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Post by HardCap on Mar 24, 2005 15:48:31 GMT -5
C'mon. you know what I mean. Such accounts have come from IRA prisoners who refused food and related that after a certain number of days of fasting they no longer felt hunger. If there is life after death, then those who want to keep Terri Schiavo alive on religious grounds shouldn't mind her dying shortyly. After all, they KNOW that she will be restored to youthful health and vigor after she passes through St. Peter's pearly gates. Needless death...she does not HAVE to die...the courts have allowed it to happen and have sentenced her to certain death. |
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Post by blaise on Mar 24, 2005 15:50:36 GMT -5
and another thing... Not Dead at All Why Congress was right to stick up for Terri Schiavo. By Harriet McBryde Johnson Posted Wednesday, March 23, 2005, at 4:50 AM PT The Terri Schiavo case is hard to write about, hard to think about. Those films are hard to look at. I see that face, maybe smiling, maybe not, and I am reminded of a young woman I knew as a child, lying on a couch, brain-damaged, apparently unresponsive, and deeply beloved—freakishly perhaps but genuinely so—living proof of one family's no-matter-what commitment. I watch nourishment flowing into a slim tube that runs through a neat, round, surgically created orifice in Ms. Schiavo's abdomen, and I'm almost envious. What effortless intake! Due to a congenital neuromuscular disease, I am having trouble swallowing, and it's a constant struggle to get by mouth the calories my skinny body needs. For whatever reason, I'm still trying, but I know a tube is in my future. So, possibly, is speechlessness. That's a scary thought. If I couldn't speak for myself, would I want to die? If I become uncommunicative, a passive object of other people's care, should I hope my brain goes soft and leaves me in peace? My emotional response is powerful, but at bottom it's not important. It's no more important than anyone else's, not what matters. The things that ought to matter have become obscured in our communal clash of gut reactions. Here are 10 of them: 1. Ms. Schiavo is not terminally ill. She has lived in her current condition for 15 years. This is not about end-of-life decision-making. The question is whether she should be killed by starvation and dehydration. 2. Ms. Schiavo is not dependent on life support. Her lungs, kidneys, heart, and digestive systems work fine. Just as she uses a wheelchair for mobility, she uses a tube for eating and drinking. Feeding Ms. Schiavo is not difficult, painful, or in any way heroic. Feeding tubes are a very simple piece of adaptive equipment, and the fact that Ms. Schiavo eats through a tube should have nothing to do with whether she should live or die. 3. This is not a case about a patient's right to refuse treatment. I don't see eating and drinking as "treatment," but even if they are, everyone agrees that Ms. Schiavo is presently incapable of articulating a decision to refuse treatment. The question is who should make the decision for her, and whether that substitute decision-maker should be authorized to kill her by starvation and dehydration. 4. There is a genuine dispute as to Ms. Schiavo's awareness and consciousness. But if we assume that those who would authorize her death are correct, Ms. Schiavo is completely unaware of her situation and therefore incapable of suffering physically or emotionally. Her death thus can't be justified for relieving her suffering. 5. There is a genuine dispute as to what Ms. Schiavo believed and expressed about life with severe disability before she herself became incapacitated; certainly, she never stated her preferences in an advance directive like a living will. If we assume that Ms. Schiavo is aware and conscious, it is possible that, like most people who live with severe disability for as long as she has, she has abandoned her preconceived fears of the life she is now living. We have no idea whether she wishes to be bound by things she might have said when she was living a very different life. If we assume she is unaware and unconscious, we can't justify her death as her preference. She has no preference. 6. Ms. Schiavo, like all people, incapacitated or not, has a federal constitutional right not to be deprived of her life without due process of law. 7. In addition to the rights all people enjoy, Ms. Schiavo has a statutory right under the Americans With Disabilities Act not to be treated differently because of her disability. Obviously, Florida law would not allow a husband to kill a nondisabled wife by starvation and dehydration; killing is not ordinarily considered a private family concern or a matter of choice. It is Ms. Schiavo's disability that makes her killing different in the eyes of the Florida courts. Because the state is overtly drawing lines based on disability, it has the burden under the ADA of justifying those lines. 8. In other contexts, federal courts are available to make sure state courts respect federally protected rights. This review is critical not only to the parties directly involved, but to the integrity of our legal system. Although review will very often be a futile last-ditch effort—as with most death-penalty habeas petitions—federalism requires that the federal government, not the states, have the last word. When the issue is the scope of a guardian's authority, it is necessary to allow other people, in this case other family members, standing to file a legal challenge. 9. The whole society has a stake in making sure state courts are not tainted by prejudices, myths, and unfounded fears—like the unthinking horror in mainstream society that transforms feeding tubes into fetish objects, emblematic of broader, deeper fears of disability that sometimes slide from fear to disgust and from disgust to hatred. While we should not assume that disability prejudice tainted the Florida courts, we cannot reasonably assume that it did not. 10. Despite the unseemly Palm Sunday pontificating in Congress, the legislation enabling Ms. Schiavo's parents to sue did not take sides in the so-called culture wars. It did not dictate that Ms. Schiavo be fed. It simply created a procedure whereby the federal courts could decide whether Ms. Schiavo's federally protected rights have been violated. In the Senate, a key supporter of a federal remedy was Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, a progressive Democrat and longtime friend of labor and civil rights, including disability rights. Harkin told reporters, "There are a lot of people in the shadows, all over this country, who are incapacitated because of a disability, and many times there is no one to speak for them, and it is hard to determine what their wishes really are or were. So I think there ought to be a broader type of a proceeding that would apply to people in similar circumstances who are incapacitated." I hope against hope that I will never be one of those people in the shadows, that I will always, one way or another, be able to make my wishes known. I hope that I will not outlive my usefulness or my capacity (at least occasionally) to amuse the people around me. But if it happens otherwise, I hope whoever is appointed to speak for me will be subject to legal constraints. Even if my guardian thinks I'd be better off dead—even if I think so myself—I hope to live and die in a world that recognizes that killing, even of people with the most severe disabilities, is a matter of more than private concern. Clearly, Congress's Palm Sunday legislation was not the "broader type of proceeding" Harkin and I want. It does not define when and how federal court review will be available to all of those in the shadows, but rather provides a procedure for one case only. To create