Monday, March 28, 2005

The whole Terry Schiavo thingy

Lead Pipe Cruelty

Patton over at Opinion8 has actually managed to draw a conclusion out of the morass that is the Terry Schialvo Cluster@#!?%.  For that, I salute him.  But in the end, his conclusion is that there really isn’t much we can say for certain, though he pads this thought with some interesting bits about the media and other things as well.  Go read it.  But his piece actually pulled into slightly clearer focus my own mixed bag of thoughts on the matter.

Throughout this whole media ordeal, I have found myself wondering, “Why is it so necessary to pull the plug?” Sure, the husband has the legal right (proven at great length and, likely, cost) to make that decision for his wife.  And that is the way it should be.  In most cases where we talk about pulling the plug, having do not recussitate orders and the like, it is when the patient is going through, or is expected to suffer, extreme physical pain.  My grandfather had pancreatic cancer, and we used hospice.  They mitigated the (ungodly) pain that he went through, and when the chemo failed to control the cancer, they made his passing as peaceful as could possibly be imagined.  Had heroic measures been used to keep my grandfather alive, at most he would have gained a few weeks or months of hellish suffering.

But the cases are not really similar.  By all accounts, it did not seem that Terry was in any way suffering - just seemingly out of it mentally, and for the long haul.  It did not require extensive medical technology, just a feeding tube and the kind of nursing care that any bedridden senior in a nursing home needs to remain amongst the living.  The parents are willing to bear all the cost and effort of caring for Terry, why is he so intent on pulling the plug? 

And those thoughts led to wondering about his motivation.  He’s still married to Terry, though he has a girlfriend, and children with her.  Why didn’t he get a divorce, or the marriage annulled or something?  What does he have to gain by her death that he wouldn’t get by leaving her behind with her parents and moving on with his life?  I’ve seen reports that he would stand to gain from insurance or malpractice suits - which he would not if he were no longer married to her.  And apparently, the dispute with the parents dated from the first settlement.

I don’t know for sure that this is his motivation - though it seems plausible.  But one thing is sure - that whatever his motivation - he gave a lot of assholes reason to piss in the swimming pool that is our political commons.


Posted by Buckethead on 03/28/05 at 05:27 PM
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