Sanctity of Life
3/22/2005
Terri Schiavo may yet get an opportunity to die with dignity. A string of long-held ideologies propagated by right-wing and religious institutions may sound good to many back-woodsy types and strict catholics (and people who just don't think before they jump), but it doesn't change the fact that people deserve to die with dignity.
Life should not have to suffer to be holy. And if life does not end, if life continues on after death as many Christians believe, then is it not better to let the soul get on with it instead of being trapped inside a vegetable for 10 more years, unable to think, move, speak, express oneself, LIVE?
In an age of illegal wars, unjust torture, corrupt politicians and the reinstated ideology of Manifest Destiny (see 'Bush's White House'), the term "Sanctity of Life" is a complete political farce, a joke, a slap in the face of reason and a kickback to the era of medieval times. Sanctity means sacred, or holy. Sacred means worthy of respect; venerable. It is one thing to respect life in general, to preserve it at ALL COSTS (even at the expense of reason, dignity and compassion), and quite another to respect those living, breathing creatures who are clinging onto life in a hopeless struggle to take another breath. Respecting life means putting and end to needless suffering. And sometimes this means euthanization.
Can we not respect life by letting it go, putting an end to its needless suffering when it becomes a hopeless gesture to be trapped on this stinking rock? Isn't this just as sacred, just as holy?
I used to work in hospice. I've seen what 'holding on' can do to families. It tears them apart, day by day, even though the inevitable is coming, families want to keep these mounds of flesh alive because they think there's a soul in there somewhere. How sacred is that? And even if there is a soul in there somewhere, it's trapped, like a bird in a cage, ready to move onto the next great adventure instead of being poked, prodded and forcefed for days, weeks, months, years. I've taken care of bodies that have been in vegetative states for a long time. They grow translucent and their skin falls off. The organs may still be pumping, but they are nothing but an experience of extreme pain that will only end when those vital organs give out or we turn off the machine.
This is something that happens every day, hundreds of times a week. The job of humanity is to put an end to suffering, not venerate it and worship suffering to its most extreme. The vision of Christ on the cross, enduring intense pain, is not the ultimate ideal for everyone. Pain may be an unavoidable side-effect of living, but if living is composed of nothing but pain, whether physical or mental, trapped inside a vegetable, it is our sacred duty as human beings to assist in a compassionate transition to the next life. Especially if this is the wish of the one suffering, or their next of kin in case they are unable to decide. Living will or not, she married the fellow.
Yes, life is sacred. Life also deserves the dignity of compassionate transition, reduced suffering, upon the time of need. We are not all catholics, protestants, religious, and we should not all be governed by the cultish, twisted rules handed down from papists and zealots bent on controlling everyone with their weird, selfish, and irrational ideologies.
While I can relate to Terri's parents on some level, they are wrong in their extremism. This is the same extremism that prevented my best friend's parents from using birth control, and now they have more children than they can afford to provide for. These kids won't have the best education their parents can afford. Sure, they will be loved, and they will probably grow up Catholic, thereby perpetuating the Church and providing more warm bodies to fight in the next string of wars.
But it's nobody's fault but their own. We all have decision-making faculties (unless we are in a persistent vegetative state, of course, something which seems to afflict a number of politicians as well). Regardless of what the ignorant religious leaders of our time say, they do not have a monopoly on truth.
She's been in a constant vegetative state for more than a decade. Most of her cerebral cortex is atrophied. She is a shell with an imprint of persona, and it's disturbing to think that a religious mindset would venerate the flesh over the liberation that a dignified death could provide. Let it go, people. This world is dark enough already.
And quit the doublespeak, because if 'Sanctity of Life' is so bloody important, why are we killing people in Iraq? Any war?
For some rational reading on the subject, read Peter Suber's philosophical piece titled "Against the Sanctity of Life." He has many points that I might opine about later on.
Lastly, the latest news in the Schiavo case: U.S. Judge Refuses More Feeding in Schiavo Case
posted by Edward Svengali @ Tuesday, March 22, 2005,