a general system of review, applicable whenever life-and-death decisions intersect with disability rights, will require a reasoned, informed debate unlike what we've had until now. It will take time. But in the Schiavo case, time is running out. Harriet McBryde Johnson is a disability-rights lawyer in Charleston, S.C. Her memoir in stories, Too Late to Die Young: Nearly True Tales from a Life, will be released in April. I'll focus on #8. The state court s'decisions were reviewed by two levels of federal judges, who found merit in their rulinngs. This whole issue has gone around and around like a merry-go-round without any finding in favor of the Schindlers. How many times must it be presented to the US Supreme Court? I cannot count the ways, but what it all comes down to is the unwillingness of the Schindlers to face reality about their daughter. They aren't paying the medical bills and the Right-to-Life crowd is paying the lawyers in the baive belief that they are winning political points. Unfortunately for them, the public doesn't agree with their efforts. Look, I'm already weary of your arguments, so I won't burden you further with physiological and medical trivia that you pay no attention to anyway. |
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Post by Cranky on Mar 24, 2005 18:09:02 GMT -5
And might I suggest that it goes both ways? For someone to attempt to impose their non-belief on another based on THEIR belief of what is "the truth" is equally contemptuous. The question is one of imposition. To state "this is what I believe" is acceptable; to try to influence or convince another to "come to the light" (whatever that light may be) is equally acceptable; to condemn a person for disagreeing or to mock a person's believe system because you feel it does not match up to yours speaks of a superiority complex that is not becoming. If you believe what you believe, that is fine. If I believe in what I believe, that is equally fine. BUT...... To impose one beliefs system on another then that is where the problem lays. One example is abortion. If you believe that abortion is right and I believe that abortion is wrong, do I have the right to take away YOUR right and impose my view? If I came to you and discuss it person to person and try influence or convince that another way may exist, then that is acceptable. The pivoting point between imposition and discussion is if I had the power to pass laws that restrict you from doing what you think is right, then I am imposing my will on you. If I passed those laws by pointing at some ink spread on a page and said “it is written therefore it is the right way” is my act of imposition any less contemptuous? Further………. Morality and decency is not the exclusive property of one or indeed, of any religion. Nor is religion the catalyst to the “enlightened path”. Everyone is born with a clean slate and if he is lucky enough to have a moral and decent family and surroundings, then that person should will grow with a decent and moral center. Regardless of skin colour, language or religion. |
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Post by franko on Mar 24, 2005 18:23:56 GMT -5
If you believe what you believe, that is fine. If I believe in what I believe, that is equally fine. BUT...... To impose one beliefs system on another then that is where the problem lays. Agreed. But imposition of will is done often, "for the good of society", in large and small issues. Don't kill another person. Don't speed. Don't plagarize. I may think the law is stupid (80km maximums on most Ontario highways?) but governmental agencies -- other people -- have deemed this an appropriate limiting of your rights. A poor illustration, perhaps, but one I trust makes the point. In the Schiavo nothing is written . . . it is interpretted. this is often the problem -- the writings coming from "on high" are looked at through presuppositions and then interpretted to fit. In this case the discussion revolves around "value of life" and "life of value". But it certainly helps! Ah, Mr. Locke's tabula rasa. Unfortunately it doesn't happen. Many have been raised in highly moral families and have rejected the teachings; many have been raised in non-moral surroundings and have left that path as well. |
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Post by franko on Mar 24, 2005 18:35:08 GMT -5
and another thing... 1. Ms. Schiavo is not terminally ill. She has lived in her current condition for 15 years. This is not about end-of-life decision-making. The question is whether she should be killed by starvation and dehydration. . . . or whether she should be force-fed. She is dependent on machinery to keep her alive. If she could chew and swallow that would be a different matter. In other words, I don't like what the decision was and so the decision should be made by someone else who will decide my way. So again, this person will make the choice for her. By now the sublime has become ridiculous. But the question remains: is it killing or is it a releasing/allowing someone to die? Of course, the writer's predisposed prejudice is acceptable. |
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Post by franko on Mar 24, 2005 18:37:55 GMT -5
Needless death...she does not HAVE to die...the courts have allowed it to happen and have sentenced her to certain death. We all have to die . . . it is just a matter of how and when. Quietly in my sleep like my grandather, or yelling and screaming like the passengers in his car. The courts have not sentenced her to death . . . they have merely allowed her to die now instead of who knows when. And I can't believe I'm in agreement with Blaise! |
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 24, 2005 21:18:49 GMT -5
We all have to die . . . it is just a matter of how and when. Quietly in my sleep like my grandather, or yelling and screaming like the passengers in his car. The courts have not sentenced her to death . . . they have merely allowed her to die now instead of who knows when. And I can't believe I'm in agreement with Blaise! Me neither. I hate eating crow twice in two days , but I was wrong to accept the argument from the Boston College professor holding that the unlikely return to consciousness made it permiisable to starve her to death. Not surprisingly, I found telling arguments in favour of not killing her in an address delivered by Pope John Paul II dealing specificly with the issue of people in what is termed a "vegetative" state. tinyurl.com/5u35s |
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 24, 2005 22:26:13 GMT -5
If you believe what you believe, that is fine. If I believe in what I believe, that is equally fine. BUT...... To impose one beliefs system on another then that is where the problem lays. One example is abortion. If you believe that abortion is right and I believe that abortion is wrong, do I have the right to take away YOUR right and impose my view? If I came to you and discuss it person to person and try influence or convince that another way may exist, then that is acceptable. The pivoting point between imposition and discussion is if I had the power to pass laws that restrict you from doing what you think is right, then I am imposing my will on you. If I passed those laws by pointing at some ink spread on a page and said “it is written therefore it is the right way” is my act of imposition any less contemptuous? Further………. Morality and decency is not the exclusive property of one or indeed, of any religion. Nor is religion the catalyst to the “enlightened path”. Everyone is born with a clean slate and if he is lucky enough to have a moral and decent family and surroundings, then that person should will grow with a decent and moral center. Regardless of skin colour, language or religion. Aw c'mon guys! You can't really mean what you are writing can you, Impose this, impose that,,,what are you rambling about? Are you not talking about the democratically arrived at systems of law? Has this dumb planet arrived at the final goofball conclusion that there are no objective criteria by which one can judge laws. Is it the force of law that you object to or just the general idea that the universe isn't only about you? This is too goofy. |
