The Terri Schiavo autopsy results are out and nobody seems to be talking about them. Or rather, it seems nobody who was rallying the troops in her defense is talking about them. Maybe I'm just reading the wrong blogs, but the only ones that I've noticed mentioning the autopsy at all are those by folks who were supporters of Michael Schiavo's position - and they're gloating.
She wasn't abused.
Her brain was damaged beyond all hope of repair.
She was blind.
In short, it seems she had long ago ceased to be a living, thinking human being by any reasonable definition.
I'm still waiting to learn more of the details before saying too much, but I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the pro-life community and Christians in particular may owe Michael Schiavo and his supporters an apology.
Thoughts?
Update 06/19/05: Obviously, around the time I wrote this post, the skeptics (of the autopsy) started posting. Here are some examples.
To say that would be redundant to the CT scans taken of here brain (source 1, source 2, source 3). If the correct interpretation of scans is that she had no cortical function left, she could not have had any cognitive ability."The autopsy also documented significant brain atrophy, and the medical panel called the damage 'irreversible.'
"This is not the same as saying she had no cognitive ability. " - Pro-Life Blogs
"For me, the whole tragedy surrounding Terri and the people who wanted her dead didn�t hinge on how severely brain-damaged she was. She was alive and wasn�t on life support, and her husband�s credibility was extremely low, too low to trust his assertion that Terri wanted to die if ever severely brain-damaged. Forget about what you�d want if you were ever in the same condition. Take yourselves out of the equation."
"The way they killed her was appalling, and I was angry for a long time afterward. I�m giving you a heads-up. Don�t be alarmed or disgusted by the liberal media and liberal bloggers (and some conservatives, too) declaring that Terri�s wayward husband is somehow �vindicated� by the autopsy report. The doctor-induced starvation was immoral." - LaShawn Barber
If Terri Schiavo ceased to be a a thinking, feeling human being years ago, was it actually wrong to starve her empty shell to death? I guess that hinges on whether Michael Schiavo could have had sufficient knowledge to demonstrate that she was, beyond reasonable doubt, lacking cognition.
BTW, Smart Christian seems to agree with my suggestion that there might be some apologies owed. For the record, I haven't made up my mind on this matter. I'm just not content with plugging my ears, yelling "La, la, la. I can't hear you!", and essentially ignoring the consequences of the autopsy report, as so many of my Christian and pro-life brethren seem to be.
Stay tuned for another post on this topic.
Funky Dung
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"I suspect she had functioning cortex. Terri, as far as I know, did not. You can have holes lots of places and perhaps still function, but lose your cortex and you're about as functional as a fish."
The brain was smaller, but there was nothing saying that the cortex was gone in the reports I've seen. Her brain was small, fine, but without more anatomical data, we don't have much to go on.
Perhaps we should start a separate thread about determining brain death and so forth in the light of Catholic thought. This is a distraction from the issue of Terri, whose diagnosis was too much of a mess, thanks to the messy circumstances, to definitively say jack, and whose husband reneged on promises to care for Terri early on in the game.
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Posted 30 Nov 1999 at 12:00 am ¶The real allegations against him were how he was treating her in the hospital and hospice. Yes, some invoked the spectre of abuse, but that was not the crux of the matter.
If you really were going at the abuse angle without definitive proof, go and apologize about that. To truly let go of the main point of the debate, however, would require far more knowledge, and assume that the information would get Schiavo off the hook, not further on it.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 2:00 pm ¶Devil's advocate:
If he was confident in the belief that she was no longer really a living human, wouldn't any supposed abuse or mistreatment in hospice be on par with desecration of a corpse? That's not a nice or respectful thing to do, but it's certainly not as bad as treating a functional human being like a corpse.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 2:20 pm ¶Funky, if this is a joke, it is not very funny… The CCC says:
2277 Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable.
Thus an act or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator. The error of judgment into which one can fall in good faith does not change the nature of this murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded.
2278 Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of "over-zealous" treatment. Here one does not will to cause death; one's inability to impede it is merely accepted. The decisions should be made by the patient if he is competent and able or, if not, by those legally entitled to act for the patient, whose reasonable will and legitimate interests must always be respected.
