#19089: — 03/18  at  06:01 PM
1. This is a case of prolonging death, not prolonging life. I would not want to be kept like this.

2. The case has also become a cause for the anti-abortionists. Not sure what their reasoning is, but it apparently makes sense to them.

#19090: Chris Clarke — 03/18  at  06:21 PM
I was thinking along PZ's lines. I don't want them to keep me like that if it happens someday, but I wouldn't care either way once it happened. Absence of ability to feel pain is the threshold as far as I'm concerned.

I suppose there's a dignity argument to be made, but I find huge dignity in the notion that buzzards may someday stick their beaks into my peritoneum, so I'm not the one to talk about that subject.

[Bitter, horrible thoughts about Schiavo now being the model Republican woman deleted.]

#19091: PZ Myers — 03/18  at  06:29 PM
I also wouldn't want to be kept like that, but I'd also rather not be set on fire, pumped full of nasty preservatives, or eaten by bugs, either. It just doesn't matter.

It's not as if she even has any dignity to preserve.

#19092: — 03/18  at  06:31 PM
Well, obviously, because there's a principle here that you can't just screw over the law and the legal status of guardianship because a case is a big media opportunity. Her husband has been through a hell of a lot to try and fulfill what he sees as her wishes. Now he's up against some of the sleaziest congresspeople since the gilded age. I'm thinking I'm on his side on this one. It's all about her wishes and her legal right to have them carried out. It may be a grey area because there was no living will, but the principle is the same.

#19093: — 03/18  at  06:34 PM
My inert body, gorgeous though it is, is not me. When I die, you can toss me in a trash bin for all I care.

#19094: Chris Clarke — 03/18  at  06:43 PM
I agree with everything you say, Plunge, as far as where my sympathies lie. But - and I'm not a lawyer, I only typed up my ex's law school homework for three years, so I may be wrong - I think the concept of her rights is pretty much moot.

I suppose I have no trouble with supporting the husband for the reasons you spell out. But this isn't about Terri anymore, if it ever was. It's about the political ramifications of the decision. If both sides were honest about that, that'd be an improvrment.

#19095: Ken Cope — 03/18  at  06:50 PM
What I'm trying to figure out is why she's the poster child for the manipulation of the emotions of an ill-informed public (and I've been listening to these Marin County airheads on the local talk radio arguing with Dr. Dean Edell, telling a physician he's got no respect for life, screaming that TS will recover just fine any second now because medical science isn't so shit-hot especially when it comes to the brain... "if she's not aware, how come she can blink and smile? I've seen the videos!") instead of being a cautionary tale for bulimics?

She binged, she purged, she downed laxatives with 15 glasses of iced tea a day for that Ann Coulter look. When she went into cardiac arrest, and starved her brain too, her cerebral cortex was replaced with spinal fluid. No brain to hurt. Norwegian Blue. Burner, burier, or eater.

I want to see her testify before a Congressional committee.

#19096: Rana — 03/18  at  06:51 PM
The reason I've heard as to why the anti-abortionists are involved is that if you can successfully define a brain-dead individual incapable of sustaining herself without continued medical intervention as a legal person under the law, and then further that legally she _must_ be kept alive, self-sustaining or no, this sets a precedent for viewing a fetus in the same way. (As a person, with a legal obligation to keep it alive no matter the costs.)

The difference, of course, is that Shaivo's prolonged existence does not depend on acting as a biological parasite physically residing in another individual, and her parents are _willing_ to shoulder the burden of her care, and there are no physical costs to them, and they would be able stop at any time they wished. It's when the law steps in to _insist_ that a person act as a host to a non-person, regardless of her health or will in the matter, that it becomes an issue to me.

Me, I tend to think of persons as sentient creatures with at least a degree of conscious autonomy, and I give priority to persons over non-persons. Someone like Shaivo for me _was_ a person, and a fetus can _become_ a person, but they are not persons. (Worthy of respect and consideration as living things, true, but no more so than say cats or flatworms.) Of course, I also think that some primate species and cetaceans might qualify for legal personhood, so what do I know.

Oh, and I don't think corporations are persons, either, no matter what the law says.

#19097: Ken Cope — 03/18  at  06:59 PM
Oh, lest we forget, Discovery Institute fellow Wesley J. Smith has been applying the sort of deception to this case we've all come to expect from any DI fellow; Carl Zimmer called him on it a long time ago:

http://www.corante.com/loom/archives/suffering_and_knowing.php

#19098: Craig Carlyle Clarke — 03/18  at  07:11 PM
While she certainly is beyond knowing or caring what happens to her, it seems to me that if we consider our bodies to be at least as much our possessions as our CD collections then our wishes for their disposition should be treated with equal respect.

Personally I'm willing my carcass to my brother. (My sisters can split up my CDs.)

#19100: — 03/18  at  07:23 PM
Dr. Myers: With all due respect for your scholarship and your wit, this post brings you no credit and harms your various causes. This is truly a shitty way to talk about the living remnants of a human being. I assume your intemperate language stems from the massive pain we all feel at this tragedy, and that, when you calm yourself, you will delete the post and apologize to this woman's parents and friends.

#19101: — 03/18  at  07:27 PM
PZ, I agree with you on this one.

