Should or Shouldn't I?

I am back. I am debating, though now that I brought it up I really should write on it, whether to weigh in on the whole Terri Schiavo or not. By bringing it up, I proved that I really had settled the debate in my head. But I feel better trying to "show" that I had at least considered letting it be. It is no Michael Jackson thing, there are no freaks here.

Let me start with this, I like to think I am softening the coldness of my opinion but I do not think this is an issue where there is any softness, I find the situation very sad for all those involved. I am not unsympathetic to her parents, there you can see on which side of the fence I tend to sit, but what kind of life was it?

Keep in mind as I write this Terri Schiavo has died. I ask the question was it a life? I know that she was breathing but was she LIVING? It does go to the notion of sentience, was is basically being aware of your surroundings and feeling and responding to sensory stimuli. I saw nothing in any of the videos that would lead me to believe that she was sentient.

I know that numerous "doctors" have seen the video and concluded otherwise. Let me ask you would accept a diagnosis from ANY doctor who only saw you on video tape? If your answer is a truthful "yes" then I guess you would be inclined to see Dr Nick Riviera from The Simpsons. The credibility of those diagnoses is laughable. Again, I am not a doctor but I could play one on TV. That is what these "doctors" have been doing in this case.

The best thing that I read, from a neurologist who may have examined Terri Schiavo or has at least seen similar cases (isn't funny how these things turn patients or people into "cases", I guess it is a nice way of dehumanizing something so tragic that we do not want to even go to that dark place where we imagine ourselves in the same situation, on either side of the bed, but I digress), and he hit the nail on the head. He has seen these situations and it is only natural, as compassionate and thoughtful human beings, to want to see the flickers of life in her. You want to believe that any motion or spontaneous movement has meaning and thus proves that she is sentient and that there is SOME quality of life. You have to look at the patient and the video and filter out that natural bias of the observer and just OBSERVE the context, the stimuli and the response, if any.

I have not seen much evidence of that truly clinical and OBJECTIVE analysis of the videos by any of these medical professionals (?) on TV. They are just perverting scientific method and misusing their credibility, which has been lost in my eyes for what it is worth, to push a political, religious or moral point of view.

I think that I like these sort of issues because they fall so neatly into the gray and ambiguous area of life. It is such a nuanced situation with a myriad of opinions and views. I think there are many good points raised by people on both sides of the issue. That is what makes it all the more tragic, there is no easy, clean and neat solution. It is just like life. There are no clean lives. We all live messy, convoluted, ambiguous lives. It is truly uplifting because we, here in the industrialized world, can really create our own identities and lives. I guess some recreate or even steal others identities, welcome to the Internet. Anybody want to go phishing? I digress again.

I have disliked the way that Michael Schiavo has been portrayed like something akin to Scott Petersen or is that Peterson, either way he is a dead man, which is not the worst thing in the world but that is an issue for another day. I really have to feel for him. It i s not easy to come to the cold conclusion that your wife is "dead" only her body, the machine, does not seem to want to stop working. It is easier to characterize him in the negative and really look to some "motive" other than compassion as to why he would want to see his wife die. It is easy to assume that he stands to gain financially (though there really has not been any EVIDENCE of that), emotionally (he does have a fiance and two young children with her while "married" to Terri) or other such thing. Why not just divorce her and let her family or the State to deal with her care? I can understand all the sniping towards him, I really can. Those attacking him believe that they are putting themselves into Terri's shoes. This is how they would "think" and "feel" if they were Terri.

It is all false. They are thinking like themselves in a different situation. Could they have thought like Terri when she was sentient, I am making a conclusion of fact there but it is all on the basis of hearsay)? I would say the answer is "no". The mistake being made is that they HAVE to think like Terri, not just substitue what they "think" they would feel or think. There is a big difference. The major one being it is always very easy to opine in the abstract. It is quite another to act and react when the "bullets start flying". When the adrenaline and emotions hit, what you do or think could be completely different from what you thought you would do in the abstract. Reality is funny that way. The point I am trying to make is that we assume that everybody thinks the way we do. Is that assumption true, I do not think so because if people have different experiences or contexts, then it is unlikely that their thinking will be the same. It could be but it is not necessarily true, coincidental.

I can see a Micahael Schiavo who loved his wife, who really did hear her say that she did not want to live like she was living, if it should come to that, who was looking to carry out her wishes (over 15 years). As a society, laws were created to deal with who is the next of kin and best placed to make sure a persons wishes were carried out. This responibility rests with the spouse. The courts have been clear on that so why has the State seen fit to try to abrogate the laws, it itself, put in place. I should say that the "next of kin" thing implies the absence of bad faith on the part of the party asserting control. I think that with over 18 court decisions in his favor, Michael Schiavo deserves the benefit of the doubt.

So now we are left with the husband not being evil. Here is the painful part, we are left with a women who is not (and has not been for 15 years) sentient, left clinging to "life" (?) for what reason? That is the tragedy.

I think that I have bored all you enough. It was not much of a rant or rave. I did not get into the starvation thing, but suffice it to say, if thought about in the guise of somebody who is not sentient, does it really matter? Is it really cruel in that circumstance? Is it any worse than not actively putting her out of her misery? We humanely put down sick animals but we agonized over letting Terri Schiavo starve to death (dehydration really) but "could" do nothing to ease what we see as a miserable death? That is the question that I will leave you all with today. Ciao.

I promise to funnier next time out but I am showing my versatility.