… to Michael Schiavo and Judge George Greer: “What part of ‘Thou Shall Not Kill’ do you not understand?”
Mercer Island, WA – Toward Tradition and Rabbi Daniel Lapin urge the husband of neurology patient Terri Schindler-Schiavo, and Judge George Greer, who issued her death warrant, to recognize that starving an invalid is murder, not mercy.
Florida Circuit Court Judge Greer Thursday last week re-interpreted the law, calling food and water “medical treatment,” thus allowing Michael Schiavo to withdraw Mrs. Schindler-Schiavo’s feeding tube. This also ignores the rights of Terri’s primary caretakers and loyal defenders, her mother and father. The court has ordered all food and water withheld beginning this Friday, March 18th; it is expected to take her between 1- 2 weeks to starve or dehydrate to death. One wonders if they will attempt to withhold air as well.
Rabbi Lapin, president of the national Jewish-Christian alliance, appealed to Mr. Schiavo and Judge Greer to choose life. “Not for nothing is the climax of God’s relationship with Israel His admonition ‘I place before you this day life and death–therefore choose life.’ According to ancient Jewish wisdom, failure actively and deliberately to choose life makes death the default. None of us will be better off in an America in which death has become the culture’s default,” said Rabbi Daniel Lapin.
Those that support the impending murder might consider that Kate Adamson, a California woman who suffered a sudden double-brainstem stroke, was deemed a vegetable by her physicians; her husband was warned she would never regain full brain function. He refused to give up on her (although she could not speak or move), in stark contrast to Mr. Schiavo. Mr. Adamson’s faith appears to have been correct, because his wifeToward Tradition Opposing the .ems has written a book about her experiences: Kate’s Journey: Triumph Over Adversity, which tells of her journey from isolation and catastrophic brain injury.
Mrs. Adamson recently spoke out on behalf of Terri Schindler-Schiavo at a rally protesting the pre-meditated murder plot by her husband and the courts.
As former US Surgeon General C. Everett Koop wrote: “If we ever decide that a poor quality of life justifies ending that life, we have taken a step down a slippery slope that places all of us in danger. There is a difference between allowing nature to take its course and actively assisting death.”
Toward Tradition applauds US Senator Mel Martinez and Representative Dave Weldon (FL), who have introduced a bill to Congress entitled the “Incapacitated Persons’ Legal Protection Act,” guaranteeing constitutional rights to those who cannot speak for themselves.
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Toward Tradition is a national coalition of Jews and Christians advocating practical ancient solutions to modern American problems.
Note 47. David, you are a Nat Henthoff liberal then. That is good. The problem is that most of the liberal leadership doesn’t share your values. I look to the day when the Democratic Party returns to its roots and starts defending life as it once did. (Democrats were pro-life under JFK.)
PATIENT AUTONOMY
I don’t think patient autonomy trumps everything else, even if the desire of the person is explicit: notarized and all. While I certainly can understand the desire to not suffer with severe Parkinsons, cancer or whatever, there must be some line between what the physician can and cannot do in regards to assisting the patient.
For practical purposes, I don’t think providing someone with the knowledge of a lethal dose of painkillers is something that can or should be legislated against. After all, the patient can find this information themselves if they do enough digging. The decision is ultimately the patient’s as well. Friends, family and the person’s doctor should also be able to be present if and when the person makes that decision without fear of legal reprisals.
Actively assisting, however, is a dangerous road, in my opinion. How do we define what type of assistance is allowed and what is not? What is the substantive difference between, say, shooting someone (with their permission of course), suffocating them or injecting air into their veins? I’m not sure there is, other than some methods are messier than others.
Thinking about the response of Dr. Ward and decerebrate. The questions seems to be whether it is natural to allow Terri Schiavo to starve to death in a an environment and world, at least in America, where it could be presumed natural and not extraordinary or against “nature” to insert a feeding tube to keep a living brain damaged human being alive. I am now an old man in the body so I hope I am not presumptious and arrogant in presenting opinions against the thinking of “elders”. The word “natural” and nature seems quite important. I am not a so called relativist. That is, I presume and am convinced that morality exists objectively regardless of whether I can rationally discover what the norms may be.
