Terri Schiavo

I hear that requests for living wills are up. No wonder.

For the record, if I'm ever in a persistent vegetative state, with no hope of ever regaining consciousness or looking after myself... please, pull the plug. No artificial respiration or feeding for me. If my cerebral cortex is gone, I want to go with it.

Bottom line, though: Terri Schiavo's case is not about what I would want for me, or what anyone else would want for themselves. It's about what Terri Schiavo would want for herself. The Florida courts have repeatedly agreed with her husband that she would not want to be kept alive in this state. Her parents have attempted to show that she would. Many court decisions have found their evidence is not credible. It's really very simple, and I find the way the case has been hijacked by the religious right to be absolutely nauseating.

It's a sad, sad case. I really feel for her parents, who desperately want to believe that their daughter can have some quality of life, that she recognizes them and will eventually get even a little bit better. But they are clinging to a false hope. Terri Schiavo is not going to wake up. There is no therapy that can replace her missing brain tissue. She isn't in there any more.

For more information and far more informed and eloquent commentary than I can give you, go read rivka's assessment of the medical and ethical aspects of the case and Abstract Appeal's timeline and legal commentary. majikthise also has a few things to say about the publicity campaign that has surrounded the case.

[Edit: read this post too -- it's an excellent summary of the case to date and covers the ethical issues in detail. Read the comments too.]

(no subject)

On a happier note, here's what the Guardian's Poetry Mood Matcher gave me (although I think there may be an element of randomness involved, because when I hit Ctrl-N for a new window to post this in I got a completely different poem):

Sometimes you just feel like getting away from it all - to some pure, solitary mountain top where you can wander, free as a bird... but if you're stuck behind a desktop instead, take some solace in this.

( Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird )

(no subject)

Must stop reading this stuff, but really: Irony -- ain't it grand?

Ms. Schiavo's mother, meanwhile, issued a national appeal for parents to call their Congressional representatives and pressure them to vote for the bill to prolong her daughter's life.

"There are some congressmen that are trying to stop this bill," Mrs. Schindler told reporters gathered outside her daughter's hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla. "Please don't use my daughter's suffering for your own personal agenda."

(no subject)

Now this is cool: A house powered by spinach!

(no subject)

Interesting post at Lean Left on witholding "futile care" when the money runs out.

I entirely agree that it is slimy and hypocritical to champion Terri Schiavo's case while making many other laws that make a mockery of the "culture of life." But as this post points out, let's maybe not get carried away here.