{"id":1460,"date":"2005-04-05T07:09:13","date_gmt":"2005-04-05T15:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/04\/05\/yet-another-new-terri-schiavo-thread\/"},"modified":"2005-04-05T07:09:13","modified_gmt":"2005-04-05T15:09:13","slug":"yet-another-new-terri-schiavo-thread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1460","title":{"rendered":"Yet another new Terri Schiavo thread"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the previous Terri Schiavo thread<\/a> threatens to reach 500 posts, I thought I’d start a new thread. Please use this thread to continue any discussions started on the three previous extra-huge Schiavo discussion threads.<\/p>\n

To start us off, a few links:<\/p>\n

The Gimp Parade<\/a> has a collection of links to articles by disabled activists about the Schiavo case and its related issues. From Harriet McBryde Johnson’s Slate article<\/a>:<\/p>\n

There is a genuine dispute as to what Ms. Schiavo believed and expressed about life with severe disability before she herself became incapacitated; certainly, she never stated her preferences in an advance directive like a living will. If we assume that Ms. Schiavo is aware and conscious, it is possible that, like most people who live with severe disability for as long as she has, she has abandoned her preconceived fears of the life she is now living. We have no idea whether she wishes to be bound by things she might have said when she was living a very different life. If we assume she is unaware and unconscious, we can’t justify her death as her preference. She has no preference.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think Johnson has a good point regarding changing preferences. However, if we accept that point, then why does it make a difference whether or not someone leaves a living will? If someone who is not yet disabled lacks the information needed to make an informed choice about life while disabled – and it seems to me that is probably true – then they don’t magically become more informed if they leave their wishes in the form of a living will, rather than in the form of talking to their spouses and loved ones.<\/p>\n

See also this Washington Post<\/em> article<\/a>, which respectfully quotes disabled activists on both sides of the Schiavo issue (is that fair because it doesn’t pretend that all disabled activists agree, or unfair because it gives undue prominence to marginal dissenters from a genuine consensus?), and this critique of the disabled rights argument<\/a> by Cathy Young. (Like Young, I just can’t get over my belief that there is a substantial difference between being disabled and having no cerebral cortex to speak of). Both links via Disability Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

An “Alas” reader George F pointed out this article, “Before the Circus,”<\/a> by a journalist who visited Terri Schiavo several years ago.<\/p>\n

Back then, both sides were civil to one another. No one disputed that Terri was in a persistent vegetative state and had been for a decade. Or that an eating disorder probably had led to Terri’s cardiac arrest and collapse, not physical abuse by Michael as some now contend.<\/p>\n

Nobody was a murderer, an abuser, an adulterer, a fanatic, a liar. They were just family, trying their best to do right by their daughter, wife, sister. […]<\/p>\n

After all these years, what haunts me is something Terri’s brother once said: “If Terri knew what this had done to this family, she would go ballistic.”<\/p>\n

And he told me that before <\/em>things spun out of control.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And, finally, a Schiavo-inspired post from the blog Transterrestrial Musings<\/a>, which is noodling about with the question of self and soul. If we replaced someone’s brain with a mechanical brain, but the person still “feels” like herself, then does she still have a soul?<\/p>\n

To the degree that I understand the concept of the soul, I can’t believe that it is associated simply with a body, living or breathing. To the degree that I believe in souls, I think of it as a different word for “mind.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the previous Terri Schiavo thread threatens to reach 500 posts, I thought I’d start a new thread. Please use this thread to continue any discussions started on the three previous extra-huge Schiavo discussion threads. To start us off, a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}