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February 15, 2005
Life is precious
I am pro-life. From the beginning of life until the end. I am against the death penalty, especially for completely innocent people, like Terri Shiavo. Terri is not brain dead. She can breathe on her own. She needs to be fed intravenously, though, so her husband wants her put out of her misery.
Terri never signed a living will, and if she had, few living wills have instructions to stop feeding or giving water to someone.
I suspect that the same people who want Terri to die would have also wanted Helen Keller killed - I mean, really, what kind of life can a deaf, dumb and blind person have, they probably think.
The thing is - if you believe in God, life is a precious gift.
If you don't believe in God - life is precious because it is all we have.
Terri's life is her own. Her husband should not take it away from her - he has his own life now - he has two children by his girlfriend. He should divorce Terri and let her parents care for her, as they want to.
I am amazed that the same people who don't want the government 'in the bedroom' are willing to allow the government (judges) decide who lives or dies.
Posted by Beth at February 15, 2005 8:40 PM
Comments
She isn't exactly playing pinball.
Posted by: Laurence Simon at February 16, 2005 9:37 AM
Terri deserves to live. Who are we to judge what "quality of life" is? And if euthanasia is illegal why in the hell can people get away with this?
Posted by: Sirena at February 16, 2005 10:17 AM
Um, pinball relates to what, he asked confusedly?
Posted by: John of Argghhh! at February 16, 2005 10:50 AM
"Tommy", the Rock Opera?
Posted by: Sally at February 16, 2005 2:50 PM
I'm also against the death penalty. It can be very difficult to get absolutely foolproof evidence that someone is guilty. A telling case in this country. Many years ago Lindy Chamberlain was found to be guilty of killing her baby Azaria. She spent four years in jail, and then it turned out that the verdict was wrong, she didn't do it after all. If we'd had the death penalty, and she had died, what would have been said to the family when it turned out she was innocent... "Oops, sorry about that"??
Posted by: Amanda at February 16, 2005 7:36 PM
The point is Terri is alive and no one know what she would want. Shouldn't we err on the side of caution and go with "life" as the default decision in this case?
Posted by: Janette at February 17, 2005 1:51 AM
If you believe in god, isn't she going to go to a better place? Won't all her suffering end?
The doctors were "playing god" when they put a feeding tube in her right? I mean, god gave us a mouth and an esophagus, not a PEG tube....
Just curious
Posted by: pete at February 21, 2005 2:08 PM
The husband-in-name-only has ordered that she not be fed by mouth. Take any person and forbid them from receiving any food or water and they won't last a month no matter how healthy they were to start with.
Posted by: supercat at February 22, 2005 1:49 AM
Husbands don't get to order that, doctors do when the patient can't tolerate po food/liquid. But you are avoiding the real questions.
Posted by: pete at February 23, 2005 5:40 PM