Contemporary bioethics has become a natural ally of the culture of death, but the culture of death itself is a perennial human temptation; for onlookers in particular, it offers a reassuring answer (“this is how X would have wanted it”) to otherwise excruciating dilemmas, and it can be rationalized every which way till Sunday. In Terri Schiavo’s case, it is what won out over the hospice’s culture of life, overwhelming by legal means, and by the force of advanced social opinion, the moral and medical command to choose life, to comfort the afflicted, and to teach others how to do the same. The more this culture continues to influence our thinking, the deeper are likely to become the divisions within our society and within our families, the more hardened our hatreds, and the more manifold our fears. More of us will die prematurely; some of us will even be persuaded that we want to.
"Hospices' culture of life"
Neurologically and bioethicistically speaking, where does your genius writer earn his beans? I think I know. Do you?
Good Luck,
Layer Seven
I don't look forward to dying slowly in pain, but I'll accept it if that's the way things work out.
I don't blame others if they want to escape that kind of end, but I do blame those who are selfish enough to want to corrupt the whole medical profession so they can make it easier on themselves.