This is an extended talk given by David Gibbs, lawyer to Terri Schiavo and eyewittness to her malady, and ultimately her death.
Talk by David Gibbs, lawyer to Terri Schiavo
292 thoughts on “Talk by David Gibbs, lawyer to Terri Schiavo”
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Jim asks:
A question for you — I’m not trying to pick a fight here, just curious. Which statement do you think best captures your view of the situation:
1) Terri Schiavo definitely would have wanted to be maintained in that condition as long as reasonably possible. Therefore it was wrong to discontinue the feeding tube.
2) Since we cannot know what Terri Schiavo would have wanted with any degree of certainty, it was wrong to discontinue the feeding tube.
3) The wishes of Terri Schiavo were irrelevant. She should have been kept alive as long as reasonably possible.
Your questions all revolve around your central dilemma, which is the “wishes” of the individual vs. family/doctors/state. This is of course related to your worldview, where pain vs. pleasure is really the ground of your “morality”, thus the individual conscious “decision” is exploded to fill the moral horizon.
Christianly, we approach the question from a different perspective altogether. This is not to say that the “wishes” of the individual (indeed, as has been argued here many times, secularist “liberty” was invented in a Christian culture) and pain (the old idea of a “mercy killing” arose in a Christian culture) are not important.
Whatever her wishes, her adulterated “husband”, her family, etc. the fact is that she was executed. As a disabled person, who served her family (I know, this concept is lost on you, or is completely discounted) and who was (and is, even now) a LIVING PERSON/SOUL, the State should not have executed her.
So, to answer your question, #2 is probably the best (though incomplete) answer…
You seem to be saying that the Schindler’s testimony is irrelevant….Whether there was dishonesty on their part is NOT irrelevant!
Read the above post – your approaching this from the wrong perspective. Even in the “generalized” sentences you take, we have a family willing to care for her. The ‘off handed comment’ is what it is – not a basis to execute someone because her political activist adulterated “husband” wants her dead – and in his death eater worldview she is already dead (thus the date he put on her tombstone).
In a just society, he would have no legal standing based on his adultery…
You are (along with the other materialists – but strangely, you are not a materialist – though you do arrive at the same place 😉 asking the wrong questions..
15) | Jul 08 2007 | Jacobse
Amazed, your words would fit a white Christian country clubber when Martin Luther King was organizing the Birmingham bus boycott.
26) | Jul 09 2007 | Christopher
So your a radical Libertarian, of the nasty type who believes any other philosophy besides radical libertarianism is an effort to “inflict superior morality upon others”. Luckily for you and the rest of us, such an arrogant philosophy (one that simply condemns all moral thought) has never been the basis of this country (or any other) and our laws….
27) | Jul 09 2007 | Christopher
BAHHHH!!! Jesus as radical libertarian. That’s “rich” as they say. Please, follow this howler up with more!!! 🙂
46) | Jul 10 2007 | Jacobse
Note 39. Amazed, one of the rules on this blog is that moral posturing is highly discouraged. You are free to disagree with ideas expressed here, but posturing, by which I mean assertions of the kind you make in your note that don’t really discuss ideas but only cast moral opprobium, are better made elsewhere.
Thanks for clearing that up for me.
I’m not making medical judgments here, but simply suggesting that it seems unwise to completely discard the testimonies of medical practitioners just because you WANT to believe otherwise.
You WANT to believe otherwise. Fr. Jacobse has noted how the preponderance of “medical practitioners” were in fact death eaters – activists for the euthanasia cause (it’s in the middle of this thread somewhere). Besides, you are WANTING to rest on the “experts” rather than think through the fact that Terri was executed…
Note 54: I honestly have not made a judgment on it, as I have not fully read both sides and all of the court testimonies.
My question is: on what basis have you determined that Terri was in a state that would, from an Orthodox perspective, mandate that she be kept alive via methods such as a feeding tube? If you’ve determined that via the testimonies of all of those on the Schindler side, it would seem you should at least attempt to discern whether their testimony is accurate and truthful, no?
I don’t care if the Schindlers have a bias. I expect them to, and that does not necessarily impact the truthfulness of their testimony, nor does bias in of itself determine the truthfulness of the opposition, either. Calling either side names does not make them liars.
You want to analyze the issue of what is right and what is wrong pertaining to the Schiavo case but you want to do it without TRUTH or honesty as any part of the discussion?
You want to argue morality but at the same time you want to argue that truth is unimportant?
Apparently your most fervently held beleif is that discontinuing medical treatment = execution
Someone even posted that if a person is placed on life support it establishes a contract. Interesting position to take.
Traumatic brain injury generally results in immediate and life threatening consequences requiring immediate medical intervention including respiratory support (mechanical ventilation) when the patient is obviously nuerologically impaired – not even making reflexive attempts to draw a breath.
Patients present in acute coma origin unknown.
The immediate medical response is to stabilize the patient and support their life until a complete examination can be conducted, diagnostic imaging accomplished and other testing and evaluations performed. Doctors don’t necessarily have time to conduct interviews of the bystanders, witnesses or family members and such things are not the primary concern when time is of the essence.
The nature and extent of a persons injuries does not necessarily become readily apparent for many hours. The potential for full or partial recovery can remain a question mark for days, weeks or months.
Contracts generally require a “meeting of the minds” before they can be enforced. The meeting of the minds is required so both parties can clearly understand the terms and conditions they are agreeing upon.
The doctor doesn’t know the patient- to the doctor this is a unknown person. The doctor simply acts to save a life under circumstances where time is of the essence and because that is the doctors duty.
It is an interesting concept to say that once a medical treatment has been started a contract is established to continue it.
That seems like bad policy, bad law and bad medical care.
Note 56. Amazed writes:
No, I don’t really want to argue that truth is unimportant or that honesty should have no part in the discussion. But neither do I want to defend myself against your implicit charge that a critique of the killing of Terri Schiavo somehow skirts truth and honesty. That’s what I mean by moral posturing.
Funny how one sided all the inflammatory phrasing is. Apparently thats been a very effective tool.
Disturbing visual imagery and inflammatory phrases.
