Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Whatever

So I'm going to do a Terri Schiavo post. I'm sorry.

What I find sickening about this whole ordeal is how peoples opinions seem to fall down party lines. If I hear one more liberal say "permanent vegitative state" or one more conservative say that this is a "right to life" issue, well, I'll cringe just like the last hundred times it happened.

To me there are two important issues that drive to the core of this whole thing:
  1. Did she really not want to be allowed to live in her present state?
  2. Is it morally okay to dehydrate a person to death?
I don't really see how a person could answer those questions based on their political beliefs. Basically, you believe the husband or you don't. I don't see how your stance on the financial policy should affect that.

--STOP READING NOW--

I didn't think I wanted to do this but what the heck. I don't think the husband has her best interests in mind. Apparently, he was able to hire a great lawyer for the court hearing that decided Terri's wishes. He had just recieved $300K from the malpractice lawsuit. Her parents however had to beg an inexperienced lawyer to help them. Given a fair fight who knows what the judge would have ruled her wishes to be.

I am also of the opinion that if you are going to euthanize someone, just do it. It's one thing to shut off a respirator but don't pretend that keeping food and water from someone isn't killing them. Not to mention that some people might think providing food and water to people on death row is an "extraordinary measure". It's not like your actually killing them.

Okay. I'm sorry.

mwz
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