The question is then whether Shiavo's a person. No one her advocates killing disabled people, including the severely retarded -- like my late cousin Karen, who just died last year, and never progressed beyond the mental age of about six-eight months. And no one advocates killing the temporarily unconsconcious or comatose.
But there comes a point at which the cognitive functions of the brain are irretreivably gone and you can keep the body going by life support, but nobody's there if you think the person is whatever thinks. Including thinking at a low level, like a six month old. Most of us think that at the point there is nobody there. As fara s I can see it is almost the universal conensus of the medical community, notably those familiar with her case, that Shiavo is in this situation.
A personal story. A few years ago my late father in law had a coronary event, and as I understand it the drs told my MiL and my wife (there at the time) that they might be able to= keep his body alive, Schiavo like, but his mind was gone. They decided against it. They didn't hook him up and he was dead in minutes. Wsa that anti-disabled bigotry? Murder of a human being? A step down the slippery slop to T-4 (the Nazi program for exterminating the mentally ill and the disabled)? I can tell you it is what my father in law would have wanted. (He had a living will.)
The disabled are right to feel discriminated against for lots of reasons. Disability discrimination should be vigorously opposed. But I think disability rights struggles don't get any advantage from allying themselves with their enemies amongst the "pro-life" forces, on the contrary. The hysteria-mongering aabout extermination is like lefties talking "fascism." it's not our situation or likely to be.
I think this also extends to opposition to voluntary euthansia. Death with dignity is going to be increasingly an issue in an increasingly long-lived and geriatric society, and I think people should have the option open to them whether or not they arrive at an irrecoverable vegetative state. I saw my dad die of liver and pancreatic cancer. It wasn't pretty. Before I went through myself, I'd want an overdose or morphine. What my dad thought might or might not have thought he was able to suffer should be (and was) of course up to him -- he never raised the issue and neither did we. I would, though.
Rather than fighting to require the expenduture of public monies on maintaining the bodily functions of ex-persons in vegetative states or preventing conscious but terminally ill people from ending their own lives on their own terms rarther than the terms of ravaging diseases, Disability advocates would do better trying to get the ADA extended and state anti-discrimination laws expanded and enforced. These policies will be opposed by the allies of convenience among the loony Christian right that some disability activists have made in the Schiavo debate, who will be stronger thereby.
--- Dwayne Monroe <idoru345 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Unsurprisingly, things got very heated.
>
>
> I knew the overall quality of the *Shaivo finale*
> thread had seriously
> deteriorated when the Nazis (the Internet discussion
> weapon of choice) were
> pressed into service as an example of the
> implications of people's arguments
> against keeping Schiavo alive.
>
> The invocation of Hitler et. al. pretty much marked
> the end of quiet give and
> take.
>
> As the high velocity ammo flew back and forth I
> found myself wondering just what
> the *pro life support apparatus* argument (for lack
> of a smoother term) was.
>
> What was Marta getting at?
>
>
> On a few occasions she gave us this link:
>
> <http://www.notdeadyet.org/ >
>
> And from that homepage this press release site:
>
> <http://www.notdeadyet.org/docs/press.html >
>
> There's a release posted there that I found
> intriguing --
>
> Disabled Activists From The South Are Demonstrating
> At Terri's Side.
>
> <snip>
>
> Pinellas Park, FL, March 21, 2005 -- "Disability
> Rights is a progressive cause in
> the tradition of civil rights movements.
> Progressives should get this -- it's not
> 'life' versus 'choice,' but the right of people with
> disabilities to live, "
> proclaimed Eleanor Smith, a person with disability,
> "and we are here in Florida
> to tell the world about this disability issue.
> Capital criminals have habeas
> corpus in federal court, yet Ms. Schindler-Schiavo
> only crime was being a
> disabled person!"
>
> <snip>
>
> The facts are that Terri Schindler-Schiavo is not a
> 'vegetable' nor 'in-valid'
> but a person with a disability using a feeding tube
> and no other 'life' supports.
> She is not terminally ill nor has failing health
> except denial of food and water
> by the court.
>
> [...]
>
>
> And there it is.
>
>
> The fundamental difference between Marta's arguments
> and those of almost every
> other person who's offered an opinion on this matter
> here is that Marta, I think
> it's safe to say (and I'll gently accept correction
> if I'm wrong) sees this as a
> disability rights matter. From that POV, Schiavo is
> not an irreparably damaged
> shell of a once fully alive human being, but a
> disabled person in need of
> protection from predatory, uncaring or
> misunderstanding non-disabled people.
>
> This is why everyone's counter-arguments -- crafted
> mostly from the right to die
> concept and related notions -- fail to make any
> headway. I think it also
> explains why the cheap, Nazi reference made its way
> from mind to keyboard so
> easily. If everyone's arguing that a DISABLED
> person should be killed, this
> position is no different in spirit from the Nazis'
> program for exterminating
> *defective* people.
>
> Which is rubbish, since no one here is arguing that
> a disabled person should be
> killed but this is the background I believe we've
> all been missing.
>
> The real debate then, is whether Schiavo is in fact
> disabled (in the sense we
> usually mean when we use that word) or no longer
> even present -- merely a shell
> without a ghost.
>
> Of course, that would be an endless discussion and
> very vulnerable to emotional
> excesses.
>
>
>
> .d.
> ___________________________________
>
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>
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