Sort of a reverse Madison Ave approach- rather than spruce it up, or present it naked, in order to sell it you have to wrapper it and package it in a very negative way and in such a way that it provokes a emotional response- the target emotions being anger, outrage or disgust.
I never made an “implicit charge that a critique of the killing of Terri Schiavo somehow skirts truth and honesty.”
I certainly did imply that there is much misleading and innaccurate information about the case.
That does not automatically mean that people using that false or innacurate information are aware it is false, dishonest or innaccurate.
Now it is an entirely different story if it has been proven that their “facts” or “information” are wrong and they continue using them even after being confronted.
Perhaps the confusion is in the fact that I tend to say “the Schindlers and their supporters”. I should really apologize for that. What I mean to say is “the Schindlers and SOME of their supporters”
I can see where people would get angry at over generalization.
On the other hand it might not be the generalizations I made at all. It could be that you simply decided I was your enemy. Or more accurately you decided to be my enemy. I issued no invitation either way, I never asked you to be my friend and I never declared you to be my enemy. But you apparently decided we were on entirely opposite sides of the fence.
No society, no culture, no level of human organization is held together by law alone. Law, if it is functioning, represents the minimum requirements for participation in the society.
When law becomes the primary means of attempting to order society, that society is in trouble.
If there are not un-voiced but deeply understood common principals within a society, it begins to disintegrate. Constant recourse to law in what should be a fundamental underpinning of a society (for instance respect for human life) at best delays the unraveling of which it is a symptom. Most of the time the unraveling is hastened because each “victory” in court merely increases the mistrust of the defeated party. At worst, the law, in the hands of skillful manipulators becomes an active agent for the destruction of the society. IMO special intersts law groups, all of them, all too often serve the interests of the manipulators and become tools for advancing a specific set of values and/or ideology to the exclusion of all others. Dialectic battles result that only do damage to the fabric of our society as real consensus is attacked and wounded.
When individualism is untempered by cultural expectations societal cohesion declines. Eventually such a course leads to anarchy
When the common good is untempered by the conscience of the individual, the cohesion gained coaleses into tryanny as feedom is lost.
A healthy society manages to navigate between anarchy and tryanny. Law alone makes that impossible, politics tends to exacerbate the divisions and ideology hardens the divisions permanently.
So do we persist in a legalistic, ideological poltics or do we actually attempt to see each other as human beings, each of us wounded and suffering, each of us needing the other yet striking out at one another from the pain we endure.
The courts could not adjudicate the pain in the Shiavo case, the greed, the lust for power, the fear of death. We should not expect them to once it gets to that level, everyone looses.
The bottom line for me is that no matter what the reasons, no matter what sins parties to the dispute have and exhibited, a woman who did not have to die, was forced to die. If we as suffering human beings cannot find a way to eliminate such an outcome, we are indeed becoming less than human. We have surrendered to the legalistic, mechanistic ideologs who always seek to rule for their own gain at the expense of the rest of us.
Excellent and amazing piece Mr Bauman.
Note 59. Amazed writes:
You really have to move beyond this. It adds nothing to your credibility. In fact, it undermines it. Not everyone who disagrees with you is your enemy. Not everyone who agrees with you is your friend. To label challenges to your ideas as motivated by “anger” emotionalizes the issue and discussion degrades into the moral posturing I called you on earlier.
Having said that, I am on the other side of the fence. I do not believe the killing of Terri Schiavo is morally justifiable.
Amazed, if you want to be further amazed, here is the direct inspiration for what I wrote: I’m Glad We Cleared that Up
#1. Credibility doesn’t concern me.
#2. Moral posturing was an issue before I posted here and it is interesting that you single me out but not those you consider to be “on your side” of the issue.
#3. People who resort to name calling and labelling are generally doing so out of anger and I lost count of how many different labels have been applied to ME- not to my ideas but to me personally.
#4. I never said Terri Schiavos death was morally justifiable.
You asked questions based on incorrect interpretations or application of legal theory and by explaining the difference between criminal legal procedure and probate legal procedure I was not “justifying” anything. You were stating that CRIMINAL legal procedure and concepts were not followed or applied. I pointed out the case was not CRIMINAL, it was probate. All such cases fall into the probate category. Probate courts are not new. What happened in the probate court in this case was not “new”. It was not uncommon. It just happened to be highly publicized in this case.
It is possible to be critical of the Schindler family and NOT be pro euthanasia at the same time. It is possible to be critical of lies, dishonesty and misrepresentations given or uttered in an effort to save Terri Schiavos life and NOT be pro euthanasia or pro death.
Amazed, whom are you addressing?
It would be helpful to quote the person you are responding to. I don’t know the identity of people that you are addressing in Note 64.
Just a suggestion. 😉
The bottom line for me is that no matter what the reasons, no matter what sins parties to the dispute have and exhibited, a woman who did not have to die, was forced to die.
Which is the bottom line for myself as well. The secularists (I put JamesK and Jim here, “Amazed” I think as well though it is difficult to read through the “moral posturing”) start with someone they really believe is already dead, and go and on about this or that diagnoses, this or that “medical treatment”, this or that “expressed or implied desire”, etc. What they leave behind is the that a women, who was serving, died in the name of “right to die” – a secularist vision of morality that Christians (this is after all “OrthodoxyToday”) find revaluating.
Being rightly labeled a secularist and a modernist is not “calling someone names”, anymore than myself being labeled a Christian, or conservative, or what not. Jamesk fails to refute (and what Jim, and probably “Amazed” explicitly embrace) the evidence that his thinking is materialist. How is their reasoning is related to Christianity, or any other philosophy other than modernism? How does a culture which embraces “euthanasia”, abortion, and the like not a horror? How does the pleasure vs. pain principle lead to a morality that is anything but a horror? Instead, the secularists want to talk about the minutia, the detail, and if so and so was honest when he said such and such – all when this women was killed!!
p.s. Is “Amazed” a Jim pseudomen? His emotionalism would seem to say yes, but his style seems just different enough…;)
66) | Jul 10 2007 | Christopher
“that a women, who was serving, died in the name of “right to die” – a secularist vision of morality that Christians (this is after all “OrthodoxyToday”) find revaluating.”
