Wrongful Death

Charles Krauthammer has a well reasoned article on the Schiavo case.

He concludes:

…But the law, while scrupulous, has been merciless, and its conclusion very troubling morally. We ended up having to choose between a legal travesty on the one hand and human tragedy on the other.
There is no good outcome to this case. Except perhaps if Florida and the other states were to amend their laws and resolve conflicts among loved ones differently -- by granting authority not necessarily to the spouse but to whatever first-degree relative (even if in the minority) chooses life and is committed to support it. Call it Terri's law. It would help prevent our having to choose in the future between travesty and tragedy.

But in the meantime, we have cheerleaders for killing a human being by depriving her of food and water. And I do mean cheerleaders, not just people who see this as a tragic end. People who want her to die, because “I would not want to live like that” as if their personal preferences were the end of the story; and as they live their perfectly normal, healthy active lives, having no idea what they would want if they were severely disabled.

I have been on a brief vacation on a Caribbean island for the past week with no TV, radio or newspapers. On my return, one young man commented that he hoped “the vegetable” would die so that he would not have endure the wall-to-wall media coverage.

Mark Steyn expresses my feelings when he says:

I'm neither a Floridian nor a lawyer, and, for all I know, it may be legal under Florida law for the state to order her to be starved to death. But it is still wrong.


This is not a criminal, not a murderer, not a person whose life should be in the gift of the state. So I find it repulsive, and indeed decadent, to have her continued existence framed in terms of ''plaintiffs'' and ''petitions'' and ''en banc review'' and ''de novo'' and all the other legalese. Mrs. Schiavo has been in her present condition for 15 years. Whoever she once was, this is who she is now -- and, after a decade and a half, there is no compelling reason to kill her. Any legal system with a decent respect for the status quo -- something too many American judges are increasingly disdainful of -- would recognize that her present life, in all its limitations, is now a well-established fact, and it is the most grotesque judicial overreaching for any court at this late stage to decide enough is enough. It would be one thing had a doctor decided to reach for the morphine and ''put her out of her misery'' after a week in her diminished state; after 15 years, for the courts to treat her like a Death Row killer who's exhausted her appeals is simply vile.

There seems to be a genuine dispute about her condition -- between those on her husband's side, who say she has ''no consciousness,'' and those on her parents' side, who say she is capable of basic, childlike reactions. If the latter are correct, ending her life is an act of murder. If the former are correct, what difference does it make? If she feels nothing -- if there's no there there -- she has no misery to be put out of. That being so, why not err in favor of the non-irreversible option?

[snip]

As to arguments about ''Congressional overreaching'' and ''states' rights,'' which is more likely? That Congress will use this precedent to pass bills keeping you -- yes, you, Joe Schmoe of 37 Elm Street -- alive till your 118th birthday. Or that the various third parties who intrude between patient and doctor in the American system -- next of kin, HMOs, insurers -- will see the Schiavo case as an important benchmark in what's already a drift toward a culture of convenience euthanasia. Here's a thought: Where do you go to get a living-will kit saying that in the event of a hideous accident I don't want to be put to death by a Florida judge or the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals? And, if you had such a living will, would any U.S. court recognize it?



James Lileks remarks on one disabled person:

…Then we went to Target to get the chairs for the gazebo. I paged a Sales Associate, or whatever they’re called, and up wheeled Dale. He’s there every time I visit the store. I don’t know what his disability is. He’s the go-to guy at Target. Minor speech impairment; some muscular inabilities. But he has a walkie-talkie and a datapad tied into the Target mainframe and a gun that reads SKUs with a laser, so he can tell you whether the item’s in stock, order it up, and send a team of guys to drag it to your car. All with his one good hand. We are the Borg. Or will be, eventually; I can imagine a device that would fit on his head and let him do all these things with brainwaves and blinking. Thirty years ago he would have been in a Home making wallets, wheeled out into the sun once a day, kept from sight. Now he rules this store.

One hundred years ago, Terri Schiavo would have died of her injuries. Fifteen years ago her life was spared. She lives without the use of respirators, heart-lung machines of any other “artificial” life support. She is fed and hydrated via a tube, as are tens of thousands of other people who lead otherwise normal lives.

But today she may die of dehydration and lack of food, innocent of a crime, because she has finally become too much of an inconvenience. So that Michael Schiavo can get on with his life, marry the mother of his two children, and cash in on the book and movie contracts.

In the Netherlands, doctors are already euthanizing the elderly sick and imperfect babies. There is no doubt that there is a culture of death. After 9/11 we were distracted and imagined that it existed only among the more fanatical sects of Islam. But the culture exists deep within us. For us it does not come from deep religious conviction, but from the exact opposite end of the belief spectrum: the belief that there is nothing greater than us, our perfect bodies and our brilliant minds. That without these, we are worthless, human debris to be swept away.

Rest in Peace, Terri Schiavo.