Sunday, March 27, 2005

Terri III

I must strike all who read these posts about the Schiavo debacle as horribly indecisive.

Make no mistake: I am confused on this.

From a comment I made on a post at pensateomnia:

On the one hand, to hasten a death that, aside from artificial feeding, has not in and of itself begun in earnest [to end itself]--as has, for example, that of grandma who refuses to eat--is atrocious.

On the other hand, legally speaking, do we overthrow all spouses' legal rights to do what the law says they can do for the sake of one controversial case?

On the other hand, do we allow said spouses to end the life in question if some reasonable doubt of their recovery exists? Do we hold out hope and invest in therapy and tests (which M. Schiavo has denied Terri)?

On the other hand, do we dare dictate to individuals the extent to which they must extend their own misery and repeatedly crushed hopes (and who am I to judge how Michael feels at night?), often over the course of years?

On the OTHER hand...sigh...

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