Dear Editor,
In regard to your editorial on April 5, I found somewhat
different elements disturbing about the Terri Schiavo case. We do
not know that her brain had hopelessly deteriorated, although we
may find out posthumously.
Dear Editor,
In regard to your editorial on April 5, I found somewhat different elements disturbing about the Terri Schiavo case. We do not know that her brain had hopelessly deteriorated, although we may find out posthumously. Her parents and others witnessed her responses to them, both verbal and physical, and believed that Terri had hope. There was a CAT scan done, but not a PET scan or an MRI. At least she should have been given the benefit of these further tests. All therapy had been stopped and she was allowed no stimulation, not even light into her room, per her husband’s wishes.
Michael Schiavo, her husband, decided seven years into her disability that he “remembered” she had said she would not want to be kept alive by artificial means. (It is debatable that a feeding tube falls into this category.) This seems flimsy evidence upon which to make a decision to remove her feeding tube, thereby starving her to death. Naturally, it would have been nice to have had her wishes in writing, but who, at age 26, even thinks about such things? Since there really was no clear and indisputable evidence that Terri would have preferred to die, I believe the court should have erred on the side of life. There was a loving and willing family ready to care for Terri.
Where is the harm in that?
As to the polling, the ABC News poll widely quoted in this case stated (in addition to other inaccuracies) that she had been “on life support for 15 years.” She was not on life support. She breathed on her own. She just had a feeding tube. The media has largely had its facts wrong and used the wrong language in describing this poor woman’s condition.
I am not disturbed about Congress trying to intervene. After all, it is the legislative branch of government that is most representative of the people, not the judiciary. The Supreme Court ruled on abortion, which previously had been considered a state’s right. There is a federal review in death penalty cases. Do these matters also represent trampling the rule of law? Are you impugning all the intentions of all the members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat, who tried to intervene? How would you know their motives? Perhaps they simply felt it was wrong to starve a woman to death. Personally, I do not oppose federal intervention in matters of life and death.
By the way, Michael Schiavo’s lawyer in this case, George Felos, is a leading euthanasia proponent. He goes from case to case, making it his life’s work to help end people’s lives. Now, THIS is disturbing! I fear for all who are on feeding tubes, dependent on dialysis, incapacitated like Christopher Reeve, suffering with Alzheimer’s, or perhaps in the same shape as the famous astronomer with ALS, Stephen Hawking. I think the lesson to be learned here is that killing the helpless and the disabled SHOULD become a public spectacle in order to shed light on what can happen when someone arbitrarily decides to snuff out a life.
Doris Chargin, Gilroy
The Golden Quill is awarded occasionally for a
well-written letter.
