Saturday, March 26, 2005

 

Mercy or Murder?

For the past week I have been engrossed by the story ofTerry Schiavo,who at age 26 Image hosted by Photobucket.com suffered heart failure that left her like thisImage hosted by Photobucket.com.

For the past 15 years she has been kept alive by a feeding tube which has now been removed by a court order.

Her parents are fighting to have the tube reinserted while the husband insists that Terry would have wanted to die rather than be kept alive in such a state.My first reaction was it is better that she dies because who wants to be kept alive in such a state.And I could not understand why after 15 years the parents are still unwilling to let go.But,I suppose you never ever give up hope and they must harbor the faint hope that she will one day come out of the vegetative state.It must also be very hard to standby and watch your daughter starving to death and being unable to do anything to help.

I find that to be a lot of pain for anyone to have to endure.Which parent would find that easy? A few years ago a family friend had to make a decision about turning off life support for his 11 yr old son.Up to this day he still says it is the hardest thing he has ever had to do and he still wonders if he made the right decision.If the daughter could have said to them she wants to go then am sure they would be more accepting.

Coming out of all of this is the need to make living wills,says the experts.Of course hardly anybody thinks of dying when you are that young.Maybe now we would be forced to make preparations for when we would want the plug pulled if it ever comes to that.

By the time I post this Terry Schiavo might be already gone to her resting place.There is a debate about right to die but am really not sure she is being allowed to die.It seems quite close to being "murdered".

Comments:
I was wondering howcome no one hadn't commented on this case before. I think it is quite a hard decision on both the parents and the husband. But the husband do have the legal say on his wife. 15yrs is trully a long time, and I sincerely think that she's only getting worst and not better as her bones are detoriating, and so is any life she had left. I think it's pure misery to be live like that.
In my opinion she's already dead. She can't speak, respond, walk, talk anything...so what's the purpose. Not to mention her continuing medical bills to be kept alive.
Of course in America, all the pro-lifers who are not there to see to her daily need will come out of the woodworks and cry all kinds of fowl, but where are they when the family is suffering and enduring.
 
Camp,I agree that her quality of life is bad and I won't want to live like that.But the thing is she breathing and so on her own so it is not just like taking off life support.Is the starving to death I got a problem with.
 
Let me say it here, Kami. If something like that happens to me, kill me. I don't want to hang around like that. DO NOT starve me. Do what the doctor suggested in the comments on my blogpost on this issue, or even do what I suggested in the post itself. I don't much care which, just make whatever is done quick and as painless as possible.
 
Yeah,how hard is it to give her a lethal injection instead of starving her.They say it not painful but I have my doubts
 
Hi Kami, We're past the "quite close to" scenario. She IS being murdered.
There has to be a more humane way of doing this than by starving the young lady to death. I am not advocating the rightness or wrongness of mercy killing as that is another issue entirely but this cannot be an acceptable means.
 
dunno.. but i do know that it doesnt feel right.. everything about this feels not right!

swagato
 
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