Why is there a great difference? A dialysis machine is not a heroic measure, thousands of people use them to stay alive. The crux of both cases is the same: whether a person would want to stay alive in a vegetative state.

"There was no way [Charles] wanted to live like that. Tom knew — we all knew — his father wouldn't have wanted to live that way."

All the arguments about the worth of life which were used to argue for Terri's life apply here as well.

No, the cases are entirely separable. A course of treatment to keep someone alive artificially need not be begun.

Robert:

You haven't read carefully: "The man in a coma, kept alive by intravenous lines and oxygen equipment...". But if you want to go that route, yes, you can deconstruct all the way back to killing all the disabled and dependent. Just haul out your Derrida and challenge everyone to prove logically and rationally what exactly is the difference between food and medicine, between active and passive, between informed and uninformed consent, between an unloving, faithful husband and a loving separated one, between hearsay and direct evidence, between youth and age, between mental and physical, between vegetative and injured, between meaningful and purposeless, between selfless and selfish, etc., etc. and you'll be on your way. In the end you'll arrive at the point where you say that, because it's ok to refuse heroic interventions in some cases, and because we can't define borders perfectly, it's ok to kill everybody. Ah, the sweet mystery of life.

One ghoulish side to this story is the plethora of personal stories in articles and letters recounting how some relative was allow to expire in extreme and heart-wrenching circumstances, and going on to insist on what a loving act it was and how there isn't the teensiest doubt that that is exactly what the departed would have wanted. Maybe they would have, but methinks there is a little too much protest going on here.

I'm with Robert.

Dialysis machines, IVs and oxygen equipment are run-of-the mill hospital equipment and hardly constitute "heroic" measures.

This is splitting hairs in order to let DeLay off.

And since when is whether or not Terry Schiavo needed hospital equipment a major argument for whether her feeding tube should be removed?

At best it's a side-issue.

Life is sacred. Full stop.

Ali:

No, it's the same thing we were saying earlier in the week. Food is different thabn being kept alive by a machine. And intervening is different than continuing.

Peter,

As Ronald Reagan used to say, "there you go again"! You're comfortable drawing a line to include Terry Schiavo and exclude Charlie DeLay, but you think that anyone who would draw the line around both of them is a card carrying member of the Culture of Death. I can respect where you would draw the line, but all line-drawers are in the same boat. If God sees every human life as infinitely worthy of respect, then none of the qualifiers you use above apply. No lines are allowed. All line drawers belong to the Culture of Death. Your membership card is in the mail.

I am not bothered so much by those who disagree with me on this case, I even find my own opinion troubling. But I am appalled by the callous and irresponsible way that many people on the Social Right have thrown the Culture of Death accusation at anyone who would not support their own opinion. Especially when they themselves are not Culture of Life purists, like DeLay.

Robert:

God doesn't mind that we die, just that we kill each other. That is the line.

Here's a case to break the heart:
http://starbulletin.com/2005/03/03/news/index4.html

A baby born perfectly healthy, they decide to give him oxygen for a bit, the mother seems to think that something is going wrong, they sedate her to calm her down, and 40 minutes later they realize they had him strapped up to carbon dioxide. Massive and profound brain damage has resulted, and he'll need to be on basically every life support machine known to man for his entire life.

So can the parents ethically just take him off the machines? If so, how would it be any different doing so in a few years than if the nurses had just left him on for a bit longer to finish him off? If the parents can take him off whenever they please, are they obligated to do so? How long until hospital administrators try to pressure and/or force them to do so?

Taking him off would without question be the easy thing to do, for all involved. But not the right thing.

brian:

It's hard for the parents, but as an ethical matter it's not hard to draw a line between artificial life support and simple sustenance.

oj: I agree with that, mostly. So given that after some amount of time he was so brain damaged that he'll require artificial life support forever, why should society even bother to allow his parents to have the choice to keep him on the machines? Other than the fact that life is precious and humans are irrational, of course.

Robert:

First of all, the article suggests DeLay did nothing more than acquiesce in his mother's decision, which is not exactly (i)actus reus. Secondly, maybe he regrets it. Thirdly, if he is indeed being hypocritical, are you suggesting he was morally bound to shut up and let Terri die? I have no idea, but there isn't enough here to condemn him for anything. You really have to want Terri dead to jump on this one.

Orrin's distinction makes perfect sense to me. At some point you leave the formal logic behind and read common sense, human experience and moral instinct into the equation. Sorry the "Social Right" has been insulting you, but maybe we're just a little distraught by watching a woman killed in a way we wouldn't treat a sick dog and seeing so many people tell themselves it is exactly what she would have wanted.

As to the "culture of death" accusation, why don't you show me how those all those defending what is being done have a line somewhere that will stop the intellectual zeitgeist from ordaining the death of all the burdensome and inconvenient.

brian:

If the parents are willing to accept the burden it is not immoral for them to do so and we have plenty of money.

Robert et al. -

I have been wondering for some time about Judge Greer's stubbornness in this case. Why has he been so insistent on wanting Terri dead (when there are acceptable care-givers right at hand)?

And I read this morning he was apparently asked 5 times to recuse himself, but refused.

If someone finds that he has some sort of circumstance in his past that lends a bias towards his decision, would you direct the same charges towards him that you have towards Tom DeLay? Even further, would you recommend professional discipline and/or other actions?