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 24, 2005 22:50:11 GMT -5
There's nothing for you to atone for or be ashamed of. You were unaware of the wide range of pathological changes that can occur in the traumatized brain as well as of how the damage is assessed and the possible interventions. It is important for members of this forum to understand that Schiavo is not handicapped, she is incapable of intellectual processing as the result of massive damage to beoth cerebral hemispheres. There is no point in feeding her because her state is irreversible. Here's another thought-provoking point. Suppose Schiavo were to develop cancer while she reposes in this vegetative state. Would it be proper to provide her with surgery, irradiation, and chemotherapy in an effort to sustain her "life"? I don't think so. I would wonder about the astigmatic view on life of anyone who did favor it. It would verge on fanaticism. Just noticed this now. I've recanted. I was right. We are talking about killing a woman who needs us badly. I posted a URL on another post, an address pf Pope John Paul II, treating specificallu of this issue. I found it compelling. He specifically states that while it is never acceptable to starve a human being to death and intravenous feeding is not radical or overly burdensome. Radical or heroic measures to maintain a life at its natural term is never required. Like the Scott Dred case which denied blacks their humanity, and abortion practces, it is our inhumanity not the humanity of the Terris of the world that is questionable. One clear element of the document is that modern medicine cannot predict who will wake up and who will not. |
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 24, 2005 23:04:25 GMT -5
. . . or wheterh she should be force-fed. She is dependent on machinery to keep her alive. If she could chew and swallow that would be a different matter. In other words, I don't like what the decision was and so the decision should be made by someone else who will decide my way. 5. There is a genuine dispute as to what Ms. Schiavo believed and expressed about life with severe disability before she herself became incapacitated; certainly, she never stated her preferences in an advance directive like a living will. If we assume that Ms. Schiavo is aware and conscious, it is possible that, like most people who live with severe disability for as long as she has, she has abandoned her preconceived fears of the life she is now living. We have no idea whether she wishes to be bound by things she might have said when she was living a very different life. If we assume she is unaware and unconscious, we can't justify her death as her preference. She has no preference. So again, this person will make the choice for her. By now the sublime has become ridiculous. But the question remains: is it killing or is it a releasing/allowing someone to die? Of course, the writer's predisposed prejudice is acceptable. [/quote] Rhetoric, not reasoning. No machines are in use. We use them to keep lots of people alive. All humans have a right to ordiary means of nutrition and basic support. There is no medical decision to be made. She's fine. Other people want her dead. Why do people want her dead so much? No one has the "right" to decide to kill another human being. It is perhaps not as obviously wrong as abortion, but it is us who seek to dehumanize and then kill her. A spouse making treatment decisions in the best medical interests of a spouse does not include starving her to death. The courts erred terribly in this. |
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Mar 24, 2005 23:24:25 GMT -5
life (lf) 1. Vitality, the essential condition of being alive; the state of existence characterized by such functions as metabolism, growth, reproduction, adaptation, and response to stimuli. - 216.251.232.159/semdweb/internetsomd/ASP/1533617.asp* Life is that perfection in a living being in virtue of which it is capable of self-movement or immanent action. Motion, thus understood includes, besides change of locality, all alterations in quality or quantity, and all transition from potentiality to actuality. The term is applied only analogically to God, who is exempt from even accidental modification. Self-movement of a being is that effected by a principle intrinsic to the nature of the being, though it may be excited or stimulated from without. Immanent action is action of which the terminus remains within the agent itself, e.g. thought, sensation, nutrition. It is contrasted with transient action, of which the effect passes to a being distinct from the agent, e.g. pushing, pulling, warming, etc. Immanent activity can be the property only of a principle which is an intrinsic constituent of the agent. In contrast with the power of self-movement, inertia is a fundamental attribute of inanimate matter. This can only be moved from without. There are three grades of life essentially distinct: vegetative, sentient or animal, and intellectual or spiritual life; for the capacity for immanent action is of three kinds. Vegetative operations result in the assimilation of material elements into the substance of the living being. In animal conscious life the vital act is a modification of the sentient organic faculty, whilst in rational life the intellect expresses the object by a purely spiritual modification of itself. Life as we know it in this world is always bound up with organized matter, that is, with a material structure consisting of organs, or heterogeneous parts, specialized for different functions and combined into a whole. - www.newadvent.org/cathen/09238c.htm |
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Post by MC Habber on Mar 25, 2005 7:13:25 GMT -5
Needless death...she does not HAVE to die...the courts have allowed it to happen and have sentenced her to certain death. We are all sentenced to certain death. |
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Mar 25, 2005 8:10:18 GMT -5
This issue has been now weighing on my mind. I have taken the liberty to jot down some questions. My thanks to those who have posted before me in this thread, as their thoughts will echo from my post. To what end is Terri Schiavo's vegetative state being maintained? Is it with an aim to restoring, though medical treatments, her capacity to live life fully or near-fully ? Is it to further study and research in the area of suspended animation? Is it to make a self-righteous display of how much the society values life, even while casualties pile up throughout the country, chiefly through social and medical neglect? Is it out of simple fear or moral cowardice? Is it in the hope of a spontaneous recovery, a miracle? Is it to provide fodder for the media; a ploy for attention by the parents? As I type this, assisted deaths are likely occuring in the USA. And will continue to do so, no matter what law, if any, is passed. There is a time to give up hope, to grieve and to end grieving, and to move on as best as one can in the life that remains as one's allotment. That said, whatever decision is made regarding Terri Schiavo's inchoate existence shall be the right one for her and her alone. |
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Post by franko on Mar 25, 2005 8:32:22 GMT -5
I have always been amazed at how we cling to this existence on the earth -- and by we I mean humans in total, "religious" or not.
