Posted on 03/30/2005 8:54:24 PM PST by Zivasmate
Terri deserves better Linda Chavez (back to web version) | Send
March 30, 2005
As Terri Schiavo lay dying, her organs slowly mummifying from the effects of prolonged, court-ordered dehydration and starvation, the Supreme Court of the United States refused to hear an appeal from her parents that might have saved her life. Her parents argued that Schiavo's right to due process under the law had been denied, a claim summarily rejected -- without even the pretense of a full hearing -- by a District Court and upheld by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Less than one week later, however, the Supreme Court sat in rapt attention as attorneys argued a very different life and death case, this one involving a convicted rapist and murderer whose case found its way to the high court because he is a non-citizen, and who, it is alleged, had been denied full and adequate access to diplomats from his home country when he was criminally charged.
In both cases, lower courts had already ordered the termination of life -- in the case of Terri Schiavo, by refusing her food and water on the basis of a Florida state court ruling; and in the case of Jose Ernesto Medellin, by the judgment of a Texas jury that he was guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt" of the rape and murder of two teenage girls in 1992.
So, why did the Court give so much more deference to Medellin's claims than to Schiavo's? It's hard to escape the conclusion that it is because many people -- including the judges who have considered her case -- believe that Terry Schiavo's disabilities render her no longer fully human. And in this judgment the medical establishment is fully complicit. The very term used to describe Schiavo's condition -- persistent vegetative state -- conjures up images of a subhuman, sub-animal life form. As one health care professional wrote me after hearing me on television describe the pain Schiavo might suffer as she slowly dehydrated to death, "If you touch a venus fly trap plant (a stimuli) it will immediately close its petals (a reaction). That doesn't mean it feels or cognizes [sic] that there is a fly that has landed." Few public commentators have been as blunt, but the sentiment seeps through nonetheless in the words we choose to describe Schiavo's state.
Although the media has tried endlessly to compare Schiavo's predicament to that of cancer or Alzheimer's patients whose families choose to withhold or withdraw life-support at the end of their lives, Schiavo was not dying -- at least not until a judge ordered that she not be fed or given water. She required no machines to help her breathe, no kidney dialysis to remove toxins from her body, no pacemaker to regulate her heartbeat. She was even able to swallow on her own -- she swallowed two liters of saliva every day, until severe hydration turned her mouth and tongue to dry leather -- which raises the possibility that she may not even have required the feeding tube that the judge ordered removed. Until her court-ordered ordeal, she was a relatively healthy, if severely brain damaged woman whose longevity alone was testament to a will to live.
Those who want to end Terri Schiavo's life have done everything in their power to dehumanize her. But Terri is not a "vegetable." She is not "brain dead." She is severely disabled. She cannot care for herself. She cannot "think" or communicate normally. But she is a person in the clear meaning of the Constitution, that is unless we have now collectively written such persons out of the Constitution.
We have been down this road before when we bought and sold Africans and their progeny as mere "property" and when our courts determined that the unborn are not persons unless their mothers choose to carry them to term. Now we seem on the verge of declaring -- de facto -- that the severely mentally deficient are not persons either. Who will be next -- the gay man suffering from AIDS-related dementia, the Alzheimer's patient who cannot feed herself, the infant with cerebral palsy or spina bifida or hydrocephalus? Will we suddenly find it convenient -- even merciful -- to let such people starve?
Rev. Jesse Jackson joined protesters outside Schiavo's hospice on Tuesday, declaring, "This is one of the profound moral and ethical breaches of our time. . . we pray for a miracle." It should not take a miracle to convince the U.S. Supreme Court that an innocent, brain-damaged woman deserved as much consideration as a convicted rapist and murderer. But then we live in dark times.
Linda Chavez is President of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a Townhall.com member organization.
©2005 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Contact Linda Chavez | Read Chavez's biography
Won't work, Mike!
At #8 (above), your initial question was "...does Terri have a soul?" [emphasis added]
Zivasmate replied (#12) that "Yes, Terri has a soul...." [emphasis added]
At #13, "...perfect answer.", you said, going on to say that "...they are killing a soul." [emphasis added]
Now, you're saying that the "soul" in your question was meant to signify a "person"?
Hm-m.
Did you mean, then, to ask--initially--"Does Terri have a person?" Not likely, is it? ;-}
Maybe you meant to ask, "Is Terri a person?" ? ? ? If so, I think the answer to such a question might depend on defining legal terms rather than theological ones.
But . . . in any case, Mike, only you can find the answer to your own question(s)--when you figure out what you're asking in the first place, that is! :-}.
[Boy, am I in need of sleep!] Have a nice day, Mike.
I just heard an abc spokesbabe say that if the feeding tube was restored, giving Terri water and nourishment may do more harm than good.
I was truly stunned.
Chicken Soup!
When a person's ventillator is removed, do the courts order all of
the air from the person's room to be removed as well? Thus making
sure that there is absolutely no chance of air getting into their
body, assuring that they will die? Or do they allow the air to
remain around the person and let the person live if they begin to
breathe? In Terri's case, why not allow her to try and take in food
or at least water without the feeding tube? Even if she is unable,
it would be a great comfort for her family to be able to try; and the
final result would still be the same.
--
Past the point of no return.
Do you mean like the legal terms were defined in Hitler's Germany or maybe during the days of slavery in this country? Do you really think you can determine person hood by man's law and not God's? God has made each one of us a person. If we are to depend on the whims of man rather than upon unalienable rights derived from the sovereign God of the universe for our laws nobody is safe from the tyranny of others. Our own Declaration of Independence sets forth that our rights are derived from our Creator...........
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--"
Mikey didn't even like the idea of Terri having communion. What was he so afraid of? Was he afraid she would maybe . . . SWALLOW it . . and then we all would know she could have been swallowing all along?
AMEN!
The newscasters point seemed to be that giving food and water would harm her in her weakened state. She seemed clueless that Terri was actually dying of starvation and dehydration.
What does my answer have to do with what you're saying or with what Mike D. asked? About as much as your answer has to do with what I told Mike. How much is that? Nothing!
Have a nice day . . . after you read the two biblical passages I told Mike D. to read. [sigh]
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