What Terri Schiavo’s case comes down to is not the non-existent "right to die", nor is it "privacy" or a matter of due process or jurisdiction. What has not been addressed, by anyone directly involved with the case, is the legal fiction that a feeding tube constitutes extrordinary means of sustaining life. That is the crux of the matter.
At least, that’s what I thought. But it just occurred to me, while watching re-run video of a brave 10-year-old being escorted to a police van, that protestors were not carrying feeding tubes as they tried to approach Terri’s hospice. They were carrying perfectly ordinary cups of water. Surely not even the mind of a Judge would be so highly trained as to classify an ordinary cup of water as "extrodinary" medical care. Were the protestors threatening to professionally administer these highly complex cups of water? No, they were not.
It has been my understanding that Terri does have the ability, with assistance, to swallow both food and water, without the aid of a feeding tube.
WITHOUT a feeding tube.
So the feeding tube has, apparently, been a colossal red herring all along. It must be (and I want badly to read the Judge’s findings) that there is some kind of injunction barring Terri from receiving any food or water of any kind from anyone. In other words, "this person will be starved to death, by any means necessary, come hell or high water."
A couple of days ago, in an interview on Fox News, Terri’s brother said that this was America, that we just don’t starve disabled people to death here.
I’m now terribly afraid that he was wrong.
You can read the court documents on this site:
http://www.abstractappeal.com/index.html
Also, you can find the Guardian Ad Litem report on the http://www.nationalreview.com site.
I recall from reading the GAL report that the Guardian recommended that feeding tests be attempted. I don’t think it has been established that she could eat or drink with assistance.
Terri can DEFINITELY swallow. She is not on suction. She IS swallowing her own saliva (as Mr. Nader pointed out). If she could not swallow, she would need to be on suction.
Fr. Dick Sparks, CSP is obviously very confused on this point in an article he wrote for Busted Halo —
“Just as we don’t say that removal of a ventilator in such a case would be “suffocating” or “smothering” them to death, we ought not indiscriminately label the cessation of artificial administration of fluids and nutrition with the harshly judgmental term “starvation.”
I pointed out to Fr. in a letter to the editor the problem with his analogy:
When someone is taken off the “extaordinary means” of the ventilator — they are still in a room with air!!!
On the other hand, Terri has had her feeding tube removed AND been denied the possibility of being given liquids or pureed foods that she MAY be able to swallow. If you want to make an accurate analogy between Terri and someone
being removed from a ventilator, it would be removing the ventilator and then smothering them with a pillow! Removing a (possibly) extraordinary means of nutrition AND then denying any ordinary attempts is clealy starvation.
And if that’s “harshly judgemental”, so be it.
Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t a ventilator used when someone’s lungs aren’t properly functioning? In contrast, Terri’s digestive system is functioning.
Of course, this all may change now. I can see the next Michael Schiavo preventing lifeguards from rescuing his drowning wife from a swimming pool because he claims she once said she wouldn’t want extraordinary measures taken to save her life.
Bystanders who try to throw her a lifeline will be chastised for intervening and referred to as “anti-abortionists,: while the fact that the wife’s family is trying to save her and that there is some suspicion that the husband may have pushed her in go largely ignored. As she struggles to stay afloat, the New York Times will quotes from experts about how drowning is really a peaceful way to go.
And, of course, some priest will argue that she is not being drowned, but just “allowed to not swim.”
That’s a really apt analogy, Bill.
Of course, it doesn’t matter if she wants to be rescued NOW, because her husband has a piece of paper stating that she is not legally allowed to change her mind.