Schiavo is Catholic, which means that she believes that her time on earth is a speck of time in the eternal, as do Christians in general (some Christian sects disagree with the theology of the afterlife, but that is for another thread). If indeed there is some better place than here should we not allow her the freedom to go rather than keep her body here?
THab -- I understand what you are saying. But this is not a theological debate but one of philosophy, which broad implications. As a pro-lifer (which to me means conception to natural death, no death penalty) I want to do anything I can for someone who is alive. However, I think that it is cruel to keep a body nourished when it is only a shell.
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Post by blaise on Mar 25, 2005 10:42:22 GMT -5
Would there be such a hue and cry if Terri Schiavo were 51 or 61 or 71? She may be only 41, but let's face it, she's only a shell of a human being with a blank expression and eyes that blink for no discernible reason. At 51 or 61 or 71 (if she survived that long with the aid of extraordinary care, although I doubt she would last that long), she'd still be in the same vegetative state, her parents would be gone, and the zealots would have long forgotten her and turned their attention to another poster child. Why all this concern about Schiavo when there are thouands of Americans in a deep coma? This affair smacks of politics. The issue would not have arisen had it occurred outside Florida. Jeb Bush will be a candidate in the 2008 primaries and he's looking to scoop Evangelical and hard-line Catholic brownie points that he'll need against Bill Frist and others. I'm sorry to note that posters on this site fail to appreciate the machinations. It has been reported on several TV broadcasts and in newspapers that the Republicans in Congress have been licking their lips over its potential use in election ads. Ironically, George W. Bush signed a law in Texas that allows hospitals to pull the plug when there is no prospect of recovery.
What is happening to the US? Has it become an elected theocratic dictatorship? Such a phenomenon is nowhere to be seen outside the Muslim world. What next, a constitutional amendment outlawing the theory of evolution?
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 25, 2005 13:19:44 GMT -5
This issue has been now weighing on my mind. I have taken the liberty to jot down some questions. My thanks to those who have posted before me in this thread, as their thoughts will echo from my post. To what end is Terri Schiavo's vegetative state being maintained? Is it with an aim to restoring, though medical treatments, her capacity to live life fully or near-fully ? Is it to further study and research in the area of suspended animation? Is it to make a self-righteous display of how much the society values life, even while casualties pile up throughout the country, chiefly through social and medical neglect? Is it out of simple fear or moral cowardice? Is it in the hope of a spontaneous recovery, a miracle? You posted a very interesting post reflecting the metaphysics of Aristotle. When you ask to what end or purpose her life, you consider what Aristotlle referred to as the only aspect of existence that can render existence inelligible to us. He called it "final cause", the end or purpose for which things exist. His four-fold schema of existence, form and matter, or potency and act (the common english word "information" derives from Plato's theory of "Forms", in-form-ation. This schema is still used in law, e.g material and immaterial. We have "Formal" criticisms . The real question we are all addressing here, is "What is the end or purpose of human life, of life itself, of the universe"? All of our judgements tend towards the logical extensions of our insight or lack thereof as to the nature and purpose of existence. I will agaon recommend Rizzi's "The Science before Science" "a guide to thinking in the twenty-first century" He will reintroduce you to the deep intellectual stream of Western civilization in dealing with these question. Blaise, you are the enlightenment guy here. Don't make the mistake of taking this as a compliment, because it is not so intended, but you would view this as a good thing. You are the disciple of the world view known as "materialism", based upon the fundamental and massive errors of Descartes and Kant. Materialists, having failed completely to understand the nature and roll of sensation in knowledge. Our culture is almost completely infected with this error beautifully revealed by Rizzi. I to find the theologically and philosophical naivete of the fideistic right wing quite repugnant as anti-rational, and dangerous as grossly simplistic and, frankly absurd .e.g. viewing the book of revelation, written by John from the isle of Patmos concerning the Roman emperor Domitian (his name in numerological cirlces has the value "666") as some kind of desperately dumb perspective on a future shrouded in fear. A great many Americans, includiing the equally ignorant man on the street believe, or even worse, think they know, that this utter nonsense, is what Christianity teaches rather than seeing it as the irrational fringe. That said, most of the greatest minds of Western civilization have sprung from christian Europe, the very birthplace of science and the fertile ground of its flourishing. Gallileo and Descartes included. You Blaise take exception to the idea of religion and that it should be, as it is, a most powerful agent of human endeavor. Your favourite target is the anti-rational fundamentalist, but in this, you are more than a little anti-rational and fundamentalist yourself. Your prescription is to consider only the material and then loudly shout that only the material exists. Therfore there can be no God, no Justice, no Love, no purpose and no hope for mankind, but that reserved for all biologicalo phylums, extinction. That, like death is just fine if there is no reason to believe otherwise. The world abounds with very serious cogent evdence and very well reasoned arguments, like Aristotles' and Aquinas, Maritain, and for that matter, Rizzi. A book by Mortimer Adler, "Six Great Ideas", dealing with the ideas of Truth, Beauty, Justice and others is an easy read and will expand your horizons. I don't like being called a zealot. The simple fact is that zeal, or emotional involvement is definitely a part of the arguments of many, including you and me. What you really are doing of course is implying that irrational emotion and not reason is behind the argument. It is an ad-hominum attack that plays well into the cultural and political status quo. Pro-lifers are almost portrayed by the media as right wing fundamentalists of the Falwell variety. This view is maintained despite the evidence, because so called "liberals" don't want it known that true liberals who haven't caved consider these phonies more than a little suspect. They are bouhgt and paid for. Cowards, liars. I often think that simple cowardice is the main motivator force. Their values when it's time ot be counted mirror the main value system of north americans....corporation values. Media's job is propaganda, and all the banal cliches and slogans, carefully masking the truth we all know, serve thissub-human survivalism. To insist that every human being has a fundamental dignity is not the statement of mindless emotion. That all have a God-given, (and there can be no other reasonably compelling basis for human rights) to ordinary care is EXACTLY the voice of reason. It is extreme only if one is extremely indiffferent., like a corporation or the morally slothful. While the smug, self-righteous and often slimy nature of some defenders of Terri's rights are quite repugnant, that doesn't mean that Morgenthaler who kills babies for a living is necessarily wrong on capital punishment, whatever the hell a "secular humanist" thinks he or she is. In my experience, they are people who won't let principle stand in the way of a good paycheque. Consrvatives at heart. Moral cowards. Utilitarians who like their distant cousins the Stoics, base life on the pleasure priciple. You Blaise are a Stoic. The ethic reduces to a desperate survivalism. To M. Beaux Eaux, the issue is about final cause. It is about the big question. If a Nazi or secular humanist without a moral compass had you and your poor mother in a cell and said either shoot your mother or he would shoot you both, and there was no escape, would you kill your mother? If not, why not. A faithful theist should have no problem with this and should say "Go ahead and shoot you poor desperate pathetic creature." It's kind of like an existential "kling-free". Are heros mad, to surrender their lives, or is the universe so-ordered that they are the very wisest. Is the consecrarted virgin the dupe or the courageous adventurer, pushing past the safe to the dimly apprehended horizon. The universe has a moral purpose. We are to respect it. The end served is that for which we all exist. |
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Post by Habs_fan_in_LA on Mar 25, 2005 13:25:18 GMT -5
In life it is necessary to make difficult choices.
