Replies

If someone is severely injured so that their brain is deprived of oxgyen, resulting in brain damage...should the courts be allowed to legally end this person's life on the grounds that they are intellectually incapacitated? If they can't eat normally? If they are paralyzed? What if the person seeking their death is the one who inflicted the brain-damaging injuries in the first place? What if they had no proof, other than their word, that dying was actually the victim's wish?

I recognize that you are approaching this emotionally, not with specificity, but "the courts" are not making the decision. The court was asked to decide a private dispute between the husband and the parents as to whether the husband should be displaced as the disabled wife's decision-maker. The court decided that there was no legal reason to remove the husband from his presumptive role. [I realize many here disagree with this decision, but none have suggested other than that they would have weighed the evidence differently than the judge.]

As part of that review of the husband's conduct, the court reviewed the proposed course of action (i.e removing the feeding tube) and found that it did not violate the law. Obviously, it is not unusual for private decision-making in withholding treatment to cause or accelerate death.

Now, frustrated by the outcome, some here continue to argue that private decision-making ought to be trumped by the state where the only treatment is the imposition of a permanent feeding tube and permanent force feeding thereafter. This is based on the apparent PETA-like concept that physical life is the highest good.

That is a dangerous (and wholly novel) principle. If maintenance of any type or degree of physical life is the highest good and the state is authorized to trump all private decision-making, we will not like the 'brave new world' which will follow. Our loved ones will be forcibly kept 'alive' regardless of their quality of life or their pain and suffering because, as the PETA-types would gladly tell you, nothing is more important than physical life.

Pardon me but I know better. I am a Christian and physical life is not the greatest good. Moreover, the state does not make better decisions than private parties.

As former care-giver to severely disabled/mentally retarded adults, I don't understand why Terri's death needs to be precipitated. Some of the people I cared for were born with their problems, others became disabled due to accident or illness. All were important to me and to the others who took care of them. We worked with these individuals to strengthen atrophied muscles and maintain basic body functions. Some were bedridden. Should they have been denied care simply because they could not think and reason the way a "normal" person can? Because some of them could not feed themselves or dress themselves or otherwise take care of themselves? If they got sick, we didn't encourage them to die by withholding care.

If she COULD feed herself, but needed dialysis due to kidney problems, would Michael be pursuing withdrawing dialysis? If she could feed herself, but needed insulin injections to stay alive (and could not do this for herself) would he pursue withholding insulin? If she was able to feed herself, but required an ostomy (which she could not do for herself) due to digestive failure, what then? If she needed oxygen supplementation for weak lungs, what then? A pacemaker?

Some of the patients I cared for had no families to take care of them because they had outlived their parents or had been abandoned, but I never heard of anyone pursuing their death simply because they were incapable of living independently or having a quality of life I take for granted. Some of them made me sad, but it never occurred to me that they should not be taken care of.

Terri has parents and other people who are willing to take care of her and feed her by whatever means she needs until she dies. Parents of children BORN with similar disabilities may care for them their whole natural lives and do everything possible to keep these individuals healthy and comfortable whether they EVER speak, laugh, walk, or do anything "normal" people do. People are dramatically disabled in accidents every year...brain injuries, spinal cord injuries. Many of them require permanent round-the-clock care ever after. There are people willing to take care of these people, whether they ever speak again or do any of the things they were able to do before they were forever changed. If these people are worthy of such care, I don't understand why this woman should be singled out for death. She is no better and no worse off than many other people in a similar state. Death is not imminent, but she does require special feeding. So did many of the people I worked with.

I honestly don't know, but it seems to me that Terri's needs are fairly low-tech and basic. Fifteen, twenty, forty years...if there are people willing and able to take care of her needs, I see no reason to essentially euthanize her.

I didn't stop feeding my dog when old age made him decrepit and weak. When the time came to ease him out of this life, I didn't do so by starving him to death. If Terri was utterly incapacitated by a stroke tomorrow and was on life-support...if there was then a plug to pull on Terri and facilitate death promptly, to me that's a little different than the method they are suggesting, when death is not imminent. I wouldn't wish euthansia by starvation and dehydration on my dog, I certainly wouldn't wish it on a human being, whether she was capable of understanding what was happening to her or not.

Sometimes I think about those people I used to care for and remember all the ways they changed my life for the better. They might not have had the kind of life I would want for myself or my children, but it was better for me to have been a part of the group who loved and cared for them than to be part of any group who felt they'd be better off gone. There was a reason for them. A reason why they were in the world. A reason for their "being". I don't know what that reason is or was, but caring for them changed ME and blessed ME.

Maybe Terri's life plays a similar role in the bigger picture? Maybe she's not here for "her" anymore, but for the rest of us.