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December 18, 2005
More media whoring
First it was Mommy Sheehan doing centerfold spread on her son's grave for Vanity Fair, now - via Tammy, it's Michael Shiavo's turn in People Magazine to vogue at Terri's gravesite.
As I commented at Tammy's, the most salient point of the whole Schiavo affair is about how the LAW should approach these life and death issues. Terri was not on extraordinarly life support. She was only being cared for as one would any fully dependent individual - bathed, talked to, fed, hydrated, etc. Even the original malpractice case, the award was based on what was considered would be her normative lifespan in her dependent state.
Terri left no written instructions. Indeed, the testimony on Terri’s purported verbal wishes was, IMHO, exceedingly thin (and pretty self-serving by Michael). Since Terri was NOT on life support and left NO written instructions, the argument is, basically, should the law take a DEATH default or a LIFE default?
In other words, should Terri’s custody, absent Terri’s own unequivocal instructions, go to those that are willing to care for her until natural death occurs or go to someone that wants to put her down?
This became an alarming matter to people who have family members who are severely disabled, since it comes startling close to open euthanasia. Couple that with Michael’s attorney and his major medical "expert witness” ARE open advocates of euthanizing the “inconvenient” and that Michael had already moved on with his life, taking a mistress and having children with her, and you have a situation in which Michael’s motive appears less than sterling and his subsequent behavior (such as putting Terri’s death date on her tombstone as the day she went into a coma, and his media whoring above) reinforces and to some extent substantiates the initial appearance.
Posted by Darleen at December 18, 2005 11:39 AM
Comments
So do you think Terri's decision to marry Michael - therefore designating him as her decision maker - should carry absolutely no weight?
We can't know for certain what Terri would have decided about continuing life support after all the centers of awareness in her brain were gone - if we did know for certain, then of course we would have to respect her decision.
But we don't know that for certain. What we do know for certain that she chose Michael to be her legal closest of kin. Since that's the one decision we know she made, I think it ought to have been respected.
Many Americans sincerely believe that the death of higher brain functions is the real, significant death. Assuming that Michael holds this belief, why should he not put that death date on Terri's tombstone?
Finally, I don't think you could actually find a single expert witness who, quoted fairly and in context, has said the "inconvenient" should be killed. Nor do I think that demonizing the opposition is useful.
Posted by: Ampersand at December 21, 2005 04:16 AM