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February 28, 2005
Not Dead Yet
Disability-rights group comments on:
"Kill the Cripples" night at the Oscars:
"I guess we should be grateful for one thing," says Drake. "At least there wasn't an animated feature about killing a disabled person. We'd be looking at a clean sweep then."
Posted by Amy Welborn | Permalink
Comments
Maybe Hollywood's bash should have been billed as "Krippel Nacht".
Posted by: Ed at Feb 28, 2005 11:33:57 PM
Should we be really surprised at this when we tolerate Hollywood mocking Christians in steps reminiscent of Step n. Fetchit? To me this comes naturally when you see shows like Law & Order make all Catholic Priests look like Crazy Perverts, Abortion Clinic Bombers or Thieves. It is also the result of shows that show any Catholic as a Lying Hypocritcal SOB.
Posted by: Jonathan Carpenter at Mar 1, 2005 12:20:49 AM
I long ago stopped caring about what Hollywood thinks about anything.
Posted by: Jay Anderson at Mar 1, 2005 12:30:56 AM
Would it not have been wondrous, to have had Christopher Reeve on hand to announce Best Pic?
Posted by: BoB at Mar 1, 2005 3:18:08 AM
Bishop Lynch, however, cautiously encourages mediation between the murderer and Terri's family: " In other news Monday, Bishop Robert N. Lynch, head of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, issued a statement urging the two sides in the Schiavo case to come together to negotiate one last time to resolve their differences.
"I beg and pray that both sides might step back a little and allow some mediation in these final hours," Lynch said."
Posted by: al at Mar 1, 2005 7:49:02 AM
Prayerful mediation would be a great blessing. I think the Bishop is using good judgement and I hope both sides will make a good faith effort for Terri's sake. This is not a white and black issue. Read the 04/92 policy for end of life decisions promulgated by the National Council of Catholic Bishops. There is no clear decision possible in PVS patients. We have no right to kill but no religion or state says we have to use every possible means to prolong life. We do not will Terri's death. We merely allow this process to run its course while guarding her as well as we can from panic or pain. Both the parents and Michael can take comfort in knowing that they did as much as they could in their disagreements. But it would be doubly tragic if enduring hatred and suspicion ensued. That is a horrible way to live.
Posted by: Tom Kelty at Mar 1, 2005 9:04:56 AM
"We have no right to kill but no religion or state says we have to use every possible means to prolong life."
With all respect, they are not employing every possible means to prolong her life.
Just food and water.
Posted by: Richard at Mar 1, 2005 9:06:39 AM
Catholic moral theologians say a treatment is obligatory only when its benefits outweigh its
burdens. "The chief criterion of the benefit can not merely be that it prolongs physical life, since life is not an absolute good but is relative to the spiritual good of the person. The spiritual good is the union with God, which can only be advanced by human, conscious and free acts." When the PVS status is clear it is not obligatory to prolong life by artificial means. You do not intend the death of the patient. You allow the natural dying process.
Other theologians can spin this all to mean keep her alive. The point is that this is not a white and black issue. There is wiggle room.
Posted by: Tom Kelty at Mar 1, 2005 10:30:19 AM
Tom,
The legal issue here is not at all what "we" can or should do on our own motion to keep Terri alive. The issue is, what decisions would it be legitimate for her to make?
It has been found that Terri told her husband that she would not want to be kept alive "artificially." I haven't read the original verdict, nor the appellate report, so I don't know the exact language. What does "artificially" mean? Under what circumstances did she mean? Undoubtedly the original court documentation answers these and other questions.
According to the courts, we're discussing Terri's decision here. And her right to make that decision, and by extension, your right and mine to make such a decision.
And you're right, that's anything but black and white.
Posted by: SF at Mar 1, 2005 10:39:06 AM
For what it's worth, and I don't know what it's worth, Clint Eastwood made an interesting comment on The O'Reilly Factor the other night.
...O'REILLY: So it was a surrogate father attached to a young woman who is striving. So to you, it was a more relationship film. That was a primary focus of the film.
EASTWOOD: Exactly.
O'REILLY: And then it gets blown up into an issue film, the euthanasia. Did that surprise you?
EASTWOOD: Well, I don't — it could be blown up, but I didn't see what the blow-up is. It's — it wasn't that — it isn't a message for anything. But nowadays — in the old days, it was everybody was talking about the knee- jerk liberals. Now we have sort of the knee-jerk conservative group that has — tries to politicize everything. But it wasn't a political film. It's merely a relationship film, adventure. It doesn't make a statement for or against anything. It just happens to be the way the story comes out.
O'REILLY: Well, you also did it fair and balanced. I mean, you had the priest in a key part of the film, advising against this in a very, very articulate way. That's what — I said, look, he presented both sides of it. And that's all you can do for the audience. You weren't trying to brainwash anybody in my estimation.
