Harriet McBryde Johnson writes in Slate on "Ten New Ways to Think About Terri Schiavo".
http://www.slate.com/id/2115208/
Except I wouldn't call them "new". And "ways to think", kind of a stretch. But man, there sure are ten of them. Here are my ten thoughts I thought about what she thinks about it.
"1. Ms. Schiavo is not terminally ill. She has lived in her current condition for 15 years. This is not about end-of-life decision-making. The question is whether she should be killed by starvation and dehydration."
When someone frames the debate as "Are we going to kill her?", you better believe they want you to say "NO!". I'm heartened by the strong majority of Americans who understand the debate is not "are we going to kill her", but rather, do we know what Terri's wishes were (we do), do those wishes apply to her current situation (yes), and should anyone else's opinion supercede that wish (no).
"2. Ms. Schiavo is not dependent on life support. Her lungs, kidneys, heart, and digestive systems work fine. Just as she uses a wheelchair for mobility, she uses a tube for eating and drinking. Feeding Ms. Schiavo is not difficult, painful, or in any way heroic. Feeding tubes are a very simple piece of adaptive equipment, and the fact that Ms. Schiavo eats through a tube should have nothing to do with whether she should live or die. "
Translation: the author is not going to consider any "quality of life" arguments; because any state of being alive is as good as any other. I disagree. And the ease with which we keep ourselves alive is unrelated to the dignity with which we live. Telling me it would be very easy to keep me alive as a vegetable does not make the option more attractive to me.
And as Kos himself points out via MysteryPollster, a feeding tube is life support. If it weren't, Ms. Johnson wouldn't be so insistent it be restored.
"3. This is not a case about a patient's right to refuse treatment. I don't see eating and drinking as "treatment," but even if they are, everyone agrees that Ms. Schiavo is presently incapable of articulating a decision to refuse treatment. The question is who should make the decision for her, and whether that substitute decision-maker should be authorized to kill her by starvation and dehydration. "
Head fake! The issue is not whether Terri is presently able to say if she wants treatment, it's whether she has previously stated she wouldn't want treatment. She has.
"4. There is a genuine dispute as to Ms. Schiavo's awareness and consciousness. But if we assume that those who would authorize her death are correct, Ms. Schiavo is completely unaware of her situation and therefore incapable of suffering physically or emotionally. Her death thus can't be justified for relieving her suffering."
As the Circuit Judge said in his decision, "the court finds beyond all doubt" that Terri is in a "persistent vegetative state". Not beyond a reasonable doubt- beyond all doubt. Judges know that phrases like this have meaning; they don't use them lightly.
The "genuine dispute" isn't between doctors familiar with the case, it's between impartial doctors who've examined Terri and activist doctors hired by Terri's parents. This is the staple of Lifetime movies: big bad doctors wrong, tender loving parents right. In real life, that's rarely the case.
And again, this "Terri's unaware so she's not suffering" argument drives me nuts. When I make a decision about how and when I want to die, the dignity with which I'm living is just as important a fact as whether I'm in pain. I don't want to live with a Slurpee for a brain, whether I enjoy it or not.
"5. There is a genuine dispute as to what Ms. Schiavo believed and expressed about life with severe disability before she herself became incapacitated; certainly, she never stated her preferences in an advance directive like a living will. If we assume that Ms. Schiavo is aware and conscious, it is possible that, like most people who live with severe disability for as long as she has, she has abandoned her preconceived fears of the life she is now living. We have no idea whether she wishes to be bound by things she might have said when she was living a very different life. If we assume she is unaware and unconscious, we can't justify her death as her preference. She has no preference.
Terri Schiavo, like far too many Americans, did not anticipate the need for a living will. But she did talk to her husband and others about her opinions on the subject."
The circuit judge weighed testimony about Terri's wishes. Her mother testified that while Terri was watching news reports about a father trying to remove his daughter's life support, Terri made comments that the man should just leave her alone. Problem is, Terri was 11 years old at the time, so the judge rightly ruled it wasn't relevant.
In addition to Michael testifying that Terri told him on several occasions that she would not want to be kept on life support, two other witnesses the judge found credible testified that Terri had made similar statements. Mark that the next time someone claims "we only have her husband's word"; it's just flat-out wrong.
Regarding this absurd theme of "well we don't know what Terri would want now". If we don't know what Terri would want now, you certainly don't know what Terri would want now. Does it even occur to people like this that it's possible Terri not only expressed the desire not to not be on a feeding tube, but meant it, and would want it withdrawn now? Isn't it condescending to imply she's now in some state of eternal miasmic bliss just because her brain is gone?
"6. Ms. Schiavo, like all people, incapacitated or not, has a federal constitutional right not to be deprived of her life without due process of law."
The Schiavo case has been in the courts since May of 1998. We have seen multiple appeals by her parents and the unprecedented intervention of her state's governor and legislature, and the U.S. Congress. Two unconstitutional laws have passed to protect her Constitutional rights. She has not just had due process, but extraordinary process. Over-due process.
"7. In addition to the rights all people enjoy, Ms. Schiavo has a statutory right under the Americans With Disabilities Act not to be treated differently because of her disability. Obviously, Florida law would not allow a husband to kill a nondisabled wife by starvation and dehydration; killing is not ordinarily considered a private family concern or a matter of choice. It is Ms. Schiavo's disability that makes her killing different in the eyes of the Florida courts. Because the state is overtly drawing lines based on disability, it has the burden under the ADA of justifying those lines. "
Terri Schaivo is not disabled. Terri Schiavo is brain-dead. She is a vegetable. Her cerebral cortex is gone. HER CEREBRAL CORTEX IS GONE.
"Dr. Ronald Cranford, a neurologist and medical ethicist at the University of Minnesota Medical School... has examined Ms. Schiavo on behalf of the Florida courts and declared her to be irredeemably brain-damaged, said, "...You'll not find any credible neurologist or neurosurgeon to get involved at this point and say she's not vegetative." He said there was no doubt that Ms. Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state... "Her EEG is flat - flat. There's no electrical activity coming from her brain." - NYT, 3/24/05"
She functions on a level below that of the family dog. If this were a dog, and you kept it alive like this, people would be aghast at your cruelty.
"8. In other contexts, federal courts are available to make sure state courts respect federally protected rights. This review is critical not only to the parties directly involved, but to the integrity of our legal system. Although review will very often be a futile last-ditch effort--as with most death-penalty habeas petitions--federalism requires that the federal government, not the states, have the last word. When the issue is the scope of a guardian's authority, it is necessary to allow other people, in this case other family members, standing to file a legal challenge. "
Yes, but what federally protected right has been violated here? Ten federal judges couldn't find even a pretense at any.
"9. The whole society has a stake in making sure state courts are not tainted by prejudices, myths, and unfounded fears--like the unthinking horror in mainstream society that transforms feeding tubes into fetish objects, emblematic of broader, deeper fears of disability that sometimes slide from fear to disgust and from disgust to hatred. While we should not assume that disability prejudice tainted the Florida courts, we cannot reasonably assume that it did not."
Lovely. "I don't know that you're, like, evil, but I can't NOT know that either."
"10. Despite the unseemly Palm Sunday pontificating in Congress, the legislation enabling Ms. Schiavo's parents to sue did not take sides in the so-called culture wars. It did not dictate that Ms. Schiavo be fed. It simply created a procedure whereby the federal courts could decide whether Ms. Schiavo's federally protected rights have been violated."
It had nothing to do with the culture wars, and everything to do with the terrifyingly disproportionate power the religious right has in Washington right now. In many ways this was a test to see how far Republicans would go to appease them, and the answer was, very far indeed.