Life, death and pulling the plug
The Terri Schiavo case has pitted left against right and right-to-die supporters against right-to-life advocates. The debate is passionate, heated, fierce. Take this post by William Sjostrom over at his Atlantic Blog:
"I had an angry idea about the killing of Terri Schiavo. I note the sheer joy of James Carville and the cretinous Atrios (via Professor Bainbridge, who apparently has a stronger stomach for Atrios stench than I do), and even from the normally decent Mark Kleiman, who confuses Terri Schiavo with his Tom DeLay obsession. Peggy Noonan and Tom Smith at The Right Coast are no doubt being wiser than me, but I am too tired to be generous. I think it stems from this: they lost the last election, with all their Ph.D.s and vast superiority and all the rest, they still got their collective butts kicked. Killing Terri Schiavo means they beat George Bush and Tom DeLay, and so they recover their manhood. When Terri Schiavo is finally killed off, they can get it up again. I hope the sex is lousy."
That certainly hit home. Talking of home, William Sjostrom is politically at home in the conservative-libertarian segment of the spectrum, and that's where Neal Boortz can be found as well. Unlike Sjostrom, though, he feels that Schiavo should be allowed to die. Here he speaks directly to those Christains who are fighting for her life:
"Do you believe that the human soul can make the transition to everlasting life while the human body that carried that soul through life clings to life on this earth? If you do, then you must surely believe that Terri Schiavo has earned and is already enjoying her reward in heaven. That being the case, why is it so important to you that the now-unneeded body of Terri Schiavo is kept alive?But perhaps you believe, as I do, that the human soul is so connected to and integrated with its earthly body that any transition will not be made until that body ceases functioning — until death occurs. That being the case, why do you so ardently desire that the soul of Terri Schiavo spend five, ten, perhaps 30 years or more trapped in a useless and non-functioning body, unable to move on to whatever reward awaits her? Isn't 15 years enough?"
Whatever about the ethics and the morals of the Schiavo debate, reality is somewhat different. A medical professional, who once worked in one of the world's most famous cancer clinics in New York City, told me recently that we have no idea of how common the practice of "pulling the plug" is. For example, when patients "arrest" (experience heart stoppage), the medical team swings into action and "does a code" — conducts a resuscitation procedure. If the patient has, however, a terminal cancerous brain tumour, a "slow code" might be done, meaning that no active measures will be taken to revive the patient. Life and death decisions are often taken without consulting anyone. We may not want to know about this, but many people are happy that it is so.