2279 Even if death is thought imminent, the ordinary care owed to a sick person cannot be legitimately interrupted. The use of painkillers to alleviate the sufferings of the dying, even at the risk of shortening their days, can be morally in conformity with human dignity if death is not willed as either an end or a means, but only foreseen and tolerated as inevitable Palliative care is a special form of disinterested charity. As such it should be encouraged.
Unless you are willing to show that food and water were somehow "burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome", then Terry Shiavo's level of mental (or visual) function, since she was obviously not "brain dead," was never at issue.
My $0.02
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 3:02 pm ¶A few comments:
1. Her brain could not receive information from the eyes because necessary tissue was dead. I completely missed that possibility.
2. Could her brain have even received any sensory information at all? That may come up when the full data is released.
3. Her brain was less than half the weight of a normal human brain. Is that "normal" male or female? Did they estimate what her brain should have weighed had it been intact? How much of what remained was neural tissue and how much was structural?
4. Continuing on with 3, the coroner stated she was incapable of any thought. Given that we don't know the "seat of consciousness" yet, is this a statement that the higher brain was completely devastated, or simply a statement that it was devastated? There's a difference there, and it is crucial.
5.The statements by family and supporters were that Michael Schiavo abused her and that is why she was in this condition in the first place. They also stated that he abused her while she was in the nursing home. There is no sign of either type of abuse.
6. Abuse that would not show up on the autopsy is possible. But it's incredibly unlikely that Michael Schiavo could have done it after becoming a nurse. It's impossible that he could have done it before.
7. The purpose of accusing Michael Schiavo of abusing Mrs. Schiavo had nothing to do with whether he actually did it or not. Those accusing him of the abuse will have no trouble creating explanations for why the abuse did not show up on the autopsy. Expect to see the coroner villified. Expect to see the science contradicted and denounced.
For example, the coroner stated that the autopsy could not show that she was in a Persistent Vegetative State. PVS is a clinical diagnosis on a living human being. The autopsy was done on the dead Terri Schiavo. Watch for "The autopsy did not prove that she was in a PVS, and we believe she was in a vegitative state."
Also, watch for "Neuoscience does not know everything" as an explanation for how she could follow the balloon when she was blind. I expect the whole "brain/mind/spirit" question to be raised as well. "Even though her brain was completely destroyed, that doesn't mean she was not aware."
No amount of science will ever change the minds of the parents and the die-hard supporters. It's a question of faith, not science. Science would only be used if it had supported their position.
6. What caused her initial cardiac arrest? Cyril Wecht does not believe an eating disorder can be ruled out. There are other explanations, which are frightening. The healthier the human heart, the more dimensions and "hyper-volume" a plot of the heart activity will take in phase space. This means that there is a finite probability that a healthy human heart will stop beating for no logical reason.
7. What was the timeline from the time she passed out until EMS was called? If, as Terri's "supporters" claim, there was such a gap between when she went down and when EMS was called and when EMS arrived, that she was resuscitated at all is astonishing. The timeline doesn't make any sense. If the timeline is correct:
a) why wasn't 911 called sooner?
b) why is this only being brought up now, instead of in the weeks following her cardiac arrest?
c) she could not have gone into arrest immediately - had she been in arrest for the entire time, she could not have been resuscitated.
I doubt the timeline listed by the supporters is correct. But then, what was the correct timeline, and how did the incorrect timeline come about?
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 3:18 pm ¶Small editing areas do cause problems with things like numbering, don't they?
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 3:18 pm ¶Autopsy online in PDF format:
Autopsy PDF
Reading through it, I realize that this is above even my training. I'm going to have to pull out my copy of Grey's Anatomy and a medical dictionary to wade through the report, and even then there are implications that I may have missed. The summary by the neurologist, though, indicates that this was a devastating brain injury that left no chance for recovery.
