portents

Sometime in the early 1990s a friend of mine suffered a freak accident. While at dinner with friends, he choked on some food, and for whatever reason, it could not be dislodged. The shock triggered a heart attack. In the end, he was without oxygen for well over ten minutes.

He was revived, although not without suffering severe brain damage. I am no expert on such matters, but it is safe to call his condition at least partially vegetative: though he seems aware (at some level) of the presence of others, he cannot communicate. What is more, his arms are permanently curled towards his chest so that they resemble the forelegs of a praying mantis.

A few years back, I learned that he was being cared for in a veterans' home here in Indiana. We've visited twice; I'm ashamed to admit that I've passed up several further opportunities. During our first visit, I met his father, who told of how his son's feeding tube was causing frequent infections. There had been several recent trips from the home to the hospital. In the end the family decided to have the tube removed, believing that death would soon follow.

But he lived. The main difference between his case and that of the now-deceased Terri Schiavo is that the nurses at the veterans' home patiently fed him by mouth. It was a difficult process at first—his weight dropped precipitously—but then he stabilized, and then even managed to gain back some of what he had lost. The long-term prognosis is of course not good: one cannot intake sufficient vital nutrients from a diet of popsicles. Yet it seems that he just isn't done living.

Back when his father told me of the decision to remove the feeding tube, I didn't really think much on it: the choice seemed tragic, but in the end not morally objectionable. But then, the intent in my friend's situation was not to kill—or if you prefer, to hasten death. Contrast that with the Schiavo case, in which a judge not only ordered cessation of feeding by artificial means, but further decreed that she not be given any oral sustenance, under penalty of criminal trespass.

In what other situation might one be arrested for giving a drink of water?

We stand at a crossroads. One way leads to active euthanasia, which in the Netherlands is proof positive that not all slippery-slope arguments are fallacious. In this country we often take a different path, using extraordinary interventions to futilely extend life for a few hours or days. Somewhere between these extremes we must find our way. But consensus is difficult: whereas I have concluded that removal of artificial sustenance is sometimes justifiable, others of a similarly pro-life persuasion disagree vehemently.

Still, I hope that most will agree that denial of food and water by mouth cannot be construed as anything but premeditated killing, and that a legal mandate does not render it any less so.

Gerard Van der Leun has been writing eloquently on this grimmest of affairs.

AT SOME POINT LAST WEEK, caught between the online Scylla and Charybdis of the Democratic Underground and the Free Republic, I began to understand that common humanity in general, myself included, was not going to be advanced no matter what the resolution of the Terri Schiavo matter. Indeed, it didn't seem to matter what your opinion was, you were going to be — as these things go now in America — dragged into the mire along with the rest of the country. Once it became clear that there would be no reprieve for this woman, but that the sentence of death-by-starvation-for-her-own good was set in stone, the entire country was condemned to be tainted by the unfolding spectacle.

If I had any doubts about this, they were swept away yesterday when watching one of the “reporters” on the scene tell us yet again that Michael Schiavo's attorney, George Felos — the now superstar of Right-to-Die lawyers — said, yet again, that he'd “never seen Terri look so beautiful, so at peace.” Within a few minutes, the same or another reporter (it really doesn't matter, does it?) felt compelled, utterly compelled, to tell us that Mrs. Schiavo was receiving morphine, a substance well known for putting the recipient 'at peace.'

Then, just as I wondered how, in the face of the court order prohibiting all food and fluids, Mrs. Schiavo could have received the morphine, the reporter — a professional without a hint of shame in her voice or on her face — filled myself and the nation in. It would seem that the 'nurses' at her 'caring hospice' had gotten around the letter of the court order by giving Mrs. Schiavo a morphine suppository.

It was at that moment that I felt a wave of revulsion suffuse me. It was soon replaced by disgust directed at the reporter for reporting it, myself for listening to it, and the entire country for having let itself and its institutions slide into a slime-pit where that sort of detail was communicated without hesitation or shame to any and all who would listen. It was, after all, only our vaunted “right to know” that was being honored above all our other readily-assumed “rights” this vile example of the “rule of law” had brought to the fore.

That we have all been sullied by this spectacle can scarcely be denied. Some from my side in the culture wars have not distinguished themselves of late. But then I think on those who see this death—shorn of every last shred of dignity—as a kind of victory, and I wonder where we will go from here.

I think on those who see this death—shorn of every last shred of dignity—as a kind of victory, and I wonder where we will go from here.

I don't buy that any but the hard Left could possibly see this as a victory. That language is part of the problem. Taranto sunk pretty low in my estimation with his baseless & demagogic insistence that any who disagreed with him were slavering for Schiavo's death. Buckley - a staunch Catholic & far greater thinker than Taranto - said the language of killing & genocide was grostesque & disgraceful.

Jeff,

I had in mind two sorts when I wrote that. First, as you said, the hard Left—who like the hard Right see everything through the prism of cultural warfare.

The second group is that portion of the cultural left—New England liberals and the like—who seem to regard European society as inherently superior to our own. Some in this class (though not all) would like nothing better than to import wholesale the Dutch program of euthanasia, what with its ever-broadening definitions of what constitutes allowable interventions.

Do some in this second group regard the Schiavo outcome as a victory? Without doubt—maybe not with smug satisfaction, but is a you-gotta-break-a-few-eggs dismissal any less vile?

I didn't write about this case for two weeks, mostly because of mixed feelings over the matter. Like you, I've experienced fundamentalism up close and personal, and do not relish the memories. The whole point of the story I told is that I do realize that things are not going to be simple in such end-of-life situations. A consensus—if such a thing is even possible—must allow a certain discretion for families and physicians.

But certain things are, and should remain, morally repugnant. Like not allowing a parent to give a child (whether grown or not) a drink of water.

It seems like little attention is being paid to the slovenly nature of the laws of state of Florida. How was it that a slut like Michael Schiavo could still be allowed to exercise guardianship over Terri Schindler? As soon as he wandered off and bedded down with the other woman, it should have been a mere matter of paperwork to have his guardianship status terminated. His adultery should have been sufficient indication that whatever marital status had existed between him and Terri Schindler was no longer in effect.

I am a baby-boomer and have long assumed that my generation will be subjected willy-nilly to euthanasia, to rescue the finances of the Welfare State. Some welfare.