Should $800,000 per year be spent on Schiavo (not sure of exact figure) when the $800 each could be spent to help 1,000 children in undefrunded schools or school lunch programs?
Should $50,000 be spent on rehabilitating convicts when innocent people lose jobs and need money for retraining?
Should millions be spent on death row prisoners appeals when funds are needed for floods, mudslides, fires tornados,earthquakes and hurricanes impact the lives of millions?
Schiavo is a single person and the attention she is receiving is disproportionate to the needs of the multitude. Whatever is decided, it won't have as much impact as something that could be done for millions of people.
Whichever way it is decided, act quickly and don't stretch out her starvation.
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 25, 2005 13:36:50 GMT -5
I have always been amazed at how we cling to this existence on the earth -- and by we I mean humans in total, "religious" or not. Schiavo is Catholic, which means that she believes that her time on earth is a speck of time in the eternal, as do Christians in general (some Christian sects disagree with the theology of the afterlife, but that is for another thread). If indeed there is some better place than here should we not allow her the freedom to go rather than keep her body here? THab -- I understand what you are saying. But this is not a theological debate but one of philosophy, which broad implications. As a pro-lifer (which to me means conception to natural death, no death penalty) I want to do anything I can for someone who is alive. However, I think that it is cruel to keep a body nourished when it is only a shell. Franko What theological argument are you referring to? I don't remember making one. An argument from theism, which I consider on evidence, to be the only full satisfactory worldview, is not a theological argument. A theological argument woud be. Jesus was not deluded He was the second person of the trinity As such he can nether deceive nor be deceived He insists upon ordinary means being provided to each and every human being. Food, cleanliness , and warmth are ordianary means We must follow Jesus in His concern for the poor and afflicted Therefore we must not kill this poor woman who needs our help. This is only a reasonable and compelling argument with people who want to walk in faith in this matter. |
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 25, 2005 13:45:25 GMT -5
In life it is necessary to make difficult choices. Should $800,000 per year be spent on Schiavo (not sure of exact figure) when the $800 each could be spent to help 1,000 children in undefrunded schools or school lunch programs? Should $50,000 be spent on rehabilitating convicts when innocent people lose jobs and need money for retraining? Should millions be spent on death row prisoners appeals when funds are needed for floods, mudslides, fires tornados,earthquakes and hurricanes impact the lives of millions? Schiavo is a single person and the attention she is receiving is disproportionate to the needs of the multitude. Whatever is decided, it won't have as much impact as something that could be done for millions of people. Whichever way it is decided, act quickly and don't stretch out her starvation. The above argument applies equally to all medical procedures, but we don't usually want to kill people having hip replacement surgery. You ethos is the utilitarian corporate mode. If life is only about this dim flicker of life in the here and now, then, it doesn't matter. If it ultimately matters how we treat the poor and needy or if one day the last will be first, then it is of much greater and indeed, utmost significance. |
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Mar 25, 2005 13:46:49 GMT -5
Yes, the following quote is paraphrased from Star Trek (the original series) but it best emulates the question I mean to ask: "Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?"
This is addressed to the capital expenditure on mainatining Terri Schiavo's level of existence versus tangibly improving the immediate lot and enhancing future development of other needy citizens.
*
I would pull the plug. I would have to steel myself to do it (and doubtless make a prayer in my lapsed, haphazard fashion), but I would do it. And it is certain that I will carry the memory of that act to my own dying day. But I would do it. If it were up to me.
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 25, 2005 16:10:17 GMT -5
Yes, the following quote is paraphrased from Star Trek (the original series) but it best emulates the question I mean to ask: "Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?" This is addressed to the capital expenditure on mainatining Terri Schiavo's level of existence versus tangibly improving the immediate lot and enhancing future development of other needy citizens. * I would pull the plug. I would have to steel myself to do it (and doubtless make a prayer in my lapsed, haphazard fashion), but I would do it. And it is certain that I will carry the memory of that act to my own dying day. But I would do it. If it were up to me. Ok. So we starve her to death. Who's next? Right now we are wasting billions on old folks in palliative care units across the continent. They are a useless burden. They have nothing to offer, nothing to await, but pain, suffering and death. Why not do the right thing, and kill them all. Now that we have accepted the doctine of eugenics, it will only be the zealots and fanatics who will resist us and we control the media which will keep everybody tranquilized. We will not be able to starve them unless we remove them to special camps outside the populated areas, for some of them are sure to fail to understand and resist, while the noise might be quite disturbing to sentimentalists and small children who might fail to see the merciful intent and rational nobility of our thing. |
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 25, 2005 16:27:27 GMT -5
ADDRESS OF JOHN PAUL II
TO THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS
ON "LIFE-SUSTAINING TREATMENTS AND VEGETATIVE STATE:
SCIENTIFIC ADVANCES AND ETHICAL DILEMMAS"
Saturday, 20 March 2004
(excerpted from the above)
Scientists and researchers realize that one must, first of all, arrive at a correct diagnosis, which usually requires prolonged and careful observation in specialized centres, given also the high number of diagnostic errors reported in the literature. Moreover, not a few of these persons, with appropriate treatment and with specific rehabilitation programmes, have been able to emerge from a vegetative state. On the contrary, many others unfortunately remain prisoners of their condition even for long stretches of time and without needing technological support.
