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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Note 100. Amazed writes:
First, your insistence that the court record is sancrosanct imposes a black or white, win or lose, matrix on the discussion. As far as you are concerned, the case is close. Fine. Others don’t see it in such black and white terms.
Second, no, you have not made the claim. My comment was not offered as a rebutal to that claim, but to the assertions upstream that counter-claims by medical professionals were part of some blind political reaction to the court ruling.
Third, yes, you have never made any statement about your qualifications. But, you seem so steamed up that I made the assumption that if you had credentials to throw into the stew, you would have done so. If my assumption is wrong, correct me on it.
All that being said…
Given the conflicting testimony maybe, just maybe, the more prudent course would have been not to kill her at all. Why didn’t we let the poor woman live, especially when she had two loving parents to take care of her?
The first came back to church several months ago, the second just this last Sunday.
GLORY TO GOD
Fr writes: Amazed, medicine, as you may know, is art as well as science.
Art.
Love – from immediate family, or from Church family. Which makes most any person desire to live on in love’s enjoyment.
Supplication – to the Great Physician, who at a minimum invites and desires all to rely upon him – for the strength He supplies, and the gifts of healing he grants health care professionals.
Miracles occur.
Grace to give up one’s soul and hear from a priest, “Go from this world, Christian soul….” [it goes something like that..]
Death, being precious
Fr. Hans writes: “First, your insistence that the court record is sancrosanct imposes a black or white, win or lose, matrix on the discussion. As far as you are concerned, the case is close. Fine. Others don’t see it in such black and white terms.”
The problem is not that Amazed and I hold the case record sacrosanct, but rather that you rarely mention anything but very brief selections from it, often little more than sound bites. In many cases you raise issues that are already addressed in the record. You criticize Dr. Cranford. Have you read his response to various allegations in the National Review Online?
http://pekinprattles.blogspot.com/2005/03/schiavo-dr-cranford-offers-reply.html
Have you read his 17-page take on the Schiavo case, his detailed description of the diagnostic work done, his history of the various physicians involved in the case? See the above for a link to that.
If you want to dispute the case record, great. If you want to say “this is what the case record says, but here is this other information, and here are the reasons why I believe this over the case record,” that’s fine. The case record is not sacrosanct, but it is necessary. It is the starting point. You’re certainly welcome to dispute it. But currently you dispute it without offering anything else in its place, without ever saying what the other evidence is. If the case isn’t closed, open it up for us. What is the new material, and why do you believe the new material over the case record? Simple questions, yes?
Note 103. Look, I’m not a lawyer, I’m not a doctor. One reason I don’t go through every transcript is 1) I don’t have the time, and 2) I am waiting for a definitive study on the entire case (if it comes, which I believe it might). And even if I did have the time, I am not sure what debating these points over and over again with you would resolve the issue because you are not a doctor or lawyer either. In fact, I probably have much more experience in end of life events than you do, but that still does not make me a doctor or lawyer.
What I do question is why did she have to die?
And even that question has a problem because it implies that if her parents we not there to help her, then it would have been fine to kill her, something I don’t agree with either.
But why did she have to die?
All this talk about autonomy, PVS, etc. skirts around the issue that she was killed by withholding water and food. Civilized people don’t do this.
I realize it is more “gnat on the back of the elephant” discussion but you have said repeatedly that her parents just wanted to take her home and care for her.
The truth is they had taken her home to care for her early on, before the dispute began. They discovered it was too much of a burden and they returned her to institutional care. Perhaps burden is too emotional a word with too much negative spin. Perhaps the more neutral wording would be to say that they discovered it required skills they did not possess: lifting and turning and otherwise being able to move a person who is unable to assist themselve in any way and doing so safely, without risk of injury to the assistant or the patient, is a skill set like any skill set- it must be taught, learned and then practiced until it is mastered.
For the brain injured things become even more complicated as there is, in some cases, a risk of triggering seizures due to the inherent stimulation.
Contractures can make it very difficult for the inexperienced to lift or move a patient alone. Contractures being the result of nuerological impairment. In a person without contractures the brain controls opposing muscle pairs by providing the nerve signals that coordinate the effort of the opposing muscles- ordinarily one muscle in the pair relaxes while the other contracts. With nuerological impairment this coordination ceases. There is no balance to opposing forces. Voluntary muscle control is diminished or altogether absent. The unopposed and nearly continuous contracting of one muscle causes rigidity and eventually damage.
But I digress.
Considering that 10+ years had passed and Terri Schiavos mother and father didn’t get any younger in those 10+ years I am wondering if they would have been more or less successful in bringing Terri home. Perhaps “bring Terri home to care for her” was more a figure of speech. Then again, unlike the first time they brought Terri home, they would have had the financial resources to have their home modified, to buy the lift equipped vehicle and to hire nurses.
