A victory for dignity

I remember some years ago seeing William Shatner on some TV show or another. Another guest was a doctor and Shatner raised the question of when did the issue of quality of life enter into questions of life and death. He was, in a clumsy way, raising the issue of death with dignity. The doctor dismissed the entire question in a sentence by saying the physician's duty is to preserve life, period. But it wasn't long after that when doctors began to face the fact that our ability to artificially maintain basic life functions had expanded to the point where quality of life issues could no longer be ignored.

We're still trying to face them fully and the question of life and what does it mean to be alive still haunts personal considerations and political calculations. But sometimes a touch of common sense pierces through. The St. Petersburg (FL) Times reported on Friday that

[t]he Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the law enabling Gov. Jeb Bush to order Terri Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted is unconstitutional and that legislators exceeded their authority when they hastily passed it.

The unanimous opinion in a right-to-die case that has generated international attention may finally end the long-running battle between Schiavo's husband and her parents over the removal of the feeding tube that has kept the brain-damaged woman alive for 14 years.

I sincerely hope that the family releases their stopped-up grief, lets go of her, lets her go. But I'm not sure they will if they can find a way to continue refusing to face the reality.

Terri Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, and her brother and sister released a statement Thursday thanking Bush for his efforts.

"The family knows that Terri never expressed a desire to be starved to death," the statement said. "And the Legislature and governor thought the case troubling enough to get involved directly. We profoundly regret that the Florida Supreme Court ... opted ... to issue a technical legal decision that doesn't protect Terri from the cadre of crusaders who are so desperate for our daughter (to) starve to death."

Schiavo's parents do not believe she is in a permanent vegetative state as some doctors contend, and believe her condition might improve with proper treatment.

They have held on to a myth for so long, so desperately, that it will be difficult for them to give it up. But give it up they must at some point. Because, Mr. and Mrs. Schindler, your daughter is not going to improve, no matter what treatment you want to pursue. And no one is proposing to starve her to death. No, she won't and they're not - because by any rational standard of human life, Mr. and Mrs. Schindler, your daughter is already dead. And she has been for years.

If she had been, perhaps, an insect or a fish or a snake, some creature where autonomous functioning is pretty much all there is, you would have a claim to the term "life." But she wasn't, Mr. and Mrs. Schindler, she was a human being full of fears and dreams and despairs and desires, of pains and pleasures, of recalled yesterdays and anticipated tomorrows. And all of that is gone. Gone forever. Gone from her, gone from your experience of her. There is functioning of the autonomous nervous system, but there is no longer anything of her: Terri is not there. When you look now at your daughter, when you think now of your daughter, you are looking and thinking with your memories, not your eyes, not your hearing, not your touch. For your own sakes if not for her husband's, let go of her so you can grieve her loss and move on.

On a personal level I have made it clear to my family that I do not want my life artificially extended by extraordinary means. As long as I can think, as long as I can be consciously aware of and interact with my surroundings, keep me going even if my body is failing. But if and when that is no longer true, if and when whatever it is that makes me, me rather than someone else no longer functions, if and when I exist as a physical entity but no longer a mental (or, if you like, a spiritual) one - pull the plug.

I have a living will (and an organ donor card). You should, too. (Note that I'm not endorsing the linked site; it was just the first I found that does not charge a fee for creating the document.)

Footnote: The Court ruled on jurisdictional and separation of powers grounds.

The court did not address other arguments that the law was an unconstitutional invasion of a patient's right to privacy and right to make their own medical decisions.

Would that it had. But courts prefer narrow rulings to broad ones and once there was a reason to jettison the law, other arguments would not have been considered.

Oh, by the way: Thanks to Sinfonian for the link to the article.