Final Note on Terri Schiavo
Okay, so I watched this thing on A&E last night, I think it was called Justice Files? Anyway, it was about the Terri Schiavo case. Being the glutton for punishment that I am, I watched it.
I think that a lot of people have misjudged Michael Schiavo, and I think that a lot of people have misjudged the Schindlers. One of the things I'd only heard rumors of, and pretty much brushed off until last night, was that Michael Schiavo became a nurse after Terri's incident. Not just a CNA - he became a registered nurse, an ER nurse, and a respiratory specialist. And he apparently kept pursuing treatments to try and rehabilitate Terri for a number of years after the initial incident. He and the Schindlers even moved in together at one point in order to take care of Terri. Doctors even asked him, repeatedly, why he wouldn't let her go, and he continued to refuse.
And the Schindlers? They produced a number of video clips to try and woo the judges in the court cases. They claimed that Terri responded to them; they didn't show the hours and hours and hours of tape with no response. They claimed that Terri's face always lit up whenever her mother walked in the room; they didn't show the more numerous incidents of Terri making absolutely no reaction to stimuli, or to her mother's presence, or even to repeated commands to "Open your eyes, Terri."
Can I blame the Schindlers for criticizing Jeb Bush, who was Terri's most ardent champion? Absolutely, and I do. Can I blame them for desperately clinging to hope that their daughter would recover? No, of course not. I also think, though, that all of the criticism heaped on Michael Schiavo by the press and by popular opinion in this country is unfounded. Does he have conflicts of interest? Now he does, but I'm not convinced that he always did, and I'm less and less convinced that he's the demon people have made him into.
Basically, this was a Kobayashi Maru, and it's unfortunate that more people didn't realize that. Unfortunately, it's not surprising that more people didn't realize that, because most people are too lazy to read the entirety of the facts and make an educated, nuanced, complex decision where they stand; they prefer the black and white that they can get from five minutes of news coverage. If there are two things I've learned from this fiasco, they're:
Get myself a living will to make sure that nobody keeps me "alive" like that
People are lazy idiots who base their opinions on issues they're uninvolved with on as little information as possible.
I also think that it's worth noting that those who compared this issue to abortion and doctor-assisted suicide and such were so academically irresponsible, it wasn't even funny. Even when the so-called "right-to-lifers" acknowledged that Mrs. Schiavo may have said she didn't want to be kept alive like that, they passed it off as the wishes of a stupid kid who was allowed to change her mind; they ignored the fact that her doctors said that she didn't have the capacity to "change her mind." Because her body reflexively attempted to stay alive, they claimed that she was "fighting for her life." As a pro-lifer, and someone who's almost completely against euthenasia, I'm ashamed to be associated with these people.
Alright, I'm done.
I think that a lot of people have misjudged Michael Schiavo, and I think that a lot of people have misjudged the Schindlers. One of the things I'd only heard rumors of, and pretty much brushed off until last night, was that Michael Schiavo became a nurse after Terri's incident. Not just a CNA - he became a registered nurse, an ER nurse, and a respiratory specialist. And he apparently kept pursuing treatments to try and rehabilitate Terri for a number of years after the initial incident. He and the Schindlers even moved in together at one point in order to take care of Terri. Doctors even asked him, repeatedly, why he wouldn't let her go, and he continued to refuse.
And the Schindlers? They produced a number of video clips to try and woo the judges in the court cases. They claimed that Terri responded to them; they didn't show the hours and hours and hours of tape with no response. They claimed that Terri's face always lit up whenever her mother walked in the room; they didn't show the more numerous incidents of Terri making absolutely no reaction to stimuli, or to her mother's presence, or even to repeated commands to "Open your eyes, Terri."
Can I blame the Schindlers for criticizing Jeb Bush, who was Terri's most ardent champion? Absolutely, and I do. Can I blame them for desperately clinging to hope that their daughter would recover? No, of course not. I also think, though, that all of the criticism heaped on Michael Schiavo by the press and by popular opinion in this country is unfounded. Does he have conflicts of interest? Now he does, but I'm not convinced that he always did, and I'm less and less convinced that he's the demon people have made him into.
Basically, this was a Kobayashi Maru, and it's unfortunate that more people didn't realize that. Unfortunately, it's not surprising that more people didn't realize that, because most people are too lazy to read the entirety of the facts and make an educated, nuanced, complex decision where they stand; they prefer the black and white that they can get from five minutes of news coverage. If there are two things I've learned from this fiasco, they're:
I also think that it's worth noting that those who compared this issue to abortion and doctor-assisted suicide and such were so academically irresponsible, it wasn't even funny. Even when the so-called "right-to-lifers" acknowledged that Mrs. Schiavo may have said she didn't want to be kept alive like that, they passed it off as the wishes of a stupid kid who was allowed to change her mind; they ignored the fact that her doctors said that she didn't have the capacity to "change her mind." Because her body reflexively attempted to stay alive, they claimed that she was "fighting for her life." As a pro-lifer, and someone who's almost completely against euthenasia, I'm ashamed to be associated with these people.
Alright, I'm done.
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