Just because it’s current, and just because every single person with any ear to the ground is weighing in on this, I figured I’d cast my vote in this wonderful case of Mrs. Terry Schiavo. I think Shakespeare fits here:
“To be…or not to be: that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them? To die…to sleep…no more! And by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation devoutly to be wished! To die…to sleep…to sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub! For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause.”
Since no one speaks Elizabethan anymore, allow me to paraphrase:
“To live or die…that is the question. Is it better to quietly go along and suffer life’s injustices, or is it better to take action against life’s curves in the hope of defeating them, and perhaps die trying? Is it death, or is it merely sleep? And if it is sleep, and we truly end the heartache and all the weaknesses that come with being human, then death is preferable over life. To die…or simply sleep, and perhaps dream. But what of the dreams? If death is sleep, then the dreams of the afterlife must make us stop and think.”
There are no real facts in this case. No one knows if she truly is in this so-called “persistent vegitative state.” Your people advocating her “right to death” as an unspoken corrolary to the “right to life” on the one hand claim that she’s a vegetable and therefore is alive only on the most basic level. According to them, your gerbil is more alive than she, because the gerbil, however unintelligent, at least can feel outside stimuli. She can’t even do that. In fact, she probably isn’t even aware of her own existance. On the other hand, they claim that removing the feeding tube will be a “painless” death. Well, if she can’t feel pain, then why are you going out of your way to say that it’s a painless death? Are you concerned about that?
Then you’ve got your “right to life” crowd, encompassing conservative agnostics (like Rush Limbaugh, who uses the argument “what’s the harm in letting her live on a feeding tube? At least she’s still alive!”) to your radical right (who use the argument “God decides when it’s time, not man!”). Fact is (I know, I said there weren’t many established facts) both arguments are flawed. The Leftist argument is flawed because there is no such thing as a “right to death” for her to exercise. I’m going to follow the strict view of the Constitution which means that there’s no such thing as an implied “constitutional right to death” or “constitutional right to privacy” or whatever. The argument is in favor of her husband, who wishes to remove the feeding tube, however right or wrong that action may be. After all, he is her immediate guardian and executor of her wishes, and since she can’t contradict him when he says she’d want to go, then that’s that. Before you go all squirrely on me, the right argument is also flawed. Humorously enough, the same people that say “God decides when it’s time” will think nothing of going to the doctor’s office to get flu shots that could save their lives; and they would expect doctors to take every step possible to save their lives if they were ever in a car wreck. But I thought God decided when it’s time? Aren’t you trying to thwart God’s intentions by using a life support machine?
This may surprise my readers who know me, but until this afternoon I was indifferent on this case, leaning towards her husband’s side of the argument. I mean, she’s essentially dead (if not for various machines she would be dead, just as if this had happened twenty years ago instead of ten), and if she wants to die then it’s her choice. If her husband, who theoretically knows her quite well, says that’s what she wants, then it’s very possible that she really wants to die…assuming she has the capacity to even think that at all. But then something someone said jumped out at me, and I’m frankly surprised I didn’t see it earlier. I still believe she is less self-aware and (essentially) less alive than a gerbil. But it doesn’t really matter what she or her husband or anyone else, for that matter, wants. According to I Cor. 6:19-20, Christians at least have an obligation to recognize that they don’t actually own their own bodies, because it has become the temple for the Holy Spirit. If Mrs. Schiavo is a Christian woman, then the argument is closed, and we do all we can with the knowledge that God has given us through common grace to save her life, even if that only means preserving it in a very watered-down form until some way can be found to bring her back among the living. But what implication does this passage (or principle) have for non-believers? If Mrs. Schiavo is not a temple for the Holy Spirit, how does that argument change? We know that all life is created and given by God as a unique creation. We also know that God cares for both saved and sinner alike in that the rain falls on the fields of the just and the unjust. If all life is on loan from God, then it stands to reason that God is therefore the one who decides when to extend and withhold life. Yes, we use machines to keep her from becomng dehydrated and starved, but if God truly wanted to take her life than no amount of human intervention would stop Him from doing so.
Ultimately, all life is in the hand of the all-sovereign Lord and Creator of the universe. It is not for a man to decide when to take his own life, nor is it for man to decide when to take another’s life, whether directly through action or indirectly through negligence. And by removing her life support, her husband is indirectly taking her life through negligence and will be held accountable to God, whether as part and parcel of his other sins, if he is not saved, or as a loss of reward if he is saved.
That said, I think Congress and the courts are starting a dangerous precedent by stepping into this matter. The argument that she is being deprived of “due process” is very weak. The most the courts should be doing is issuing restraining orders to both parties and letting the doctors perform their Hippocratic Oath responsibilities and “do no harm.” Certainly Congress should not be deciding one way or another if Party A can kill Party B (or allow Party B to die, however you want to look at it) against the wishes of Party C.
There. I know you were all dying to know what I’ve been thinking, and it’s been keeping you awake every night for the past ten years. Well, requiescat in pace, my friends. I have spoken.
[Listening to: Requiem for chorus & orchestra: Lux Aeterna - John Rutter - Requiem & Magnificat (07:18)]
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