The last few days I have thought about the controversies of the last week. To many bloggers (and, seemingly, all Libertarians) the hearings on drugs in sports were grandstanding. Similarly, they are indifferent to the role Congress and the President have taken on Terri Schiavo. That, too, is said to be posturing and politics.
To me, this sums it all up: That is what we are fighting -- a cultural war to determine who will decide the issues of life and death for all of us. The Death Cult Democrats and their minions in the MSM, funded by the Hollweird Left. Or voters and their elective representatives. Will we allow the MSM and the ACLU and the Right to Die, Right to Drugs crowd to set the precedents that will direct our lives or will WE stand up and actually stand for something. The dignity of life is no small campaign. Whether you believe in abortion or not, there is a need for a great debate. Late term abortions are infanticide. We all know it. Dignity of Death is merely the early stage of Euthanasia. We all know it. Should our "national sport" be wedded to our national appetite for drugs, all subsidized by a legal monopoly and tax breaks? Will we follow the European model and descend into their crass indifference to life? Not without a battle.
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7 comments:
I guess when you put it that way (and by the way, I appreciate your response to my post over the weekend), the choice is:
Does the sanctity of marriage mean anything over the role of someone as a child? (If the husband and the parent are having an honest disagreement, who prevails, and why)
Do you believe that a person would choose to die rather than put her family through the time and expense of her hopeless illness? My experience tells me that the answer to this question is -- yes -- not always, but often enough so that you can't say we're all whatever dirty name you feel like using. Is there a way to accomodate these people? Or does everyone want to live no matter what their quality of life is, and no matter what they are doing to the people around them?
Can the State of Texas keep their law where the hospital can decide that the terminally-ill patient may be taken off life support? Or is the State of Texas now the same thing as Hollywood Liberals?
Finally, when we all agree that the government should only do what God wants, who decides what God wants? Or are we, at long last, down to one denomination?
This is why the issue should be a national debate rather than a dictum by the liberals. This is exactly how we should debate the merit and changes of our laws.
Had Terri Schiavo signed a Living Will, there would, of course, have been no issue. She did not. Many people do not until it is too late. Should all patients be required to have their wishes on file with a doctor or as a requirement when they enter a hospital? And what problems would that entail? Organ harvesting comes to mind.
Is this a "sanctity" of marriage issue? And doesn't law frequently intervene in maritial matters when there is evidence or accusations of ill intent? Was that a factor in the Schiavo case? I think so.
And, no, I agree that I do not believe it is a universal belief that extraordinary (and costly) measures should be avoided. On an emotive level, many of us would not want to live the quality of life of Christopher Reeves after his accident. But he wanted to live it. He fought for it.
I have to research the Texas law, who proposed it, who voted for it, and what the details are. At this point, I have no clear evidence that it is the law.
This isn't a "what God wants" issue. It is a healthy debate and an important one. Our laws and precendents should not be dictated by an un-elected media and circus events staged by marginal groups as an excuse to promote a agenda.
People of good will can find middle ground and we can find the solution. I think. :)
I think the "living will" issue is a strawman.
You can always show that the specifc event someone encounters was not covered by the Living Will.
In the case of my own brother, which I spoke about on the post in my own blog on Monday, he never had the capacity to make a Living Will. If the time comes, I am not anxious to have the collective judgment of the state replace the judgment of our family.
I think that you argued past my point. Christopher Reeve did want to stay alive in his condition (which is a poor example, because he apparently did not suffer brain damager). However, other people base their "death with dignity" decision, in part, on the damage their prolonged illness would have on their family emotionally, and sometimes financially. Decisions in this area need to be respected. Do you agree?
Although I wouldn't impugn your good faith when you say "It isn't what God wants" and we should have a "healthy debate," you wonder, after this weekend, whether or not that train has already left the station.
A living will is pretty straight forward. I know. I used to prepare them for our firm's clients - mostly retirees and retirement homes, hospices, etc. They are standard fare that call for no extraordinary measures to prolong life, etc. etc. They are legally acceptable but not legally binding in all cases.
While I might make a Living Will, my doctor might not want to acknowledge it or my family might not want it carried out under certain conditions where hope exists for a recovery or just where hope exists. Period. This is what is happening with Terri's parents. It defies logic or rational thought, I know, but as a mother I do not know that I can tell another mother to let go and voluntarily pronounce her daughter to be dead when the daughter blinks and smiles and seems to acknowledge the parents. Can you?
