There is little like a need to refute something to get ideas moving. In a reply to Joe Duffy’s recent post, I wrote the following:

okay, something finally motivated me to take up Ederlyn’s advice to create an account just so I can comment on posts here. I haven’t been incredibly motivated to do so since I’ve been using my own home-brew software, which is sufficient to my minimal needs. anyway. It is incredibly sad how so often the academics here, even priests, will minimize everything we believe.

secondly, *perhaps* you could claim that, over the course of 15 years, the feeding tube has become burdensome. But look at the following: he won a huge settlement 7 or 8 years ago, the money from which he claimed at the time would go to taking care of her. to-date, that money has only been used to pay for the lawyer who is representing his efforts to end her life.[1]

thirdly, say it was burdensome to him. He isn’t being asked to do it, the parents want to take over, to take on guardianship of her. and her siblings have stepped forward to take over when they no longer can.

fourth, when he was fighting that law suite, he wanted to keep her alive. then he got involved with some other woman, and started a family with her, and all of a sudden his opinions changed, and he “remembered” that she’d not want to live in that state. a state she’d been in for a number of years at that point. sound suspicious to you? it does to me.

fifth. there is evidence from several doctors, from several of the nurses who work at that hospice, and from the family (except her husband) to the effect that she can swallow some. no one in a “persistent vegetative state” can swallow at all. regardless of whether or not you can understand the tapes of her, it really doesn’t matter: no one in a “persistent vegetative state” can make even that much noise. why are the courts unwilling to consider this evidence?

sixth: recently we have several studies showing people in similar states have drastically different scan results when hearing the voice of someone they know.[2] but no such test has been done on Terri. why does the husband not want to let such tests occur?

seventh: we have testimony from people who have been in “persistent vegetative states” who, though “vegetative” for considerably less time, unexpectedly improved.[3][4][5][6][others] why are we not considering that in deciding her case?

mmm. I could probably come up with more points, but that’s enough for now. I’ve been asking these sorts of questions, as have other bloggers, for some time now. no one seems to answer them.

[1]http://www.sweetliberty.org/bulletins/terri/euda.htm and others, but that’s the first I can find. now.
[2]http://www.lifenews.com/nat1182.html
[3]http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050213/D887B94G0.html
[4]http://www.townhall.com/columnists/maggiegallagher/mg20050322.shtml
[5]http://www.townhall.com/columnists/chuckcolson/cc20050311.shtml
[6]http://www.davidlimbaugh.com/mt/archives/2005/03/recovered_veget.html

I was going to try to avoid repeating what you could read everywhere else today, so I wasn’t going to post anything about Mrs. Schiavo. But then I read two townhall.com articles in a row, “The great quandary,” by William F. Buckley, and “The right to kill Terri Schiavo,” by Maggie Gallagher. Mr. Buckley is defending the rule of law, and our judicial process. He accepts that the court saw accurate, unbiased testimony on Mrs. Schiavo’s state, that she is in fact in a “persistent vegetative state.” He compares this to the Elian Gonzalez mess a few years ago. Ms. Gallagher, on the other hand, questions that testimony. She believes the neurologist who disputes it, the testimony of her mother, father, brother,s and sisters. She realizes that Mr. Schiavo’s reduced moral authority should equate to reduced legal authority; something that Mr. Buckley apparently does not realize. She references the report that Mrs. Schiavo can swallow her own siliva, has swallowed some pudding on occasion, and could, with therapy, learn to swallow enough to not need a feeding tube. Therapy that her husband, despite Mr. Buckley’s claim that she has “underwent a hundred medical ministrations,” refused to allow. Mr. Buckley says that

What caused the political commotion was the sense that we were presiding over an execution. Terri Schiavo remained “alive” until we stopped feeding her. Then she began a fall through a trapdoor descending toward death.

Is not the same true for every infant? Is it not true for most Alzheimer’s patients? For some mentally handicapped people? Should we allow them to starve? Should we define away their pain, even though we cannot enter into their thoughts to ensure our definition is accurate? Why are the courts not looking at the cases of people who have been in “persistent vegetative states” who have recovered? Why are people who ask these questions said to be self-deluding themselves?