Otherwise I am led to accept chaos and “Might makes Right” as the ultimate basis of human conduct and of law.
I realize that the media, trying to brainwash me and others, might say “that’s only a right wing conservative talking”. This seems to be the modern application of the ad hominem fallacy of poisoning the well, used so often in the media. That means if I am “right wing” the arguments I might use to judge cases of morality are forthwith dismissed as propaganda stemming from a fanatical holding on to an “outdated” versions of what the truth is.
At any rate I was intellectually and emotionally pleased to read Dr. Ward seemingly agreeing to a conviction that there is something such as “natural”. With such a mutual conviction one can then begin to ask and answer the question as to whether a feeding tube is an ordinary or extraordinary means of preserving life. I might then be able to judge whether I am harming or helping a brain damaged patient to stay alive by applying various aretificial means of life preservation.
What should we do in the case of aids infectd new born children? They will in all probability die within three years. This is at least the case of those in the country in which I am now living. Would it be better to starve them to death as many think their quality of life is non-existent?
Such are a few thoughts of a now feeble old man.
Dr. Ward, your tone in Note 49 is misplaced. Daniel was right in saying that you argue fallaciously from authority. Most of us are active Orthodox Christians, but we know how pointless it is to try to use that fact as debating capital. You argue still more fallaciously this time, since you “assume” that Daniel is young before telling him to mind his manners. You hasten to imply that he doesn’t own a dictionary and that he doesn’t know the meaning of the word “compassion.” But you neglect to read his post carefully enough to see that he wrote about your being perceived as a supporter of Singer et al, not that you actually support him, and that it is members of your profession who bow down to “unitarianism” (I think you meant “utilitarianism”), not you personally. Every young person knows intuitively (and every “elder” should know) that respect can only be earned, not demanded. Give it a try.
Passionate people support their opinions passionately on this blog, but the focus is on strengthening the logic of those opinions, not trying to bluster one’s way to the top. That’s what makes it a good blog. It sounds like you have a lot to offer, as long as you don’t take things personally.
My apologies to you and Daniel for butting in. The quality of the debate here is important to me.
Note 48:
James,
Civilians on the wrong side of a war are civilians, not collateral damage, and their lives are just as valuable as anyone else’s. The Death Penalty in the United States has a lot of flaws, and serious consideration should be given to ending it. This is a practical and ethical stance, though the Orthodox Church as a whole has never made abolishing the death penalty an absolute demand. Too many patristic fathers favored it for that to be the case. A husband or wife should be able to make medical decisions in most cases, but when a husband, with a live-in girlfriend and two bastard children with her, wants to starve his wife to death against the wishes of her family – at least a few red flags should go up.
I understand that there is rank and obvious hypocrisy on the part of many of Terri Schiavo’s partisans. That is a given. As Father John Breck has pointed out, in the United States there is no political party or movement with a consistent life ethic. Perhaps the Democratic Party could be the first to adopt one? That would be a tremendous blessing for us all. Imagine, no more bombing Belgrade or Baghdad? No more abortions or forced starvations? No more innocent people getting a lethal injection, and no more corrupt prosecutors securing false guilty pleas in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table?
Sounds great! I’ll sign up for that. Find me a candidate to vote for on the basis of those issues, and I’ll vote for him or her gladly.
The Terri Schiavo case could be a way for ‘liberals’ (however defined) to really make a lot of progress. Sure, point out the inconsistencies on the ‘right.’ Point out the role Medicaid has in keeping Terri alive. Point out the concern for Terri but the lack of it for Iraqi children being poisoned by depleted Uranium rounds. All of this is fair game.
Just don’t advocate killing a woman who is not terminally ill, simply because you don’t like the politics of the people trying to save her. Even the hypocrites are right on occasion.
