{"id":428,"date":"2003-11-05T00:03:54","date_gmt":"2003-11-05T08:03:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2003\/11\/05\/terri-schiavo-is-dead\/"},"modified":"2003-11-05T00:03:54","modified_gmt":"2003-11-05T08:03:54","slug":"terri-schiavo-is-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=428","title":{"rendered":"Terri Schiavo is Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amy Welborn <\/a>quotes a newspaper columnist:<\/p>\n

I have to admit my own ulterior motives here. I have a 20-year old sister who has severe cerebral palsy. She cannot walk, or talk, or sit up on her own. In many ways, she resembles Terri Schiavo. Doctors don’t call it a “persistent vegetative state” (because there is no incentive in my sister’s case to do so), but it has much the same effect.<\/div>\n

I’ve seen this going around lately: the right-wing is glooming onto the arguments of disabled rights activists in order to argue that Terri Schiavo’s <\/a>body must be kept alive at any cost. Allowing Terri Schiavo to die, we are told, is the equivalent of murdering Stephen Hawking, or that newspaper columnist’s little sister.<\/p>\n

As it happens, the disabled activists have a good point, especially when it comes to media coverage of the case. It’s degrading when reporters bring up Terri Schiavo’s inability to talk, or to feed and care for herself, as if these things determined the worth or lack of worth of a human life. That’s ridiculous: there is infinitely more to existence than the ability to wipe one’s own rear end.<\/p>\n

However, as applied to Terri Schiavo, the argument is nonsense.<\/p>\n

Look, I’m convinced that people can have meaningful, great lives without talking, walking, eating unassisted or controlling one’s bowels. What I’m not convinced of is that Terri Schiavo can have a meaningful existence if she can’t think<\/i>. Here’s how <\/a>Florida’s 2nd court of appeals described Terri’s medical condition:<\/p>\n

Although the physicians were not in complete agreement concerning the extent of the daughter’s brain damage, they all agreed that the brain scans showed extensive permanent damage to her brain. They only debate between the doctors was whether she had a small amount of isolated living tissue in her cerebral cortex or whether she had no living tissue in her cerebral cortex.<\/div>\n

Without a cerebral cortex, Terri Schiavo cannot think. She cannot feel. She cannot experience.<\/p>\n

There’s a huge gulf between being disabled and being unable to think, feel, or experience. It’s the gulf between being alive and being dead. Terri Schiavo is dead, and has been dead for years; to compare her condition to folks who are alive and disabled is, it seems to be, an insult to disabled people everywhere. (Obviously, many disabled activists disagree with me).<\/p>\n

How can anyone say that Terri Schiavo can still lead a fulfilling life, when “fulfillment” itself can’t be experienced without a cerebral cortex?.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amy Welborn quotes a newspaper columnist: I have to admit my own ulterior motives here. I have a 20-year old sister who has severe cerebral palsy. She cannot walk, or talk, or sit up on her own. In many ways, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,114],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disabled-rights-issues","category-terri-schiavo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428","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=428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}