Which the above post- that describes that Terri was brought home but then was returned to institutional care- brings up one of the buried and obscurred opportunities to have a meaningful and valuable conversation.
How sad it is that in this one moment of time in the course of the case there was a missed opportunity and failure. How different the case might have turned out if the family had somehow received the resources and support needed to be successful with home care for their daughter. How did this affect them?
It gives one pause. How many other families struggle without necessary support and resources?
Hopefully when the definitive tome is written about the Schiavo case the author doesn’t overlook the possibility of bringing such things to light.
Sure. Much of this could be true. The difficulty of dealing with mobility and mentally imparied people certainly is. I’ve seen it myself firsthand. Sometimes the care is best left to a nursing facility. They have the resources.
Fr. Hans asks: “But why did she have to die? All this talk about autonomy, PVS, etc. skirts around the issue that she was killed by withholding water and food. Civilized people don’t do this.”
At this point, I’m not sure what kind of response would constitute an answer to your question . What concepts would it reference? What language would be used?
Let’s assume for a moment that Judge Greer got it right, that she really would not have wanted to be maintained in a PVS. Would that be part of an acceptable answer? Or are a patient’s wishes irrelevant? Do you believe that medical interventions should never be withdrawn, regardless of the patient’s wishes, unless the patient is literally within days (or hours?) of death? Or not until multiple organs have failed? Or not unless we know the patient’s wishes with absolute certainty?
Is there any new information about the case, not currently known, that if you knew it would lead you to believe that discontinuing the feeding tube was the right thing to do?
Let’s assume for a moment that Judge Greer got it right, that she really would not have wanted to be maintained in a PVS.
Which is of course what you fervently believe. It comes from your worldview, and ALL of you questions, arguments, etc. assume this – why do you insist on banging your paganism up against Christians over and over and over….
Would that be part of an acceptable answer? Or are a patient’s wishes irrelevant? Do you believe that medical interventions should never be withdrawn, regardless of the patient’s wishes, unless the patient is literally within days (or hours?) of death? Or not until multiple organs have failed? Or not unless we know the patient’s wishes with absolute certainty?
All questions from your perspective, which you refuse to question. Think of it this way: Why don’t we (as of yet – coming soon to a locality near you) accept suicide as a “wish” of a “patient”? Let’s assume I am suffering from a dread and painful disease (deep depression) of which there is no known cure and I suffer horribly daily. Let’s assume I declare my intent to halt my “medical intervention” of medication and daily food. I climb a tall building (with the owners permission), and…why would the state interfere??
You keep asking the same questions from the same (anti-Christian) perspective, and wondering why the answers don’t suit you. NO, the state should not have killed Terri!!!!!
Repeat after me: Terri should not have been killed!!!!!!
“Amazed” asks:
It gives one pause. How many other families struggle without necessary support and resources?
NONE of them have the “necessary” support and resources. My wife is a physiatrist (http://www.aapmr.org/condtreat/what.htm). Her patients are those with such dread and horrible diseases such as ALS, spinal cord injuries where people can’t move/feed/breath on their own, TBI that leaves family members with severe physical and mental side effects, folks with severe incurable pain, etc.
There is no real good level of support because these states of being “human”, being a sever disabled person, cause such a burden that no amount of help and support nullifies the “tragedy”.
All that is beside the point, of whether we should kill these people…
“Amazed” asks:
It gives one pause. How many other families struggle without necessary support and resources?
NONE of them have the “necessary” support and resources. My wife is a physiatrist (http://www.aapmr.org/condtreat/what.htm). Her patients are those with such dread and horrible diseases such as ALS, spinal cord injuries where people can’t move/feed/breath on their own, TBI that leaves family members with severe physical and mental side effects, folks with severe incurable pain, etc.
There is no real good level of support because these states of being “human”, being a sever disabled person, cause such a burden that no amount of help and support nullifies the “tragedy”.
All that is beside the point, of whether we should kill these people…….
Jim: One of the unique perspectives you offer is that your home state of Oregon is one of the few that have actually considered prioritizing and rationing health care.
Former Oregon Governor Kitzhaber introduced legislation that rationed care “contending that .. it made little sense for the state to pay for costly services, such as transplants, that would benefit relatively few Medicaid recipients. He argued that, although Oregon could not conceivably afford to pay for every medical care service for every person, it could expand insurance to cover all the uninsured while controlling expenditures if it was willing to ration care.”
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/164/11/1583
“Oregon’s model of rationing revolved around the creation of a list of medical services. A state-appointed Health Services Commission reduced over 10 000 medical procedures to a list of 709 medical conditions and their related treatments.”
While the Oregon plan had serious flaws it highlighted important issues. I think one of the dimesions we need to explore in the Terri Schiavo case is the allocation of scarce resources in an environment of rising prices and limited fuunding. There is a conflict between traditional Christian ethics regarding life and a more cold-hearted economic appproach. Christian ethics teaches that all lives have equal value before God and are worth saving.
In a book called “Your Money or Your Life: Strong Medicine for America’s Health Care System ” economist David Cutler argues that the money spent by Americans on health care is well worth it, despite it’s high price tag, because it has extended the lives of millions of productive people still in their working years, increasing their contribution to society. As part of his analysis, Cutler assigns a dollar value to each year of additional life that he can then use to calculate as a “return on investment” for medical care.
If we use Cutler’s model then obviously the spending money to provide one more year of additional life to a 96-year old produces less “return on investment”, than spending the treat 3 or 4 adults in the prime of their working lives.
In the years ahead pressure to ration health care may become more acute. healrg care spending and inflation is on an unsustainable path. According to a federal analysis released January, 2007, in 2005 U.S. health care spending increased 6.9 percent to almost $2.0 trillion, or $6,697 per person. The health care portion of gross domestic product (GDP) was 16.0 percent, slightly higher than the 15.9 percent share in 2004. Many projections show health care spending as a percentage of GDP rising well over 20% withing the next 10 -20 years.
As Christians we need to reconcile the moral imperative to value and save every human life with the need to use increasingly scarce resources in the most efficient manner possible. Christian ethicists will need to grapple with issues like “If we have only $500,000 to spend should we use it saving one 96-year old or treating a dozen children and young and middle-aged adults with many more years of life ahead of them?”
This is why as a Christian I feel it is so neccesary to beging reducing inefficencies and perverse incentives that lead to overspending from our health care system now, rather than deferring to the powerful special interests and allowing the overspending to continue. If we do nothing rationing, either legally-mandated or defacto, will be the result.
Amazed asks
It gives one pause. How many other families struggle without necessary support and resources?
NONE of them have the “necessary” support and resources. My wife is a physiatrist (http://www.aapmr.org/condtreat/what.htm). Her patients are those with such dread and horrible diseases such as ALS, spinal cord injuries where people can’t move/feed/breath on their own, TBI that leaves family members with severe physical and mental side effects, folks with severe incurable pain, etc.
There is no real good level of support because these states of being “human”, being a sever disabled person, cause such a burden that no amount of help and support nullifies the “tragedy”.
All that is beside the point, of whether we should kill these people…
Repeat after me- she was returned to a natural state, the unnatural medical device that was surgically inflicted upon her without her affirmative consent or awareness, was removed.
Seems rather circular really- a device that was implanted without her permission was removed without her permission.
Apparently it is completely and purely ethical and moral to cut into human beings and implant medical devices without their informed consent or awareness for the purpose of preventing their natural death- and no one came forward to label Michael Schiavo a monster for allowing this. No one turned to the courts to prevent the installation of the medical device.
Apparently the flip side of the coin is an entirely different matter. It causes great consternation and debate when a person is returned to their natural state without their informed consent or awareness by removing medical devices.
“Amazed” asks:
It gives one pause. How many other families struggle without necessary support and resources?
Answer:
None of them have the “necessary” support and resources. My wife is a physchiatrist (http://www.aapmr.org/condtreat/what.htm). Her patients are those with such dread and horrible diseases such as ALS, spinal cord injuries where people can’t move/feed/breath on their own, TBI that leaves family members with severe physical and mental side effects, folks with severe incurable pain, etc.
There is no real good level of support because these states of being “human”, being a severely disabled person, cause such a burden that no amount of help and support nullifies the “tragedy”.
All that is beside the point, of whether we should kill these people…
There is no real good level of support because these states of being “human”, being a sever disabled person, cause such a burden that no amount of help and support nullifies the “tragedy”. All that is beside the point, of whether we should kill these people.
note 111:
Again, for yourself and Dean “patient autonomy”, “informed consistent” – the whole individualistic idea of man, consciousness, self determination, etc. looms large on the moral horizon. So large in fact, you can’t bring yourself to think of this case in different terms. almost EVERY post and argument you guys write ALWAYS comes back to this.
Question: Why, to a Christian, would this dilemma not occur? Why would Christians not start and end with your concern for self determination?
Repeat after me- she was returned to a natural state, the unnatural medical device that was surgically inflicted upon her without her affirmative consent or awareness, was removed.
Repeat after me – an infant child is returned to it’s “natural state” when left exposed to the elements to die. An unborn child is returned to it’s “natural state” when this unwanted “tissue” is removed from the “mother”. Why, I return to my “natural state” when I jump off a bridge and splatter my head on the concrete below.
Question: How does a Christian view, metaphysically, the “natural state” of man? How is that different from how a modernist views man’s “natural state”?
Note 117.
Repeat after me — when you get old and your joints give out, no artificial knees for you — it’s not natural.
110 Dean Scourtes writes:
Render onto caesar what is caesars.
It doesn’t sound very spirtually healthy to me to be considering such questions as the one quoted above…
Amazed writes:
Dear Amazed,
the Pope said, “Food and water is not medical intervention.”
Why do I need special permission to give you food & water should you need it? Don’t you agree with this straightforward reasoning, kindness, humanity and love?
123 Jacobse writes:
Add to that list: hips, heart valves, pacemakers, Implantable defibrillators, Implantable medication pumps, metal plates,pins and anchors, etc.
Medical technology has progressed. It will continue to progress. In some respects the capability of the technology exceeds our wisdom in using it.
But rest assured most doctors have never been introduced to a new technology or device that they didn’t want to use. And rest assured their continuing education requirments place very little or no emphasis on morality or spirituality and very little emphasis on ethics beyond what is necessary to avoid law suits. They will however receive at least a training DVD or booklet from the vendor of that new device.
Good point.
The only thing missing is food, water and normal care.
And, if an automous person goes on a hunger strike, refusing food and water unto death — that is simply suicide. It breaks the commandment: “Thou shalt not kill.”
WHO will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail?
Isaiah 32:5,6
Note 122 Nancy L. writes:
Keep the cheese, I just want out of the maze.
Another way of answering would be to say it is not the WHAT of what you are offering that I might object to-
because the WHAT (food and water) seems innocent enough
– it is HOW you intend for me to take it from you that I might object to.
If you want to hand to me a glass of water and a loaf of bread I wouldn’t find that objectionable.
If you want to cut into me, through my skin, through the fascia, through muscle and find your way to my stomache, then cut into my stomache and put a funnel or tube into my stomache so you can then poor the water in and force a paste of bread in- Well I guess I object to that.
In note 119 Christopher writes:
1. There is nothing “natural” about abandonment of an infant. Mothers form attachments to their young and care for their young- THAT is natural.
2. Do you manage to bring all of your conversations/discussions/debates over to the topic of abortion or is this something special and new for you?
3. I don’t know if being spattered on concrete is a natural state for any human being- even you.
I do know that having a plastic tube protruding from the site of a surgical incision and threaded through my body to a hole cut into my stomache is NOT natural. I know this as no human being has ever been born with such a thing.
Keep the cheese, I just want out of the maze.
I’m rather Obtuse [when I want to be.] Understand? Let’s think it over.
If you want to cut into me, through my skin, through the fascia, through muscle and find your way to my stomache, then cut into my stomache and put a funnel or tube into my stomache so you can then poor the water in and force a paste of bread in- Well I guess I object to that.
Some of that happened to me. What’s so repulsive?
I had a C-Section and was complaining about it just yesterday to my husband because — because I’m a complainer, I suppose.
HOWEVER. Jim, I would have experienced it a thousand times…..if you only could meet my 17 year old. Now he is a man framing houses with his Daddy. They came home an hour ago.
Terri? I’ve seen some of the pictures of her making eye contact with her loved ones. Yes, normal people want to give that kind of joy to their parents even if it means her helpless kind of submission to their care. Of course! Yes! She wanted to make them happy.
There are no words for you, dear Jim. I do not want you to usher anyone into eternity one second, not one second, before their time. Because of what that Fearful Moment can mean.
I want every person to hear: “GO FORTH FROM THIS WORLD CHRISTIAN SOUL! At the moment the angel of death arrives.
Please provide for them & their loved ones every opportunity for all parties concerned to make preparation.
You made one good point. The definition of “Person” is not necessarily easy to make. Much mystery is in it.
Christopher writes: “Again, for yourself and Dean “patient autonomy”, “informed consistent” – the whole individualistic idea of man, consciousness, self determination, etc. looms large on the moral horizon. So large in fact, you can’t bring yourself to think of this case in different terms. almost EVERY post and argument you guys write ALWAYS comes back to this.”
It is a simple fact than medical decisions concerning the beginning or continuation of medical care have to be made, sometimes in a short amount of time.
As a purely practical matter, there have to be SOME decisions made, and some general principles for making those decisions.
There are all sorts of ways that we could make such decisions. We could flip a coin. We could ask the local priest. We could take a vote. We could let the doctor decide. We could ask the family what they want, ignoring the wishes of the patient. So there is no shortage of options, all sorts of different terms in which to think.
So what do you think? If we’re not going to follow the wishes of the patient as best they can be determined, then how are those decisions made?
In note 118 Christopher writes:
What dilemma are you referring to?
Do you beleive in Heaven Christopher? You strike me as not REALLY Christian but more like someone that is very casual in the practice and understanding of the faith.
Amazed:
If your not going to accept that some think Terri should not have been killed, that’s your decision – but why are you arguing your case here? What is the point of coming to OrthodoxyToday and arguing that a feeding tube is not “natural”? We see clear connections between this and other things (abortion for example), in that a truncated view of man is what leave you with such a focused attention on what is “natural” and what is not.
Like I have said at least 5 times here, all that fills your moral horizon is personal autonomy. Fine. Your a modernist. We get it.
Why are you harassing Christians??
Note 127. Amazed writes:
What’s natural about a metal knee?
What’s natural about a metal hip?
What’s natural about a pacemaker?
What’s natural about eye glasses?
What’s natural about a heart shunt?
What’s natural about a colostomy bag?
In note 128 Nancy L writes:
You miss the point dear lady.
Lets say I hate Brocolli.
Is it supposed to make a difference to my hating Brocolli that 1,000 other people like Brocolli or even that you like Brocolli? I suppose I should have to eat it because you like it and if you like it what is the harm in making me eat it?
So what do you think? If we’re not going to follow the wishes of the patient as best they can be determined, then how are those decisions made?
AGAIN, your asking the wrong questions. Your a modernist – and you CAN”T think outside it (dim witted is how these things are often put).
Fine. Your a modernist. We get it. Why are you harassing Christians??
Note 125. Nancy asks:
Those who seek to define giving food and water as a medical intervention. Nice euphemism, that. Hides the real terms: starvation and dehydration.
You miss the point dear lady.
No, you miss the point. We don’t think like you, so we don’t come to the same moral conclusions. You can persist on “debating”, and thus being a Troll, or you can try to understand.
Fr. Jacobse, it’s at this point where this blog really breaks down. Jim and “amazed” are in no way interested in anything to do with Orthodoxy or anything else here – they simply want to “debate”…
Note 137. Christopher, I see it. The sheer opacity of the thinking (it’s not natural?!) is hard to penetrate.
Note 137: I think what I don’t get is how there’s a moral obligation to continue life via a feeding tube but no ethical obligation whatsoever to attempt to prolong life via a pacemaker or other kinds of medical treatment.
Now, if you wished to argue that we have a responsibility (under pain of sin) to attempt to extend our lives and the lives of others using all available medical technology, then the anger over the removal of Terri’s feeding tube would make more sense (at least to me). Is this a concession to human weakness or just a matter of practicality?
After all, when one disconnects a respirator, it is conceivable that some pain may be endured by the patient (similar to suffocation?). Yet, there is never any mandate that such treatments be continued.
I guess my point is that I don’t see consistency between when it’s permissible to terminate some kinds of treatment but not others. Does it have to do with the length of suffering endured by the ending of the medical treatment in question or rather the degree of the person’s inability to survive on their own without the aid? The cessation of treatment will almost always involve discomfort, I would think, in which case the physician would be obligated towards providing some sort of palliative care or something to reduce the discomfort involved.
While I too would any day prefer a physician willing to take some degree of risk and hope in providing treatment to patients over a euthanasia advocate (for myself or a family member), I’m not willing to assert that one who has made that reasonable effort and came to the conclusion that nothing else can be done is some sort of Nazi.
JamesK writes: “While I too would any day prefer a physician willing to take some degree of risk and hope in providing treatment to patients over a euthanasia advocate . . . . .
This whole thing of physicians as “euthanasia advocates” is way overblown, in my opinion. I’m sure in any field you’ll find people who advocate anything. For all lI know there are doctors who are members of the nazi party. But this whole idea of the medical profession as being infested with them is just wrong, unless you define “euthanasia advocate” as anyone who doesn’t agree with the Orthodox position, whatever that is. (Other than “don’t kill Terri Schiavo” no one here seems to be able or willing to articulate what that position is.)
Years ago I used to do some financial reporting for all the transplant programs where I worked. One day I was talking to the director of the heart transplant program about survival rates and other statistics. I asked him what they were doing to improve the survival rate over X number of years, though it was already respectable.
He replied, “well, you don’t want to have a survival rate that is too high.”
I thought this was a very odd comment, so I asked for a clarification.
He replied, “if you have a 100 percent survival rate, that means that you’re only admitting the most healthy patients into the program. And that means that there are people who could have benefited, who could have done just fine, but they end up dying because you’re only taking the healthiest people. You can’t be too conservative, you have to push the envelope, take people who aren’t necessarily ideal candidates. When you do that, you’re going to lose some of those people, and your survival rate will go down. But you’re also going to save a lot of people who otherwise would have died.”
In my 20+ years of experience at a hospital, that was by far the typical attitude. Doctors don’t want to “lose.” They are in the business of saving lives, extending lives, not calling it quits. In fact, the impetus behind the concept of “patient autonomy” was developed because many doctors tended to be too aggressive in treatment. You’d have patients who were going downhill, people who were very sick, who just wanted to have a few months of life that weren’t structured by the schedule of hospital visits, but the doctor would always want “another round” of chemo, another procedure, try this new experimental thing, this new technology.