Note 51:
I honestly believe that there are many more Pro Life lefties than you think. By using sloganeering and outright misrepresentation, the far right has succeeded in giving nice folks like you a slanted view of political progressives. Remember, it has been the Bushes of the world who have been happy to sign death warrants while slashing support for the working poor. In this country it is a tragic fact that the economically disadvantaged, most of them children, do not enjoy the same access to medical care that is readily available to the wealthy. So what happens to the poor? They die younger. This truth is well established . In my book, if you are denying the full advantages of our amazing medical technology to the most needy of our fellow citizens, you are truly fostering a culture of death. If you are ignoring the fact that millions of Americans lack adequate nutrition and will likely have shorter life spans, then you are fostering a culture of death. If you slash funds for education, then you limit the scope, quality and very possibly the length of the lives of the least among us. Again, this sort of behavior can only be seen as anti life. Surely life is about more than breathing, eating and sleeping. A life filled with degradation and desperation cannot be considered a full life. There is more than one way to die.
Note 56:
Glen wrote:
” Just don’t advocate killing a woman who is not terminally ill, simply because you don’t like the politics of the people trying to save her. Even the hypocrites are right on occasion. ”
Nicely put Glen. That is the real point of this discussion. If I was Mr. Schindler, I would have physically removed my daughter from the facility in Florida and taken her to someplace where the she might find protection from the Florida court system. Couldn’t our President send in Federal Marshals to do something along those lines? He can issue immediate pardons to whomever might render assistance.
No matter how one looks at this story, whatever their political leanings, it is profoundly tragic. I just hope that poor Terry isn’t suffering, and that her parents will find a way to cope with their terrible burden.
Bill and Daniel,
I do not and would not advocate killing anyone who is or is not terminally ill. What I do advocate is letting nature take its course in someone who is surviving on brainstem function alone with no evidence of supratentorial activity. The poor young lady in question, from the evidence presented to us, is no longer sentient and in no position to feed herself or to ask for food. If not force fed she will die of natural causes in no distress, pain or awareness. One might reasonably argue that since there is no sign of cerebral activity, her soul has already left the body, which is continuing on auto-pilot.That is more metaphysical than I care to contemplate. I merely wish for her that she rest in the peace of Our Lord and cease to be a partisan pawn. There are many more contentious and borderline cases, surely, in which I might support keeping the patient alive and which would better be a cause for discussion on this forum. I would add that I have been an Oncologist and Palliative Medicine Physician for a quarter century. If I fail to treat pneumonia in a man who is patently only a few days from death, after discussing the potential implications – ie hastening of the inevitable by not imposing unnecessary treatment upon him, am I in your opinion violating the sanctity of life or merely bowing to the inevitable (with his full knowledge) or am I justified in obeying his wishes and concentrating on quality of life and death with dignity?
I find Daniel’s arguments utterly polarized and apparently based on inexperience; hence my assumption of his youth. I apoligize for intemperance but feel that I was the first to have my bona fides impugned.
I will leave this debate; my parting comment is that I pray that God’s will be done for this lass, and that activists and politicians keep their peace. If it is His will that she survive, I have no doubt that some way will be found for this to happen.
Glen writes: “A husband or wife should be able to make medical decisions in most cases, but when a husband, with a live-in girlfriend and two bastard children with her, wants to starve his wife to death against the wishes of her family – at least a few red flags should go up.”
It’s interesting to me to read the kind of language that is used in this case and then compare that with the actual facts of the case as recorded in the court documents and guardians’ reports.
Concerning Michael Schiavo’s personal situation — the most recent guardian ad litem’s report notes that when it became clear that there was going to be no recovery the Schindlers — Terri Schiavo’s parents — urged Michael to “get on with his life,” even to the point of recommending to him someone he could date. Now the Schindlers are shocked! — shocked! — to find that Michael Schiavo got on with his life, and this situation — which the Schindlers encouraged — is used against him.
Given the right-wing propaganda machine in operation here, it would be a lose-lose-lose situation for Michael Schiavo no matter what he did as long as he maintained that his wife did not want to be maintained in the current state. If he remained married but celibate then the argument would be that he wanted her to die so that he would be free to establish a relationship with someone else. If he divorced her he would be a cad for having abandoned her. If he has a relationship with another woman while still married then he’s a cad with bastard children. The one thing in this case that we can be certain about is that as long as Michael Schiavo maintains that his wife does not want to live in this condition the right wing would find some way to trash him. That we know with absolute certainty.
