Watching the news…
I turned on the nightly news tonight to hear this…
“The Supreme Court of the United States refuses to order Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube to be reinserted…”
That struck me as a peculiar choice of words. That made it sound like the Courts are not intrusive…but wasn’t it a court that ordered the feeding tube to be removed in the first place? Compare that to the poll that the news media keeps referring to that says most Americans disagreed with Congress interfering last weekend in the Schiavo case.
Once again they’ve phrased it as one side intruding upon another side. I suppose if they would ask the question of whether they were in favor of a court ordering Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube to be removed that they would find a majority would not support that either.
Tags: News and Media
March 25th, 2005 at 8:07 pm
Terri Schiavo’s case is indeed heart-wrenching. in a coma for about 15 years, it must be devastating to those who love her. I know cases at my church where such decisions did not come up, but where people endured many years of crippling medical problems. We live in a world where such suffering is the common lot of man.
Much has been made of her husband’s insistence of removing the feeding tube. But the tragedy began much earlier: when Terri seems to have suffered from an eating disorder–perhaps caused by the society around her that insists on a particular physical ideal for a woman.
I am glad that so many are concerned about Terri. I hope this can be a vehicle to rally people to many other cases that go unreported: people dying waiting for an organ transplant, when organs cannot be shipped because of lack of money. The 24,000 who die every day of causes linked to malnutrition. The growing number of cases of tuberculosis in this country, where it is treatable, but goes undetected because people lack health coverage.
What kind of witness could it be to the world if the Church regularly raised money for life-giving medical procedures that some people could not afford? It is one thing to say you are for life when it costs you nothing; quite another to make sacrifices for its case.
And that, indeed, is the story of Easter.
God could have just told us how to live. A voice from the heavens dictating what is right and wrong, and how to order a just society. And He did: we received the Law from God from Mount Sinai. But the Law brought death, as Paul puts it in his letter to the church in Rome.
Law cannot bring life. Only life can bring life. And God came Himself, bearing the ultimate cost for our life.
If we are shaped by the story of God’s sacrifice, of Jesus’ death on our behalf, and His resurrection and victory over death, then we can be moved to make lesser sacrifices, of time, of money, of anything God has given us.
I suspect that an hour of your time at the side of someone suffering has more effect than a hundred hours protesting a court’s decision.
Kevin
March 25th, 2005 at 8:15 pm
Sorry to double-post but it occurs to me:
One thing people can do that is not much of a sacrifice, is to go to this website.
http://www.thehungersite.com/
They raise money for relieving hunger around the world, and fund it by ads on the site that people get to see when they go there.
A Christian political science professor has a blog here:
http://swordsintoplowshares.blogspot.com/
that often raises life-related issues.
And, of course, there are organizations like Amnesty international and International Justice Mission calling for governments to take life more seriously for their political prisoners.
Kevin
March 26th, 2005 at 11:08 pm
It’s true that there are a lot of factors in the Terri Schiavo case but one thing we know and can’t ignore: the court ordered the feeding tube to be removed, and the court is keeping anyone from changing that. Now it appears that the judges involved are not listening to reason and are choosing to appear consistent even if that means they are wrong… even if a disabled woman dies as a direct result of their decision.
>I suspect that an hour of your time at the side of someone suffering has more effect than a hundred hours protesting a court’s decision.
How about this…we make a requirement that the judges have to spend some time at the side of someone suffering, more specifically, the ones they will be ruling on (or deciding if they live or die, as in this case). Maybe after they looked the patient in the eyes they would not find this such a ‘legal process’ after all.
Check out this story…
Judges deny Schiavo parents again
>Felos told CNN that Terri Schiavo appears “peaceful” and “is in her dying process.” She is going through what “millions go through during their death process,” he said.
Michael Schiavo’s brother, Brian, also said his sister-in-law appeared “peaceful.”
“She’s lying there. Sometimes her mouth is agape,” he said. “She’s not too different from when I saw her the day before.”
Brian Schiavo said she appears “withdrawn,” but “she is not in pain.”