______
Revaluating of what? Morality? Life? secularism? I’m not exactly sure what you mean. What exactly are Christians trying to revalue?
Explain please, if you can, the inaction of the Christian church in this matter.
As you may or may not know the Schindlers appealed to the many bishops of the Catholic church to act on their behalf or at the least to take a public stand. Would you appraise the Christian response as apathetic?
Sorry, my bad. I meant “revolting”, not re-value…
Christopher, under what circumstances is someone (according to Orthodox moral theology) ethically required to remain alive using medical technology? In other words, when do the Orthodox say “It is not a moral evil to not give this person life-extending or life-saving medical care”?
I need a quote and reference, please, ideally with a concrete example, not just abstractions.
Explain please, if you can, the inaction of the Christian church in this matter. As you may or may not know the Schindlers appealed to the many bishops of the Catholic church to act on their behalf or at the least to take a public stand. Would you appraise the Christian response as apathetic?
I don’t think the “Christian church” (leaving aside for a moment quibbles about what IS the Church) was apathetic. Christians, and all others who did not follow the modernist line caused enough uproar to get Congress to act, largely symbolic as it was.
That said, I think our culture has already past the point of no return. It is Slouching toward Gomorrah – Christianity, western culture, will be a minority – surviving only “in the ghetto”. What our culture will become I don’t know, as I agree with Fr. Jacobse in that modernism/secularism is not robust enough to sustain itself (ends up eating itself up, through abortion, lack of children, etc.). I vote for an Islamic takeover through immigration 🙂
Other’s, like Fr. Jacobse, are much more optimistic, seeing real life in a repressed “western civilization”…
RE: note 69
That makes sense to me now.
I am keenly interested in knowing how you would explain the deafening silence from the Church (in particular the Catholic church) as the Schiavo case progressed?
Christopher, Islam will appeal to men tired of feminism
Creepy as it sounds, Islam, IMHO, appeal to some men who are tired of feminism. So much of what is seen as Christian has become a haven for feminism. The mainstream Protestant Churches are increasingly led by female feminst clerics and their allies. The Academy is losing male students and they don’t know why. It is obvious why. The college campus is a very hostile environment for men. Unfortunately, some men will find Islam to be appealing because it makes no bones about male supremacy.
By the way, Islam creates a society in which each man is a little dictator in his own household with unfettered right to divorce a wife at any time for any reason along with the right to add a wife to the family up to four at a time.
Outside the family, men are given automatic deference in all things. So an Islamic man can claim precedence, outside his home, over half of the population. It automatically makes him part of the “top half” or “ruling half” of society. It can have alot of appeal to men, don’t underestimate it.
Christopher, Islam can appeal to women who are tired of men who don’t marry
I read an article about indigenous Italian woman marrying Muslims. GAG. The reason given was that indigenous Italian men from the Christian culture had abandoned marriage almost completely and only offered transient living together options. Muslim men married and usually for life. Of course, there is the occaisional beating, the ever present threat of divorce on a male whim and the possibility that you can be displaced in your husband’s affections by wife number two.
If someone would have told me back in 1960 that Islam would have been considered a serious cutlural alternative in Western societies I would have thought them insane. Phew!!!
Sorry Christopher, our posts crossed. Thank you for responding.
Apparently we aren’t worlds apart in our views after all- at least from my perspective.
I was largely disappointed by the response.
IMHO bystanders and the “not religious” expected a larger and louder response from the faithful. Perhaps this is an odd assertion but I think the faithless were really hoping for a powerful, large, overwhelming response from the faithful because #1 it would prove they were still out there and #2 it would prove there was still hope for the world.
Just to clarify- I meant “I was largely disappointed by the response of the church (any church) and the response of its faithful members”
Unfortunately, Islam fits right in with the blasphemous way that some protestants interpret the description of marriage in Ephesians. They quote “The man is head of the wife…” Many stop right there or compound their blasphemy by making Jesus Christ a dictator rather than the one who died on the Cross for us that we might have life.
You don’t need a degree in advanced theology to understand what St. Paul is saying, you have to willfully misinterpret his words to get to the point some of these folks do.
I am beginning to think that we need to open our southern borders and say ‘yall come. I don’t think the Hispanic population will be as amendable to Islamic take over as us effite white folk and there is a core of Christian identity there.
Of course the other possiblity is China. Yeah Wal-Mart!
Watch and pray!
#77
Michael,
Muslim missionaries have been very active in Mexico the past ten years or so. They have been very successful in the Chiapas region with a message that appeals to a downtrodden people.
Islamic Radicalism in Mexico: The Threat from South of the Border
? Excuse me
Brother — is it possible you use the term “protestants” in a manner which is not good? Is this akin to a Lutheran scholar quoting from the Book of Concord. If you recall JBL correcting me — He said, ‘this is not done.’
You are casting a slur on “protestants.” [*]
At least distinguish — between Classic Protestants versus an individual who starts up her/his church in a storefront w/an internet ordination.
I would prefer you had said
I put this in the category “doesn’t matter.” It is said St John Maximovich had a habit of moving his hand in a depracating manner while saying, ‘not important.’
I certainly don’t mean Ortho-Praxy doesn’t matter! Men and women SERVE one another — and Patriarchy is a good thing taught by St Paul. Can we find failure [against orthopraxy] — in Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant realms?
Good Grief, if you have talked to some women from the “Old Country.”
Since you use the term “blasphemous”, I do not doubt you will find apostates. Creedal? yes. Practice? yes. Whether it be found with a) Individual Hearts, b) Families, c ) Churches, d) Civil Governments, e) entire people groups/nations.
Footnote:
* From the Psalter today Morning Prayers:
Thou sattest and spakest against thy brother; yea, and hast slandered thine own mother’s son. Psalm 50:20
So, my plea, a sister to you, my brother is:
be careful how you cast your slurs — especially as it concerns
Do good unto all, especially those of the Household of Faith.
St Paul. my emphasis
May I say, love – for the Headship of Christ,
Nancy L.