Others of you may have noticed that the CNN website has put up a couple polls relating to the Schiavo case today. One poll asked whether Congressional intervention was appropriate. About 80% said no. The current question is whether respondants would want to be kept alive in a "persistent vegetative state". 90% say no. I think the shameless exploitation of a private family tragedy by the right wingers is a real turn off for most people. I know it's a turn off for me.

- G

#19102: Philip Brooks — 03/18  at  07:27 PM
IANAL, but might there be some prickly legal issues involved? She's still legally alive and he's still married to her, if I understand properly. Can he annul the marriage, or would he have to go through a divorce to marry his fiance? And if he did that, would the Schiavos be able to legally force him to pay alimony to cover her (probably expensive) life support and the pointless therapy they want to do?

#19103: — 03/18  at  07:33 PM
I have heard pretty much the same thing Ran has heard. The pro-life people are involved becuse they think if they win this they can apply the same reasoning to embryos. I pretty much feel sorry for the husband. At any rate, when I read some of these posts I am reminded of the Billmon skews Horowitz post and think that the "red" republicans have found their Lenin (hope that helps ya feel better disgusted).

#19104: Chris Clarke — 03/18  at  07:33 PM
Great, Craig. I have a decorative taxidermy project in mind. You don't mind eternity on our front porch, do you?

Disgusted: the massive pain I feel from this tragedy is pain at seeing Schiavo's family cruelly misled by the worst, most hateful elements of our society. PZ speaks bluntly; the Fundies are giving the family false hope, compounding their pain by I don't know how many times. I think you owe Myers an apology. And I think you used the wrong suffix for your pseudonym.

#19105: paperwight — 03/18  at  07:37 PM
Philip - Let's assume for the moment that the Schiavos could force her husband to divorce her and pay alimony. What does that say about our nation? Mr. Schiavo is a widower. Whatever Terry Schiavo was and whatever Terry Schiavo, is no more. The state would destroy Mr. Schiavo's future in the name of some attachment to the notion that a person who is no longer a person, but who is not biologically dead so long as she is mechanically fed, is alive.

Destroying one life for none -- modern fundamentalist America.

#19106: — 03/18  at  07:39 PM
Phillip,
I heard that he did seek a divorce but was not allowed to because of her condition. I agree with Chris. The fundies are playing this up for all kinds of political gain. Should have heard Delay on NPR today, it was truely disgusting.

#19107: Ken Cope — 03/18  at  07:45 PM
Disgusted,

The tragedy happened 15 years ago, and has been needlessly prolonged and compounded to this day by her parents, who have not behaved in a way that I can even remotely respect. They have mutated her memory into a medical and political freak show, displaying no more respect for her than any of PZ's Swiftian modest proposals, which would at least pay for themselves.

If Terry Schiavo's remains are living, so are those of any frog's, wired up to a battery for a demonstration of galvanic response.

#19108: Ken Cope — 03/18  at  08:08 PM
BTW, the parents are represented by Randall Terry, "Operation Rescue" anti-choice activist whose gay son is not welcome in his home.

Trackback: The Real Horror of Frankenstein Tracked on: M Valdemar (72.9.234.70) at 2005 03 18 20:27:08
As a child, I always assumed that the "horror" part of Frankenstein was this big, scary monster rampaging around.

#19109: Lindsay Beyerstein — 03/18  at  08:58 PM
All else being equal, Terri Schiavo's body might as well go where it will benefit the living--and her parents are technically among the living, despite their ghoulish predilections.

But there are two important principles at stake. The first issue is the individual's right to make their own decisions about their medical care. If Terri didn't want a tube, no one has the right to force one into her body, no matter how much better they'd feel.

The second issue is about guardianship. A spouse should be the next of kin, period. If someone has to make an executive decision it should be the incapacitated person's husband or wife--a) because they were chosen, b) because the law conveniently stipulates there can be only one, thus forestalling ties.

#19112: PZ Myers — 03/18  at  09:29 PM
As for your first issue, this isn't about a person's medical care. Schiavo is gone. This is about how to dispose of the body.

I'm more sympathetic to your second point, and agree that there is a legal principle that is being violated here--the right wingers are trampling all over the husbands rights and responsibilities.

#19113: — 03/18  at  09:32 PM
Unfortunately your solution sets up the next problem: What happens when her parents are no longer around? Medical science can and has kept her body alive for many years. Whne her parents are gone who pays to continue her care? The state out of an already meager medical budget? Medicare? The hospital? Multiply her by the number of patients who have no living will whose family cannot or will no accept the finality of the doctor's diagnoses and you begin to see the large and growing problem to which this leads.

Such decisions should be reviewed by some outside, univolved party (the courts or otherwise), but a final decision should be made

#19114: PZ Myers — 03/18  at  09:58 PM
What's the problem? There are mobs of people standing around weeping about keeping her body 'alive'. Make 'em pay. All those Republicans grandstanding over her body? Make 'em pay. Let's see if their commitment is as deep as their pockets.

Trackback: The Death of Terri Schiavo Tracked on: Blog of the Moderate Left (72.9.234.70) at 2005 03 18 22:48:48
There is nothing to be happy about in this case. There will be no winners, only losers. The Terri Schiavo case is a disaster for all involved. For her husband, it is a disaster because he has been forced to watch the woman he loved, who died fifte...