Starvation is not painful? I guess our thoughts regarding the problems of poverty and world hunger are going to have to change now that it has been declared a ‘peaceful’ death process. If we follow that logic, that means folks like http://www.thehungersite.com/ are doing them a disservice. That kind of absurdity is insulting.
>http://www.thehungersite.com/
They raise money for relieving hunger around the world, and fund it by ads on the site that people get to see when they go there.
There are many organizations that work to provide food, supplies, relief to those in need around the world such as WorldVision, Operation Blessing, Food For the Hungry…these organizations not only meet physical needs but also work to meet spiritual needs as well by doing it in the name of Jesus Christ.
March 28th, 2005 at 5:12 pm
Roger, please do not think I was writing to argue with you. I am not. I brought up a point I thought was related, but not disputing the points you raised. You expressed righteous anger at what is happening. I expressed hope that this movement in favor of sparing Teri’s life can be turned to help even more people.
I now write this post addressing some issues related to the actual case, though again I am not actually opposed to your points. I would like to clarify a few things, in the aim of “reason” which you invoked.
You bring up the issue of judges, and the law.
We know the law is cold and heartless. How could it be otherwise? It’s not a person. And indeed Paul says the same thing about The Law (in that case, the Torah) in his letter to the church in Rome. The Law brings death. Indeed.
If the judges could see Teri, then what? Judges see accused folks all the time, and some of them are quite likeable, but they aren’t supposed to use that in their deliberations. They are supposed to follow the rule of law.
What is the rule of law in this case? By law, any person must agree to a medical procedure before it can be done, including having a feeding tube. If the person is unconscious, there are several issues: when no directive is given, permission to do the medical procedure for their benefit is assumed. When the person has left a living will, that is supposed to be honored. When the person has expressed their desire one way or another, that is supposed to be honored. For minors, the parents decide. And there are circumstances under which the next of kin will be given this power for non-minors.
That’s the system. That’s the law.
Is it a good law? It seems to go contrary to the traditional Christian view of life: that it is loaned to us by God, not owned by us to do as we please. And indeed most people think of suicide as generally wrong.
Refusing medical care (including a feeding tube) is an area that seems to be more gray: it is possible to keep someone “alive” by artificial respiration and circulation pretty much indefinitely, but we don’t do that, because at some point we sense that it was just their time to go. We must remember that there was a time when this was moot: a person in such a state would simply die, and that would be seen as the time God alloted to them. But of course, few would say we shouldn’t do open-heart surgery to extend the life of a heart attack victim, simply on the grounds of “what would naturally happen” without human intervention.
Remember that this is not a case of euthanasia. We are not talking about choosing between a suffering life and a (presumably less suffering?) death. We are talking about the lengths of medical care that should be given in this case, where reviving is considered as extremely unlikely.
The law is thus not totally contrary to the Christian view of life, though in this gray area, where there is disagreement among Christians, the law allows the person to decide, or if the person is unconscious, a legal proxy. This seems to be outside what the Bible prescribes, but is not so clearly against the Bible either.
For Teri Schiavo, there are several points of fact in the case that need to be determined:
1. Is Teri Schiavo actually in a persistive vegetative state?
2. Is it reasonable to expect Teri Schiavo to recover?
3. Can Teri experience pain?
The courts have heard evidence on these issues, and they did consider them relevant. Most people in America, like I, have only heard bits thrown about by the media, slanted to one side or the other, depending on who is being interviewed. I have no idea about these things. So I do not give a verdict.
They seem to have come to the conclusion that the answers to the questions above are: Yes, No, and No.
In that situation, they turn to Michael Schiavo, who was appointed by a court to be in charge of her care. His testimony that Teri would want to die in such a situation was believed, and Teri’s parents’ testimony to the contrary was not believed. Again, most Americans, like I, do not have the facts before us, so it is hard to tell.
But if in fact Teri is in a persistent vegetative state, with recovery basically out of the question, and claimed to want to die if in that situation (these are issues the court would have to determine, and did determine in that way), then legally, Michael has the right to insist that care be withdrawn.
