Personal Introspection and the Schiavo Case
Everybody and their Aunt is blogging on this one, but I think I have a bit more to say on this subject than most.
I have a sibling who has been severely mentally retarded since birth. He has mental functioning beneath that of a two year old, and he must constantly have people exercise his muscles for him or he forgets how to use them.
Now this may be far above the functioning of Terri Schiavo, but neither myself nor my mother can ask him what he wants. What is the quality of his life?
Who am I to judge if my sibling would be better off dead. Would it be a mercy killing b/c his life is not worth living? I cannot make that judgement nor can anyone else.
Experts have said that Terri Schiavo is cognitively "not there." Not too many years ago, scientists and experts were all taught that brain development stopped after adulthood, and not too long ago physicians performed surgery on infants without any pain medication or anesthesia because they believed infants couldn't feel pain. Well, the experts were wrong.
In this case, the experts can't agree at least according to this article. And when medical research is regrowing cells in the brain with adult stem cells as I have recently written, one can understand why the parents are holding out for the faintest signs of hope.
Unfortunately, Terri never gave specific instructions in writing about what measures she would want to be taken if incapacitated. Both the husband and her parents have said and done some controversial things over the past fifteen years, so any testimony by them is colored by the long battle.
In the end, one wishes that the method of her demise, death by starvation, was not so terrible, and perhaps this case would not have the longevity it has.
I have a sibling who has been severely mentally retarded since birth. He has mental functioning beneath that of a two year old, and he must constantly have people exercise his muscles for him or he forgets how to use them.
Now this may be far above the functioning of Terri Schiavo, but neither myself nor my mother can ask him what he wants. What is the quality of his life?
Who am I to judge if my sibling would be better off dead. Would it be a mercy killing b/c his life is not worth living? I cannot make that judgement nor can anyone else.
Experts have said that Terri Schiavo is cognitively "not there." Not too many years ago, scientists and experts were all taught that brain development stopped after adulthood, and not too long ago physicians performed surgery on infants without any pain medication or anesthesia because they believed infants couldn't feel pain. Well, the experts were wrong.
In this case, the experts can't agree at least according to this article. And when medical research is regrowing cells in the brain with adult stem cells as I have recently written, one can understand why the parents are holding out for the faintest signs of hope.
Unfortunately, Terri never gave specific instructions in writing about what measures she would want to be taken if incapacitated. Both the husband and her parents have said and done some controversial things over the past fifteen years, so any testimony by them is colored by the long battle.
In the end, one wishes that the method of her demise, death by starvation, was not so terrible, and perhaps this case would not have the longevity it has.
posted by Cousin Don at
8:32 AM
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