Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Terri Doesn't Live Here Anymore
I should leave this subject alone, but I have some observations on the Terri Schiavo case.
I guess one thing that disturbs me is that the parents of Terri are almost certainly lying about Terri’s mental capabilities. They relate how they asked Terri to say “I want to Live” and Terri struggled to say back, “Ahhhh Waaaa…” and did so in voice so loud it startled a guard just outside the door.
Here is a women examined dozens of times by doctors and other professionals, who has had the majority of her front cortex area die, atrophy, and be replace by spinal fluid. This person who is not in a temporary confused state with a few neurons out of kilter, but a persistent vegetative one because she literally has no frontal brain left. No cortical region through which the adaptive brain can re-rout neurons to take over new function. Why this would be a true miracle, either growing back a brain or speaking to her parents without one.
The Schindlers, Terri's parents, would no doubt pounce on any reflexive action by the shell that Terri has left behind to feel their daughter is with them. I’m sure the Schindlers believe they are acting ethically, and others not. But it is not hard to imagine one of the Schindlers shouting “Ahhhh Waaa…” themselves and then pretending these were Terri's words to startled listeners just outside the door. All the more effective, as a mob of miracle believers will accept that this is the case unquestioningly, and that the state is rabidly try to take Terri away -- that the cost of her care is the determining factor, not her quality of life or true wishes.
Odd that this case has become some kind of right to life litmus with impact on abortion and the death penalty. Every politician and activists wants to advance an agenda through Terri’s tragedy. It seems grotesque.
I maters little to me whether Terri is fed through a tube or not. She’s not really there anymore. It does seem a waste of care dollars that could be spent much better elsewhere. And its not just keeping the food going into the tube in her stomach, but attending to bed sores, and deciding what level of care to give when there are momentary health crises. We spend a million dollars rescuing a single stray animal when they are in the media spotlight; say a whale cut off from the ocean by flows of ice. Terri has become just such an animal, because she is not truly Terri any more, nor, unsympathetic as it sounds, human either. But this time rescue isn’t really what we are doing because Terri will still not be returned to her original native state when we do whatever we are going to do either way.
Again it isn’t a tragedy to me whether Terri is fed today or not. The original tragedy was years ago and uncorrectable now. What does bother me is the mantle of victim the parents have assumed, the black hat placed on the husband’s head in the public's eyes, and all because the parents will do or say anything, anything at all if it will keep the illusion of Terri with them awhile longer.
