John Edwards
March 31, 2008
Terri Schiavo
Terri Schiavo, born Theresa Marie Schindler in 1963 in Huntington Valley, Pennsylvania, had been a normal woman who had married her first boyfriend, Michael Schiavo. She worked at Prudential Insurance Company while living with her husband and parents in St. Petersburg, Florida. However, the life of Terri and her family changed drastically on February 25, 1990 when she suffered a cardiac arrest most likely due to bulimia that her doctor had failed to diagnose even though she had dropped nearly eighty pounds since high school on a self-prescribed diet. She fell into a coma for a few months, but even upon reawakening, Schiavo fell into a persistent vegetative state (PVS)1. A persistent vegetative state occurs when someone suffers "enough brain damage that they are unaware of themselves or their surroundings, but still demonstrate certain reflexes and are able to breath and pump blood on their own2." This state would cause the eventual split between her husband and her parents.
Michael Schiavo, Terri's husband, wished to end the life of his wife because she was only being preserved by a feeding tube and not her own will. There is quite a bit of support for his stance. Author and political observer Christopher Hitchens in the National Review said that the "replacement of the brain by a liquefied and shrunken void" indicates the end of life3. Attorney and author on ethical subjects, Wesley Smith, also in the National Review, proposed that the plug should be pulled in order to give Terri's organs to people who still have a chance at living a full life. Also, if it was Terri's will to die than it would be their duty to fulfill that desire , because it would "disregard her will4." However, there could be more sinister reasons for his decision as well. For example, Michael had won a one million dollar lawsuit against Terri's doctor for not diagnosing her bulimia, thus many Americans glued to the case believed that he was tired of wasting his money on Terri's medical bills because the one million dollars would soon be gone. Also, Michael had met Jodi Centonze in 1993 with whom he had already had two children before Terri's death in 2005, and he remarried very quickly after her death; therefore, it seems he was ready to move past life with Terri and to better his relationship with his fiancee. This case would not be considered assisted suicide because a patient has a right to refuse medical treatment, and in 1990 the Supreme Court deemed food and water to be medical treatment. In that case, which revolved around Nancy Cruzan of Missouri, the Supreme Court ruled that "the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed a right to decline medical treatment, and that medical treatment included basic sustenance5." The same case allowed for a surrogate to "exercise the right for people who were in a 'persistent vegetative state6.'" Thus, if a person is unable to make a decision on their own, that right is ceded to their spouse or nearest relative which would give Michael the right to stop her treatment if he wanted to, but only if he could make a legitimate claim that it was what she wanted, which he did. Thus, one must also look into the good side of Michael Schiavo: perhaps he really was doing what Terri would have wanted. In a survey of some of my family and friends, nine out of nine people asked responded that they would prefer death to living in a persistent vegetative state; therefore, the odds are not against Michael's case stating that Terri would want to die in this situation. However, the evidence for this argument "fell laughably short of" what was expected, and it is even debatable whether her responses to "stimuli...were indicative of minimal consciousness or mere reflex[es]7." The difference between PVS and minimal consciousness is that in the latter the person is able to speak, though it may not be coherently. Whether Michael's case was trustworthy or not, the majority of Americans sided with him: 501 people polled by ABC News showed that sixty-three percent of people supported removing Terri Schiavo's feeding tube8.
