My reactions to the Terri Schiavo case have ranged from off the cuff: "Are they DAFT?" to fear: "What if they come for me next?" to philosophical: "Is it ethical to withdraw nutritional support in end of life cases?" (If not Congress better get busy: feeding tubes are withdrawn in thousands of patients, every day.)
Fortunately, here in Britain I can turn on the TV and see something else: we still have Camilla Parker-Bowles, with her fully functioning brain, to kick around. But from my travels around the vast American blogosphere, I couldn't help but stumble across sincere yet factually shaky, often grammatically incorrect attempts at justifying what to me looks a lot like wingnuttery taken to the extreme.
The folks involved in protesting the decision of the Florida courts (why is it always geographically and reality pried-off Florida? Can't we just sever the state from the life support the other 49 states provide?) are the same ones who protest at abortion clinics, who sign up for Randall Terry's Operation Rescue, who harass women at Planned Parenthood with posters of pretty little fetuses sucking their thumbs.
They're just ignorant, I thought at first. If only they knew the facts—that with no cerebral cortex, there is no chance any kind of therapy will ever help poor Terri. Nor is there any pain involved in ending her life through withdrawing nutritional supplementation—I watched my friend die this way, and she was at peace the entire time. (If not, you betcha I would have called up Tom DeLay to intervene on her behalf!)
But it's not ignorance of the facts; these people don't care that poor Terri has no functioning brain, that her cerebral cortex doesn't exist. In fact, that's exactly WHY they've chosen her for their right-to-life poster girl.
In poor Terri, they've found the perfect fetus-surrogate.
Here's a fully-formed fetus-like adult, who smiles, blinks, perhaps sucks her thumb, with help. She even stars in her very own DVD! If they can get a judge somewhere, anywhere—a congress will do even better—to declare a person without a cerebral cortex has a right to live despite the attempts of her husband (read "mother") to intervene, then they've won an important battle.
Poor Terri is planted right at the top of their slippery slope, perfectly poised to become a martyr if she is allowed to die, even better poised to become a precedent if she's allowed to live ("exist" might be a better word).
They haven't changed anyone's mind about a right to a dignified death—almost everyone would choose to end their life if they were in Terri's condition—but that's not their goal. Unfortunately, the actions of the "Rescue Terri" folks might make it harder for even someone with a living will to have their wishes carried out after their death—living wills don't take into account every contingency, and there's always the slim possibility someone might have changed their mind after signing a living will. (Arguments courtesy of bio-ethicist Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings.) Especially, it turns out, if you're a woman—Amanda at Pandagon has discovered female patients are more likely to have extraordinary end-of-life measures carried out, as it's assumed they need to be "nurtured."
Once again, those of us who inhabit reality are sent into the rabbit warren of facts, arguments, CAT scans and philosophy texts, but we might as well save our keyboards the stress. We won't convince the zealots, and their leaders have other motives. (Imagine the drained bank accounts of those who sign the "petitions" to Save Terri after they're hit up for contributions to pay for Randall Terry's new house.) (Courtesy World O'Crap.)
So today I'm going to go on with my hedonistic, reality-shackled life, and leave the arguing to the philosophers. But there is one thought I can't get out of my head:
Poor Terri.