An interesting fact that the report points out is that an MRI was contraindicated. They had implanted a neurological stimulator. The wire would have gotten very hot in an MRI, and could have caused further damage. I'm not clear as to whether the wire was anyplace where anything left alive could have been damaged.
Terri had a severe lung infection and bladder infection. I'm not sure if the lung infection was brought on by the removal of food and water. She'd apparently had repeated bladder infections.
I would think that withholding antibiotics would have resulted in her death from a bladder infection eventually. Of course, pneumonia could kill as well, and, if it wasn't the result of the withholding of food and water, might have killed her even if the intent was to keep her alive.
My understanding is the Roman Catholic Church would have had no problem with the antibiotics being withheld in this case.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 4:09 pm ¶"If he was confident in the belief that she was no longer really a living human, wouldn't any supposed abuse or mistreatment in hospice be on par with desecration of a corpse?"
If society would just give someone a free pass if they said "well, I didn't believe that X was still a human being when I starved/euthanized/put a cap in his rear end", I don't think we'd last very long. Mr. Schiavo's true intentions and so forth may never be known to us, and it is only for God to judge them anyway, but an objective wrong was done that undermines the already shaky integrity of how we treat the disabled. I still shake my head at how the disability-rights people got ignored by the media as they went after the beloved Christian-right angle.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 4:10 pm ¶I'm not cracking a joke. I'm suggesting that perhaps she was already essentially brain dead. She was no longer a human person. The Catholic Church accepts brain death as sufficient reason to allow the remainder of the body to die. Perhaps the medical community needs to expand the definition of brain death a bit. If the seat of reason, the brain, was destroyed beyond repair and beyond the point of any cognition beyond autonomic maintenance, Terri was already dead.
I'm not saying that's definitely how I feel, but I think it's an idea worth discussing.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 5:25 pm ¶Who cares if she was blind?
Who cares if her brain was shrunken? (although how much of that was due to the dehydration?)
Who cares if she was bedridden and would never roller-skate again?
Her body worked sufficiently to digest food and water. She related (I won't even say communicated) in primitive ways with her parents. She was ALIVE.
The implication of violence by her husband; yes, that was unprovable hyperbole. But just because she couldn't reach for and chew her own food made her a candidate for death? Not according to our way of thinking. Nor without her written explicit demand to be allowed to starve.
Now it will all be swept under the rug. Everyone can feel better. "See, she was not ruled out (by the way, not proven) to be in a PVS. So it was okay to STARVE AND DEHYDRATE HER TO DEATH."
Wait for the next one and the next. She is just a sickening little wavelet in the flood of murders.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 6:02 pm ¶The gist I get from the autopsy results is that there was no longer a human person present in her body at all. She could not have related to her parents in any way other than reflexively. Not only could she not reach for, chew, or swallow her own food, she was forever damaged in such a way that she could never be aware that she was eating, let alone understand what is means to eat. If the brain is essentially reduced to a functioning cerebellum and some poorly connected bits of cerebrum - minus the cortex, mind you - is there really a human person still there? My education and my catechesis tell me no.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 6:32 pm ¶BTW, I'm sure a competant medical examiner can tell the difference between the effects of dehydration and atrophy caused by trauma. I suspect it's like the difference between a dry sponge being lighter and smaller than a wet one and kitchen sponge being smaller than one used to wash cars.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 6:35 pm ¶"The gist I get from the autopsy results is that there was no longer a human person present in her body at all."
The media have been jumping all over that interpretation, but still has to be reconciled with differing opinions of her behavior in the clinical setting. Recall, Funky, that story of a woman who was sharp as a tack in old age, yet had plaques rotting out much of her brain.
"BTW, I'm sure a competant medical examiner can tell the difference between the effects of dehydration and atrophy caused by trauma. I suspect it's like the difference between a dry sponge being lighter and smaller than a wet one and kitchen sponge being smaller than one used to wash cars."
Well, we'll see. Again, your own little vignette makes me cautious. Perhaps she was brain-dead. Great. Her husband's actions didn't make a difference. But will the next patient be so "fortunate" if a caregiver does not provide the support he promised to give with insurance or lawsuit money? This case still reveals gaps in how we take care of the most defenseless members of our society.