Glen writes: ” . . . at least a few red flags should go up.”
This is why we have a court system. When it became clear that there was no hope of recovery for Terri Schiavo — after extensive efforts at rehabilitation and therapy that the right wing almost never mention — Michael Schiavo said that his wife would not want to be maintained in that condition. This statement alone was not found to rise to the level of “clear and convincing” evidence. In other words, the red flags did go up. Given the dispute with the family Michael Schiavo petitioned the court to decide what his wife’s wishes would have been. The court heard testimony and read depositions from a number of people, NOT just Michael Schiavo. Based on all the evidence and testimony, the judge found by a standard of clear and convincing evidence that Terry Schiavo would not want to live in such a condition.
Jim,
The Supreme Court held that in the Dred Scott case that, basically, Congress could not regulate slavery or prohibit its extension into ‘free’ territories. The result – an acceleration towards Civil War and 600,000 military deaths. The Supreme Court also up held Jim Crow in Plessy v. Ferguson. The Supreme Court of New Jersey ignored the law of New Jersey, and said replacing Torecelli with Frank Lautenberg was just fine, even though the clear letter of the statute forbade it. The Supreme Court in the 1940’s upheld as Constitutional the imprisonment of Japanese Americans.
There are a ton more examples that I could name. The ideal is that judges are impartial triars of facts. The truth is that judges have, from the dawn of time, allowed their personal agendas to impact the way they decide cases. Simply because a judge, or even a group of judges, decides a case in a given way does not make it right.
We are in the middle of a profound debate in this country over issues of medical technology. If the political process is allowed to work, we will eventually craft legislation which will make a majority of people reasonably happy. If, on the other hand, this becomes a ‘Constitutional issue,’ in which judges simply shut down the political process as happened in the Dredd Scott case, then the only recourse left is to defy the judges.
Based on the evidence, I think that Judge Greer and his colleagues are more interested in their social theories than in the truth.
As for Michael Schiavo, I am happy for him that he got on with his life. He should have divorced Terri and married this woman. To live in sin with her and beget children is simply immoral. It is bad for all concerned. Why did he do that? No one would question him if he divorced her in order to move on. Why hold on to a legal fiction of marriage? For what purpose? Why not leave her to the care of her parents?
In any case, the situation is still the same. Terri is not terminally ill, and would not die if she were fed and given water. Hence, there is no reason for us to be in this predicament.
Jim, please. If a man shacks up with a woman and fathers two children by her, let’s hope he has the decency to divorce his wife first. There’s no real need to kill his wife in order to marry his lover.
As for the judgment of the court: there were no rehabilitative therapies allowed. Enough information has been released that proves she did not get the care that she needed. Have you read the affidavits not in evidence?
You also say: “The one thing in this case that we can be certain about is that as long as Michael Schiavo maintains that his wife does not want to live in this condition the right wing would find some way to trash him. That we know with absolute certainty.”
Whenever someone advocates the death of another person a field of red flags should pop up — especially someone like Michael Schiavo whose assertions have no documentary corroboration whatsoever. So yes, we know with absolute certainty that Michael Schiavo maintains his wife wanted to die rather than be disabled. So what? Some people believe OJ Simpson because he expresses the same degree of certainty. Call this skepticism “trash” if you want. I call it common sense.
You put a lot of faith in hearsay, and in the judgments of one judge. Whenever new facts emerge that might exonerate a criminal, he at least gets a hearing. Not so with Terri Schiavo. Her capital punishment rolls along unimpeded by facts. Fortunately, our system of government includes more than the courts, although wrestling the power to make capricious judgments away from them is going to be a messy fight.
When I heard Michael Shaivo’s brother tell the reporter that losing Terri would be like losing a sister, I felt like vomiting. He is not very convincing and neither is his brother. Wanting someone to die and, at the same time, claiming to care about that person — what a crock!
