National Review Online Wesley J. Smith
My debate about Terri Schiavo’s case with Florida bioethicist Bill Allen on Court TV Online eventually got down to the nitty-gritty:
Wesley Smith: Bill, do you think Terri is a person?
Bill Allen: No, I do not. I think having awareness is an essential criterion for personhood. Even minimal awareness would support some criterion of personhood, but I don’t think complete absence of awareness does.
If you want to know how it became acceptable to remove tube-supplied food and water from people with profound cognitive disabilities, this exchange brings you to the nub of the Schiavo case — the “first principle,” if you will. Bluntly stated, most bioethicists do not believe that membership in the human species accords any of us intrinsic moral worth. Rather, what matters is whether “a being” or “an organism,” or even a machine, is a “person,” a status achieved by having sufficient cognitive capacities. Those who don’t measure up are denigrated as “non-persons.”
Allen’s perspective is in fact relatively conservative within the mainstream bioethics movement.
In regards to Bill Alen saying the Terri Schaivo was not a person. …..So, Bill, you mean to tell me that if you were in a coma, you wouldn’t be considered to be a person and we can pull the plug on you….Because you are not human? More like a dog, right?
I can’t believe some of the crap we are seeing in this Nation and the world at large these days. What excuse are we going to have for treating each other like this when the Lord returns? NONE
For those who care about the FACTS, instead of the myths, here they are:
“Here are the relevant facts. Fifteen years ago, one Terri Schiavo suffered a heart stoppage caused by bulimia. Her brain was temporarily starved of oxygen and scans showed that her cerebral cortex had stopped functioning. A CAT scan shows that her brain has since shrunk massively. Her electroencephalogram reading was and is completely flat – she has no brain waves. She is not brain-dead. But she has no ability to think, feel, or communicate. She can breathe on her own; and random eye movements can give the impression of some kind of awareness. She is kept alive by a feeding tube.
In the first years that she was in this horrifying state, her husband, Michael, did all he could to find treatment, went from hospital to hospital trying new therapies. According to the Miami Herald, which has covered the case more thoroughly than any other outlet, “each rehabilitation facility treated her with aggressive physical, recreational, speech and language therapy, moving her arms and legs, trying to rouse her with scents. But according to court filings, Terri was not responsive to neurological or swallowing tests.” Terri was even sent to California to have experimental platinum electrodes inplanted to get her brain going again. Michael slept next to her for five weeks. At the time, he and Terri’s parents were united in doing all they could for what was left of his wife.
But eventually, the husband acquiesced to near-universal medical opinion and came to terms with the fact that his wife would never revive. He said that when she was cogniscent, she had once told him she didn’t want to be kept alive artificially for an indefinite period of time. You can see why. From the Miami Herald again: “She suffered from bile stones and kidney stones, according to court papers, and had to have her gallbladder removed. She has ‘drop foot,’ where her foot twists downward, and the ensuing pressure resulted in the amputation of her left little toe. She frequently developed urinary tract infections, diarrhea and vaginitis. Several cysts were removed from her neck. Several times, her feeding tube got infected.” The sight of a human being in such a state of complete disintegration became too much for Michael Schiavo to bear. So he decided that it would be more compassionate to let her die with dignity.”
http://www.andrewsullivan.com/main_article.php?artnum=20050326
Reading this my impression is that the people attacking Michael Schiavo, coping with the most difficult decision any spouse can make, ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Is this posting intended to defend Michael Schiavo or justify Terri Schiavo’s starvation? You don’t make this clear.
If the latter, understand that your implicit support of the starvation of Terri Schiavo violates the moral tenets of your Orthodox faith, as Metropolitans Iakovos and Maximos have already indicated.
Spouce? Mr. Schaivo had a whole new family and wanted Terri out of the picture so he could collect the life insurance policy. If I was the insurance adjuster, I would DENY THE CLAIM because Mr. Schaivo exaserbate her condition and basically murdered her. Plain and simple
“Bluntly stated, most bioethicists do not believe that membership in the human species accords any of us intrinsic moral worth. Rather, what matters is whether ?a being? or ?an organism,? or even a machine, is a ?person,? a status achieved by having sufficient cognitive capacities.”
I think virtually all modern people realize that there is certainly a relationship between having some brain function and personhood. For example, in the U.S. there is near universal agreement that brain death constitutes the death of the person. We don’t in any way consider withdrawal of life support from a brain dead person to be the killing of a person, even if the rest of the body is functioning, because the person is already gone.
In PVS rather than total brain death the cerebral cortex has died and the brain stem remains active. But all of the things that we associate with personhood — sensation, awareness, thought, and even the slight hope of these things at some time, are all permanently gone. William Cheshire, the Christian neurologist and ethicist who said that Terri Schiavo might have been minimally conscious, said that he was not in principle opposed to withdrawing artificial nutrition from a PVS patient.
Fr. Hans writes: ‘If the latter, understand that your implicit support of the starvation of Terri Schiavo violates the moral tenets of your Orthodox faith, as Metropolitans Iakovos and Maximos have already indicated.”
Could you expand on this? The only thing in the way of an official opinion that I recall reading basically said that Terri Schiavo’s body should be kept alive on the off chance that a miracle occurred and she grew a new brain. It was also clearly wrong about the facts of the case in several significant ways as well. I have a hard time understanding how a moral teaching based on misinformation could be binding on a member of the Orthodox church. For example other Orthodox clergy came out against the war in Iraq, but you did not take those statements as being the authoritative position of the Orthodox church because you felt they were wrong about the facts.