The parents, not the State, have fought this battle. They are her family as much as the husband. They appealed to the State of Florida and later the U.S. Congress to help them and those who have assisted have acted in good faith. Not to extend the authority of government, not to interfere with a family, but in good faith to support the parents' legal battle.
Terri Schiavo will die eventually but whether it is from natural causes or starving to death, the battle for her life validates the primacy of human life. We aren't talking about a family pet put to sleep because of old age and infirmaty or discomfort to his owners. There is nothing humane about starving someone to death. That's voluntary termination of life. She's a human being.
Your brother is incapable of signing any legally binding document, so naturally, he is an exception. But suppose you had a sister who shared your care of him once your parents were gone and you disagreed on the termination, what then would you say?
As for this being a God-issue, I am not particularly religious. I do not think of it as a religious issue. I think of it as a philosophical and ethical case where the Right to Die folk keep pushing the damned envelope so that all of us will be visiting the Soylent Green pavilions one day.
Well, I have said enough on my own blogspot today, and over the weekend, and I refer you there, if you want to.
You ask "Aren't parents as much family as husbands?" No, they're not. Spouses are first. That is a factual matter that I disagree with you on. As a legal matter, however, the law has always strongly defended the spouse over the parent, and usually the spouse over the children. It's happening in this case as well. Whether that changes as a result of all this remains to be seen.
The law sometimes favors the adult children over a second wife who is younger than the children.
Parents overturning the will of a 40-year old husband would be very hard to find.
Do you really want your in-laws going to court to meddle in the way you deal with your husband?
I do have a sister, and although we haven't discussed this issue, you can bet we will, because my sister has strong opinions on everything. We can't both make the ultimate decision about my brother, and I hope of course, that matters don't come to that. If they do, however, either my parents, before they die, are going to have to choose one of us to make that decision, at the expense of the other, or we are going to find ourselves in the Schiavo/ Schindler situation. And it would serve us right.
I would respectfully submit that if you don't see this as a God-issue, then the people who you are supporting most definitely do.
And it is fine that they do. Because if we talk about the "primacy of life" without a framework of God to base it on, then what are we talking about?
Why is becoming Soylent Green wrong except that it is against God's law?
Well, if Soylent Green pavilions where people check in to kill themselves isn't immoral and unethical and plain wrong, then I do not know what is.
Depressed people want to check out all the time. Do we encourage the development of places where they can do so at the low ebb of their depressive cycle? You don't have to believe in God to have moral clarity. You don't have to be religious to be ethical. (John Stuart Mill, comes to mind.) You just have to balance the law with ethics and morality (with or without a belief in God) and a developed common sense. If that is supporting religion, then so be it. Perhaps they deserve our accolades and encouragement. I am in the Mill corner.
As for marriage, it is hard to imagine anyone thinking that marriage is a sacrosanct union of two people. It is not. The courts intervene in marriages all the time. Divorce, court ordered custody , restraining orders, the legal right to contest wills, court-orders for removal of children, annulments etc. It seems, too, that parents are as much "family" as a husband, perhaps more so, because you can't divorce your parents. Marriage is a temporary legal contract. The femi-nazis with "no fault" divorce have made it even more so. Parents are forever.
Yeah but implicit in all of that is the notion that all parents are good -- and want what's best for their children -- and that's so not true.
Hate to keep messing with the Bible again, but the primacy of the wife over the parents is right there on page 2, the "leave the parents and cleave to the wife" part. Of course, that means that men are free to choose and women aren't. So maybe that's where matters stand. :-)
Explicit is that you never have the right to choose your family. That you are never a real adult because you are always someone's child first. And I can't believe you mean that, or that you would ever say it but for your desire to find a way to help this one woman this one time.
If we're not even free enough to choose our families, then maybe all those depressed people ought to have the right to die, since we won't have much else to offer them.
The "feminazis" have nothing to do with this. If they were as powerful as you all seem to think they are, Terri's tube would have been gone for many years now.
After all, the "feminazi" argument is that poor mother is so duped into her centuries-old social norm that she doesn't even know how much that child is depriving mother of her potential.
Marriage has to be sacrosanct. If it isn't, we have no vocabulary to discuss any of this, and we are back at square one. There is no basis for anything. And there is no right or wrong or religion or ethics or morals or anything.
Because without some building block principles, there is no way to develop the common sense you approve of so much. There is just power, and might makes right.
Common sense then would just tell you to go where you are most protected, and say the thing that would get you the most prizes.
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