The diagnoses of Terri's condition were a mess, and we shouldn't get stuck in that morass.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 6:44 pm ¶"Recall, Funky, that story of a woman who was sharp as a tack in old age, yet had plaques rotting out much of her brain."
I suspect she had functioning cortex. Terri, as far as I know, did not. You can have holes lots of places and perhaps still function, but lose your cortex and you're about as functional as a fish.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 6:48 pm ¶Even if there is "no human person" there, is the soul not still present?
I also have to wonder about the size of her brain. Indeed (I assume), in 15 years time, the brain would likely atrophy (I don't know about that being related to dehydration as someone else suggested). However, had she been given proper therapy soon after her collapse, could the decrease in brain matter have been slowed, prevented whatever??
Regardless of the results, the woman didn't deserve to be starved to death.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 6:58 pm ¶Has the Magisterium set forward a position on "brain death"? I've seen theologians saying it counts as dead, and others saying that it does not.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 7:03 pm ¶Even if there is "no human person" there, is the soul not still present?
I would find it rather odd if the Church held that the soul lingers when cognition is impossible.
Regardless of the results, the woman didn't deserve to be starved to death.
Technically speaking, she died of dehydration, not starvation.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 7:05 pm ¶Furthermore, was she still truly a woman? Was she still a person?
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 7:06 pm ¶Starvation, dehydration….pretty much the same if you ask me.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 7:08 pm ¶Donna, I just tried to find that out myself. It seems that the Church is leaving the definition of physical death to scientists, not theologians. I'm sure Rome would speak up if a definition of death contradicted with moral teachings. I'm fairly certain brain death suffices for organ donation, a practice the Church does not forbid.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 7:11 pm ¶I'm told death by starvation is much more painful (and slower).
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 7:12 pm ¶Whether it is slower and more painful, is dehydration a way you would want to die? She was *not* terminal and therefore death was imposed upon her.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 7:14 pm ¶Regarding personhood, the Church teaches that there is a physical element and a spiritual element. The spiritual element (i.e. the soul) depends on the physical element to be present anywhere by Heaven. The exact nature of the connection between the two has been the topic of much debate.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 7:15 pm ¶My point is that she couldn't *want* anything. There was no cognitive capability for wanting left. It seems she had insufficient cortex to be self-aware in any way. Of course, this whole discussion hinges on the assumption that the autopsy produced accurate results.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 7:17 pm ¶BTW, pain is just another electro-chemical signal in the nervous system until it is abstracted by the cortex to have meaning. Fish feel pain, but only the most primative way. They have know way of conprehending "I am in pain. Something is hurting me. I don't want to be in pain." I'm just wondering out loud if Terri was in a similar situation.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 7:19 pm ¶Whether she felt pain or not, whether she wanted to die that way or not, I think those are irrelevant. She had people willing to care for her and death was still imposed upon her.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 7:23 pm ¶The real issue at hand is whether or not the life that was ended was ontologically continuous with the human person Terri Schiavo. Was she still a living person and thus have inherent dignity or had she ceased to be a living person years ago and long thus no longer occupying the body that was killed.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 7:23 pm ¶Are we mere humans able to make that determination?
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 7:26 pm ¶I'll concede that point. Her parents were indeed willing to pay for her care. Michael's refusal to allow that suggests that perhaps he was motivated by greed rather than respect for Terri's wishes. Regardless, if Terri was actually long gone and if that fact was demonstrable, Michael was not murdering a person when he ordered her tubes removed. His actions may still have been callous, but that may not have been murderous.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 7:27 pm ¶Are we mere humans able to make that determination?
Every day doctors, many of whom are Catholic, must decide when to declare people dead. The Church does not interfere with that duty (for the most part).
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 7:28 pm ¶What about the denial of proper therapy when she first collapsed?
Even if doctors make that determination, isn't it still something that is a bit out of our realm?
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 7:31 pm ¶What about the denial of proper therapy when she first collapsed?
