Strength of Wills

Song Lyric of the Day:

Papers in the roadside / Tell of suffering and greed / Here today, forgot tomorrow / Ooh, here besides the news / Of holy war and holy need / Ours is just a little sorrowed talk

Duran Duran / “Ordinary World”

10:16AM.
Before I can get back into my usual routine of writing about light, fluffy pop culture topics, I have to talk about the dominant news story of the past week: the Terri Schiavo case.

As a news junkie, I have of course been following this story very closely. I won’t bother weighing in on whether or not I think she should be allowed to die, as it is not my place to speak for her or her family. Who am I to tell someone to give up all hope? Bottom line is, she did not leave any written directive, which is why her husband and parents have been fighting the last several years over whether or not she should be allowed to live or die. My real problem is that the president and Congress have intervened in what should, any way you look at it, be a private family matter. The poor woman (and her loved ones) are being used as political pawns at this point. The Washington Post has an article about how Terri truly is the most unfortunate victim in all of this—the courts, the politicians, and most of the media have allowed dehumanized her. She is now not so much someone’s wife, someone’s daughter, someone’s sister, as she is a tool to be used to further political agendas. And that should frighten all of us, because where will it stop? Who will be next? What private, basic rights might we have taken away? We execute criminals mostly by lethal injection, because it’s considered “humane” to do so. And yet we are allowing a woman to slowly starve/dehydrate to death because this is how the law dictates it be done. Were someone to have administered a drug that would allow her a quick, painless death, it would be considered murder (but not if she were on death row). Go figure.

I can say that the Terri Schiavo case has made me realize that Rich and I need to put some very important things in writing—we do not have wills or living wills at this point in time. And, while still young, it never hurts to be prepared. I have also realized that we need to find out our parents’ and siblings’ wishes for these situations. I know how my mom feels, which is the same as me: if the doctors say we would not be able to live without being hooked up to machines, and there were no hope for recovery, we would not want to be kept alive in that state. To us, there is a clear difference between being alive and living. And no matter how hard it is to let your loved ones go (regardless of the circumstances that put them in such a state), we would want to do right and honor their wishes. Written directives would help in that they would provide the guidance needed in a highly emotional situation, when no one is well-prepared to make such an important decision for someone else.

I wonder if Terri didn’t reside in a state governed by the president’s brother, would her case be the media circus it is now? I wonder if she had left a written directive stating that she did not want to be kept alive in this state, would her parents disregard that directive and continue to fight to keep their daughter alive? We already know what Michael Schiavo thinks.

I pray that the medical industry is right and that due to Terri’s persistent vegetative state any pain she feels is minimal, and that she passes on peacefully whenever the time comes.

I pray that her family (and husband) can live with the decisions that have been made.

Most of all, I pray that if I were ever faced with this decision, my loved one will have left a directive to guide me. Because I don’t think I could make this type of decision all on my own.