EASTWOOD: No, actually, the priest is right. When he says it, he says to him, he says, you do this thing, you'll be lost somewhere deep within, inside you forever. And he's absolutely right.
Posted by: Christopher Rake at Mar 1, 2005 11:21:09 AM
One aspect in this story has me smile bitterly. With all the heated and deep discussions we are all having about issues concerning the final stages of a person's life, how can anyone say that Terry's life is not worth continuing? I am sure that Terry is delighted (or will be) by the role she is playing in hashing out the theology/spirituality/practicality of her situation. When she dies the kefaffle will be largely forgotten, unless we continue discuss it to a constructive end.
Posted by: Roberto at Mar 1, 2005 11:22:34 AM
Tom, I believe you are quoting Father Kevin O'Rourke.
The Holy Father's March 2004 statement on ANH clarified, contra O'Rourke, that ANH is of benefit when it sustains the life of a patient with PVS, and that the biological life of a patient with PVS is good, even if the patient is incapable of free and conscious acts.
But the Holy Father's statement does not say, imo, that nonterminal patients are obliged to submit to surgically-delivered ANH, even if they find the tubes and associated care burdensome.
Catholic theologians have long taught that it is licit to decline life-saving surgery (such as, eg, leg amputations), if prospective patients judge the surgery and its after effects too painful, burdensome, or repugnant.
This view is reflected in the US Bishops' ethical and religious directives to hospitals (the "ERDS") which even today allow withdrawal of ANH if the patient finds it overly burdensome.
If Terri had a written advance directive against the continued use of ANH, the vast majority of Catholic hospitals, imo, would withdraw it without scruple, and with the blessings of the USCCB.
As SF notes, this case is really about determining Terri's wishes re: her care.
Posted by: Rick at Mar 1, 2005 11:25:40 AM
Thank you Rick. I just read the opinion of the Catholic Medical Association and they come down softly on the side of continuing ANH. My point has been from the start, Terri and Mike made a good faith decision,several times and in the presence of others, so clear that the Court accepted it as binding. Artificial to me means manufactured, not grown naturally and infused by a contrived process. No one has ever taught that PVS patients must use every means forever to prolong life in every instance. If you read JP2 over the last few years , you will see that there are exceptions. These are cases that try our souls. Terri's death is not what is willed. We are only allowing the natural process of dying. Life prolonging strategies are possible today that were unknown only a few decades ago. The fact that we know how to keep people alive by this technology should not condemn them to a life that none of us would choose where no cure or improvement is even remotely possible.
It is not euthanasisa. Her death is not what is willed. It is the primacy of her conscientious decision verbalized long ago and the Court has decided that it is persuasive enough to order Michael to discontinue ANH.
Posted by: Tom Kelty at Mar 1, 2005 12:58:39 PM
By the way, I was not quoting Fr. Kevin O'Rourke. I was quoting article 6 in the National Catholic Bishops April 1992 teaching on end of life decisions and on PVS cases in particular. God bless everyone on both sides of this argument and may Terri know peace whichever outcome prevails.
Posted by: Tom Kelty at Mar 1, 2005 1:03:58 PM
Thank you, Tom, for this very clear statement.
For me, Terri's actual case presents much more difficult questions than the case as stated by her parents or by most of the talk on this topic. If we are fighting for the objective value of the life of someone in her condition, or for the right of her parents to care for her when her husband does not wish to do so, the answer is quite clear, at least to me.
But if what we're discussing - and this is how the court's decisions have been framed - is her right to decide, in advance, that she herself would not want to be kept alive by this means under these conditions....that's a lot tougher.
A court found, after hearing all the evidence both sides could come up with, that it was clear that she expressed a decision that she would not.
So. Was, is, that decision legitimate? Legally, yes, clearly. Morally? The bishops' statement on this topic is more than a little fuzzy, and understandably so. (This is a very difficult area, and I certainly wouldn't want to be given the task of clarifying it. The bishops did a very sensitive job.) But, taking everything into account, probably yes again. I think.
So, do we honor Terri's decision or not, and if not, why not?
Again, I would urge everyone to execute an Advance Directive for Health Care (or the equivalent in your state) and to think long and hard about what you say. I'm revising mine....and I'm thinking about Terri. I don't know, I really don't know, what I'm going to write. I'm going to have to pray a lot more to find the right answer.
Posted by: SF at Mar 1, 2005 1:19:36 PM
You're only "allowing the natural process of dying" if the person dies of an underlying disease process. There is no such underlying fatal disease process present in Terri Schiavo. If she dies, she will not be dying of terminal cancer or terminal renal failure or even of her brain injury and loss of cognitive function.