That’s the law. Is the law right?
Another alternative might be that anyone in such a state must be kept alive, no matter what the doctor, next of kin, or anyone said, even the patient before they were in that situation. I am not talking about Teri here, but more generally about anyone unconscious.
Would such a system be more right? Closer to the Christian message? Perhaps. It would affirm the value of life, no matter whether the person wanted it or not. Though if we were going to extremes in keeping the heart and lungs going artificially in brain-dead patients we might be expressing the view that life is merely the movement of oxygenated blood through our body–which is not a Christian perspective, nor is it generally accepted in society.
I think there is a lot of nuance here. And in the range of what is possible, it seems that most people, and the law, agrees that a person not already facing death doesn’t really have the right to end their life, and that if a person is brain-dead with absolutely no activity, then artificially pumping blood through the person’s body is not really life.
Where we should be the dividing line between the two cases is not as clear.
President Bush suggested that this was a gray area in saying that we should err in favor of life in uncertain situations. And I agree. But that shifts the uncertainty of life and death to the uncertainty of the uncertainty of life and death. Is this certain or uncertain? (I hope I am not coming across as cold here: I am trying to see where reason alone can take us).
Perhaps one modification to the law might be that we presume in favor of life, in the same way that we presume innocence in criminal cases. That in order to go toward death, the burden of proof is very high.
I think I would be in favor of such a system in contrast to what we have now. But perhaps because I’m more of a “half-full” kind of guy, I see the system as pretty close to being right.
You bring up starvation as being painful. Indeed, it is, or so I am told, and so I imagine it to be. Though obviously these facts are not applicable for someone who is unconscious. Though typically, a nutrition professor tells me, morphine is administered in such situations to ensure there is no pain even if the person is capable of it.
So it is possible that Teri is not suffering pain. As to whether she is or is not, I do not know.
As to my links to the hungersite and other places, my point is that this is precisely the sort of site that would and should interest those who would like to keep Teri alive. That’s why I put it there.
My point was: If we are going to be pro-life about Teri, we should be pro-life about so many things that the media don’t report. Teri is not the only one dying of starvation, though you might think that if you just watched the news.
You mentioned several other organizations. I am impressed with WorldVision. I’m not as familiar with Operation Blessing or Food for the Hungry. There are many more we could list, some of which are specifically Christian organizations, some of which are not. I encourage everyone reading this blog to find some way to help, depending on whether you have financial or time resources.
I think sometimes we think that only organizations that are trying to tell people about Jesus Christ are really worth supporting. I disagree. People do need to hear about Jesus, but if a non-Christian organization is providing for someone’s needs, it is consistent with loving your neighbor to help them do so. It would be different if so many helpers were available to meet these needs that the poor had to choose where to get their food from. But in light of the work that needs to be done, I’d rather take the attitude that “he who is not against me is for me”. There’s still plenty work for specifically Christian organizations to do.
March 29th, 2005 at 11:25 am
Sorry if I came across wrong in my last post. I was just wanting to emphasize the point that we can’t ignore the courts role in this case.
Nobody was asking the courts to break the law, rather, just be reasonable. We weren’t asking for them to put emotion ahead of the facts either. For whatever reasons, the courts refused to take another look or let anyone else do that either. They controlled the situation. One reason I think the courts got so many appeals was to give them another opportunity to weigh the evidence and do the right thing. That was a great opportunity that they chose to dismiss (Note that not every judge was in agreement as there were some dissenting opinions). Given the choice between life and death, the courts chose and stood firm on death - in direct opposition to God’s admonition in Deuteronomy 30:19.
In regards to the euthanasia issue, I believe we can’t deny that it is about that, especially when Michael Schiavo’s attorney said the things he did. He came out of the hospice and made a statement similar to how “Terri would want us to take from this” and he proceeded to project his views as the one thing we needed to conclude from this whole thing. It appears as if he had been patiently waiting for that moment and had planned that speech for some time - regardless of the reality around him. My previous post regarding his other comments just solidifies that in my mind.
Thanks for the comments…