In particular, the term permanent vegetative state has been coined to indicate the condition of those patients whose "vegetative state" continues for over a year. Actually, there is no different diagnosis that corresponds to such a definition, but only a conventional prognostic judgment, relative to the fact that the recovery of patients, statistically speaking, is ever more difficult as the condition of vegetative state is prolonged in time.
However, we must neither forget nor underestimate that there are well-documented cases of at least partial recovery even after many years; we can thus state that medical science, up until now, is still unable to predict with certainty who among patients in this condition will recover and who will not.
3. Faced with patients in similar clinical conditions, there are some who cast doubt on the persistence of the "human quality" itself, almost as if the adjective "vegetative" (whose use is now solidly established), which symbolically describes a clinical state, could or should be instead applied to the sick as such, actually demeaning their value and personal dignity. In this sense, it must be noted that this term, even when confined to the clinical context, is certainly not the most felicitous when applied to human beings.
In opposition to such trends of thought, I feel the duty to reaffirm strongly that the intrinsic value and personal dignity of every human being do not change, no matter what the concrete circumstances of his or her life. A man, even if seriously ill or disabled in the exercise of his highest functions, is and always will be a man, and he will never become a "vegetable" or an "animal".
Even our brothers and sisters who find themselves in the clinical condition of a "vegetative state" retain their human dignity in all its fullness. The loving gaze of God the Father continues to fall upon them, acknowledging them as his sons and daughters, especially in need of help.
4. Medical doctors and health-care personnel, society and the Church have moral duties toward these persons from which they cannot exempt themselves without lessening the demands both of professional ethics and human and Christian solidarity.
The sick person in a vegetative state, awaiting recovery or a natural end, still has the right to basic health care (nutrition, hydration, cleanliness, warmth, etc.), and to the prevention of complications related to his confinement to bed. He also has the right to appropriate rehabilitative care and to be monitored for clinical signs of eventual recovery.
I should like particularly to underline how the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act. Its use, furthermore, should be considered, in principle, ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatory, insofar as and until it is seen to have attained its proper finality, which in the present case consists in providing nourishment to the patient and alleviation of his suffering.
The obligation to provide the "normal care due to the sick in such cases" (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Iura et Bona, p. IV) includes, in fact, the use of nutrition and hydration (cf. Pontifical Council "Cor Unum", Dans le Cadre, 2, 4, 4; Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, Charter of Health Care Workers, n. 120). The evaluation of probabilities, founded on waning hopes for recovery when the vegetative state is prolonged beyond a year, cannot ethically justify the cessation or interruption of minimal care for the patient, including nutrition and hydration. Death by starvation or dehydration is, in fact, the only possible outcome as a result of their withdrawal. In this sense it ends up becoming, if done knowingly and willingly, true and proper euthanasia by omission.
In this regard, I recall what I wrote in the Encyclical Evangelium Vitae, making it clear that "by euthanasia in the true and proper sense must be understood an action or omission which by its very nature and intention brings about death, with the purpose of eliminating all pain"; such an act is always "a serious violation of the law of God, since it is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person" (n. 65).
Besides, the moral principle is well known, according to which even the simple doubt of being in the presence of a living person already imposes the obligation of full respect and of abstaining from any act that aims at anticipating the person's death.
5. Considerations about the "quality of life", often actually dictated by psychological, social and economic pressures, cannot take precedence over general principles.
First of all, no evaluation of costs can outweigh the value of the fundamental good which we are trying to protect, that of human life. Moreover, to admit that decisions regarding man's life can be based on the external acknowledgment of its quality, is the same as acknowledging that increasing and decreasing levels of quality of life, and therefore of human dignity, can be attributed from an external perspective to any subject, thus introducing into social relations a discriminatory and eugenic principle.
Moreover, it is not possible to rule out a priori that the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration, as reported by authoritative studies, is the source of considerable suffering for the sick person, even if we can see only the reactions at the level of the autonomic nervous system or of gestures. Modern clinical neurophysiology and neuro-imaging techniques, in fact, seem to point to the lasting quality in these patients of elementary forms of communication and analysis of stimuli.
6. However, it is not enough to reaffirm the general principle according to which the value of a man's life cannot be made subordinate to any judgment of its quality expressed by other men; it is necessary to promote the taking of positive actions as a stand against pressures to withdraw hydration and nutrition as a way to put an end to the lives of these patients.
It is necessary, above all, to support those families who have had one of their loved ones struck down by this terrible clinical condition. They cannot be left alone with their heavy human, psychological and financial burden. Although the care for these patients is not, in general, particularly costly, society must allot sufficient resources for the care of this sort of frailty, by way of bringing about appropriate, concrete initiatives such as, for example, the creation of a network of awakening centres with specialized treatment and rehabilitation programmes; financial support and home assistance for families when patients are moved back home at the end of intensive rehabilitation programmes; the establishment of facilities which can accommodate those cases in which there is no family able to deal with the problem or to provide "breaks" for those families who are at risk of psychological and moral burn-out.
Proper care for these patients and their families should, moreover, include the presence and the witness of a medical doctor and an entire team, who are asked to help the family understand that they are there as allies who are in this struggle with them. The participation of volunteers represents a basic support to enable the family to break out of its isolation and to help it to realize that it is a precious and not a forsaken part of the social fabric.
