How should Terri Schiavo die?

Seems everyone’s asking the wrong question. It’s not if, it’s how.

As a co-worker put it this morning, everything must be AOK in the USA. I suppose the war in Iraq is complete and the budget deficit is taken care of. The argument over social security must be over and oil prices are fine as long as we’re paying more than $2.00 a gallon.

Now that the government has fixed all these “little” problems apparently they have time to concentrate exclusively on Terri Schiavo. It’s important for the government to act quickly to decide who lives and dies. Medical professionals be damned. We don’t want the medical community making medical decisions now do we?

Of course not. We want the courts to decide based on hearsay and a power of attorney agreement. But when the courts rule in favor of the current state laws we want our federal legislators to quickly enact new laws because the current laws don’t suit an immediate cause. Queue the President and the moral right. There’s something to gain here – it adds credibility to “the right to live” which, lucky for them, sounds a lot like “the right to life”.

But what about Terri Schiavo’s implied wishes that she not be left in a vegetative state? Certainly her husband would know if she wanted to be left in this condition. So let’s quickly abide by the state courts decision and once again sentence her to death by starvation. The feeding tubes have been removed. Terry you will wither and die.

But wait – the aforementioned emergency legislation could save you – if indeed you need to be saved. No doctor would want to put the cause of death as dehydration and starvation on a death certificate would he? Well then, do we have a credible case for euthanasia? One beyond the tabloid version of the “right to die” promoted by Dr. Kevorkian?

There’s no way euthanasia would get past the conservative right. Doctors can’t be in the business of putting people to sleep like dogs, even if it is in their best interest. So here is our conundrum in detail. Doctor’s can’t be trusted to make straight-forward medical decisions when there are moral and political issues at stake. Clearly this requires legislation at the federal level???