Terri's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, did not have the same kind of support that Michael had with Americans, but they had their constituency that listened to their beliefs nonetheless. Christians, especially Catholic conservatives, led the fight for the right to life for Terri, "claim[ing]...they were doing God's will9." Catholics believe that all humans have an inalienable right to life, and that ceding one's right to life would be suicide which is against the Church's laws. Catholics also believe in the inseparability of body and soul, meaning that as long as Terri Schiavo's soul lived on in her vegetable of a body, no one was allowed to kill her without suffering the punishment of the Lord; therefore, Catholics came out in droves to support the Schindlers. They also preached this statement: "Suicide is not abominable because God forbids it, God forbids it because it is abominable10." Also, scientifically, there was the argument that, though her cerebrum which deals with the brain's higher capacities had failed, the rest of her brain was still functioning. Their side believed it was clear that it was much more than "allowing her to pass" in order to allow her entrance into heaven, it was the fact that the whole act would be done with the only purpose being death and no betterment. If it was a free pass to heaven, then "Church would...have to fund death squads to usher even more people into paradise11." They argued hard for the case that Terri had never expressed whether she would or would not want to live in the situation, and they held hope that she was on the road to recovery. Yet, in the end, their daughter passed away on March 31, 2005.
Videos of Terri Schiavo before her death seemed to prove that she did make human responses to interaction. She often smiled when spoken to, and her eyes sparkled when flashing lights were put in front of her face. One lady claimed that she was talking to Terri and asked her to say, "I want to live." Terri yelled, "Aaaayee," quite loudly so everyone could hear, which the woman took to mean that she did want to live, but she just could not respond. An "autopsy on Terri Schiavo backer her husband's contention that she was in a persistent vegetative state" though, as she had brain damage that could not be repaired12." The Schindlers, however, refused to accept this, but no evidence would ever be found to the contrary of the report. The report also showed that she was blind, so the videos' claims that she could respond to visual stimulation were false; it said that "the vision centers of her brain were dead."
There were several references to the incident in the media. South Park, an animated comedy series, won an Emmy for its episode, "Best Friends Forever," which directly paralleled the Terri Schiavo case. Eerily, the episode aired on March 30, 2005, the day before Schiavo's death. The episode revolved around the possible death of Kenny McCormack, one of the four leads, who suffered permanent brain damage and was surviving simply by a feeding tube after being hit by a truck. Eric Cartman claims to have the right to pull the plug (out of greed to obtain the PSP that Kenny left to him in his will) as his "BFF," while Kenny's two real friends, Stan and Kyle, work to save their friend, vegetable or not. When they finally find the last part of Kenny's will which his lawyer had been misplaced, it says, if he ever is in a PVS to "please for the love of God don't ever show me in that condition on national television13." The boys decide that Kenny does have the right to die, concluding that Cartman was "right, for the wrong reasons" (selfishness), but they were "wrong, for the right reasons" (real care for their friend). The show played off the case to show their thoughts that Schiavo should be left to die in this state because while people claim that by keeping her alive they are "doing God's will," in reality, they are keeping her alive artificially with technology which in fact is "playing God." The episode won the Emmy for "Outstanding Animated Program" in 2005. Other shows, such as Arrested Development, also made references to the case.
End Notes
1. Jay Conner, "Characters In Schiavo Case Live In Its Wake," The Tampa Tribune, March 29, 2006, http://www.tbo.com/news/nationsworld/MGB2B4DDLE.html [accessed February 13, 2008].
2. Christine Gorman, "When Does The Brain Go Blank?" Time, April 4, 2005, p26.
3. Ramesh Ponnuru, "Reasons to Live," National Review, April 25, 2005, p43.
4. Ramesh, p43.
5. Andrew C. McCarthy, "Death by Court Order," National Review, April 25, 2005, p44.
6. Andrew, p44.
7. Andrew, p45.
8. Joe Garofoli, "Schiavo's Fate In Judge's Hands," San Francisco Chronicle, March 22, 2005, pA1, http://www.ebsco.com [accessed February 13, 2008].
9. Ramesh, p42.
10. Ramesh, p44.
11. Ramesh, p44.
12. "Shiavo autopsy shows irreversible brain damage", MSNBC reporting for Associated Press, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8225637/ [accessed April 12, 2008].
13. South Park Zone, "Best Friends Forever," South Park Zone, http://www.southparkzone.com/episodes/904/Best-Friends-Forever.html [accessed March 11, 2008].