In these situations, then, spiritual counselling and pastoral aid are particularly important as help for recovering the deepest meaning of an apparently desperate condition.
7. Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, in conclusion I exhort you, as men and women of science responsible for the dignity of the medical profession, to guard jealously the principle according to which the true task of medicine is "to cure if possible, always to care".
As a pledge and support of this, your authentic humanitarian mission to give comfort and support to your suffering brothers and sisters, I remind you of the words of Jesus: "Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me" (Mt 25: 40).
In this light, I invoke upon you the assistance of him, whom a meaningful saying of the Church Fathers describes as Christus medicus, and in entrusting your work to the protection of Mary, Consoler of the sick and Comforter of the dying, I lovingly bestow on all of you a special Apostolic Blessing.
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Post by HardCap on Mar 25, 2005 16:32:20 GMT -5
Ok. So we starve her to death. Who's next? Right now we are wasting billions on old folks in palliative care units across the continent. They are a useless burden. They have nothing to offer, nothing to await, but pain, suffering and death. Why not do the right thing, and kill them all. Now that we have accepted the doctine of eugenics, it will only be the zealots and fanatics who will resist us and we control the media which will keep everybody tranquilized. We will not be able to starve them unless we remove them to special camps outside the populated areas, for some of them are sure to fail to understand and resist, while the noise might be quite disturbing to sentimentalists and small children who might fail to see the merciful intent and rational nobility of our thing. Who is to say that there will not be advances in neurology in the next 10 or 15 years, at which time she may be able to improve her condition? The people that base their decision on quality of life issues and the sanctity of science don't seem to hold fast to their optimism regarding advances in stem cell research, etc. They are quick to condemn this woman to an irreversible state of death... |
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 25, 2005 18:43:42 GMT -5
Who is to say that there will not be advances in neurology in the next 10 or 15 years, at which time she may be able to improve her condition? The people that base their decision on quality of life issues and the sanctity of science don't seem to hold fast to their optimism regarding advances in stem cell research, etc. They are quick to condemn this woman to an irreversible state of death... From the address of John Paul II above and from what I saw on A&E last night we might very well be killing someone who might otherwise be restored to life. A brain expert testified that the brain Xrays did not show extensive damage. I had three medical experts including 2 orthopaedic surgeons look at the same Xrays of my hip and deliver quite different opinions and recommendations. In this instance, I fail to see how they are different from the right wingers who firstly, can accept the unjust homicide of prisoners in itself, and secondly , accept that they might well be killing an innocent human being. To be consistent, they should be calling for the deaths of prisoners with long sentences on the grounds that the money can be used for the poor and socially useful purposes, ...(like it's going to go there, eh?)instead of blowing it on offensive people. We should also start calling them "criminals" or "social misfits" or subhumans, and never use the word human being in describing them as this might give rise to opposition to the homicides. The term "Embryos" is taken and employed with great effect in another similar program. |
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Mar 25, 2005 19:13:38 GMT -5
Ok. So we starve her to death. Who's next? Right now we are wasting billions on old folks in palliative care units across the continent. They are a useless burden. They have nothing to offer, nothing to await, but pain, suffering and death. Why not do the right thing, and kill them all. Now that we have accepted the doctine of eugenics, it will only be the zealots and fanatics who will resist us and we control the media which will keep everybody tranquilized. We will not be able to starve them unless we remove them to special camps outside the populated areas, for some of them are sure to fail to understand and resist, while the noise might be quite disturbing to sentimentalists and small children who might fail to see the merciful intent and rational nobility of our thing. I said I would pull the plug on Schiavo, not on anyone else. If it were up to me. You are extrapolating, generalizing and exaggerating based on that one case. That is both unrealistic and verging on the hysterical in tone. Each case is unique, as is each individual. |
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Post by Habs_fan_in_LA on Mar 25, 2005 19:22:10 GMT -5
Yes, the following quote is paraphrased from Star Trek (the original series) but it best emulates the question I mean to ask: "Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?" This is addressed to the capital expenditure on mainatining Terri Schiavo's level of existence versus tangibly improving the immediate lot and enhancing future development of other needy citizens. * I would pull the plug. I would have to steel myself to do it (and doubtless make a prayer in my lapsed, haphazard fashion), but I would do it. And it is certain that I will carry the memory of that act to my own dying day. But I would do it. If it were up to me. I agree with you wholehartedly. This question is not along political, ethnic or strict moral lines. I think it is wrong to want to prolong her life needlessly, and to what end. It makes no difference if saving her is supported by the religeous right, the Bushes or right to lifers. At some point the Indigenous people of the north put their aged on an ice flow and allow them to depart in some small measure of dignity. At some point I take my aging German Shepard to the SPCA because his hip displasia has rendered his life both painful and useless. I don't mean to belittle Ms. Schiavo by comparing her to a dog, but at some point plugs must be pulled. Some doctor may find a miracle drug tomorrow, finalize medical trials over the weekend, and have the drug mass produced in sufficient quantity at a low price by next wednesday, but the odds are unlikely. The odds of a significant change in condition after 15 years are unlikely too. At some point we determine that we do not base our decisions on very very unlikely outcomes. |
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 25, 2005 22:28:29 GMT -5
