{"id":1216,"date":"2005-03-21T17:54:00","date_gmt":"2005-03-21T23:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/?p=1216"},"modified":"2005-03-21T17:54:00","modified_gmt":"2005-03-21T23:54:00","slug":"terri-schiavo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/?p=1216","title":{"rendered":"Terri Schiavo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since opining on this case seems to be in vogue. Allow me to share my comments<\/a> from a post<\/a> in ‘s journal on the Terri Schiavo events. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

:If anyone think that Terri’s still sentient enough to have interests….<\/p>\n

She’s become a symbol. It’s really an excess, you know? We can throw resources at a problem that isn’t going to get any better. Resources that could better be used elsewhere. I think an issue bigger than the nutrients we’re giving her would be the hospital space and skilled care she’s consuming. I favor something more proactive than simply letting her shell starve. Put it to sleep gently. Waste not. If there is any remainder of her consciousness imprisoned therein, perhaps that would be a greater kindness to her, and perhaps not. But it would certainly be a greater kindness to the person who would be able to use her bed, and to the person who would receive better care from less distracted physicians and nurses.<\/p>\n

logcabinguyinla<\/a>:I think an issue bigger than the nutrients we’re giving her would be the hospital space and skilled care she’s consuming.”<\/p>\n

Wow. Now we’re making life and death judgements based on efficiency and use of resources.<\/p>\n

Mentally retarded people used to “go away” for reasons like that and now lead happy and useful lives. The nazis used thinking like that to rationalize eliminating people.<\/p>\n

This is death as treatment and it’s an abomination.<\/p>\n

:Mentally retarded people are capable of feeding themselves if you put food down in front of them. There’s a big difference there.<\/p>\n

But looking into this, I’ve received conflicting information. I’ve heard “she can laugh and talk” and “she can’t talk” in the same news article. So, I looked a little deeper. According to the [reasonably impartial seeming] source I found, she can’t feed herself, can’t express an opinion on whether or not she’d like to live, and has been in such a state for more than 14 years (going on 15, in fact). The language centers of her brain have been replaced by spinal fluid, along with just about everything but the basic breathing mechanism. She cannot even swallow food without risk of choking to death. (information from: http:\/\/abstractappeal.com\/schiavo\/infopage.html).<\/p>\n

We are always making life and death decisions based on efficiency and resource allocation. Food and health care in particular. Unless you happen to think that angioplasty works better on white men than on black women. Rich people live longer because they can afford more\/better food and health care. Tell me how that is not a market based life or death decision.<\/p>\n

So, yeah, devoting over a decade of medical resources to keeping a literally brainless husk alive, as opposed to using those resources to treat people more likely to recover is indeed a moral issue. Though I cannot point to the specific party or parties harmed, the harm has been done. The opportunity cost matters. Not to mention wasting the judgement faculties of millions of people. Why can’t we trust that the multiple judicial processes actually came to the correct decision?<\/p>\n

In her husband’s position, I would have divorced her long ago, and let the parents have their living, breathing lifesized-doll-in-the-shape-of-their-daughter. But I am not her husband, and my overall moral judgement in this case remains the same.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since opining on this case seems to be in vogue. Allow me to share my comments from a post in ‘s journal on the Terri Schiavo events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}