I don't think it's clear whether or not early therapy would have helped her avoid some of her losses. Also, the alleged lag between collapse and 911 call has not been proven.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 7:33 pm ¶"Fr. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, said the autopsy does not change 'the moral evaluation of what happened to Terri. Her physical injuries and disabilities never made her less of a person,' said Fr. Pavone. 'No amount of brain injury ever justifies denying a person proper humane care. That includes food and water.'"
Actually, I'll argue that it's quite possible she had long since ceased to be a person at all. She was not disabled. She was incapable of cognition. She didn't have reduced function. She had no function (at that level).
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 7:39 pm ¶No apology.
Please see
*** http://www.wf-f.org/JPIILifeSustaining0304.html ***
&
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/1124925/posts.
I think of it this way. If we are to defend the smallest of human persons beginning in fertilization, we must defend all human persons to their natural end. However, throughout the entire life span, basic needs are required to be met, here, namely nutrition and hydration (for the woman to eat and drink for the zygote). It is society's imperative to meet the basic needs of its citizens.
Zygotes don't have brains or even hearts, but they are to be defended. There is even a high likelihood that they will never be born, but they are to be defended in their sanctity. The same with those terminally ill: defend them until death and feed them.
—
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 7:53 pm ¶"The brain was smaller, but there was nothing saying that the cortex was gone in the reports I've seen."
That was evident in the CT scans.
"Perhaps we should start a separate thread about determining brain death and so forth in the light of Catholic thought."
I'll hopefully get around to doing that tonight.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 7:54 pm ¶"Zygotes don't have brains or even hearts, but they are to be defended. There is even a high likelihood that they will never be born, but they are to be defended in their sanctity. The same with those terminally ill: defend them until death and feed them."
There is a key difference. The Church believes that the soul is joined to the physical body at conception. The smallest "unit" of physical humanity is a fertilized egg. The Church does not claim that the physical body be entirely reduced to constuent molecules (or even cells) in order for the soul to "leave".
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 7:57 pm ¶"That was evident in the CT scans."
Where was this evidence cited? I'm curious how those scans look, since differentiating soft tissues is not CT technology's forte. I'd prefer to keep my eyes open for any autopsy results that are on the web as well…
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 8:11 pm ¶Please clarify:
"The Church does not claim that the physical body be entirely reduced to constuent molecules (or even cells) in order for the soul to 'leave'."
Do you mean decay after death?
Also, when "zygote" was written, I meant the human person at conception. It was technically incorrect.
Finally, talking in terms of when the soul leaves the body is irrelavant in a discussion about the theology of the body. We should talk in terms of "from conception to final conclusion".
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 8:53 pm ¶1. The destruction of the brain tissue was clearly due to an hypoxic event in the past. Thus, it was not due to dehydration. They would look different on autopsy.
2. Dehydration would not have affected the mass of the brain significantly. The body protects certain organs. Death from dehyrdation would cause almost no change in brain mass.
3. Terri was not capable of communicating with her parents in any way.
Humans see communication, even when there is none present. Random output plus the warm body and a hope for their daughter made them see what wasn't there. It's easy to fall prey to this.
There were neurons in the cerebral portion of her brain. Individual, unconnected neurons. Mostly it was structural material, and even that had begun to fail.
4. If Terri, because her cells were alive, was considered alive, then so is Helen Lacks. The biologists among you probably know her as Helen Lane, although that was not her correct last name. She died of a tumor years ago, but a culture from the tumor still grows and propagates. Interestingly, it has also mutated - it's no longer even human tissue, although there may be samples of tissue that might be genetically human somewhere. No one would consider Helen Lacks alive.
5. If brain death is not a form of death, then a) most transplants kill the brain dead donor b) the Catholic church may have two Popes. Are you sure no one cultured any of Pope John Paul II's tissue?
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 9:01 pm ¶"final conclusion"? Please define.
I'm trying to discuss the definition of the conclusion of physical life. We are living spirit and living flesh. When the flesh dies, the spirit remains. At what point is the flesh dead? I submit that Terri Schiavo was dead in the sense that her body no longer supported cognitive functions. Thus, the flesh that really mattered was dead. What died of dehydration was an empty shell.
