Terri Schiavo should be allowed to die. Her wishes are not up for debate or denial by the Christian right-wing. Nor should they be subject to the unconstitutional acts of Florida Governor Jeb Bush.
Her life ended when her heart stopped pumping blood to her brain 13 years ago and left her in a permanent vegetative state. The footage we have seen on the news is not Terri Schiavo it is a brain dead shell. When she twitches and moans that is not a voluntary action.
The doctors have told Mrs. Schiavo’s family that Terri isn’t coming back. But the family continues to shroud themselves in denial. Her father has appeared all over the cable news networks swearing that she can be brought back with therapy. Sorry Mr. Schiavo your daughter isn’t coming back.
So many people on the “right to life” side of this argument have tried to vilify her husband Michael, screaming at the top of their lungs “in sickness and in health!” Well that is the vow Michael took when he married Terri. The problem is that this isn’t sickness this is a persistent vegetative state. Terri has been dead a long time, without the intervention of intrusive medical care Terri wouldn’t be here to be fought over like a priceless pound of flesh.
Michael could have moved on by now. He has a fiancé and children to care for. It doesn’t serve him to engage in a drawn out legal battle. No, the only person he is trying to serve is the woman he loved. She made it clear to him that life as a vegetable was not life at all to her. So instead of being a selfish man and leaving her to waste away trapped in the prison of her own body he has fought for her right to die with dignity.
I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to watch the woman I love live the way Terri does. She lives without a shred of dignity confined to a chair to slobber all over herself. She has to have her diapers changed by hospice workers and family. She’s Fed through a tube because if she is given water or pureed food orally she would either choke or the residue would coagulate in her throat causing pneumonia.
This isn’t meant to be crass but we put down the family pet with far less serious medical problems and we call it humane, but we make human beings suffer. What kind of country do we live in when the family pet gets to die with more dignity than we do?
Right now I feel for Terri Schiavo and I’m scared for her. I keep on thinking about this movie “Johnny Get You Gun.” The plot is Johnny went to World War I, there all of his limbs are blown off he is blind and unable to speak. Johnny is caught in his own mind. The world around him goes on all the while he screams in his head “dear god please kill me” over and over again. I certainly hope that Terri isn’t stuck in the same kind of hell.