The Terri Schiavo Case

March 27, 2005

If someone is being kept alive by machinery but is otherwise non-responsive then after a reasonable time to make sure recovery isn't going to happen, I think it is morally correct to turn it all off and let the person die. The Terri Schiavo case is more complicated than this because there are medical differences of opinion as to whether she was mentally vegetative, we were not using extreme medical means to keep her alive, and most important, the court order did not merely require that the tube be removed, but it also demanded that she not be fed or hydrated, even by mouth. This latter means that the state did not merely "let her die" but it instead purposely killed her. The courts ordered Terri Schiavo be put to death because of a civil matter and I find that frightening and morally repugnant.

 

Medical professors are now talking about defining life not in physical terms but in social terms -- if a person is no longer "socially alive" then we should just eliminate them physically and harvest their organs.

 

If the judge had simply ordered that the tubes be removed because that was what her guardian wanted and let her parents or nurses attempt to feed her by mouth, then many, if not all, of my objections would disappear.

 

If I am ever in a severe medical situation where I am mentally unresponsive and am being kept alive by machine, I would want the equipment removed so that I am not a burden on my family and so that I can leave this life and go peacefully to the next one. "Letting me die" because my body can no longer keep itself alive is something I would want; but purposely killing me because my life somehow is no longer useful is not, because who am I or who are you to decide what life is useful and what is not.

 

Rachel asked my opinion on the Terri Schiavo case. I've been listening to a lot of talk shows about it during my long commute and also reading articles. I have lots of thoughts. I'll try to summarize them.

 

First, there are a bunch of complicating issues in this case. This is often presented as a "right-to-die" issue in the media, but it's not that simple. If it were that simple then I would have very, very different opinions.

 

So let me first state my opinion on "right-to-die" issues. I do not believe that it is morally good to go to great efforts to keep someone alive when all indications are that the person is essentially dead. Brain death in my opinion is as good as physical death. If someone is being kept alive by machinery but is otherwise non-responsive then after a reasonable time to make sure recovery isn't going to happen, I think it is morally correct to turn it all off and let the person die. However, if the person is responsive then I believe we have a moral duty to help the person live even if their quality of life may not be superb. For example, Christopher Reeve was kept alive by machinery but he was responsive, so we were correct in keeping him alive. If he had decided that he did not want to live like that and chose to die, then I would argue that we STILL had a moral obligation to keep him alive, even against his wishes. The only time we would be morally justified in removing the equipment would be if the person is mentally vegetative -- not just mentally incapacitated, but completely unresponsive.

 

Now, the thing that makes the Terri Schiavo case more complicated than this is that there are medical differences of opinion as to whether she was mentally vegetative, we were not using extreme medical means to keep her alive (a feeding tube is not "extreme" and, according to the nurses attending her, it was in as a convenience, not a necessity), and finally and most important, the court order did not merely require that the tube be removed, but it also demanded that she not be fed or hydrated, even by mouth. This latter means that the state did not merely "let her die" but it instead purposely killed her. It would have been far more humane and much more honest for the state to have ordered she be put to death via lethal injection, but since a civil court does not have the authority to do that they instead had to order that she be starved to death, a painful death and she was not even given the benefit of pain medication.

 

I find it morally repugnant that we would purposely kill an innocent person by any means. This is morally extremely different from "letting someone die". Two analogies that were expressed on the radio were that it would be no different than ordering someone be locked in a room without food or water until they died, or ordering someone removed from a ventilator that was helping them breathe and then ordering that if they started breathing on their own to smother them with a pillow. The courts ordered Terri Schiavo be put to death because of a civil matter and I find that frightening and morally repugnant.

 

What does this mean for other disabled people? When should we put them to death? When is life no longer worth living so we should end it? And who is to decide? This is a very frightening precedent that has been set. We must overturn whatever made it possible to happen.

 

Another argument made in this case is that she would not want to live under these circumstances. Her husband claimed she told him she would not want to live like this. There are many factors that make this claim dubious, but let's ask the broader question and assume that she really did want to die. If that is true then the courts rather than murdering her, assisted her in her suicide. That's just as frightening as killing her. Do we really want a society where courts and doctors assist people in committing suicide? When would it be OK for people to kill themselves? Extreme pain? That can be addressed with pain treatment. Depression? Reduced mental capacity? Alzheimer's? Financial ruin? Where does it stop?

 

There is a trend in our society coming from the extreme left to devalue life. Medical professors are now talking about defining life not in physical terms but in social terms -- if a person is no longer "socially alive" then we should just eliminate them physically and harvest their organs. (There is an excellent Dennis Prager on this topic that I hope to post online soon.) This is used to justify euthanasia, abortion, and worse. Holland is a great example of what happens when a society starts down this road. In Holland you can request a doctor to kill you without parental consent up until age 16. Parents can have you killed younger than that if they decide your life is not worth living. Old people and mentally incapacitated people can be put to death with or without their permission. Is this really what we want? The Terri Schiavo case, because of how it was handled, is heading us that way.

 

This is getting long, so let me conclude with two things. First, if the judge had simply ordered that the tubes be removed because that was what her guardian wanted (in this case, it's difficult to refer to Michael Schiavo as her "husband", because of his behavior) and let her parents or nurses attempt to feed her by mouth, then many, if not all, of my objections would disappear. However, I also believe that the laws need to be changed so that someone doing what Michael Schiavo was doing could not ever be given guardianship over someone in Terri Schiavo's situation.

 

Second, if I am ever in a severe medical situation where I am mentally unresponsive and am being kept alive by machine, I would want the equipment removed so that I am not a burden on my family and so that I can leave this life and go peacefully to the next one. However, if I am mentally responsive, even if mentally impaired, I would not want to be killed. I could not place the moral burden on my family of making a decision to kill me, nor would I presume to play god with my own life and choose death. I think it would be too difficult and degrading to my family to do such a thing. I could not be happy knowing the pangs of conscience that would forever be upon you because you had killed your father. In between those two extremes are many gray areas. For example, maybe I'm mentally responsive but also mentally incapacitated and being kept alive by expensive machinery. In that case turning off the equipment would be OK, but if I lived on my own I could not stand the thought of you having to decide to kill me. I would expect you to care for me and hopefully I would die quickly on my own. "Letting me die" because my body can no longer keep itself alive is something I would want; but purposely killing me because my life somehow is no longer useful is not, because who am I or who are you to decide what life is useful and what is not.

 

Late addition: Here is a link to a very thoughtful article on the topic. The final section is especially good: