The View From Here: If it’s my life, pull the plug, please
Thankfully, the ordeal has ended. Hopefully, Terry Shiavo’s family can begin to do what they should have done years ago, which is grieve.
Let it be known clearly, so that if there is any doubt: I don’t want to be kept alive for the simple sake of breathing oxygen. That, to me, is not life, or at least not a life that I want to lead. People should have the right to decide that no matter how many times Jessie Jackson shows up to rally the cause in front of the TV crews.
Understandably, people are bothered at the manner in which this woman died. Some said it was starvation, but I had heard that the chemical processes involved didn’t exactly make it so. I’m not sure how letting her die after the initial incident more than a decade ago without food and water would have been much different, but I’m not a doctor, so I don’t know.
What I do know is that I am perplexed by President Bush’s statements released shortly after the woman’s death that we all should now seek to support a “culture of life” in our country.
This statement, probably brainstormed by the public relations people who are too prevalent in governments these days, might sound good, but it doesn’t quite add up when we have an ongoing war where anything but a culture of life is occurring.
Why is it OK to invade Iraq, no matter the lives cost, if the Iraqi people’s freedom from a brutal dictatorship is the ultimate justification, but not OK to allow a sick woman to die in peace?
Had Terry Shiavo been allowed to die shortly after her original collapse and not been kept alive for eons, we wouldn’t be having this national conversation. People would have bowed their heads, shook Michael Shiavo’s hand and allowed him to grieve.
But it didn’t happen that way and now we have what we have — a national spectacle and at the very least, the resurgence of the importance of planning for the worst case scenario.
The president’s statement is also perplexing if we begin to thinking about quality of life. He seems to be saying one person’s quality of life — and there didn’t seem to be much of that given Terry Shiavo’s “persistent vegetative state” — was less important than quality of life of the Iraqi people.
This is a complicated subject, made more so by politicizing medicine. When you get politicians being asked to intervene in something that is not any of their business (which, is another thing altogether — government is only too big when it suits some people to say so, it seems), it’s bound to get even more complicated.
Since they were asked to get involved, however, I think it’s OK to express opinions against the woman’s impending death, but thankfully, the politicians didn’t get more involved. Lawmakers and others who don’t want to allow people the choices of artificial life need to change the laws on the front end, not at the 11th hour.
Additionally, for all the people blaming the Supreme Court or feeling like conservatives let them down, a refresher is in order. Anyone who has a basic knowledge of the concepts of the federal government knows we have three branches of government. The judicial branch is designed to interpret laws that are already on the books and then determine the intent of the lawmakers.
I fear some day I might be kept alive by artificial means against my will. Pull the plug and let me go. I don’t want government telling me it’s not possible for me to die in what is supposed to be a private matter, just so they can pander to the people and collect votes and then turn around and justify war as a matter of public policy.
Amy Satterwhite is a reporter for the Standard. She can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].