Peter

You really have to want Terri dead to jump on this one.

That's very presumptuous of you. You totally ignore the gist of my argument and resort to ad hominem attacks. I could turn the same argument on you. Why are you so happy to see Charlie DeLay gone? Oh, that's right, he was old! He's served his purpose.

Sorry the "Social Right" has been insulting you, but maybe we're just a little distraught by watching a woman killed in a way we wouldn't treat a sick dog

But you would be okay with it if everyone in the family agree to it, right? If your problem stems from the fact that due process wasn't done to discern her wishes, or you don't think her husband was fit to represent them, then you can't play the "wouldn't treat a sick dog like that" outrage card. Because if those objections were satisfied, you wouldn't have a legal complaint with letting her starve.

If you are going to make the objection that we should never allow anyone to starve to death, then it wouldn't matter to you if she had a living will clearly stating that she would not want to be kept alive by a feeding tube, and her husband had a durable power of attorney, and every member of her family was in agreement. You would be in favor of the state taking custody of her and force feeding her against her will. Are you?

As to the "culture of death" accusation, why don't you show me how those all those defending what is being done have a line somewhere that will stop the intellectual zeitgeist from ordaining the death of all the burdensome and inconvenient.

This is your own paranoia at work, assuming that people who believe that her husband is properly representing her wishes do so out of some moral laziness that would make them numb to an ever declining level of respect for human life. What proof can you offer that you won't likewise succumb to this slippery slope? Feeding tubes are being removed in many other cases that don't make it into the news. It's OK as long as everyone in the family wants the person dead, apparently. Are you in favor of changing all the state laws that allow this?

At this point I am so confused by the factoids surrounding Schiavo that I can scarse make any judgment myself. However, this is all line drwaing on slippery slope at best, and there will never be any other way it will occur.

Given current medical technology there is a world of hard decisions awaiting each of us. At some point we will confront the issue of when to go forward and when to stop.

The DeLay case is one. The way the story is told it makes sense. The Family was in agreement. The patient was older. His condition was deteriorating. More treatment is not morally required if it is unlikely to do much good. Would you ask that a patient in that condition be given a heart bypass?

The Schiavo case seems to be much farther up the slope.

The real failure, it seems to me, is that Judge Greer failed to do what he really needed to do, which was to broker a comprimise. Delivering a judgment was a failure and neither he nor Mr. Schiavo has admitted it, which is the real tragedy.

All Congress was seeking to do was to give Terry's parents another chance to find a better judge than Greer. I am opposed to what they did on federalism grounds. But I think their error is much less than that of the judicial system that has let this get so far out of control, merely to prove to the other branches of government that it has the upper hand.

Robert D

Calm down. I meant "you" as in "one". I do use "one" at times but I worry about sounding like a toff.

To answer your question, no I wouldn't be ok if everyone in the family agreed, anymore than I would agree with a parent disposing of a seriously disabled child. She wasn't terminal or suffering or old. And what has what I or anyone else think about Charlie DeLay got to do with this? I don't think anything about it on the basis of one LA Times article. How could I? Do you?

"This is your own paranoia at work, assuming that people who believe that her husband is properly representing her wishes do so out of some moral laziness that would make them numb to an ever declining level of respect for human life."

Not my paranoia, my critical judgment, which tells me objectively that the financial, romantic and paternal situation he is in is so fraught with glaring, objective conflicts of interest that he is not suited to play the role the law is allowing him to play. It really doesn't matter whether his heart is pure on the old sincerity barometer or not. Do you, hung up as you are about wishes, think it would have been Terri's wish that he, not her parents, retain the final say over her life after he had gone off to establish another family and had two kids? How come wishes don't count on that issue?

She has no wishes, Robert, certainly none any court has any business discerning or respecting. And she never did, unless you think casual remarks made by a 20 year old after a teary movie should be enough to seal her fate years later. Those who are backing him, or even those who think this whole wish game is real in this case, are projecting fantastically and revealing their own fears. It has nothing to do with her. But she is paying for it.

Those who are backing him, or even those who think this whole wish game is real in this case, are projecting fantastically and revealing their own fears. It has nothing to do with her. But she is paying for it.

Could it be that you are projecting your own fears into it? You know no more about Terri and her wishes, or lack thereof, than I do. Her husband knows them much better than anyone else who is commenting on this case.

She wasn't terminal or suffering or old.

She is brain dead. Most people consider that terminal.

Robert:

Most people are idiots.

"Could it be that you are projecting your own fears into it? You know no more about Terri and her wishes, or lack thereof, than I do."

Well, you just might well be right there, Robert. The difference is that when I project my fears, she lives, and when you project yours, she dies.

Well, Peter, neither your fears or my fears will determine the matter. It is a matter of Law, the Law of the State of Florida. If the citizens of Florida want to amend their laws to make the standard of evidence stronger by requiring a written living will for any removal of feeding tubes, and to standardize the definition of a diagnosis of PVS, or to eliminate the possibility of the removal of a feeding tube, or a life sustaining device of any kind, under any medical circumstances, then they should do so.

I think that some clarification and strengthening of the legal safeguards are in order. But I would not make it the obligation of the state to keep brain-dead people alive against their wishes if their wishes can be determined beyond a "reasonable" doubt.