I normally avoid using this space for political and emotional rants, preferring to keep you all enthralled with updates on my teeth, random pop culture nonsense and the like, but I just can't keep this rage under wraps any longer.

It's time to let Terri Schiavo die.

I'm sure most of you know what I'm talking about - unless you've been trapped under a rock for the last few weeks, you've seen or heard something about this case. But just in case, here are the details.

Terri Schiavo has been in what is medically described as a 'vegetative state' for 15 years. Not a coma, because she has distinct cycles of wakefulness, but a state wherein she cannot think, speak or respond in any way and is completely unaware of her surroundings. She has been kept alive only by the use of a feeding tube surgically inserted into her stomach which provided her with nutrition and water.

This is a monumentally horrifying place for a person to be in, which has been made worse by the legal battles being raged around her.

Her husband has been fighting for seven years to allow her to simply die. He says it is what his wife wanted - that she told him directly that she wouldn't like to live in such a fashion.

Her family is opposing him, saying that Terri has a chance for recovery, and that she is a Roman Catholic and dying in such a manner would put her soul in jeopardy.

What a load of garbage. Sure, the doctors the family supplied for the courts have claimed she could recover, but her husband's chosen doctor plus two independent doctors chosen by the court itself all say recovery is impossible.

She will never wake up. And you know what? I think her soul is fine. This is not suicide. She suffered what the doctors think is a potassium imbalance from an eating disorder and oxygen flow to her brain was interrupted for five minutes. God doesn't stick people in Hell for that. I may be a little shaky on my Dante, but I don't recall a circle of Bulimics and Anorexics stuck between the Alchemists and the Sowers of Discord.

If you really want to bring God into the mix, I think God intended to call Terri home 15 years ago and her family has kept her soul in bondage here on Earth ever since.

And even worse, this has become a rallying call for the Republican leadership of the United States, and they've attempted at each level to force things to their viewpoint.

Her husband Michael petitioned the court to have the feeding tube removed in 1998. In 2000, a Florida judge finally agreed. In April 2001 it was removed, but reinstated two days later so the appeals process could proceed. In 2002, the appeal was denied, but another stay was given for one final appeal.

Up until that point, this makes sense. The appeal process is there to ensure that Terri's rights have been given proper consideration and respect. But this is where things get stupid.

After the ruling was finally upheld in 2003, Florida legislature passed "Terri's Law" which allowed Governor Jeb Bush to issue a stay order himself, overruling the judge.

This is insanity. The political branch cannot dictate how the judicial branch operates. This is the prime facet of the American political system. The Florida Supreme Court agreed and declared "Terri's Law" unconstitutional. Gov. Bush then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

When the Supreme Court rejected the appeal and set a date for removal, Terri's parents tried to get the courts to divorce Michael and Terri and appoint a new guardian. The courts refused. The appeal was also refused. Then the House of Representatives decided to start fucking with matters and issued subpoenas for the involved folks to come to a hearing on the matter. The courts blocked this stalling crap and the tube was removed for the third time.

The House sent an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, who told them to butt the hell out.

Then the House passed a bill to change the jurisdiction of the case to federal courts instead of the state courts. In effect, this could start the entire process from the beginning, with the whole eight-year trial-and-appeal process starting all over.

The courts are wise to this stupidity so far. The district judge has denied the request to have the tube reinserted and denied any stay for appeals, on the grounds that Schiavo's parents didn't have a "substantial likelihood of success" on the merits of their arguments.

"This court concludes that Theresa Schiavo's life and liberty interests were adequately protected by the extensive process provided in the state courts," he said.

In other words, this is ridiculous. We've already done this. It's over.

As of this writing (late Tuesday afternoon), the family has appealed and the whole mess sits in the hands of a three-judge Circuit Court panel.

What is it going to take? She is not alive! Certainly not in any fashion that she would wish. Her husband, the one man in the world that should know how she would want to be treated has said she would want to die.

And only by an act of God could she ever recover. This is brain damage. Brain damage doesn't get better. There is no amount of therapy that could be done to bring her back.

Her body is empty. A machine only running because it's being fueled. There is no one at the wheel. She's in limbo, trapped between worlds.

Legally, the courts have supported her husband every step of the way, only issuing stays to allow the legal appeal process. The fiasco only continues because the family refuses to let go and because the Government is attempting to force the courts to make the ruling they want to see.

The best goddamn comment I've heard all day on this is that if George W. Bush is so damned concerned about the right of this one person to live, why isn't he doing more for the thousands and thousands of people who desperately need life support for a chance for survival but cannot afford it? Why focus all this attention and action on one woman who has said she would rather die, instead of looking at all the people who would have a chance if the government wouldn't turn their backs on them.

Spiritually, I believe in Heaven. I believe that Terri is doomed to a vacuum of nothingness until she is finally released once and for all. Let her die. Let her move on. I can imagine the pain of this - I've lost two Grandparents in the last decade, and they both gave firm instructions for 'no extraordinary measures', so I know.

I feel the same. If there is no chance for me to live, to truly live, then let me die. I want to live, and if there is any real hope - not wishes or fantasies, but true hope - then I want that chance. But I want to live. I do not want an existence that depends on tubes and machines to prolong my body's existence if my mind has already departed it. Do not doom me to limbo.

If I am no longer me, then let me die.

Previous

Main

Next

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://whatisaw.wiredweirdness.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/157

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference The Right to Die:

» The Right to Die from 8-Track Mind
Going out on a limb here, and opening myself up to serious hate mail, as I speak out on the horror I feel at the whole Terri Schiavo fiasco. Next week: More about my teeth!... [Read More]

Tracked on March 22, 2005 08:43 PM

» Hmm. from 8-Track Mind
I'm both pleased and disappointed that I haven't been bombarded by hate mail over my stance on the Terry Schiavo case. I figure either all my readers agree with me, or no one is really reading this anyway. Heh.... [Read More]

Tracked on March 23, 2005 04:07 PM