Back when Dr. Kervorkian (Dr. Death) was euthanizing people, my wife and I discussed what would happen if we ever became brain dead. We both agreed and promised each other we'd "pull the plug" if we knew there was no way the person would come out and have a reasonable quality of life. My wife made me promise I'd do it.
If this were to happen today and the media got ahold of it ... I would be the Michael Schiavo of the moment. No one would know what we had talked about, just as NONE of you know what went on with them.
But you know something, I wouldn't care how many people cried and put up posters and websites ... I would do what my wife's wishes were. My wife would never forgive me if I let her be used by the media and the anti-death crowd as a symbol for something she does NOT want and then caved in and forced her to continue on in a state she would not want to be in.
Anyway, that's how I feel. You guys see Terri as a symbol, maybe Michael saw her as a human being and was granting her what he KNEW she wanted.
I am reminded of this version of a living will my husband and I have agreed to ;~D
I, being of sound mind and body, do not wish to be kept alive indefinitely by artificial means.
If a reasonable amount of time passes and I fail to sit up and ask for pizza and a cold beer, it should be presumed that I won’t do so ever again. When such a determination is reached, I hereby instruct my spouse, children and attending physicians to pull the plug, reel in the tubes and call it a day.
Under no circumstances shall any video footage of me in a vegetative state be plastered all over on national TV.
Under no circumstances shall the members of any Legislature or Congress enact a special law to keep me on life-support machinery. It is my wish that these boneheads mind their own damn business, and pay attention instead to the health, education and future of the millions of Americans who aren’t in a permanent coma and who nonetheless may be in need of nourishment.
Under no circumstances shall any politicians butt into this case. I don’t care how many fundamentalist votes they’re trying to scrounge for their run for the presidency in 2008, it is my wish that they play politics with someone else’s life and leave me alone to die in peace.
I couldn’t care less if a hundred religious zealots send e-mails to legislators in which they pretend to care about me. I don’t know these people, and I certainly haven’t authorized them to preach and/or crusade on my behalf. They should mind their own damn business, too.
If anyone goes against my wishes, turns my case into a political cause and enlists the ‘aid’ of self-serving charlatans such as Randall Terry and Jesse Jackson, I hereby promise to come back from the grave and make his or her existence a living hell.
All the facts in the case and MS's actions demonstrate that Schiavo had absolutely no right to end his wife's life. She was in no way at the end of her life...she was a living breathing human being. She was not suffering from a fatal illness - and cancer was not ravaging her body. She was ravaged by the withholding of food and drink in her last days.
Abominable and barbaric!
If your wife's mother wanted to give her water from a glass would you prevent her?