Terry Schiavo died this morning. Tis a sad thing that a husband can force the removal of a feeding tube from a living human being. I can’t say that I’d agree with having laws thrown up to protect her, but to think that our society has started to crumble enough that someone would be willing to contemplate killing an innocent woman is something that’s starting to frighten me.
An Excert From Orson Scott Card’s March 20, 2005 column:
There are people whose lives are not worth living — or at least do not justify to society at large the trouble of keeping them alive. The murderers and torturers and ravishers of children, for instance — to protect innocents from them, a decent society might well choose to save all their future victims by killing the conscienceless perpetrator.
Yet because life is so precious, decent people are loath to use the death penalty, because it’s possible for the prosecutors to be wrong. Better to keep a thousand perpetrators of evil alive than to suffer one to be executed innocently.
But those who have harmed no one, whose only offense is to remain alive while being helpless, we can kill them.
April 1st, 2005 at 9:43 am
Question: “Tis a sad thing that a husband can force the removal of a feeding tube from a living human being.”
Isn’t legal guardianship part of marriage contracts in almost any state? Are you advocating that be changed?
April 1st, 2005 at 12:20 pm
Is it cruel of society to alleviate suffering? This is not about guilt or innocence it is about a poor woman whose mind died 15 years ago and her body been kept alive, artificially for 15 years by the wonders of modern medicine.
In this time the hopes of a miraculous recovery have disappeared, and the weight of test results and expert opinions declare there is no hope. Why not allow her husband to make the most painful and difficult decision of his life and let her body join her spirit?
We all have opinions on this matter and I respect all views but we should not seek to impose our views on others. Let the people closest to them decide, if their opinions differ let a judge decide who is acting in the patients best interest. Then RESPECT that decision.
April 1st, 2005 at 1:43 pm
Neil–out of curiosity, whose suffering was alleviated, M. Schiavo’s, T. Schiavo’s, or the parents’?
April 1st, 2005 at 2:15 pm
Make sure you have a living will. Let those around you know where the copy is, the law office, and it is a good idea to send to primary care physician and to the hospital you would “normally” use. Not too long ago, I had a conversation with my mother who does not have a living will. In the case of my parents, I would have to decide what to do. I told her my opinion and if they didn’t agree, then they needed to get a living will signed. One thing is for sure in life, we will die.