The Right to Die
Congress pulled an all nighter, cut short vacations, called the President back from his “Social Security Reform” 60 day jaunt to sign a bill that puts the “smaller government” right into one family’s struggle over the right to die pushing a personal family matter right out of the jurisdiction of the State courts and into Federal court. So George W. Bush approves of some “activist” judges - hoping that an “activist” judge would take up the cause and presumably rule in favor of “life”. Terri’s family has stated that they believed she was getting better - 15 years after falling into what the court appointed physicians can only call a perpetual vegetative state. The family is deluded with the belief that after 15 years she can somehow get better, that she responds to stimuli.
Early this morning a Federal judge rejected her parent’s case for a restraining order tht would have reinserted a feeding tube. The judge ruled that her parents didn’t have a very good chance of winning the case so a restraining order was deemed unneccessary. Michael Shiavo had been asking the court for at least seven years to allow his wife to die. Her parents had been fighting against him for the same amount of time.
This brings us to the issue of living wills, which Terri did not have.
Last week my wife’s grandfather was put to rest. He went to the restroom during his dialysis appointment and was discovered, collapsed on the floor, a short time later when he didn’t return. He was revived, taken to the hospital and placed on a ventilator. An EEG showed no brain activity. He was clinically dead. His wife asked the hospital staff to stop resuscutaion efforts when his body failed again.
A few years before that, my sister-in-law and her husband ordered life support removed from my niece, a previously healthy young girl of less than 5 years old who drowned in a backyard lake.
Had the families decided, they could have perpetually kept life support when there really was no hope of either of them emerging from their comas. My grandmother, who passed away nearly 20 years ago, had a hand written document that started “I have lived a long and good life…” It was her wish to not be kept alive artificially.
I cannot imagine the pain that Michael Shiavo has been through, every time he had a “win” in court it was frustrated by Terri’s mother, father and brother. Why do they not believe that she would not want to be kept artificially alive? This definately is in line with the conservative movement to take rights away from states and reverse voter approved measures such as Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act.
More information regarding living wills, the ability to register them online and forms can be found at the Us Living Will Registry. Don’t force your loved ones to try to decide “what you would have wanted”, get it spelled out. And if you want to be kept alive by machine you can make sure that’s in there as well.
Peace