She will be dying of starvation and dehydration.
This will be the desired result of a lack of food and water.
What the heck is so hard to understand ere?
BTW, I believe there would be less prejudice against Terri Sciavo's disabled status if she were described as being in a "Persistent Meditative State."
And of course, there's always the question of why Michael Schiavo didn't "remember" Terri's alleged don't-feed-me, let-me-starve wish until several years after her collapse, after Michael won Mega Bucks in a judgment which he promised judge and jury that he would devote to his beloved wife's rehabilitation...
Posted by: Julianne Wiley at Mar 1, 2005 1:21:48 PM
"... the Court has decided that it is persuasive enough to order Michael to discontinue ANH"
"A court found, after hearing all the evidence both sides could come up with, that it was clear that she expressed a decision that she would not."
For what it's worth, a court found that the Constitution of the United States has "emanations and penumbras" that allows for the murder of innocent unborn children. When it comes to life issues, I think I'll take the "findings" of any court with a grain of salt.
Posted by: Jay Anderson at Mar 1, 2005 1:25:55 PM
OK, Jay, that's certainly a position. Christians have fought what they thought immoral secular legal decisions as long as there have been Christians, seeking to hold the community to the standard of what is right, not just the standard of "justice" which comes out of one governmental system or another.
However, I would think that there should be better grounds for such a stance than "I don't like the decision."
Are you saying that in your opinion Terri did not express that decision? That is a legitimate position, one which should probably be based on a close reading of the trial transcript.
Or are you saying that no matter what she said or did before she suffered brain damage, it is not morally permissible for her to express that decision or for us to carry it out? There are decisions like that, such as, a request in advance of my injury or illness that someone affirmatively murder me if I am incapacitated. (That request would also be legally invalid in the United States.)
I'm really not trying to be picky here, I'm asking these questions because at some level I really don't know what I think myself. I'd like to believe that I and my family will never be placed in this situation, but there's no guarantee of that whatever.
Posted by: SF at Mar 1, 2005 1:35:46 PM
There is no such underlying fatal disease process present in Terri Schiavo.
Moralists like Kevin O'Rourke would say the lethal pathology is an inability to chew and swallow due to brain damage.
It is difficult for me to concede there is no fatal disease present when nutrition can only be delivered by a continued surgical violation of the body's integrity.
Posted by: Rick at Mar 1, 2005 1:41:00 PM
I'm saying that, without written instructions from Terri, and with testimony from a husband who might have financial and other motives in favor of a particular outcome, I just don't believe the court's "findings" to be based in fact.
I also think courts have, over the last 30 years, shown an increasing capacity for coming down on the "wrong" side of life issues. I don't think we can disregard the possibility that, in a state like Florida with a large retiree population, the right-to-die mentality just may have taken root in this court and impacted its ruling.
Posted by: Jay Anderson at Mar 1, 2005 1:43:22 PM
One is not at liberty to decide whether one wishes to be kept alive or not.
One is at liberty to forgo particular treatments.
Lets say you, incapacitated in a hospital bed, decided to forgo another round of chemotherapy after having had some very debilitating therapy.
And then lets say you didn't die from the cancer, but nonetheless, you went of living in considerable pain and disability--perhaps bedridden--from the treatment you already had.
Such a person cannot decide to "discontinue" eating and drinking, since that's suicide.
Yet they might be in much more tangible pain that a person in "pvs" (which its arguable that Terri even is).
Why should such a person continue on and suffer, while the comatose person gets an easy out simply in virtue of being temporarily incapcitated?
Posted by: al at Mar 1, 2005 1:46:25 PM
Why should such a person continue on and suffer, while the comatose person gets an easy out simply in virtue of being temporarily incapcitated?
Because suicide is not a moral option.
But forgoing a treatment (including the surgical delivery of food) because it is burdensome is not suicide.
Posted by: Rick at Mar 1, 2005 1:54:47 PM
Deciding one does not want to be kept alive, under these conditions, is suicide.
Deciding to forgo an extraordinary treatment, is licit.
Deciding to forgo food for two weeks, so as to starve to death, is suicide.
Posted by: al at Mar 1, 2005 2:16:33 PM
al, the bottom line is that
Posted by: Rick at Mar 1, 2005 2:46:16 PM
al, the bottom line is that Catholic hospitals, in accordance with the ERDS as interpreted by local Ordinaries, routinely allow patients to forgo ANH if they deem it overly burdensome.
If you want to maintain that the ERDS and the USCCB teach the liceity of a grave evil, fine.
Maybe you are right and they'll be required to change the directives.
But personally I expect Catholic teaching will always recognize the patient's right to forego surgery.
Posted by: Rick at Mar 1, 2005 2:47:14 PM
