It is with great regret that I find myself typing the names “Terri Schiavo” and “Barack Obama” in the same sentence. And yet, I feel strangely compelled to do so given the squall within our community censuring Barack for his comments during his recent debate with Hillary that he regrets not stopping the unconstitutional bill passed a few years back that attempted to keep Schiavo intubated.

Do you remember when Congress passed that law? If not, I envy you. I still can’t believe it. Anyway, I already wrote about all that.

My question today is, what’s wrong with what Barack said? It’s correct — that whole mess was about who had the right to decide what Terri actually wanted, and by extension, what was actually best for her. Many in our community feel that what’s best is to always err on the side of life. It’s a good argument. Who knows what a person’s actual quality of life is? Nondisabled people usually assume wrong when they try to imagine how good or bad our lives actually are. So it follows — and overall I agree — that nondisabled people aren’t the best judges of who should live or die, based on health or disability status.

But, damn it, who are the best judges?

If a person can’t think, can’t feel, can’t communicate, can’t even send up a smoke signal, who should be in charge? In Schiavo’s situation, it came down to should her husband be in charge or her mother. And — yawn — we all know what the outcome was, we heard it on every media outlet for practically month after month three years ago.

And yet it’s still the question.

I know, I know … I’m supposed to say no, that isn’t the question. The question really is how can we force our government to keep people with severe disabilities, and I mean superSchiavoistically severe – alive by any means possible regardless of what that person or the people who love that person may or many not want or have wanted, because in the end a live human body is always a receptacle for personhood. At its extreme this argument holds that personhood can’t possibly be based on such arbitrary details as ability to think, feel and have a personality.

But I can’t support this argument. Because I can’t say I actually know that, say, just picking an example randomly from thin air, a person who’s brain is virtually a water balloon is still essentially a person. Ah, but NOT knowing, then wouldn’t it be best to err on the safe side, the side of angels and life? I can’t actually say I know that, either.

I do know that I need to get cracking on that living will document I keep putting off. Otherwise my Catholic mother will decide my fate, and I’d rather that chore be dumped on my partner. Of course, Mom already has hers written out. Even though I’m the oldest, ever since her first major heart attack, she picked my younger sister as her power of attorney, because she thinks I’ll keep her on a vent and feeding tube. And, a housekeeper in a nursing home since the early ‘80s, she’s adamant that, church be damned, that’s the LAST thing she wants. What she doesn’t realize is that, disability politics be damned, I’d let her die, since that’s what she asks.

And me personally? As long as I can think, I don’t care how many tubes I’m hooked up to, really. Since I have MS, this is something I think about a lot. Probably more than what’s healthy. But if the time comes when I can’t think, then just let me die. Of course it’s not like I’d know either way.

Without a living will you are one breath away from being the next Terri Schiavo. I had a "half filled out living will" sitting on my desk for years and never got around to dealing with the reality that I will die some day. Then one of my best friends was shot in the head by a random nutcase. He ended up in the hospital--brain dead, on life support. His worst nightmare--I know because we had talked about it. Thankfully he had filled out a living will and organ donor card. The fact that he was no longer held prisoner in a body with a dead brain, and his organs went on to save others lives--is a great comfort to me and his other friends. It also shocked me, and I finished the living will the next day. Now I just have to find somebody that will dump my remains in a live volcano...

http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/archive/index.php/t-21422.html I was once in about the SAME situation as Terri. I would have supported the parents. I am not sure if I still would. Keeping a body operating at least provides a job and it would not matter to the body.

The Catholic Church does not require that someone be kept alive by extraordinary means. The difference with this case was that by removing her feeding tube and depriving this woman of fluids and nutrients, it was a direct act of killing her. That differs from taking extraordinary means in the first place to sustain life. Her "means" were already in place. Then there's the suffering issue. No one really knew for sure if Terri suffered, especially by being denied fluids. We can all argue 'till the cows come home, but my greatest concern is that our society be very careful anytime purposely ending a life is centered around disabilty. Given the cost of healthcare, and especially our healthcare, it scares me to think that someday, we might be judged by others to be lacking their standard of quality of life or more frightening, that we are too expensive to have around. The latter reason might lead to rationalizing doing away with us somehow, supposedly, in our best interest.

The Catholic Church does not require that someone be kept alive by extraordinary means. The difference with this case was that by removing her feeding tube and depriving this woman of fluids and nutrients, it was a direct act of killing her. That differs from taking extraordinary means in the first place to sustain life. Her "means" were already in place. Then there's the suffering issue. No one really knew for sure if Terri suffered, especially by being denied fluids. We can all argue 'till the cows come home, but my greatest concern is that our society be very careful anytime purposely ending a life is centered around disabilty. Given the cost of healthcare, and especially our healthcare, it scares me to think that someday, we might be judged by others to be lacking their standard of quality of life or more frightening, that we are too expensive to have around. The latter reason might lead to rationalizing doing away with us somehow, supposedly, in our best interest.

The Catholic Church does not require that someone be kept alive by extraordinary means. The difference with this case was that by removing her feeding tube and depriving this woman of fluids and nutrients, it was a direct act of killing her. That differs from taking extraordinary means in the first place to sustain life. Her "means" were already in place. Then there's the suffering issue. No one really knew for sure if Terri suffered, especially by being denied fluids. We can all argue 'till the cows come home, but my greatest concern is that our society be very careful anytime purposely ending a life is centered around disabilty. Given the cost of healthcare, and especially our healthcare, it scares me to think that someday, we might be judged by others to be lacking their standard of quality of life or more frightening, that we are too expensive to have around. The latter reason might lead to rationalizing doing away with us somehow, supposedly, in our best interest.

The Catholic Church does not require that someone be kept alive by extraordinary means. The difference with this case was that by removing her feeding tube and depriving this woman of fluids and nutrients, it was a direct act of killing her. That differs from taking extraordinary means in the first place to sustain life. Her "means" were already in place. Then there's the suffering issue. No one really knew for sure if Terri suffered, especially by being denied fluids. We can all argue 'till the cows come home, but my greatest concern is that our society be very careful anytime purposely ending a life is centered around disabilty. Given the cost of healthcare, and especially our healthcare, it scares me to think that someday, we might be judged by others to be lacking their standard of quality of life or more frightening, that we are too expensive to have around. The latter reason might lead to rationalizing doing away with us somehow, supposedly, in our best interest.