take a copy with you. Remember: the reason they're called "accidents" is that they are not expected.