Marta posted a piece which contained:
> The Terri Schiavo case is hard to write about,
hard to think about.
Why? It is a very clear and simple case. People make it hard with their fuzzy thinking.
> Those video images are hard to look at. I see
that face, maybe smiling, maybe not,
Reminds me of Pudvokin's cinema experiment in montage.
> That's a scary thought. If I couldn't speak for
myself, would I want to die?
If she wants to, she should be able to do so.
> If I become uncommunicative, a passive object
of other people's care, should I hope my brain goes
soft and leaves me in peace?
Shiavo is uncommunicative because she has no electrical activity in her brain.
> Ms. Schiavo is not terminally ill.
No, she is dead -- no brain activity. Unless we are now calling someone with no brain activity alive.
> The question is whether she should be killed by
denying her food and fluids.
But is there a "her" with no brain activity?
> That Ms. Schiavo eats through a tube should have
nothing to do with whether she should live or die.
But that she has no brain response should.
> This is not a case about a patient's right to refuse
treatment.
Huh?
> I don't see eating and drinking as "treatment,"
The writer's choice, but arguable.
> . . . but even if they are,
The quick rhetorical backtrack.
> . . . everyone agrees that Ms. Schiavo is at present
incapable of articulating a decision to refuse treatment.
Can she even form a decision that she cannot articulate? Notice the all-inclusive "everyone." Not only does she want to interfere in people's private lives, she can read all their minds as well.
> The question is who should make the decision for
her
Her husband as legal guardian.
> . . . and whether that substitute decision maker should
be authorized to kill her.
How do you kill someone who is already dead?
> Her death thus can't be justified as relieving her
suffering.
Since she is already dead, the question is: "Why nourish a corpse?"
> certainly, she never stated her preferences in an
advance directive such as a living will.
Unfortunately not.
> If we assume that she is aware and conscious,
Why should we assume this when she flatlines on an EEG? That makes no sense.
> . . . it is possible that, like most people who have
lived with a severe disability for as long as she has, she
has abandoned her preconceived fears of the life she is
now living.
Since the premise is wrong, the conclusion is equally wrong.
> We have no idea whether she wishes to be bound by
things she might have said when she was living a very
different life.
Buit how can a person "live" or even "exist" with no brain activity?
> If we assume she is unaware and unconscious, we can't
justify her death as her preference.
She is not just unconscious. She is without the possibility of having consciousness since her brain is non-functioning.
> 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.
She had seven years of litigation.
> 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.
Again, she is not disabled, she is unable. Two different words. Treating them as synonyms does not make it so.
> . . . the legislation enabling Ms. Schiavo's parents to
sue did not reflect a taking of sides in the so-called
culture wars.
Sure it did. It took the position that the dead are not dead, which is the position of he radical right. Oh for Flannery O'Connor's "Church of Christ Without Christ where the lame don't walk, the blind don't see, and what's dead stays that way."
> It simply created a procedure whereby the federal courts
could decide whether her federally protected rights have
been violated.
How can laws be passed for the dead to have rights? How do the dead claim them?
> . . . I hope whoever is appointed to speak for me will be
subject to legal constraints.
Why doesn't she appoint someone herself. And why should my liberty be constrained because she wants legal constraints for herself? Let her take the steps necessary to create those legal restraints if she feels they are so necessary for herself. Just don't take me along for the ride and butt into my private life.
> Even if my guardian thinks I'd be better off dead -- even if
I think so myself -- I hope to live and die in a world that
recognizes that killing, even of people with the most severe
disabilities, is a matter of more than private concern.
I hope I can live in a world where the dead are not regarded as alive and given retroactive rights, and where my privacy is respected, and busybodies told where to get off.
> Clearly, Congress's Palm Sunday legislation was not the
broader type of proceeding Harkin and I want.
Thank dog.
> It does not define when and how federal court review will be
available to all of those in the shadows.
But this is a case about someone not in the shadows, but dead.
> To create a general system of review, applicable whenever
life-and-death decisions intersect with disability rights
Since dead is not a disability, there is no intersection here except in the minds of those who haven't looked ina dictionary lately.
> . . . will require a reasoned, informed debate unlike what we've
had until now.
If she is for reasoned, informed debate, why did she publish such a piece of illogic?
Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister