[Apologetics] Life Support

[Stuart D. Gathman]

On Fri, 25 Mar 2005, Stuart D. Gathman wrote:

> On Fri, 25 Mar 2005, Dianne Dawson wrote:
> 
> > Nutrition and hydration is NOT life support.  From the e-mails it seems that
> > we all agree on that.
> 
> Yes.  However, Florida law allows the legal guardian to withhold food and
> water from a PVS patient.  So, if Terri is indeed PVS, then Michael is
> within his legal rights to starve her to death.  

Let me revisit this after further research.

Some time ago, feeding tubes were legally defined as "life support"
thanks to the Nancy Cruzan case.  Catholics and I would disagree with
this, of course, but hang on...

Since Terri has a feeding tube, and a feeding tube is defined as
"life support", the Media says "Terri is on life support", and
feel justified in saying so, and objections are dismissed as
ignorant ranting.

However, Terri is not totally dependent on the feeding tube.  In her
case it is a convenience, not a necessity.  Hence, for practical
purposes, Terri is *not* on life support (although by legal definition,
she *is* on life support).

But how to communicate this to the masses without getting dismissed
as ignorant?

I've decided to drop the PVC/MCS distinction.  The only thing that
matters is that Terri doesn't absolutely need the feeding tube,
it is keeping food and water away that is killing her.

But try to look at it from a "right to die" perspective for a moment:

Why not just kill her by lethal injection?  

Well, that would be more humane, but is clearly not legal.  It *is* legal to
disconnect life support.  The feeding tube is life support, so we can
disconnect it. 

Why not let people feed her by hand, then?

Feeding Terri without a tube is an 8-hour a day job.  Those pro-lifers might
feed her without the tube for a few months, until they get tired of it.  Then
she'll be neglected, and suffer over a long period of time.  It would be much
better to kill her now than have her neglected because manual feeding is so
hard - so we'll prohibit manual feeding.  We can't legally give her a lethal
injection, so we'll just remove the tube, prohibit hand feeding, and
let her starve and dehydrate.  That is at least better than long
term neglect.

Of course, the obvious solution is to give Michael a divorce (he doesn't
seem to care much about Catholic marriage), and turn Terri over to her parents
for long term care.  But this has become the Roe v. Wade of euthanasia.  I'll
wager Michael will come to his senses in a few decades, like "Roe" did.  My
take is that he came under the influence of the truly evil George Felos when he
despaired of hope in the third year of Terri's disability (see my Story of
Terri), and once Felos is done with him, he will find Grace.

-- 
	      Stuart D. Gathman <stuart at bmsi.com>
    Business Management Systems Inc.  Phone: 703 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154
"Confutatis maledictis, flamis acribus addictis" - background song for
a Microsoft sponsored "Where do you want to go from here?" commercial.