Everyone can argue all the points in the world… the fact remains this is about a woman who is living a life that no one should have to. Put yourself in her shoes, would you want to live like that? That is the most miserable existance I can think of.
We have absolutely no idea what goes on in the mind and more importantly the soul of someone in Ms. Schaivo’s state. God gives life. It is only because of our sin that He allows death. Her death in this manner is the triumph of individualism, i.e. each individual is the supreme arbitor of what is right and wrong for themselves. Thus all manner of degradation, filth, horror, and abomination can and are considered “right”.
The United States has always been an experiment in balancing the authority of the individual and the authority of the state. Since the 1950’s, we have tilted more and more to the authority of the individual with out reference to the proper balance of the rights of individual within the community. If the United States is to remain a nation, we must somehow return to a more balanced state.
In order for us to do that, we must have largely shared cultural values. Whether everybody likes it or not, those values used to be generically Christian. They are no longer. It appears that we have no shared cultural values except “everyone for themselves”. The Social Darwinists have triumphed. The transvaluation of all values that Nietzche predicted and preached has come. The Will to Power is supreme.
Everytime we Christians seek political authority and curry the favor of politicians who publically espouse everything that is anti-Christ, we add to the darkness. The flame of the Holy Spirit burns low in our hearts and souls because we do not attend to our God within our own hearts, but look outwardly for Him, saying “Lo, He is there”, in coercing tax money to feed the poor rather than caring for them ourselves; or “Lo, He is there” as we allow a Holy War mentality to govern our support or lack there of in the fight against Islam.
There is no longer any righteousness to either side of the Terri Schiavo circus. We have all sucumbed to the temptation of power. And guess what, that is not the way of the Cross. That is not the way of Christ. That is not the way of peace.
As long as we continue to rely on machines instead of prayer, power will win. As long as we continue to rely on technology over faith, power will win. That does not mean that we eschew the use of all technology, but technology without context in faith and soul does not allow life.
At this point, I can only pray that Ms. Schiavo’s soul be forgiven and that she ascends to “a place of brightness, a place of verdure, a place of repose, where all sickness sorrow and sighing have fled away.”
Note 54: Bill, thank you for your clear response to my comments. Telling someone to “mind your manners when addressing your elders” is just a slightly more polite way of saying, “Sit down and shut up!” I am not about to sit down and shut up as the culture of death lines up to kill the infirm. A great many people only read until their emotion gets piqued and then blast off some comment. I don’t let it bother me any longer. People who resort to this kind of behavior do not want to debate the issues. These folks simply want to others to accept their statements, likely thinking, “There I’ve said the final word, everyone else can go home.” When someone stands up and says, “Hey, wait a minute, but I don’t think your comments end this debate” they get a bit riled and lash out.
Doc Ward also, as you correctly note, failed to seperate judgements about his comments from judgements about his character. My guess is that when I’m attacked in such a manner it is because I may have hit pretty close to home with my comments on what the good doctor is defending. Well, as it is commonly said, if the shoe fits …
I can also presume that Doc. Ward failed to read these lines from my post above:
“Sanctity of life does not mean that people who are “brain dead” are forced with machinery to stay alive (it should be noted that Terri is not “brain dead”). Sanctity of life does allow for a person?s natural passing. Starvation and dehydration, however, are not natural ways to die.” [emphasis added]
BTW, the definition of compassion reads “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.” How is killing the Schindler’s daughter a “sympathetic consciousness of [their] distress?” This strikes me as ignoring one parties distress in favor of another party (though I am skeptical of Michael’s distress, given that he has clearly moved on with his life) such that one comes down in favor of death instead of life. Perhaps it is my “youth” (if 41 is young – yippee skippy – then I’m a young man) but I just don’t see this as very compassionate.
I would also add, from deep personal experience and investigation, that when we see a handicapped or brain damaged person, the distress we feel and want to alleviate is overwhelmingly our own at being made uncomfortable by the disabled person. It is not compassionate to want to kill the infirm because we are made uncomfortable or are burdened by their presence.