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 9:10 pm ¶"I would find it rather odd if the Church held that the soul lingers when cognition is impossible."
"The Church believes that the soul is joined to the physical body at conception."
Isn't that contradictory, or at least arbitrary?
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 10:59 pm ¶gbm,
You wrote: "Also, when 'zygote' was written, I meant the human person at conception. It was technically incorrect." What's incorrect? A zygote is a fertilized egg, and thus a human being.
Theo, your concerns are quite valid, and is why the Church is still mulling aspects of the issue of brain death. I think that in the event of massive cognitive loss, that a family may elect not to undergo "heroic" measures the save the person's life. This ability to turn down treatment is longstanding in moral theology.
This is also the crux of why the Church opposed withdrawing food and water for Terri, in that food and water is an ordinary condition for any human life, and it was not hurting her. (If her GI tract was ruined, that could be another matter.)
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 11:22 pm ¶The Church believes that the soul is joined to the physical body at conception.
Source, Funky? AFAIK, there is no such claim, certainly none with authority, made by the Church. It is rather that, because it is a mystery when human beings become spiritual beings, we are obligated to behave as though the soul is present from conception until death. And I think it unlikely that the Church will teach that it is possible to count someone as "dead" when their only "medical" need is nourishment and hydration. Until there is an official pronouncement on the topic, is not the safer course of action to err on the side of life? Terry Shiavo passed the duck test: She appeared to be alive–far more so than the undifferentiated mass of cells of a humuan embryo. Ergo, without overwhelming evidence to the contrary, she should not have been treated as dead. And I am disappointed in you entertaining such modernist notions… [tsk, tsk]
Cheers!
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Posted 16 Jun 2005 at 11:25 pm ¶I had written a very long, highly organized reply. Then, due to an annoying idiosyncrasy of the user interface*, all was lost. Since I am not in the mood to rewrite the whole thing now, here is the quote to which I was responding, and the question that launched my response:
"Theo, your concerns are quite valid, and is why the Church is still mulling aspects of the issue of brain death."
But why should this concern (defining brain death according to cognition on the one hand while attributing a soul to a fertilized egg incapable of cognition on the other hand) lead the church only to mull "aspects of the issue of brain death" and not aspects of the corresponding issue at the other end of development?
*Why do the keystrokes for "select all" (cmd-A) have to be so similar to the keystrokes for "quit" (cmd-Q)?
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Posted 17 Jun 2005 at 1:22 am ¶I also offer no apology, and I feel very uneasy trying to decide now that she is "all" dead (to quote the Princess Bride) whether or not her soul was present when she was determined to be "mostly" dead. I do not pretend to have any expertise in this area, but for my part, I would like to dissociate this case from those of organ donations.
I have seen a few orders for Gift of Life patients (i.e. organ donors), and every order that I have ever seen has included some sort of pressor as well as insulin and levothyroxine (a synthetic thyroid hormone), not to mention some antibiotics. These patients need these medications in addition to mechanical ventilation to keep their vital organs going long enough to harvest whatever organs will be donated. Such is my understanding of "brain dead" as I have encountered it in my practice - the entire brain is dead and the "empty shell" is maintained completely by external means. Such also is my understanding of death as "imminent" - as in, if we don't act very quickly in administering the appropriate meds and life support the body will die within hours and the organs therein will be useless.
Just wanted to give my background for the opinion I hold about Terri - I don't find her death to be imminent since she managed to survive without nutrition and hydration for almost 2 weeks. So if she was, as you say, on par with a fish, I equate removing her feeding tube with flushing the goldfish down the toilet. Regardless of where you place her humanity, I don't feel it was the most responsible nor respectable thing to do.
As far as equating her brain cells to tumor cells, I don't necessarily agree with that either. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand a tumor cell to be an already mutated cell that is no longer human, and as such interferes with the normal operation of the appropriate cells around it. I would not argue that a preserved tumor is human, only that it is a preserved tumor. In Terri's case, the cells that were functioning were her normal and appropriate cells, communicating with all the other normal and appropriate cells in her body that were responsible for sustaining autonomic function. It's just not a fair comparison.