Nancy, for give me if the following does not answer your question (?). I will try to state in a more complete way what I mean.
Blasphemy: 1a. A contemptuous or profane act, utterance, or writing concerning God or a sacred entity. b. The act of claiming for oneself the attributes and rights of God. 2. An irreverent or impious act, attitude, or utterance in regard to something considered inviolable or sacrosanct.
There are many out there who use the passage in Ephesians as an excuse to dominate, abuse and humiliate women in the name of God (It is similar to the abuse within Islam). Close friends of mine have suffered through such abuse.
Is such abuse not a contemptuous, profane act concerning God? Are they not claiming for themselves the attributes and rights of God?
IMO, it blasphemes the Church; it blasphemes the sacrament of marriage, and exposes the name and person of our Lord to the scorn of unbelievers.
I purposely used the lower case p because these folks not only claim to be Protestants, but frequently as (the only real) Christians. Since I have respect for Protestants, I use the lower case p for these people for whom I, unfortunately, have little respect. IMO those who have these beliefs may not be technically apostate but it will make it easier for them to accept Islam if Islam begins to be a really significant presence in the U.S.
The only way a man can claim headship in marriage is if he does all that he can to pour himself out for his wife in love and sacrifice. The verses are quite clear even if you only finish the quote: Man is head of the wife as Christ is Head of the Church. He established the Church with His Blood and through the forgiveness He pronounced from that very same Cross and sent us the Comforter so that we could be included in His Church and be united with Him in mystical communion; a communion which marriage is designed to replicate and foster.
Of course, there are those within the Church who are abusive to women in the same way, but such abuse is not part of the theology of the Church. Just because sin exists elsewhere does not excuse sin in me or any one else. You will not, I hope, find me defending sin in or out of the Church least of all in myself. Do you have the opinion that a Christian should not say anything critical of another until perfection is reached? Should we temporize in the face of obvious sin because we ourselves are sinners?
People die because of the twisted theology of these folks.
Christopher writes: “Which is the bottom line for myself as well. The secularists (I put JamesK and Jim here, “Amazed” I think as well though it is difficult to read through the “moral posturing”) start with someone they really believe is already dead, and go and on about this or that diagnoses, this or that “medical treatment”, this or that “expressed or implied desire”, etc. What they leave behind is the that a women, who was serving, died in the name of “right to die” – a secularist vision of morality that Christians (this is after all “OrthodoxyToday”) find revolting.”
First, I don’t mind being called a secularist or modernist, as long as the term is not used in a dismissive way or to end a discussion.
Let me explain a little bit. The “secularist vision” to which you refer is not really a vision, but simply how these decisions are currently made. In the world in which we currently live, one of the main principles of medical ethics, perhaps the main principle, is patient autonomy. Stated simply, it is the principle that the wishes of an adult patient to accept or reject any medical intervention are paramount. The current laws and procedures we have are designed, as much as possible to determine what those wishes are. Behind the laws are a very large body of legal precedent.
This is the world in which we currently live. Because of that, my comments on the importance of the patient’s wishes, and the necessity of understanding the case record, are made in that context. I make these comments not because I’m a secularist or modernist, but because I have tried to explicate the situation in terms of the situation as it exists now.
For this reason, I think that the participants in this discussion often talk past each other. My remarks are a response to the situation as it exists — the current understanding of medical ethics, and the laws and precedents that have arisen in response to that understanding.
You, Christopher, and others, are, I believe, not responding to the world as it currently exists. Rather, you are trying to articulate a vision of a different kind of world — a world in which certain spiritual values are paramount, with the necessary ethical principles, laws, and precedents supporting that vision. In that sense, I think the facts and laws to which I refer are not relevant to the better world, informed by the spiritual visions, that you envision.
The problem as I see it, is that we don’t currently live in that different world. Furthermore, most people in the U.S., even Christians, do not share your vision. Even many who opposed the outcome in the Schiavo case did not do so because they share your vision, but because they wanted to use the case for political purposes, or because they wanted to use the case as a weapon in the culture war.
This is the question I have: how do you propose to bring about the vision of a better world, to make it not just a vision but a reality? You mentioned earlier that “I think our culture has already passed the point of no return.” If you are right, then the spiritual vision you want to make a reality will never happen.
If that’s really the case, then I would ask you to consider that the current system of medical ethics and the related laws is better than nothing. You don’t like the outcome in the Schiavo case, but then again, we’re not shooting nursing home patients in the street. We’re not forcing chemotherapy on terminal cancer patients who don’t want it. Rather than offering a “scorched earth” criticism of the current system, perhaps a better strategy would be to support the current system, with all of its faults and warts, while advocating reforms that would make it better. In other words, don’t tear down what we have, but build upon it and make it better.
I don’t want to reopen recent wounds, but when you’re not calling people trolls, your posts are interesting and substantive.
Of course, there are those within the Church who are abusive to women in the same way, but such abuse is not part of the theology of the Church.
Michael, since you brought up this horrible thing — would it be proper to name the church which you imply includes “such abuse” as your friend[s] has[ve] experienced?
It should be exposed, imo. How does this particular church incorporate “twisted theology?” But you say, they are not technically apostate? For all practical purposes — they certainly are
You say
Michael writes:
“The only way a man can claim headship in marriage is if he does all that he can to pour himself out for his wife in love and sacrifice. ”
———
Michael, by perception, I certainly know what you are saying. But does a man “set out to claim?” The appeal is to Creation [anthropology] — the man IS the head of the woman.
I wanted to thank you for going the extra mile, to meet my complaint. I appreciate it.
Note 81. Jim writes:
Not really accurate. Patient wishes are always considered, but in the context of the families who have authority to make the final decisions about the care of a patient who no longer can take care of himself. What your “patient autonomy” movement seeks to do, is remove family authority altogether and place it in the hands of ethic committees and other medical bureaucrats. Here is where your theory can lead: Death by Ethics Committee: Refusing to treat lives deemed unworthy of living.
