What constitutes death anyway?
I cannot deny the gut wrenching difficulty that must have accompany the decision to terminate artificial life support. First to loose someone, to whatever cause, and then to have to be the one to make the decision to not artificially sustain biological life. It would be far kinder, it seems, to simply die in one event, rather than in two.
The entire Terri Schiavo thing in Florida is of course what prompted this line of thinking. What thoughts must be dueling in the minds of the people that love that woman, or loved her (past tense) depending on where you stand.
Is someone dead when their brain is wiped out? When the only functions it can perform are ones you could build a machine to do? Or does the fact that something, anything, can keep the heart beating and the lungs breathing mean that such things ought to be done?
I have a pretty clear set of opinions on this. I think she died fifteen years ago from heart failure. I think force feeding her body is a farce, and that is an indignity (especially if a tiny part of her is still there) to keep her alive forcibly. I know of no one who would choose that kind of 'living' over a simple death. It is irrational to assume, given that her own Catholic curch has administered her communion after the removing of the tube, that she somehow benefits from being fed and watered through a tube.
But what must her parents think? To have to outlive a child must be hell. But is it honest delusion, or simple selfish denial, which keeps them from letting her die with dignity. Do they, in their despair of having lost a daughter, truly believe that she is still there? And if they do, and they cannot help but aknowledge her physical status, why would they consign her to such a living hell as that, when there is nothing doctournally wrong with not medically treating an illness? Wouldn't they want her to have the release of death from that kind of prison?
This is the reason I can never be a Republican. They seem to be rallying around this cause as if it were their own. Trying to push a law through congress to govern the fate of all such people as Terri, who did not sign a DNR order, and alternatively trying to push through a law spesifically giving the federal courts authority over spesifcialy Terri Schiavo. Of course I can never be a Democrat either because they tend to endorse abortion. The GOP would seek to make such circumstances no longer the purview of the families involved, but rather of the government.
If this whole thing can, by the Grace of God if it be in His will, be dragged out for another week, it may well all be over. It does need to end, one way or another, because untill it does, nobody is moving on with their lives who is involved in this. Least of all Terri.
The entire Terri Schiavo thing in Florida is of course what prompted this line of thinking. What thoughts must be dueling in the minds of the people that love that woman, or loved her (past tense) depending on where you stand.
Is someone dead when their brain is wiped out? When the only functions it can perform are ones you could build a machine to do? Or does the fact that something, anything, can keep the heart beating and the lungs breathing mean that such things ought to be done?
I have a pretty clear set of opinions on this. I think she died fifteen years ago from heart failure. I think force feeding her body is a farce, and that is an indignity (especially if a tiny part of her is still there) to keep her alive forcibly. I know of no one who would choose that kind of 'living' over a simple death. It is irrational to assume, given that her own Catholic curch has administered her communion after the removing of the tube, that she somehow benefits from being fed and watered through a tube.
But what must her parents think? To have to outlive a child must be hell. But is it honest delusion, or simple selfish denial, which keeps them from letting her die with dignity. Do they, in their despair of having lost a daughter, truly believe that she is still there? And if they do, and they cannot help but aknowledge her physical status, why would they consign her to such a living hell as that, when there is nothing doctournally wrong with not medically treating an illness? Wouldn't they want her to have the release of death from that kind of prison?
This is the reason I can never be a Republican. They seem to be rallying around this cause as if it were their own. Trying to push a law through congress to govern the fate of all such people as Terri, who did not sign a DNR order, and alternatively trying to push through a law spesifically giving the federal courts authority over spesifcialy Terri Schiavo. Of course I can never be a Democrat either because they tend to endorse abortion. The GOP would seek to make such circumstances no longer the purview of the families involved, but rather of the government.
If this whole thing can, by the Grace of God if it be in His will, be dragged out for another week, it may well all be over. It does need to end, one way or another, because untill it does, nobody is moving on with their lives who is involved in this. Least of all Terri.
posted by Alexios at 12:50 PM
3 Comments:
Well written, although I would take issue with you that being Democrat means whole-hearted support of abortion.
I double checked the post, and I did actually say that they 'tend' to support abortion.
Well, you must admit "tend" is a vague term, no?
Actually, just to make sure you know, I'm not out to pick a political fight with you. I am a fellow Orthodox (Antiochan).
I have just discovered (through the "Orthodixie" blogger (Fr. Honeycutt) that there is a whole big world of Ortho. bloggers on the internets.
So far, most seem to be, shall I say, to the right of my position, politically.
Michelle Malkin?
Ecch... 8-0
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