Terri Schiavo.

We are now witnessing the starving of an innocent woman. We live in a country that considers it a crime to neglect a dog. We here how it's a bad, bad thing to yank around a terrorist. We see stupid people write things like "The time has come to let Terri Schiavo die." Get that, we should let Terri die while here family is making her stay alive. What a sinister way of mangling the language.

Terri is not being kept alive and anyone who says so doesn't know what they are talking about. Terri is being kept alive like I am. If I don't eat or drink for two weeks, I'll be dead too.

This is barbaric. Michael Schiavo may be the Grand Inquisitor here sentencing his wife to death, but we all have a role in her torture and execution. We are all diminished. We are all punished.

UPDATE: In response to emails, I will say this. Starving a person to death is torture. If there is supposedly so much compassion for Terri, do we really have to starve her? Maybe we should require her husband to administer a huge dose of morphine. At least she wouldn't suffer for UP TO TWO WEEKS.

There is no living will. Michael has no proof Terri would want to die. Shouldn't we err on the side of caution?

Comments

[Craig]

You say: Terri is not being kept alive and anyone who says so doesn't know what they are talking about. Terri is being kept alive like I am.

My response: I'm glad that you're doing so well considering that you are on a feeding tube.

best wishes,

CZ

[Daniel]

You ignore my next sentence. Keeping me - or you - from sustenance would be deemed murder. Except for a woman who can't protect herself.

[Maggie]

John "Johnny" Evander Couey. CONVICTED sex predator, alleged murderer of little Jesse Lungren (depending on if you accept his confession). ON SUICIDE WATCH.

Terri Schiavo. INNOCENT. Possibly in a vegetative state (depending on who you talk to). FEEDING TUBE REMOVED.

Can't I vote on this???? Something seems FUBAR.

[Maggie]

Jessica LUNSFORD....I have friends named Lungren so the name slipped.

[akaky]

"I'm glad that you're doing so well considering that you are on a feeding tube."

I'm sorry, I must have missed something along the way; when did being on a feeding tube become a capital crime in Florida?

[jaed]

The tube doesn't matter all that much (except as a sop to the conscience), since a) Terri Schiavo has never received therapy that might well enable her to eat and drink normally, and b) in any case she is also under a court order forbidding attempts to feed her by mouth during the starvation process; whether she actually *needs* to be fed via tube is not relevant, it seems.

But. Even if it turns out that she isn't able to eat normally, since when does severe disability = a death sentence? Did she stop having rights - the right to due process, the right to legal existence independent of her husband, the right to not be tortured - when her brain was damaged?

[jaed]

The tube doesn't matter all that much (except as a sop to the conscience), since a) Terri Schiavo has never received therapy that might well enable her to eat and drink normally, and b) in any case she is also under a court order forbidding attempts to feed her by mouth during the starvation process; whether she actually *needs* to be fed via tube is not relevant, it seems.

But. Even if it turns out that she isn't able to eat normally, since when does severe disability = a death sentence? Did she stop having rights - the right to due process, the right to legal existence independent of her husband, the right to not be tortured - when her brain was damaged?