Again, this too is not accurate. No cancer patient who does not want treatment is compelled to take it. I have dealt with enough families who face these kinds of issues to know that what you describe just is not true. Now, sometimes it is hard for a family to face that a family member undergoing treatment just cannot take it any more, and sometimes this hardship (which is really a coming to grips with the fact that their loved one is going to die) causes some discord and rancor, but this gets resolved in almost all cases. Sometimes the patient needs someone to communicate their wishes to the rest of the family because it is very difficult for the patient to ask the family to let him go. But forced chemotherapy? No, this is a gross overstatement.
Criticism of euthanasia, Terri’s Schiavo’s death in particular, is not a “scorched earth” criticism of the current system. Yes, the system is not a smooth running machine, but turning over these difficult decisions to a committee industrializes the enter process. How long do you think decisions would be made solely by a cost-benefit calculus? A year or two or three? Not much longer would be my guess.
And what happens when Jack Kervorkian types head the committee? Far-fetched? It shouldn’t be. Two of the star witnesses arguing for Terri Schiavo’s were doctors with a record of hard core euthanasia advocacy. Can you imagine them making decisions about who should live and who should die?
O come Nancy, are you abtuse to the wide spread interpretation in certain so called evangelical circles that subjugates the woman to the man even in cases of abuse? Man is head of the wife, period. What he says goes, period. ’cause that’s the what the Bible says. I can’t keep all of the splinters of the shattered Protestant tree straight. Any name I would give could well slander others.
Here’s one story. One of my friends who is now Orthodox (praise God!) went to a evangelical Bible college. The entire thrust of the curriculum as far as the place of the woman as she describes it was that women were secondary. While there she met a man who she ended up marrying. He was addicted to prostitutes and porn, and oh, beat her up from time to time when she didn’t do what he wanted. She went to the elders of her ‘church’ and was told she had to stay with him because he had ‘repented’ and he was her head. His repentence did not involve any change in behavior, just the typical abusers remorse. When a pastor of another affliated church she knew gave her sancutary in his home, he got in trouble. We’ll she eventually got a divorce, but of course that was not accepted in her church. This was years ago. By the grace of God, it set her on the course to the Church. However, she still sometimes desribes herself as a ‘recovering evangelical’. Some women are not as fortunate as my friend. They go back to the abuser and get beaten to death, or snap and kill their abuser.
Not long ago another young man from the same general persuasion was talking to her, he found out she had been divorced (she does not hide the fact) and even a bit about why. He flat out told her she was in sin because of the divorce and should look to her own actions as the cause of what her ex-husband did. Because “all togther now” “he was her head and she should have obeyed him because that was God’s will.” By leaving him, she had put her own soul in jeopardy. (He wrote this to her in an e-mail which she forwarded to me). How sick is that!
It is indefensible and I am astonished at your professed ignorace of such attitudes and behavior unless you have lived all of your life on one of the coasts. In the non-liturgical Protestant evangelical churches in the middle part of the country such belief is quite common.
You know Nancy, I get angry when my friends are hurt. The case I describe is only one of which I am aware. Such belief is not limited to evangelical circles, but it is more common there. It is a disgusting twisting of Scripture and denies Jesus own witness to the equality of men and women even when the functions are different.
The authority given to a husband as head is real. However, a man can lay claim to that authority only if he is obedient himself to the parmeters the scripture describes. It is not inherent to his maleness nor to the simple fact that he is married.
84) | Jul 10 2007 | Michael Bauman
Yes. You are right about the slander part. One saint I long to meet is St Seraphim of Sarov. One of the first things I read when we considered Orthodoxy, was about his making Shelter for women who were dealt with treacherously by men.
No. I am not obtuse as to one-half of what you say, because I endured 18 mos of a bogus-marriage Chamber, rural Pennsylvania, 1978. Fr Hans and (woops…almost wrote Fr Jim), meant to say Plain Old Jim Holman – know of it. I said “of” it. That’s it. Since our histories criss-crossed as youths.
I would like to thank you, Michael — for listening well to women. As to the personal sufferings at the hand of predators there are Tender Mercies and Compassion, because of your kind. Keep listening.
About your splinters, you can add this to the complexity of the church in America. You think you are angry? I am angry when you cast about slurs that touch on my Healers. The Jesus People outfit was not church. Any good that came from it was by accident and not design – but even that is only a loose assessment. I understand, God and his tender mercies for Lost and wayward youth. If he can raise up stones for seed unto Abraham — he can certainly use holy fools, like the Jesus people, for some use.
My healers happened to be Middle America Evangelical Church/ Churches. Can you hear this? Don’t hurt healthy Border Collies! Or Good Shepherds. If i owe them everything, it is glory to God, his means of grace.
And I hope you can address the problem of naivety in young women. That’s thorns as well. And other questions. Who is truly naive? Who is willingly deceived?
If Sophia is reading this by chance: I have a scripture
Michael, ceasefire then
p.s. If anyone doubts Torture Chambers occur in Christian homes, please read this book, written by Minnesotans
Let me explain a little bit. The “secularist vision” to which you refer is not really a vision, but simply how these decisions are currently made.
To take a slightly different tack than what Fr. Jacobse did in note 83, the phrases of “patient autonomy”, “medical ethics”, etc. can refer to different things. Again, it comes back to anthropology, what man is as man. Differing religious beliefs (e.g. secularist anthropology vs. Christian anthropology) lead to different (and incompatible) systems of “ethics”, ideas of “patient autonomy”, etc.
Thus in a sense you are right when you say:
Rather, you are trying to articulate a vision of a different kind of world — a world in which certain spiritual values are paramount, with the necessary ethical principles, laws, and precedents supporting that vision. In that sense, I think the facts and laws to which I refer are not relevant to the better world, informed by the spiritual visions, that you envision.
Yes, in the neo-pagan worldview and those who hold to it. The question is what does the larger public think? What are the central belief, the central anthropology, that we as a culture adhere to? It is obviously at a crossroads, and all the signs seem to point that it is headed toward the modernist (and thus nihilistic) vision.
But where you are being deeply hypocritical is when you say things like:
Even many who opposed the outcome in the Schiavo case did not do so because they share your vision, but because they wanted to use the case for political purposes, or because they wanted to use the case as a weapon in the culture war.