If anything, doctors tended to “err on the side of life” too much, tended to overlook what the patient actually felt, didn’t ask the patient “is this something that you really want?”
In recent years physicians have increasingly come to understand that the wishes of the patient have to take center stage. It’s the role of the physician to give accurate information, and to present options. But it is the role of the patient to decide what options he or she wants to employ. This is what patient autonomy is all about.
I think what I don’t get is how there’s a moral obligation to continue life via a feeding tube but no ethical obligation whatsoever to attempt to prolong life via a pacemaker or other kinds of medical treatment.
True, you don’t get it.
I guess my point is that I don’t see consistency between when it’s permissible to terminate some kinds of treatment but not others.
True, you don’t see it.
JamesK, if you don’t see the immorality of this execution, that is your problem. If you don’t “get” Orthodox morality, that is your problem. Possibly a problem with wit – as we have already answered your questions many times (see posts 1 through 130 or so). Go read a book, grapple with the links we gave you, go to Church.
Please stop posting your ignorance over and over and over and over…..
But this whole idea of the medical profession as being infested with them is just wrong
It is correct – you don’t see it because you have a different conception of what a “euthanasia advocates” is. You have a different conception of what man is, who God is.
Which is fine, but because you are a bit dim witted (I just don’t know how else to put it – offense this may be to you) you insist on posting your ignorance over and over and over and over and over and over. We get it – your a modernist – a culture of death advocate – fine – go to http://www.modernism.com where you will be welcomed with open arms and stop harassing Christians…
If anything, doctors tended to “err on the side of life” too much, tended to overlook what the patient actually felt, didn’t ask the patient “is this something that you really want?”
EXACTLY – SELF DETERMINATION IS EVERYTHING TO YOU – WHAT IT IS SOMEBODY WANTS SUBJECTIVELY – WE GET IT – IT’S CALLED “MODERNISM” AND “CULTURE OF DEATH” CAN I MAKE IT ANY CLEARER – WE GET IT!!!!
In recent years physicians have increasingly come to understand that the wishes of the patient have to take center stage.
Right, culture of death is “taking center stage” – now if us ignorant Christians would just shut up and fall in line – WE GET IT!!!!
It’s the role of the physician to give accurate information, and to present options. But it is the role of the patient to decide what options he or she wants to employ. This is what patient autonomy is all about.
ARE YOU INSANE!!!! YOU ALREADY SAID THIS AT LEAST A FREAKIN 100 OF TIMES!!!! WE GET IT!!!!! YOUR ALL ABOUT SELF DETERMINATION – THE “RIGHT TO DEFINE’S ONE OWN CONCEPT OF EXISTANCE” AS YOUR HIGH PRIESTS PUT IT…WE GET IT!!!!
Now, please go to http://www.IWorshiptheSupremeCourt.com
THIS IS ORTHODOXYTODAY!!!!!!!
Christopher writes: “JamesK, if you don’t see the immorality of this execution, that is your problem.”
Are you off your psychotropic meds or something? Look, I’m asking a simple question: under what circumstances is it immoral to discontinue or avoid using the use of medical technology to preserve or continue life?
Give me a useful, practical definition from an Orthodox link if you wish.
Note 135 Jacobse writes:
And again, the issue isn’t in the WHAT but in the HOW.
Giving food and water by cutting into the skin, through the fascia, through the muscle and into the stomache is not the same as walking up and offering someone a loaf of bread and a glass of water.
In the first place when you offer the glass of water and the loaf of bread the person is in a position to choose whether to accept those items from you, accept those items from someone else because they don’t like YOU or they don’t trust you or to not accept those items at all.
From the discussion it appears you are trying to say is that from the Orthodox perspective the only thing that is important is what YOU want. It matters that you want to give the bread and the water. It matters that you think everyone would want your bread and water.
What it appears you are trying to tell me is that from an Orthodox perspective the HOW of accomplishing what you want to accomplish is not relevant nor is it relevant whether someone WANTS to accept your gift of food and water.
From all that has been said, particularly by Christopher who seems to be the self appointed expert on what is Orthodox and what is not, it appears the lessons to be learned here are simple and child like in their simplicity: 1. we don’t care what you want, we will force our will upon you. 2. if you don’t think like us then you aren’t right in the head. 3. Everyone SHOULD think like us. 4. If you don’t think EXACTLY like us on every topic and issue then you can’t be one of us. 5. If you aren’t one of us then we wouldn’t want you so go away.
Almost seems like the rules one would expect to find on a small boys treehouse or clubhouse door.
Bottom line:
You took “do what is right” and perverted it into “decide what is right for everyone else”
JamesK, the BIG part of the puzzle you are missing is that you expect (demand?) legalism from Orthodoxy just as it exists in western Chritianity and certainly in modernism. You aren’t going to find it. Sorry. Ofen within western Christianity, morality is the way to God. Just the opposite within the Church.
