Terri Schiavo
The first issue to be debated is the case of Terri Shiavo. The conflict had started when her husband, Michael Schiavo, wanted to get Terri's feeding tube removed because he believed that Terri would not want to live in a vegetated state for the remainder of her life. Her family lost many battles with the court to reinsert Terri’s feeding tube and ( Read more... )
I agree with you on this statement. However, Mrs. Schiavo was “planned” to die any day since she was carrying out her last few days and it would be medically impossible for her to live for another week at that point. In actuality, it was planned that her death would be done in a timely fashion, but it definitely was not a “sinister plot” on Mr. Schiavo’s part (or any family member at that).
mur·der (mûr'dər)
n.
1. The unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice.
As biased as my opinion may be, I cannot fathom letting a woman die when she is guilty of nothing. This is one topic I can’t bear to hear about because a woman who appeared to be happy with the new life given to her had it taken away. No one can know for sure if Michael had any cruel intentions, but my opinion is that he wanted to start fresh with a new family. The actual term “murder” doesn’t apply to this case when you take the law into consideration, but yet the term “manslaughter” does not apply since there was intent to do harm, intent to do away with her life.
man·slaugh·ter (măn'slô'tər)
n.
The unlawful killing of one human by another without express or implied intent to do injury.
”Terri Schiavo had no consciousness. She could react to her environment to the same extent that your knee reacts to being struck with a hammer.”
Her level of consciousness had no way of being tested. The way in which she reacted to her environment may be different than what “normally functioning” people are used to reacting, but what right does anyone have to say she didn’t deserve to live? She has a loving family who was willing to sacrifice everything just to keep her alive, while her husband probably wanted to dump her off as access baggage to his new family. It is ironic how he cared for her well- being UNTIL he started a new family. Who really knows, other than Mr. Schiavo himself, but maybe he truly did care about seeing his once vibrant wife and to know she was going to live that life forever hurt him so. He could believe he saved her misery.
Let’s talk about how people in general should be considered unhappy. When Terri had her injury years ago, maybe her brain was reduced to that of a 2-year-old child’s comprehension. Just because she didn’t live life like how we are used to seeing women her age do. Cases like this do not have black and white answers: when does the gray area get defined? At what shade of a person’s disability do we determine that they are not productive in life anymore and that it is better for them to not be alive?
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