Why are you arguing for a system, an outcome, and this or that point in the case, if not out of your worldview – your anthropology? That is also “using” the case for “political purposes”. Christian’s wanted Terri to live because yes, they have a vision – an anthropology and want that vision to prevail. So they do share the vision, they wanted her to not be executed. Where you are being hypocritical is your belief that by sticking with the “facts of the case” you are somehow rising above your own, Schinlders, the publics, everyone’s beliefs and have entered a neutral ground. From this vantage point you can rise above and take in the “human drama” of it all – the tragedy – and then stand in judgment and claim everyone else is “using” this case as a political weapon.
This false moral neutrality is a central error in the liberal world view. Notice how it is playing out in Phil’s and Fr. Jacobse exchange. It is of course related to liberalisms quest for something to rest ethical decisions on (the innate realization that materialism is not a source for morality). If you have not read John Rawl’s “A Theory of Justice” you should really chew on that for a while. He almost single-handedly defined the discussion for liberals on what is ethical for the last 40 years or so
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rawls
So when you come to an Orthodox site and argue that Christians should accept a court case, a death eater like Michael, etc. because of the system is what it is, or it is “better than nothing”, etc. It is not going to fly. We don’t buy the “neutral” ground paradigm, we don’t buy any belief or “system” that gets you to the “outcome” of Terri being executed.
Also when you say:
“Perhaps a better strategy would be to support the current system, with all of its faults and warts, while advocating reforms that would make it better. In other words, don’t tear down what we have, but build upon it and make it better.”
Certainly what should have been torn down long ago is an adulterous Michael’s claims to “family”, both culturally and legally over Terri. What needs to be torn down is this idea that one is not a Person unless one is conscious, self determined, and all the other ambiguous and materialist ideas of modern man. Any “system of medical ethics” that allows this execution (or abortion for that matter) is not worth a hill of beans in the first place. It is not an otherwise healthy body with a few faults and warts, it is something much deeper. A tweak here, a reform over there, does not fix the false idea of man on which it is based.
I realize you work (or worked) in a hospital, in billing if memory serves. Why do you support the current “system” as it is so vehemently? The question is mostly rhetorical, because it of course comes back to your anthropology, and how (as a secularist) you would resolve religious differences (i.e. collapse them back into the modernistic world view – thus enforcing modernism as the state/public religion). The real question is why you promote, defend, your worldview on a site called OrthodoxyToday? This is crux of my (and others) beef with you here – and why I believe “Troll” accurately describes your participation here.
The Jesus People outfit was not church.
Nancy, are you referring here to “Jesus People USA” of Chicago?
Oh, no Christopher. Similar.
Here’s a description. The address was LOST VALLEY LANE – interesting name, isn’t it? On 94 acres in the Willamette Valley.
There were no pretentions of identity with protestants, or Protestants — either one. Rather the positive vision was Acts Two. Wherever the Early Church left off –the J. P. Faithful picked it up. That was the essence of the Christian side of the hippie movement.
Another former associate of the group.
My homechurch pastor, Baptist General Conference, discouraged me from joining Shiloh. However — Baptists being the far Left as concerns freedom of religion, ultimately blessed me to go and in fact held a public prayer service as……..i went. At the end of the day, they were there with open arms, when I required the healing I mentioned to Michael. Ten years of it.
As for my father, his roots since childhood were deep with the pietistic movement out of the Lutheran State church. Again, far Left as concerns religious freedom. Pietists were not citizens in good standing in Sweden until 1951. But, at the end of the day — he also was there for me with welcoming healing arms. Now is in heaven.
But JamesK says there is no way of knowing anything like this — for sure.
In note 68 Christopher writes:
Can I ask you, from the Orthodox perspective, what the definition of person is? What is the Orthodox definition of person that is not ambiguous or materialist?
Christopher, what you have not really addressed is how your anthropology can be accommodated by current (and expanding) medical technology and what related ethical demands arise as a result of the existence of that technology.
Would you still permit DNS orders (Do Not Resuscitate) set forth explicitly by the person in question? When is it permissible to deny cancer treatments for oneself and just allow nature to run its course? How much medical consensus is needed for someone to be designated as “brain dead” (which is, after all, a medical term), thereby permitting a patient to be taken off any and all means of artificial life support?
Your answers would seem to be “No”, “Never”, and “100%”, if I’m understanding you correctly? Please clarify.
Christopher writes: “I realize you work (or worked) in a hospital, in billing if memory serves.
Several places, but 8 years as a medical data analyst, and 10 years as a senior systems and business analyst. Also worked as a volunteer for several years with the Center for Ethics at a medical university.
Christopher: ” Why do you support the current “system” as it is so vehemently?”
I support the current system overall, though not necessarily in all of its details. The current system works quite well most of the time. Given that millions of people, including patients and family, face end of life decisions every year, it works well in the great majority of cases. But there will be hard cases, even controversial cases. You will have these cases in EVERY conceivable system. The existence of those cases doesn’t mean that the entire system is bankrupt. (For example, I think the criminal justice system has far more problems than we see in end of life cases, but no one suggests scrapping the entire system and starting from scratch. That said, legitimate improvements to the system should always be welcome.)
Christopher: “The question is mostly rhetorical, because it of course comes back to your anthropology, and how (as a secularist) you would resolve religious differences (i.e. collapse them back into the modernistic world view – thus enforcing modernism as the state/public religion).
Frankly, it comes back to the anthropology of the people in the country. In spite of many months of criticism, most of the people in the country supported the outcome in the Schiavo case. A majority of the people in the country said that were they in a PVS they wouldn’t want to be maintained in that condition either. Reportedly many thousands of people filled out advanced directives to make sure that didn’t happen.
The thing about patient autonomy is that it works both ways. If you and your family want to make sure that you are kept alive as long as humanly possible, in any condition in which you might find yourself, you can fill out an advanced directive to that effect. Patient autonomy doesn’t mean that people will only opt out of treatments; it also means that they can choose to continue treatment. You might run into trouble with that in Texas, but I don’t support the Texas law (signed into law, as I recall, by then Gov. George Bush).
