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Monday, March 21, 2005SchiavoWe are waiting to hear Leon Kass' disapproval of this artificial extension of human life. That said, we'll note that the President is acting within the confines of his "culture of life" agenda, and the consistency is probably a good thing. I have a difficult time with this issue, viewing mental, emotional and intellectual activity as the things that tell you human life is truly going on. But where that activity takes place is a mystery: they can see the spot light up on the MRI when you move your arm, but they have no idea how it happens that you can choose to do so. There is something at the end of the processes of human consciousness that defies location, let alone understanding. In that context, it is hard to know whether a person is truly gone or whether the anima is "merely" disconnected from the nerve centers it governs in the way a paralyzed person is still living even though his nerve centers for muscle control are disconnected from the actual muscles. Where all of Ms. Schiavo's centers to shut down, she would, of course, die. Not even an act of Congress could stop it. But right now her body goes on and it's hard to say to what extent that persistence is related to an underlying soul that, though no longer controlling her higher functions at the physical level, is not ready to give up. * * * The biggest problem I see here is the limbo others are left in by Schiavo's middle state. Her husband plainly is ready to move on. Her parents and siblings just as plainly aren't. And I fear that what happens to the lady in the middle has become to wrapped up in their interpersonal drama. It seems to me that it is time to grant Mr. Schiavo a divorce. Make it on grounds of lack of companionship or whatever. That he wants to let her starve to death indicates this marriage isn't going anyplace. So it would be wise to remove him from a picture he no longer wants to be a part of and let those who wish to remain do so. I hope he's not so ungallant as to wish her death so that he can move on as a widower instead of a divorcé. If so, one hopes he will find a good therapist. The thing is, Mr. Schiavo may well be in agony to see his once vibrant wife like this. If it is too much for him to handle, we should remember our own failings and weaknesses and understand that his is not an easy position. Casting him as an unloving bastard for his handling of a situation that most of us are thankfully spared is unfair. Best to take the charitable view, assume he's a good guy who was subject to too much and try to send him along a new path. In this way, the fate of Ms. Schiavo could cease to be a battle between those who want to pull the plug and those who don't and become an earnest question of how far we ought go in prolonging a life that cannot sustain itself. We don't know how far Schiavo's relatives might have gone had they not been doing so in opposition to her husband. In untangling such matters, we would be clearing the way for focussing less on what the two parties most wrapped up in Schiavo need for themselves and shifting the focus where it belongs: whether we harm or serve Schiavo in maintaining her life in the manner we now are. 
posted by gbarto at 12:44 AM |
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