on killing people who are in a coma
it’s not really a precedent that is being set by the terri shiavo case other than a precedent of the media caring a little about what happens. this kind of thing happens a lot. the issue is that terri shiavo said that she does not want to be kept on life support and her husband has the right to make the decision for her, serving with power of attorney when she is in a vegetative state. her husband simply chose to go against her wishes for a while and her parents don’t want to honor her wish. but we allow people to choose whether or not their spouses will be kept on life support all the time and this is really no different than that at all except that she had made a statement that she did not want to live like that before she became bulimic and put herself in a coma and her husband chose not to honor her statement until like halfway through the coma.
further, i think that it shows why euthanasia can be good policies. i don’t think euthanasia should be allowed for anyone. probably i don’t even think this for people with degenerative diseases. roger, steph, joe, steve and i went to see the sea inside which is a movie about ramon sampedro who was a spanish quadrupulegic who fought for his right to die for about 30 years and eventually committed suicide “illegally”. his basic point was that he didn’t want to live but he couldn’t kill himself. and if he could kill himself then he would do it but since he required the help of other people to do it it would be looked at as murder. but he eventually found a way that nothing anyone done would be illegal enough for them to get in any legal trouble. i think its pretty fair analysis especially considering that while suicide is illegal, we don’t punish those who attempt suicide with legal repurcussions. i basically don’t feel that its necessary for me to fight for that “right”. however, in the case of people like terri shiavo, its already legal for the decision to be made to remove her from the machine. so she will no longer have food and die. this means that she is going to starve to death over a period of about seven days. what the fuck? we just DO this to people? whether or not she notices i think it would probably be alright to do it by injection so that she doesn’t feel pain when it happens. and that shouldn’t be viewed as any different than removing the feeding tube. it just seems pretty barbaric that its legal to starve someone but not to euthanize them in the same situation.
ps. she was bulimic right? doesn’t it seem odd then that she dies by perfect anorexia?