When God is removed from the equation, the really absurd statement that doctors are only there to guide begins to come into play. Without God individual choice becomes paramount. We begin to lead our lives on the basis of our own knowledge of good and evil. That is the perfection of the fallen state which is death. The “culture of death” is all about glorifying the individual above all else. Or as Christopher Fry wrote: “We defend ourselves against pain and death, by pain and death…”
Christopher (not Fry) is neither tactful nor elegant but he has a point, although he is not specific enough. He says “go to church” but that alone won’t do it or Dean S. would have it already. It is much more than that. It comes back to what it means to be a person. Unfortunately, modernism and post-moderism always attempt to define being (if it is considered at all) separate from God. We attempt to make God in our image and likeness rather than the other way around.
Again, the world (and unfortunately you it seems) have it backwards: God is determined by each individual. NO!!!!! You, Christopher, all of us are confirmed as persons by God. We have no being, no life, NOTHING without God. The ultimate expression of our life in God is community, not the individual. Yet each of us comes to Him in our own unique way and each of us adds to the whole. Each person comes to our deepest personhood only in our communion with God and through Him with each other. Yet what is unique about each of us in not destroyed, only enhanced.
Legalism is the attempt to force uniformity in an effort to create a false community. Uniformity is not unity.
As long as all it takes is food and water to maintain the soul/body unity as in Terri’s case it is obvious that she was still at some deep level still in communion with God, perhaps in a way more profound than she had ever experienced in her life. In a living, functioning community that would never have been taken from her. In a living, functioning community focused on God as has been revealed through Jesus Christ and the Church, many of the answers to the questions our technology raise will be found. Outside the Church especially in the atomized modern world that is destroying all culture there are no answers.
Tristram Engelhardt is a well known authority on bioethics, a physician and ethicist and quite Orthodox. His approach often comes down to “repent and be baptised.” In the midst of international gatherings of esteemed and learned men he will confront them with the poverty of worldly thought and directly tell them that. My brother, an Orthodox priest, was invited to one such conference in Germany not long ago. He told me after he returned that he had nothing to offer in the discussions, in fact could not even follow the course of many of them. Yet there he sat, honored by Dr. Engelhardt as a priest. At one point during one of his presentations Dr. Engelhardt pointed to a few of the attendees, calling them by name and saying, “You need to be baptized, we have a priest here, we have a stream outside…” Unfortunately, no one took up the invitation.
The Orthodox answer, the Chrisitan answer, as impractical as it may seem, is founded on the words Jesus Himself used at the beginning of His earthly ministry: “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”.
note 144 Michael Bauman writes:
Is this and the entire content of note 144 consistent with Orthodox beleif? If so I finally have found what I have been looking for- something valuable.
Awesome! (as juvenile and exuberant as that is)
Please tell me this is what everyone here has been trying to get at.
I think this puts everything into a new perspective for me. Sorry if I have been a thorn. I appreciate your tolerance of me even as I provoked some people and raised the ire of others. I honestly wanted to understand the Orthodox point of view.
Michael writes: “As long as all it takes is food and water to maintain the soul/body unity as in Terri’s case it is obvious that she was still at some deep level still in communion with God, perhaps in a way more profound than she had ever experienced in her life. In a living, functioning community that would never have been taken from her. In a living, functioning community focused on God as has been revealed through Jesus Christ and the Church, many of the answers to the questions our technology raise will be found. Outside the Church especially in the atomized modern world that is destroying all culture there are no answers.”
I have followed the Schiavo discussion here for as long as it has been going on. I’ve seen people be outraged, doctors denounced, lawyers denounced, judges denounced, Michael Schiavo denounced, and so on. I usually get denounced on a regular basis. Now Amazed is denounced by the self-appointed “denouncer.” JamesK will be denounced shortly, if he hasn’t been already.
What I’ve always waited for, always hoped for, is some sense from the people here of how they would do it differently. By “it” I don’t mean the Schiavo case. I mean the whole system of ethical principles and laws that govern how ALL such cases are handled in the larger society.
As you say, in “a living, functioning community focused on God as has been revealed through Jesus Christ and the Church” a lot of these questions would be answered. Or more precisely, they wouldn’t even be asked. But to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you deal with the community you have, not with the community you might want or wish to have.
So if the Orthodox have all this medical ethics stuff figured out for a theoretical community in which everyone has the same beliefs, well, that’s just wonderful. But that does nothing for the larger society.
I have attempted, time and again, to try to discern what system of medical ethics the Orthodox would have to offer the larger society, the society that reflects the reality on the ground. I conclude that they have NOTHING. Absolutely zero. All they can say is “if you all were Orthodox, you wouldn’t ask those questions.” Then they go about their business.