I agree with you wholehartedly. This question is not along political, ethnic or strict moral lines. I think it is wrong to want to prolong her life needlessly, and to what end. It makes no difference if saving her is supported by the religeous right, the Bushes or right to lifers. At some point the Indigenous people of the north put their aged on an ice flow and allow them to depart in some small measure of dignity. At some point I take my aging German Shepard to the SPCA because his hip displasia has rendered his life both painful and useless. I don't mean to belittle Ms. Schiavo by comparing her to a dog, but at some point plugs must be pulled. Some doctor may find a miracle drug tomorrow, finalize medical trials over the weekend, and have the drug mass produced in sufficient quantity at a low price by next wednesday, but the odds are unlikely. The odds of a significant change in condition after 15 years are unlikely too. At some point we determine that we do not base our decisions on very very unlikely outcomes. It is along strict moral lines. Last count of which I am aware, it is the religious left who made up the majority of the pro life movement. They made the well-heeled liberals look bad, so the media looks to the moralistic political right. their greed, paranoia and and their gross indifference to human rights as easy targets rather than address their own indifference. You are not prolonging her life. You are actively killing her. That is a very different thing. You do belittle Mrs. Schavio by comparing her to a dog. You like eugenicists of another age, are failing to acknowledge her humanity. In so doing you deny your own humanity, your own dignity. You would reduce us to a meaningless accident in space. You are wrong; desperate and wrong. You are ignoring her fundamental human right and killing her and woud pass it off as a good deed. Hypocracy is vice's tribute to virtue. It is your inculturated materialism, the blind child of the enlightenment that hobbles reason and has led to post-modernism, well described as modernism feeding on itself: it is this that is at the root of your despair. You have lost sight of the idea of the soul. You have forgotten or never heard of the spiritual gifts of man, that by whiuch we are said to be in the image and likeness of God. You deny the very idea of the person in this an genuflect to the "necessity" of the dismal stoic, and bow to the dominion of death. If we did not have free will which Democratus, the fellow who game us the idea of the atom, tried to explain as "a swerve of atoms" and if the human intellect did not abstract from the content of the senses and imaging power we share with dogs, universals, the very non-material essences of things, then you would have cause for your indifference to killing a human being who for all anybody knows might just as well awake from her condition. You do not know like Blaise and all the myriad disciples of seventeenth century materialism that your system based upon Descartes absurd denial of the reliability of the human senses has left the western world blind to the nature of reality and therefore completely lost. Sensation is of the particular. this keyboard, this monitor. The intellect, that which makes science and the dumb contemporary scientism from which most everybody suffers incalculably: the intellect abstracts the non-material essence of things. It apprehends universals. You are blind to the meaning of free will; it's import. Do you even believe that you have a free will? If you do, then something about you is not determined, in other words, free of biological determinism, free of physical determinism, independent of the time-space continuum. It is the intellect's apprehension of non-material universals (The famous physicist Heisenberg observed that the most amazing thing about the universe is its intelligability,) from which came Plato's theory of Forms and our derived word "information." and the fact of free will which have in Western thought formed the basis for the immortality of the soul. It is this human entity the like of which you would be hard-pressed to create yourself which you would have us kill by starvation. Calculus is a poor substitute for vision. Educate yourself. Whay makes us different from the Nazis and their complicit citizenry? |
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 26, 2005 1:17:40 GMT -5
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Post by Disgruntled70sHab on Mar 26, 2005 9:05:01 GMT -5
Gents,
As one of the moderators for this board I have to interject at this point. What was once a viable topic is now degenerating.
There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with an opinion, but please do disagree with the person.
Please refrain from personal attacks, labelling and/or judgements.
If you have a personal issue with another poster please take it to the personal message feature.
Thanks.
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 26, 2005 11:46:33 GMT -5
What is all your pretentious babbling about? Do you really think that you are impressing anyone? lmao Are you starting an inquisition on fellow members? Are you? You ARE a zealot and you are getting very boring with your personal attack on anyone who holds a different view. Spare us from your inquisitions. Wow! What a dazzling critique. From the bigoted and ad hominem nature of what I must admit, cannot be an observation, I would not ordinarily respond. Ironically you of course do what you accuse me of. No rebuttal, no instances cited, clumsily veiled bigotry. You don't leave much substance to deal with because you are lacking in it. Respond to what? But for the benefit of anyone else who may or may not be really concerned, or approach these things with zeal, I will respond quite regardless of your eloquent reparti. First, from time to time as any less biased reader will acknowledge, even while discussing far less signignificant issues, people do regularly step over the bounds. I might every now and then, but I find nothing in the above that warrants your critique couched as it is in your clearly bigotted phrasing. You step over the bounds pal and it's ironic that you do it in accusing others. What I wrote and what you have described as a "personal attack". You do decline however to point out the instance you refer to. I deal with the dominant caultural ideas of our time. Read "the Cult of Sincerity" by Olivia Ward so that you might gain even the begginings of an understanding. I am pointing out that your repeated and entirely inappropriate reference to "inquisition" refflects both an uninteresting garden variey low grade religious bigotry employed under the guise of a critiique. This is a common and fallacious debating tactic. It reflects the disposition of your dare I say, soul, and not much of anything else. As always it is rooted mired in ignorance, culpable or otherwise, in this case both the rise of western civilization in general and more particularly the history of Spain after seven hundred years of Moorish occupation. As this is far more directed at the content of your soul, are you finding this a little inquisatorial pal? I'm just calling you out pal. On pretentious babbling. To further adress your dare I say pithy observations, I rather suspect that you don't read very much and haven't spent much time thinking too deply about much of anything unless of course you were just hiding the fruits of your study. Pretentious I may or may not be, it's a rather common trait to emerge in arguments with self-image at stake, but please do point out where I have erred and left the train of argument for a display of mere pedentry. But, is it just possible that you haven't the remotest clue about the subject matter I engage or why I do? It is from the minds and hearts of men with our hidden agendas and unexamined presuppositions that most human ill emerges. Is that too Inquisatorial for you buddy? It is indeed, the very nature of reality that I was writing about because things are right or wrong only in relation to their purpose. That's speculative philosophy. Don't label as babbling that of which you are completely ignorant. That's inchoate bigotted babbling, the sign of which is that it serves no purpose. And the universe has purpose. As we speak a young woman, a human being is being starved to death, and on the basis of doing her a big favour. We are denying her ordinary human care. Unless I misjudge you, you in particular have a crying need to read and think more than you appear to. Start with Mortimer Adler's book "Six Great Ideas". A US president set him up in Columbia to teach people how to think. He wasn't particularly bigotted and was not an offensive dogmatic materialist, and is or rather until recently was a world renowned thinker, but you might like him anyhow. You my not like the above, but I really am deeply concerned about the basic human issues at stake. I even spent a few years actually studying the underlying philosophical basis of our post -modern culture. A isit is the root of most |
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