Thursday, March 31, 2005

What is this?

I don't have much to say on the Terri Schiavo case. I know for certain that I would hate to be in the position of any member of the family, but I think I would also rather die than live as a vegetable (as an aside, it must be awful for the Pope to be in a position where his mind is still there, but physically he isn't at all).

The best summary of the whole case I have seen is deployed here. The argument that in Florida her husband was her legal guardian is key; she shouldn't have entered into the marriage agreement if she didn't think her husband would have acted in her best interests.

But away from all of this, the question I want answered is this - why is removing a feeding tube in this way not euthanasia? Why is it OK to stop feeding people, which will certainly kill them, but not OK to administer a safe, lethal and fast dose of something? If anything good is to come out of the case, hopefully it will allow us to review this obvious inconsistency. I don't know where the answer lies. But if a decision can be taken on behalf of a person who cannot express their will which kills them, it makes no sense that someone who to all intents and purposes is compus mentis is refused the opportunity to have an assisted suicide.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous9:31 PM

    From a moral point of view, absolutely Ken - that is why I think it terrible that this has been permitted to happen.

    I changed my mind on this, having originally taken the same view you did. Mr Schiavo was her legal surrogate, therefore should be able to take decisions on her behalf.

    Then I thought, wouldn't it be more humane to just give her a lethal shot rather than starve/dehydrate her to death? How can it be that a civilised society will put an animal out of its misery to avoid a drawn-out death but we will allow her body to slowly shut down?

    This lead me to an awkward point. I oppose euthanasia on the grounds that you can never be sure a person wants it - on that ground, even if your system allows 1 in 100,000 people killed by euthanasia to be killed against their real will (murdered in effect) then I could not countenance it.

    I know that there is an analytical difference between actively killing someone and, through removing treatment, allowing someone to die as a result of another act, but this case brings the sophistry of that scenario into sharp relief.

    Then I thought - where do you draw the line between a husband having this right with no consent? I'm not so sure you can come up with a suitable rule, and on something like this you cannot take it on a case-by-case basis. This leads me to my new view which is that you shouldn't hold the power of life and death over somebody else's body. Over all other things, yes, but when it comes to dying I don't think you can.

    -------------------------

    The only problem with this, of course, is what do you do about people who have been on life support machines for years and years...

    Edward
    http://trustpeople.blogspot.com

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