I'm not saying I'm 100% certain that her soul and body were still united, but I would rather err on the side of caution.
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Posted 17 Jun 2005 at 2:50 am ¶"Isn't that contradictory, or at least arbitrary?"
Point conceded. For the time being, I'll take Steve's out.
"It is rather that, because it is a mystery when human beings become spiritual beings, we are obligated to behave as though the soul is present from conception until death."
On the other hand, I don't have any qualms associating conception with the begiining of human personhood. I just don't know when personhood ends. This is not only a religious question, but a philosophical one. Personhood can be defined outside of reilgion.
So I can't help but wonder. How do you define the beginning and end of personhood, Theomorph?
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Posted 17 Jun 2005 at 3:45 am ¶One thing that really struck me was people making reference to "the next time". There are somewhere on the order of 30,000 people in persistant vegitative states at any given time in the United States.
I sat in a bar on campus towards the end of the semester and spent all night talking to a man who was getting drunk because the woman he'd lived with for the past thirty years and had three children with was in a coma and her parents decided to pull the plug, and he didn't want to, but since they'd never married he had no legal right to stop them.
There was nothing out of the ordinary about the Schiavo case. These things happen every day. It was just a matter that politicians thought they could gain popularity from entering the fray and the media knew it could gain ratings from helping them.
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Posted 17 Jun 2005 at 5:11 am ¶On a less cynical note. Regardless of what you ultimately come to believe funky, it's a very reassuring thing to see someone, especially in these times, be prepared to consider that a strongly held belief may have been in error. And that if it was, some kind of ammends ought be made.
It's a sign that we're a little farther from civil war than I might have thought. Also, that I should search my own beliefs and see which of them have not withstood the light of time.
Thanks.
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Posted 17 Jun 2005 at 5:34 am ¶She had a bladder infection and pneumonia.
Would withholding antibiotics have been acceptable to everyone?
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Posted 17 Jun 2005 at 5:42 am ¶"How do you define the beginning and end of personhood, Theomorph?"
If "brain death" is to be the end-of-life standard (and I think it is a good one), something similar must be found at the beginning of life. Here is a rough idea:
When an individual can first consider its own condition, consciously or unconsciously, and act upon that consideration, it becomes a person. That is, when an individual possesses those attributes which are absent in "brain death."
The point at which this occurs is not the same for everyone.
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Posted 17 Jun 2005 at 6:20 am ¶Wish I'd chimed in before the list got this long… but on the topic of owing Michael Schiavo an apology:
One of the most sickening spectacles of this whole ordeal was having to observe my brothers and sisters on every talk show they could get onto. Too many "Christians" showed no qualms with breaking at least one of the ten commandments — that is, bearing false witness. I recognize that some people on the othe side were hitting below the belt too, but I expected more from supposed Christians, people with whom I basically agreed on the issue of Terri Schiavo.
People trashed Michael Schiavo mercilessly, mostly based on conjecture and hate. Members of his family here in Pennsylvania had their lives threatened by people sympathetic to Terri's parents — how incredibly screwed up is that? -that someone who purports to believe in the sanctity of life would resort to such idiotic behavior?
I think some people definitely owe Michael Schiavo an apology, and I think many of those same people need to examine themselves, especially the ones who claim to be saved by the love of a merciful God, because they didn't do much to reflect that love when they engaged in behavior intended to destroy Michael Schiavo's reputation.
A lot of what went on was shameful at best.
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Posted 17 Jun 2005 at 8:15 am ¶I wonder when an unborn child first becomes self aware (on average).
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Posted 17 Jun 2005 at 1:45 pm ¶I thought it wasn't until after birth that a child becomes self aware….
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Posted 17 Jun 2005 at 2:07 pm ¶If that's the case, by Theomorph's definition, infanticide (up to a certain age) should not be considered immoral. What say you, Theo? Have you takena a shine to the ideas of Peter Singer?