Christopher: “The real question is why you promote, defend, your worldview on a site called OrthodoxyToday?”
Because the content of the posts is not dictated by the name of the site, and because the site owner, last I knew, permitted people with other perspectives to post. He could end that at any time. I guess the real question is why he allows people of other perspectives to post on his web site. I have an idea why he does, but you’d have to ask him that. I agree that it would be interesting to see what discussions here would look like with participants all of whom had identical viewpoints.
Christopher: “This is crux of my (and others) beef with you here – and why I believe “Troll” accurately describes your participation here.”
You may have noticed that I have not posted on any other topics. I jumped back in when the Schiavo discussion unexpectedly heated up. Although many here are not interested in the facts of the case, I have noticed that people are not talking about Michael Schiavo getting a million dollars after Terri died, nor are they talking about Terri Schiavo talking and walking. I think that in the future others may even be a little more skeptical of claims coming from the Schindler side. I believe this is a result of Amazed’s and my participation in this discussion.
After this discussion cools off I have no plans to post regularly here. So be thou comforted. Verily the end draweth nigh.
JamesK, I’ll let Christopher expand on the Orthodox understanding of person, I’ll just say you have it backwards. We as human beings created in the image and likeness of God, should not have to be accomodated by technology, it is the other way around. The very way you phrase your question shows you have abandoned humanity to the machine; forsaken our diaphanous yet ever so substantial being to the individualistic and the material.
Note 90. I deal with this stuff and can answer it.
Yes.
It is always permissible to deny cancer treatments for oneself. People want to live though and most fight hard to remain alive. (When they don’t, most often they are depressed.)
Two or three specialists could do it. A diagnosis of brain death (very rare, BTW) is a straightforward matter (conclusive data, etc.). No obligtion exists to maintain the person on life support. Are you thinking of coma here? If so, that’s a different issue.
Fr. Hans writes: “Two or three specialists could do it. A diagnosis of brain death (very rare, BTW) is a straightforward matter (conclusive data, etc.).”
Pardon me as I “troll” here a little more, as Christopher says, but brain death is a medical diagnosis, and is subject to a certain degree of uncertainty, just like any other medical diagnosis. In fact it is a relatively new diagnosis. Standard, nationwide guidelines for the diagnosis of brain death were not even published until 1981. Further guidelines for the diagnosis were published in 1995 by the American Academy of Neurology.
A 2001 article in the New England Journal of Medicine, “The Diagnosis of Brain Death,” goes on for pages detailing the clinical steps of coming to that diagnosis. There are many conditions and situations that mimic brain death. For example, “More dramatic is the reversible Guillain–Barré syndrome involving all the peripheral and cranial nerves. The progression occurs over a period of days, and knowledge of the history should prevent the dangerous error of diagnosing brain death.” Which is fine unless no one knows that the patient has has syndrome. The article notes that “A more complex problem is the possible confounding of the clinical determination of brain death by metabolites or traces of circulating pharmaceutical agents. Screening tests for drugs may be helpful, but some toxins (e.g., cyanide, lithium, and fentanyl) may not be detected by routine screening tests.”
You can read the entire article here:
scalpel.stanford.edu/articles/Brain%20Death.pdf
An article in the Boston Globe Online speaks in lay terms about the problems of the brain death diagnosis:
http://msl1.mit.edu/ESD10/bglobe_mar_13_01_b.pdf
So much for the straightforward diagnosis.
More importantly, the definition of brain death as the actual death of the person, that actually lets you turn off ventilators, etc., is a LEGAL definition, not a medical definition. So let’s review what you and others have had to say about the legal system:
“But, there’s a law that supercedes all your legal locutions: thou shalt not kill.” — Fr. Hans
“I can understand why you and Jim and others want the [legal] ruling to stand as sancrosanct because that way the moral dimension can be overlooked.” – Fr. Hans
“You are utterly incapable of believing anything that would challenge this worldview, thus you hide in ‘legal documents'” – Christopher
“When law becomes the primary means of attempting to order society, that society is in trouble.” — Michael
“We have surrendered to the legalistic, mechanistic ideologs who always seek to rule for their own gain at the expense of the rest of us.” — Michael
So if you guys are going to reject the “legal locutions,” in the Schiavo case, keep in mind that it’s the same kind of “legal locutions” that make it possible to pull the plug on patients who meet the clinical criteria for brain death. All this legalese in the Schiavo case is irrelevant? Great. Then it’s irrelevant in all cases of brain death as well.
The whole idea of brain death as constituting the death of the person is very much culturally conditioned. For example, in Japan a large percentage of the population rejects that idea. As long as the heart can still beat, many Japanese see that as evidence that the person is still alive. To suggest that brain death is the criterion of death would strike many Japanese as a kind of “culture of death” thinking. But over here, even for the Orthodox, it is completely accepted.
Fr. Hans: “No obligtion exists to maintain the [brain dead] person on life support.”
See, this is where it all gets VERY arbitrary. The same kind of moral accusations and denunciations leveled against people such as Amazed and me could just as easily be applied to you. “You are a materialist, because you think that personhood is somehow related to some kind of electrical activity in the brain. You take refuge in the legal definition of “brain death” in order to kill people by depriving them of oxygen, an even more basic need than food and water. You are a secularist, a neo-pagan for believing that the life of brain dead person has no value. And by the way, why are you spouting all this on an Orthodox web site?” And so on. Whatever sticks to me because of my views on PVS, also sticks to you because of your views on brain death. Materialist? Secularist? Neo-pagan? Culture of death? Troll? Welcome aboard. You’re in good company.
Note 94. No real argument about the brain death diagnosis Jim. I am not arguing the criteria of what constitutes brain death (I don’t have the expertise to say one way or another.) I am responding to James’ question on what process you would employ when a family has to make a decision on when to withdraw life support.
You’re missing the point. The point is not the legal locutions, the point is the ethical orientation of those who arrange the data. Give me a doctor who values life over a euthanasia activist any day because I know that the life affirming doctor will fight for his patient, where the death affirming doctor has his decisions clouded by utopian notions of social reorganization.
