What We Should Learn From The Schiavo Story

March 23, 2005

When the dust settles on the Terri Schiavo story in Florida, America needs to begin a serious debate about what actually constitutes “life support.” No matter what some, perhaps even a majority, of medical professionals will tell you, there's an enormous difference between keeping someone alive via a respirator and sustaining life with a feeding tube. Although the delivery of life-preserving nourishment might be different, feeding someone who can't feed themselves is the same whether delivered through a tube or a hospital tray.

 

The horrid way Terri was starved would not be tolerated were she the family dog. That's why Congress acted as it did in passing a law requiring the Schiavo case to be heard by a federal court on the issue of her basic right to life. That's why it most assuredly became a federal issue just as any case would, had it involved a state denying basic rights laid forth in the United States Constitution.

 

The case of Karen Ann Quinlan was a watershed moment in the much contested issue of an individual's right to die. Quinlan's father requested his daughter's life support system be disconnected and was fought, tooth and nail, by her doctors. He lost but won on appeal. Her respirator was disconnected but, interestingly enough, her father chose not to disconnect her feeding tube. Although the court drew no distinction, Mr. Quinlan knew the difference. Karen lived for another 9 years before succumbing to pneumonia.

 

Other than the retention of the feeding tube, the Quinlan case differs dramatically with the Schiavo case on one important point. Karen Quinlan was in a coma. Terri Schiavo was not. Up until the point her feeding tube was disconnected, Terri Schiavo was awake, alert and responsive. She smiled when her parents caressed her face. She laughed and tried to talk when her father recalled funny stories from her childhood. On the day her feeding tube was disconnected, her mother explained to her, tenderly, what was about to happen. She told her daughter she was placing her in the hands of Jesus. Terri became upset and began to moan and shift about in her bed. Those are not the actions of someone in a “persistent vegetative state.”

 

Ordinarily level-headed legal experts became bogged down in the mire of legal procedure to the point that they simply could not recognize the overriding human element of the story. When I would ask them if they thought it appropriate to administer a lethal injection to save Terri from the excruciating pain of starvation they reacted in horror. “That would be murder,” they said. Yet they willingly went along with a judicial system that approved of killing her by means of denying her food.

 

Ironically, on the fourth day of Terri's starvation a story from Franklin, Tennessee surfaced in which a young mother was arrested for not properly administering nourishment to her 14-month-old child via, guess what? A feeding tube. No court in the land would draw a feeding distinction in that case nor should they have done so in the case of Terri Schiavo. Why? Because a feeding tube is not artificial life support. Terri's injuries were not life-threatening. The only thing that was life-threatening was the judicial system that failed her.

 

The decision to end her life rested in the hands of an adulterous husband, Michael Schiavo, who wanted her dead. Adultery is a second-class misdemeanor in Florida punishable by up to 60 days in jail. Perhaps Michael Schiavo should be tried and given the full sentence – without food or water. Let's see if he makes out any better than Terri.