And the removal of Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube has been pushed to the 18th.

[conuly]

Here.

Before people start debating this, let's get the following out of the way:
She doesn't use a ventilator.
She's not "hooked up to a machine" to live.
She isn't on life support, at least not as it's been defined to me.
She uses a feeding tube to eat. Removing this would cause her to starve to death/dehydrate.
Her parents say that she's minimally aware.
Her husband disagrees, and says that she didn't want to live like this.
He is living with another woman.
AFAIK, nothing from the insurance went to cover therapy for her.
It is argued that this therapy could've improved her condition.


Now you can go duke it out in my journal.

Comments

[moggymania.livejournal.com]

"It has everything to do with where I draw the line on what constitutes a person"

I tend to feel that it's not up to others to decide whether a human being is a 'person' or not, especially based on a lack of experience. Doubly so considering that a lot of the time, there's just no way to know what the outcome will be, so assuming 'this can't be a person' makes no sense considering it's not necessarily a static state. (I know at least three people that suffered severe brain injuries and were at the same point Schiavo was, yet with rehab were able to absolutely qualify as what you would call a 'person' -- one became an internationally-respected professor of disability studies.)

"and the absolute horror I feel that I could be in her position some day"

The question is, though, what is horrifying about it? All of the major detractors I'm aware of in that position are socially-engineered rather than inherent, and could thus be altered to *not* be worthy of horror.

"where I'm kept alive half because people I care about would think that I wanted to be that way"

There's an old phrase that fits here really well: you don't know until you've been there. You think right now that you would rather be dead than be in her position, and you *might* be right, but you could also be wrong. Evidence from those that have actually been there shows that once they're in that position, most of the time they *don't* want to die.

"and half because other people are trying to make a point"

Though that's also what you're trying to do -- you evidently would rather she be killed in order to make *your* point.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

The thing is, my point is that she, Terry Shiavo, the living, thinking, being, is, as best we can define, already dead. The body of Terry Shiavo is alive. I don't hold the body so sacred that it should be preserved unoccupied.

You're probably absolutely right that if I'm ever in any similar position, and I have the capacity left to have a preference one way or the other, that I will prefer to live rather than die. What I'm fairly certain of, however, is that I'll prefer being dead to continuing in the state I'm in. Death honestly doesn't scare me. Being scared of being dead is, to me, about like being scared of not being born. It happens, it's inevitable, it's either a state or a nonstate, and either there's something to it or there's nothing at all. Once I'm dead, either I no longer exist, or I get to find out who was right all along. Both of those possibilities are intimidating in their inevitability, but not fearsome. Dying, on the other hand, frankly scares the shit out of me. Still being myself, but slipping away, not being able to do anything about the fact that I'm dying ... my inner coward wants to make it as quick and painless as possible, while my inner control freak wants to have at least some say in the whens and hows of the matter if at all possible.

[conuly]

The thing is, my point is that she, Terry Shiavo, the living, thinking, being, is, as best we can define, already dead.

We don't know that, however. Her family maintains that she responds to them. That, to me, doesn't indicate the same thing you have said. The people saying that, in fact, are hired by her husband - who, as we have seen, has a number of reasons he may wish her dead, many of which do not have to do with her well-being.