There is no moral obligation to maintain a person on life support who has irrevocably entered the stage of imminent death. But this definition cannot be mechanized. It must be taken on a case by case basis. And because these situations are fluid and outcomes are not preordained, by all means keep the death advocates away from the patient. Death advocates will drive the medical decisions toward death rather than life.
In the last six months I dealt with two elderly men, both suffering from a ruptured colon, both caused in some part by hospital negligence (the first by gross negligence, the second a lesser negligence). Both survived. Nobody thought that they would. These were extreme cases, but also cases where death advocates would have counseled only palliative care because of the vast odds against any recovery (fecal matter had entered the lungs and infection set in), and their advanced age. Yet both survived. The first came back to church several months ago, the second just this last Sunday.
Jim, you misrepresent what I said. The law is an instrument and a tool. It has to be founded upon commonly understood moral principals in order to function properly. When we look to the law in place of moral principals (the law becomes primary) then the culture begins to disintegrate into either tryanny or anarchy.
When there is a shift in moral understanding (as is going on) then a great deal more is expected from law than it can really handle.
My real point is that the technology to prolong life far exceeds our ability to use it appropriately. Even before I became Christian I had decided I didn’t want it used on me. I have never understood the “prolong life at any cost” mindset. We Orthodox pray that our death be “…painless, blameless with a good defense before the dread judgement seat of Christ.” Death is not oblivion.
But like I also said, once the decision is made to use the technology, it is incumbent upon those supporting the life to contiune to do so. And one does not do anything to hasten demise in someone who is otherwise independent (like Kevorkian did).
To take snippets of what I say on this topic does not represent my thought well nor the thought of Christopher and Fr. Hans either. The diagnosis of death is always uncertain and has always been. That is why for a time in Europe caskets were equipped with bells in case the “deceased” woke up.
There is a big difference between accepting the uncertainty and living with the parameters of current understanding and forcing certainty by dehydration and starvation. Empiricists and body snatchers require absolute certainty of death. We don’t because we have certainty of life.
Note 69. Michael writes:
Yes. And in fact, the “prolong life at any cost” is relatively rare anyway, at least in my experience. Further, the process of dying often has a relentlessness to it, especially in old age. When one organ fails, other organs often follow. It affirms the corruptibility of materiality. We carry the effects of the Fall in our bodies. In younger people of course this is much less evident because the corruption takes time to do its work.
But I also wonder about what those who decree that the Terri Schaivo’s death is morally acceptable because they see only themselves in her situation and are scared by it. What do they think their own death will ultimately be? Death is not a pleasant process, but it is universal. Everyone will die. Everyone will experience the failure of parts of the body. Is this pro-euthanasia fervor driven by a fear of death? Do the euthanasia people think they will escape the final suffering — if they think about it at all?
Every time I go to the hospital or the hospice and see a patient lying on the bed and entering the stage of death, I remind myself that one day I will lie there too. It keeps me sober. It clarifies why life is such a precious gift.
Note 95, Jacobse writes:
I have heard of doctors that inaccurately and inappropriately claim to be Nobel nominees and continue to do so after being confronted.
I have heard of doctors that can’t (in court under oath) provide any evidence or proof of the miracle healings claimed in their public appearances and on their website.
Such a doctor might be very “life affirming” but his credibility and judgment would be highly suspect.
I have even heard that someone has a list of 40 affadavits from medical professionals, doctors included, and it is being claimed that those affadavits were written to dispute the diagnosis of Terri Schiavo. I have read them. Apparently you need special glasses to find the ones that don’t start out saying “I have not examined the patient or reviewed the patients medical records and this is my personal opinion not my professional medical opinion…”
Personal opinion, coming from a doctor stating he or she is NOT providing a consultation or a professional medical opinion, cannot be pointed to as “refuting” or questioning the professional MEDICAL opinion on record in a patients case file.
Especially when the doctor states that he/she has not examined the patient or the patients medical records and knows nothing of the patients medical history.
Amazed, medicine, as you may know, is art as well as science. So when you write:
to infer that the Schiavo case is black and white, well, you error. That’s why you get contradictory opinions from qualified medical professionals concerning her diagnosis.
Also, let’s look at the history of Dr. Cranford who was hired by George Felos, the lawyer for Michael Schlinder. (Felos is himself a euthanasia ideologue. Take a look at his book. Some of his ideas are bizarre.)
You can read about Cranford here: Starving for a Fair Diagnosis.
Now, do you really want me to believe Felos hired Cranford with no regard for his euthanasia ideology? And do you really want me to believe other experts should not question his diagnosis given his activist history and misdiagnoses of other cases? (In times like this I am glad I live in a country with a free press. Yes, I know it frustrates you — right wing yahoos and all that — but imagine if court records were closed to public scrutiny. Some people on death row would have been unjustly killed just like Terri Schiavo.)
Pardon me if I don’t accept your (and Jim’s) claim to have complete knowledge of the situtation. People with greater expertise and credibility than you possess have raised questions that, frankly, you (and Jim) are not qualified to answer.
Also, why embrace this case as a model for euthanasia activism? Yes, I know you will retort by asking how do I know you endorse euthanasia? I don’t. I’ll just go with it until you lower the emotion and stop the finger wagging and make a real argument.
99 Jacobse:
First: I have written nothing that infers the Schiavo case is black and white.
Second: I never claimed to have complete knowlege of the situation.
Third: You would have no idea what I am qualified to speak to as I have never mentioned my education, training or occupation.
You have a fascination for Dr Cranford as though he was the ONLY physician/expert to examine Mrs Schiavo and determine her to be PVS.
Perhaps ALL of the many physicians who actually examined Mrs Schiavo and determined her to be PVS are death eater, pro euthanasia activists:
But really it isn’t even a question of doctor versus doctor. The reality of Mrs Schiavos condition was made abundantly clear by a non physcian. One has only to read the GAL report to Gov Bush. It was crystal clear (from page 30):
But you will cling to what Gibbs had to say as though it were gospel truth.