As I was driving home from work tonight I was listening to the radio and they were discussing the Terri Schiavo case. The broadcasters were talking with Suzanne and Bobby Schlinder (Terri's sister and brother) about how the family is holding up after watching Terri go without food or water for 12 days.
I must say that the more I learn about this situation the more outraged I become. I CANNOT believe that an entire nation is watching while our judicial system orders that a severely disabled woman is starved to death! And the most scary thing to me, is that most people in the U.S. seem to believe that it is the right thing to do.
Now I am the first one to say that if anything tragic ever happened to me and I was left in a vegetative state with little hope of recovery, I would want my family to make the difficult decision to take me off life support so that machines werent keeping me alive. However, that is NOT the case with Terri. Although it is debateable as to whether Terri is in a permanent vegetative state, she is not on any life support. By removing a feeding tube and withholding any food or water from her, they are actively killing Terri Schiavo by starvation. I know that several people have said that Terri should have a peaceful end to her life, and that through dehydration/starvation she could achieve that, but according to her family the doctors have been giving Terri morphine at this point b/c of the enormosity of the pain that she is experiencing.
I feel incredible sorrow for the family at this time. Having whether their daugther lives or dies be a national TV broadcast must be so offensive. They are forced to sit and watch Terri writhe in pain and suffer; unable to do anything b/c Michael (terri's husband) makes all the decisions. How horrific! Even more disturbing is how there is not a public outrage for Terri's life! This case brings to the forefront the rights of disabled individuals and we should be concerned about the possible implications. Why is this judge and Michael Schiavo so adamant that Terri must die? Who gives anyone the right (in particular a judge) to determine whether someone's life has value or not? What will stop us in the future from wiping out whole groups of people b/c they have disabilities and we think as a society that their life couldnt possibly be rewarding? I know that is extreme but I cant get over how arrogant and reminiscent of the Holocast/Nazis all of this sounds. I mean wasnt that the goal of Hitler?; to create a "perfect" race of people. Those who were different ( Jews they were physically different in appearance) were those he weeded out and killed. Yet that same concept is what essentially is being said in the Terri Schiavo story. Because Terri is brain damaged, Terri's life isnt worth the fight, she is better off dead.
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