Free Republic

"Rep. Gary Beard’s bill assumes that any patient would want to be kept alive with feeding or hydration tubes, unless the patient has specifically said otherwise in a living will or similar document.

“We know what happened to Terri Schiavo. We don’t want a repeat of that in Louisiana,” Beard, R-Baton Rouge, told House members."


God bless this guy.

"There was a great diversity of backgrounds/lifestyles of the supporters at the hospice."

To me, that was one of the few candles of hope shining in those dark, dark weeks. As I've said to several people since, both liberal and conservative: When George W. Bush, Ralph Nader and Jesse Jackson are all saying the same thing, it just might be time to listen.

"It will be interesting to see what letters to the editor it provokes."

Indeed. But I'm more interested to see what the "Terri's right to die" camp will say about Didion's article than what our side will say. I'm pretty sure most of the letter-writers on our side will express profound gratitude to the author.
I feel a sense of relief to see this article published. Didion cannot be dismissed as right-wing, religious or emotionally addled. She has maintained a veneer of objectivity and has cleverly inserted all her horror of this event in between her dry, calmly written lines. And yet I'm certain the horror is there and that this article will turn more than a few minds to our way of thinking.

Never imagined myself saying this but ... God bless Joan Didion. Her arid style, which I don't care for in her fiction, is just right for shining a cold, clear floodlight on this case. Thanks for posting this.

Excellent article. Thank you for posting it.

"All Florida has to do is require a living will...make the person put it in writing that they don't want to be kept alive...if that happens, puff....no more controversy..."

I think living will laws could lead to nightmarish scenarios. Here's how:

Please imagine for a moment that you're a 14-year-old girl with a 60-year-old teacher. The teacher has warts, she moves like a turtle, she wears tacky print shirtwaist dresses. You turn to your friend and whisper, "I don't want to live to be that old." And your 14-year-old self really means it. Aging and death have no reality to you. But one day you wake up, and you're 60. And ... life isn't too bad after all.

Now, imagine you're 26-year-old Terri Schiavo. After watching a TV movie about the plight of a pathetic human "vegetable," you turn to your husband and say, "I wouldn't want to live like that! No tubes for me." Then one day Terri wakes up and ... she is like that. Is she getting anything out of life? Is she feeling any pleasure? We can't know because she has passed beyond the point where she can communicate with us. She is a different person, as surely as an elderly woman is a different person from her young self.

How can we know what that life is like? How can we judge its quality? Should the profoundly disabled person getting some pleasure from life be protected from the thoughtless assumptions of her younger self? Who decides?

Many humane governments require living will plus some other assurances as safeguards. I like Fr. Pavone's suggestion that appointing a proxy is smarter and safer than making a living will.

this is the biggest "civil rights" issue of our time.

Hear, hear!

"He refused to ever meet Terri and she was denied her rights under the ADA to have access to any courtroom. Terri was denied her basic rights."

I believe you. But he covered his butt well enough to get rubber-stamped by fellow judges numerous times and now to win the acclaim of all these lawyers. How did he manage that? Because the mainstream mindset in our country now is that it's OK to starve and dehydrate someone to death if a) a judge can be persuaded she "wouldn't want to live like that" or b) the arbitrary PVS designation renders her nonhuman, "already dead."
To my mind, the fact that this has become the mainstream mindset is much, much more frightening than any rogue judge on a rampage.

Although my emotions re Greer are the same as yours (frustration, fury etc.) I can't really believe he's a rogue judge. I believe he followed the letter of the law, dotted every i, crossed every t, bless his cold, bureaucratic little heart.
That, to me, is what made the case so frightening: that the letter of the law (conveniently ignoring the likely intentions of our founders) WAS being followed. That this is what we've come to.
The only way out of this dark place is changing hearts and minds, and it won't be quick. I think I've made a little progress with some folks close to me who initially accepted the official point of view but now have doubts.
In this long conversation we must have with lawmakers and fellow citizens, I believe honest outrage can work in our favor, if it doesn't turn into a shouting match (and that's hard).

I'm no fan of either Bush. But I think it's only fair to point out: if they had ridden in with the cavalry, it would have saved Terri's life and brought joy to her supporters, BUT the "right to die" crowd (and I will never again read that phrase without a shudder) would have gained the moral high ground. Public outcry against such arrogant "interference" would have been loud and long, and many more future Terris might be doomed. Terri's fate was to be a martyr, it seems. I didn't want to believe it and prayed for it not to be true. But a martyr she is. It may have taken watching an innocent person die to pull us all back from the edge.

Probably nobody at that funeral was in the mood to worry about precise word choice. They were grieving, as are many of us who were not there. But I am assuming they mean they have been inspired by the passionate fight that swirled around this innocent person and ended in her unjust death. As for me, my eyes have been opened to a terrible flaw in our system of justice, and I plan to do what I can to urge our lawmakers to correct it. So I guess you could say I too have been inspired.

I still have hope that great good can emerge from this obscene tragedy. But it won't happen overnight. Terri's family will not be silent, and we must not be silent. These timid lawmakers need to be flooded with letters from people like us who are appalled by the recent miscarriage of justice. As for myself, after those dreadful two weeks, during which lurking in this forum helped me retain my sanity, I'm trying to regain emotional equilibrium and prepare for many years of patient activism.