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
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.