Thursday, March 31, 2005

Living like Terri

Many people seem to be saying "I'd rather die than live like Terri Schiavo was living." I don't accept that.

First, it's said too casually. Have you really thought about this? Prayed about it? Spent any quality time meditating about it? If the time you've spent pondering this issue is measured in single digits of minutes, just say "I don't know. Haven't thought about it enough."

Second, you don't know what you're talking about. Live like what? No "artificial" mechanisms? My cousin Jim has kidney failure and is on dialysis. Without that procedure, he dies. If he had a living will that said don't prolong life using artificial mechanisms, does that mean his wife has the right to have him executed like Terri? Several people said Terri might likely have been taught to swallow if anyone had attempted to teach her. If she could eat and drink without a tube, she'd still be alive. But her "quality of life" would be the same. So you want to die if your cognitive abilities are poor even if your physiological health is good (like Terri's was)? You want to die if on a resperator but not if only on a feeding tube (like the Pope is right now)? What about a pace maker? That's certainly an "artificial" mechanism for pacing the heart. Would you rather die than get one of those? I don't think many have thought this stuff through.

Third, I suspect you're just wrong. From the anecdotal info I've seen, people in these difficult states DO want to live. When Christopher Reeve was paralyzed (became a vegetable as the uninformed and insensitive say), his mother thought he should be terminated. What's the point in living like that? Fortunately for him, his wife didn't agree. As we all know, he went on to publish books, testify before Congress and have a fuller life in his wheelchair than most able bodied people have.

No, I think the folks that say life has no value without an able body simply think life has no value. Because if it does, it's certainly not about smoothly functioning physiology.

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Pope on feeding tube

So the Pope is now on a feeding tube, like Terri Schiavo. The spin from the Old Media makes me smile. AP Headline: Pope Getting Nutrition From Tube in Nose
You've probably seen a number of stories over the years about people being put on feeding tubes. Do you recall the location of the tube being addressed, at all, before? Let alone in the headline? Of course, they do that to distance any comparisons between the Pope, who presumably has value as a human, and Terri, who apparently does not. Heaven forbid if someone might ponder, "You know, Terri's situation is not all that different from the Pope's." The story is careful to describe the Pope's nasogastric tube and contrast it with Terri's PEG tube. In a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy a surgical incision is made in the abdomen to permit a tube to be passed directly into the stomach. Of course, if you stay with the story long enough, it says the Pope may have a PEG. It doesn't say that Terri initially had a nasogastric tube, just like the Pope.

So, the Pope will die if caretakers don't feed him. Terri will die if caretakers don't feed her. The Pope has trouble swallowing. Terri has trouble swallowing. The Pope can't speak. Terri can't speak.

Differences - The Pope is 84 and in frail health. He probably won't live much longer regardless of the best medical care. Terri is 41 and in good health. She could probably live many years if she were not executed. And, oh yes, Terri is mentally disabled and the Pope is not. And her husband wants her dead.

Monday, March 28, 2005

Initial post

This is basically a test. I'm figuring out how this works.

sej