Like you, I lead a fairly active lifestyle. I'm not an adrenaline enthusiast as you are, but I love being active and doing things outdoors. One reason that I've posted so rarely in the past six months is that I've been building a more active lifestyle and haven't had time to freep or to work on my website. I think that if I were in this position, I would want to be heavily sedated so that I wouldn't feel the discomfort and then allowed to die. However, it's not my place to make that decision for this woman.
As you said, the experts have conflicting opinions on Terri's condition. I've been to enough scientific conferences that I'm used to that situation. Too many people like to worship science as some all-knowing, always correct god who is ready for us to discover his will. The reality is that technical people disagree more often than not on all but the simplest technical questions.
What I find so objectionable is that the system doesn't grant the benefit of the doubt to this woman who is scheduled to be killed. If she were on trial for murder and the DNA experts had this much difference of opinion on whether the DNA evidence showed her to be the criminal, the jury would likely acquit her. At the very least, the judge would not likely impose the death penalty.
In the long term, what we need is a law that would state that when someone is awarded a large cash settlement for ongoing care in a case like this, the cash should be paid from a trust directly to the caregivers or used to reimburse direct expenses to the family. The family should not have the option of just using the cash. In that case, the husband would have no motive for his wife to die and some of the controversy in this case could be avoided. The law should also invalidate any previous guardianship agreements if the current guardian chooses to terminate the patient's life. The big problem here is that the husband persuaded the parents to sign a form making him the guardian with the final choice in all of Terri's decisions. When he was trying to help her, that was okay, but it needs to be revisited when he changes his mind about treatment.
In the short term, I would like to see the Bush administration take more positive action. The previous idiots made an armed raid in order to force a little boy to live in slavery on Cuba. I think it could be forgiven if the current administration stretched a point to keep an American woman alive.
WFTR
Bill
In the long term, what we need is a law that would state that when someone is awarded a large cash settlement for ongoing care in a case like this, the cash should be paid from a trust directly to the caregivers or used to reimburse direct expenses to the family.
You could have knocked me over with a feather. There's someone else on this thread who uses his head instead of his emotions.
You make an excellent point Bill. In fact, that's what I have been trying to tell most of these people. Instead of pulling a "liberal" and trying to change the law in the courts, they should be spending their time where it will do some good and where the Founding Fathers intended and try to change the law in the state legislatures and in Congress. Our courts are far from perfect. But, once a case has made it through the whole system, appeals and all, it's done and we should accept that the court made the best possible decision, within the law. If we don't like the decision, then we need to change the law, so that future decisions will be more in line with the people's wishes and the law that you suggest makes great sense, as long as it makes provisions for living wills.
But, these emotional pleas, on a case by case basis, although they tug at your heart, get us nowhere. Even if you win one case, you still have hundreds of other "feel good" cases left to fight. If you change the law, you win thousands of cases, for years to come. In short, you can waste your time on hundreds of individual "feel good" cases, maybe winning one or two and never make any real progress or you can spend your time usefully, fighting all of those cases at once, in the legislature and in Congress. You won't get that warm fuzzy feeling, fighting the greater fight, that you get from those "feel good" cases, but you will be doing much more good.
You have proposed a solution that has merit. I just hope that some of the people who are ranting about the judge in this particular case will spend a little less time ranting about individual "feel good" cases and more time trying to get such legislation passed. But then, if such a law is passed, it presents an even greater problem. What are all those bleeding hearts going to do with all that time, since there won't be any more "feel good" cases left to fight??? :-)
By the way, I like your site. I especially liked your article about George Bush, the great moderate. As I would expect, we have our differences. But, it's easy to see that you approach politics from the logical position, more than the emotional position and I appreciate that. I haven't had time to check out your site completely, but I will do so soon.
In that regard, you might find some interesting things on Action America. It has been a while since I posted anything new there. Since the site has grown in popularity (over 310,000 hits in a single month), we have been overhauling the entire site offline. Updates to the site have been further delayed, since I am also in the process of writing a book and closing some major business deals. Even so, most of what is posted there is of a more or less timeless nature. As does your site, we try to take the logical, rather than the emotional route.
Thanks for the voice of reason. I was beginning to feel all alone.
Bingo.
Erring on the side of caution regarding human life should ALWAYS be the deciding criteria.