Here’s why I say they have nothing:
ln response to obvious questions, all Christopher can say is “wrong question.” He never says what the right question is. I think the “right question” must be some kind of Orthodox secret, like a password or a secret handshake. The Orthodox themselves know what it is, but they can’t tell anyone else.
In fact, Christopher thinks that even asking questions is “harassment.” “How dare you ask questions on an Orthodox site!” he says.
A couple of ordinary people like Amazed and me walk in off the street, point out some facts, try to engage people in the discussion, and the home team has to grab rifles and circle the wagons for protection. The Orthodox outnumber the “modernists” here, the blog owner controls what articles that get posted, and the Orthodox can label, call names, and insult with impunity. They have every home court advantage. But when a couple people from the other team show up, Christopher drops the ball and runs up into the bleachers, gravely insulted. How dare they! What gives them the idea that they can come into Orthodox Memorial Stadium and compete with us! The nerve!
Amazed and I recommend reading the case record, but Fr. Hans “doesn’t have time” to do that. He has time, over the last few years, to post 96 articles on Schiavo, according to the left sidebar. But he doesn’t have time to read the case record. How easy it is to denounce people who have the wrong ideas, but how hard it is to actually inform oneself. Of course, within Orthodoxy he doesn’t need to inform himself, because everyone already agrees with him. Uniformity of opinion solves all sorts of problems.
The Orthodox point of view is apparently so ineffable and so incomprehensible that “modernists” have no chance of understanding it. Modernists, of which there are probably only 200 million in the U.S., are so utterly clueless that it’s beneath the dignity of the Orthodox even to try to explain it. It’s just “if you were one of us, you would understand. But you’re not, so forget it. And why are you even bothering me about that.”
Well isn’t that precious.
So apparently you guys have all this stuff figured out within Orthodoxy. But good luck ever trying to sell it on the outside. As you say, “outside the church there are no answers.” And I would add, inside the church there are no questions. To the extent that the Orthodox are unable or unwilling to engage the outside world in debate and discussion, the Orthodox become irrelevant to the outside world.
In the final analysis, all the Orthodox have to offer the outside world is “become like us.” So really, why even denounce “culture of death” physicians and attorneys? Why denounce Michael Schiavo? You’re ultimately denouncing them for not being Orthodox. But surely you knew that already.
So you all just stay within the walls of the Orthodox Church. You’ll be safe there, you and the other fraction of a percent of the population that are Orthodox. Meanwhile, people like me will actually try to work with the other 99.5 percent of the population, and try to construct and improve the ethical and legal framework in which these issues are addressed. And when I walk by the church, you can yell and me.
Nte 142. Amazed quotes me and then retorts:
No, the issue here is why you hide behind the euphemism.
Why are you so eager to pull the feeding and hydration tubes Amazed? And why hide behind euphemism to justify it?
BTW, still waiting for a defense of your point that starvation and dehydration are perfectly humane ways to kill people because it’s natural.
Amazed, you say,
A few comments:
As a member of the Orthodox Church, Christopher has the right and responsibility to speak of the Church. Each of us is also subject to correction, if need be, by our fellow believers and the Church as a whole. Christopher is not “self-appointed” but he may not be correct in all things.
1. Force is not part of genuine Christianity and no one here has said anything about forcing anything on anybody (except those who believe killing Terri was right)
2&3 The path to salvation is narrow. Orthodox means, in part, right belief. It would be rather strange if we did not believe that as we draw closer to God our thoughts will be more like His thoughts. The thoughts of fallen man are insane.
4. It is not the thoughts that separate it is the orientation toward Jesus Christ and union with Him.
5. Again, speaking for myself, I am willing to engage anyone as long as the other person is respectful and listening. My frustration stems from having to go over the same thing with the same people time and time and time and time….again when there is no visible attempt to engage either our foundational beliefs or our critique of modernity. Often much of what we understand is held up to ridicule and/or dismissed as without reality or substance. To come onto an Orthodox blog simply to dispute our beliefs is not profitable (not to mention rude), you will not prevail nor will you learn anything. If that is the case, you really have no good reason to be here.
You took “do what is right” and perverted it into “decide what is right for everyone else”
Uh hu. You got it. We Christians are no different than the Jihadists; Just a bunch of fundamentalist who want to impose a theocracy. Our cover is blown. Your quite clever, figuring out the “truth” in only 140 posts or so.
Now, why are you posting here at OrthdoxyToday?
Michael, what I think I’m looking for is something like this:
Christopher states that Terri served a “role” in the state she was in, a state which Orthodox moral theology mandates she remain in by utilizing the medical technology currently being used at the time. He mocks and insults those of us who question whether, after 15 years, that role was perhaps sufficiently lived out. Yet, we are expected to accept the premise that denying oneself other types of medical technology that are even less invasive than a feeding tube for an even shorter duration is not a refusal to “live out that role”. Why? This is not a consistent application of morality.