"She is being starved to death. She is being dehydrated to death. And that is inhumane"
--Rev. Jesse Jackson commenting on the Terri Shiavo situation
I've been holding my tongue about this for a while now. perhaps it's the fact that i woke up in a particularly bad mood today, but it's time to move beyond screaming at my television.
i agree 100% with the religious community that witholding nutrition and water from a patient as a means of terminating life is a barbaric practice. however, the religious community has no one to blame but themselves. a few years ago, they pitched a fit and stamped their collective feet about dr, kevorkian and euthanasia. they described it as medical murder. they suggested instead that nutrition should be witheld from terminally ill patients who wished to end their suffering. they stated that this provided a "natural death."
i began following this case a year and a half ago, and i never believed that this battle was first and foremost about protecting a handicapped woman. that is and always has been nothing more than a smokescreen propagated by the anti-choice/right to life movement. the basic issue at stake in the shiavo case as well as the abortion issue is patient autonomy. this is an old fight on a new field. medical ethics and law are extremely clear on this topic. an over-simplified yet essentially accurate tenet is thus:
"the patient's wishes supercede the wishes of EVERYONE else."
mrs. shiavo expressed her wishes to her husband; he is seeing that they are carried out. i'll say this again. the husband is carrying out THE WISHES OF THE PATIENT. that is the beginning and end of the argument. the wishes of the parents do not matter. the wishes of the husband do not matter. the wishes of congress certainly do not matter.
if you are not the patient or haven't been granted power of attorney, then i don't give a tinker's damn about your personal feelings on this issue. your wishes and beliefs are just that . . . yours, and forcing them on anyone else regarding a topic so personal as end-of-life issues is disgusting.
i realize that i touched on a few issues here, and this is by no means a thorough argument of any of them. i'm simply taking a moment to address something that has been on my mind recently.
--Rev. Jesse Jackson commenting on the Terri Shiavo situation
I've been holding my tongue about this for a while now. perhaps it's the fact that i woke up in a particularly bad mood today, but it's time to move beyond screaming at my television.
i agree 100% with the religious community that witholding nutrition and water from a patient as a means of terminating life is a barbaric practice. however, the religious community has no one to blame but themselves. a few years ago, they pitched a fit and stamped their collective feet about dr, kevorkian and euthanasia. they described it as medical murder. they suggested instead that nutrition should be witheld from terminally ill patients who wished to end their suffering. they stated that this provided a "natural death."
i began following this case a year and a half ago, and i never believed that this battle was first and foremost about protecting a handicapped woman. that is and always has been nothing more than a smokescreen propagated by the anti-choice/right to life movement. the basic issue at stake in the shiavo case as well as the abortion issue is patient autonomy. this is an old fight on a new field. medical ethics and law are extremely clear on this topic. an over-simplified yet essentially accurate tenet is thus:
"the patient's wishes supercede the wishes of EVERYONE else."
mrs. shiavo expressed her wishes to her husband; he is seeing that they are carried out. i'll say this again. the husband is carrying out THE WISHES OF THE PATIENT. that is the beginning and end of the argument. the wishes of the parents do not matter. the wishes of the husband do not matter. the wishes of congress certainly do not matter.
if you are not the patient or haven't been granted power of attorney, then i don't give a tinker's damn about your personal feelings on this issue. your wishes and beliefs are just that . . . yours, and forcing them on anyone else regarding a topic so personal as end-of-life issues is disgusting.
i realize that i touched on a few issues here, and this is by no means a thorough argument of any of them. i'm simply taking a moment to address something that has been on my mind recently.