I’ve been keeping up to date on the story of Teri Schiavo and I just have one question that’s been nagging me because in all the articles I’ve read from many differnt sources is this:
If Teri’s husband claims she never wanted to be kept alive, as she has been for the last 10 years, why has he chosen now to be so concerned with Teri’s wishes?
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I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I support individuals’ right to die if they choose, so I’m not happy about the legislation. On the other hand, I don’t think that someone else’s word should be sufficient as proof of such a choice. And this thing now with restricting other family members’ access to her is just fucking low.
My understanding was that he’s actually been in court for a long time trying to get a legal judgment to end her life, which only recently came through. But that’s mostly based on conjecture. I’m not really sure.
Keli approached me about a month ago and asked that I write out what I want when I die. Meaning, if i want to be burried or cremated, what kind of funeral I would like, and among those things, what I want done to me if, God forbid, something happened and I was comatose or in a vegetative state. That way, there would be no “he said he wanted this…” “No, he wanted THIS…” going on.
It’s been an interesting month because I honestly don’t know where I stand on assisted suicide. On the one hand I can’t say that if I was dying from some horrible disease like Parkinson’s (the father of a family friend jsut died of parkinsons and it was heartwrenching to watch him decline when all he wanted to do was die), that I wouldn’t want to end my suffering and the emotional suffering of my family. But at the same time, you hear about those miricle stories of people waking up after 20 years in a coma, or pregnant women in a coma and are still able to deliver a healthy baby naturally and then snap out of the coma after 6 months. There’s always the “What if…?”
With this case, I think that unless there’s documented proof in writing that she wanted to not be on life support then her husband should not be able to. And there’s the troubling claims that he squandered her malpractice award. The whole thing seems fishy to me. I personally, find it hard to believe that it would take 10 years for a decision like that to come through. Immediately after Terri Schiavo collapsed back in 1990, her husband was quoted as saying the following:
“I believe in the vows I took with my wife, through sickness, in health, for richer or poor. I married my wife because I love her and I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I am going to do that.”
That’s what seems odd to me… but of course, I’m not there and don’t know all the details. I do think that him restricing access shows that there’s some alterior motives. No matter what my feelings were towards Keli’s parents, I would NEVER forbid them to visit her in the hospital. There’s some things you just dont’ do…
The following is from Lifenews.com:
A jury ended up awarding Michael $1.3 million in a medical malpractice case and stipulated that $750,000 was to be used for Terri’s medical care. Instead of making sure Terri had the best doctors money could buy, Michael placed a “do-not-resuscitate” order on Terri’s medical chart.
He’s spent the following years doing everything he could to end Terri’s life — some say to pocket what’s left of the money that should have been used for Terri’s care
To combat Terri’s family’s efforts to save her life and provide her with basic medical and rehab care, Michael hired George Felos, who has been called the “Dr. Kevorkian” of attorneys. Felos doesn’t just support assisted suicide, he actively purses making it legal across the country.
Then, Michael struck up a relationship with a woman who now describes him as “emotionally manipulative” and says Michael talked constantly about wanting Terri to die.
Michael had better luck in his second affair and now has a live-in girlfriend. They already have one child out-of-wedlock and another on the way.
That’s a pretty biased site. I’m not sure what the distinction between “supporting” assisted suicide and “pursuing making it legal across the country” is supposed to be, but it’s clear that it’s supposed to be worse that he engages in legal battles for his cause. But consider applying the same language to someone who supports a cause you agree with.
Anyway, that said, I’ve seen similar accounts of Michael’s actions elsewhere, and I think it’s pretty clear that this guy is extremely slimy and not acting in his wife’s interests.
I mostly agree that some sort of legally binding document should be required, but… there are circumstances when such a document wouldn’t exist, yet there’s not much else to do. With medical technology now available, we can essentially keep a body alive indefinitely. Should people be unable to move on with their lives and let go of loved ones because there’s no evidence that the person in a coma would want them to? Should they be forced to pay for hospital care for years or decades? Should they (in religions that don’t recognize divorce) be unable to remarry?
All these problems are the result of our lack of knowledge about how the mind (and soul, based on beliefs) are really connected to the body. We can’t tell if someone in a coma is gone for good or just waiting to wake up, but we have to make decisions anyway.