Schiavo and Political Rhetoric (sunday)

[Quoth The Raven]

Originally Posted by Gerani1248

well its the same case, why keep a person, deteriorated from alzheimer's disease? they lack any capacity to think. to think... is that the character which defines if a person must live or not? they do not have the potential to grow....

lets exterminate all alzheimer people!


just a thought.

I would have to assume you've never had a close family member who suffered from Alzheimers to have come up with that comparison.
Those of us who have, have had to watch as our loved ones deteriorated, had to watch the confusion in their eyes when they looked at us and could no longer work out who we were, but still knew enough to know that they should have known and be upset about the fact that they didn't.
My grandmother was like that, and - up until 4 weeks ago when she went into hospital from her aged care facility due to a particularly nasty infection and the fact she just refused to eat anything anymore - was still interacting with people (as in having conversations), feeding herself, etc, etc. Even in the last 12 hours of her life, she wasn't laying on a hospital bed with a large,liquid filled hole in her brain, being fed through a tube in her stomach.
Hardly comparable.

[The Voice of Reason]

Originally Posted by Gerani1248

... they do not have the potential to grow....
lets exterminate all alzheimer people! just a thought.

And herein lies the red herring. No one is advocating that we kill all people in a persistent vegatative state. No one should advocate that we kill people with Alzheimers. What is being advocated is that we allow people that are, for all practical purposes, brain dead, to complete the cycle of dying, as opposed to artificially propping up the body for another twenty years, for the sake of saying that we "did God's will". If God wanted Terri Schiavo to live, I'm sure He could figure out a way to make that happen.

The rhetoric is this:
NO ONE IS KILLING TERRI SCHIAVO!! She is being allowed to finish dying - which, by the way, started over 15 years ago. If someone wants to make the argument that we should take extreme measures to keep her (or anyone else) alive, then that is another issue, but it is disengenious to suggest that anyone (her husband, Jeb Bush, a judge, a doctor, or any legislator) is trying to kill her - she is dying on her own.

Thanks,
TVOR

[The Voice of Reason]

Originally Posted by TranceAm

It is a way to keep organ donors alive until a suited host for the organs is found.

Agreed - and it is a noble cause, in my view.

Originally Posted by TranceAm

A little bit of chemicals , and she finishes the trip of life in grace.

Sadly, grace left the room when the politicians seized upon this case to curry political favor. While I disagree with her parents and brother, I do understand that they see this entire situation through a very different set of eyes than we do. The politicians, on the other hand, are only pandering to voters, trying to shine the light of the media upon themselves, while claiming the moral high ground. It is possibly the most disgusting sham I have seen since watching McNamara try to defend his use of manufacturing quotas to conduct the war in Vietnam. Despicable, loathsome, and almost beyond comprehension.

TVOR

[Feathers in Hair]

Originally Posted by Gerani1248

well its the same case, why keep a person, deteriorated from alzheimer's disease? they lack any capacity to think. to think... is that the character which defines if a person must live or not? they do not have the potential to grow....

lets exterminate all alzheimer people!


just a thought.

Gerani, I usually really like your posts, but this one is quite frankly disturbing, nor does it follow any logic.

[thorswitch]

Originally Posted by Gerani1248

well its the same case, why keep a person, deteriorated from alzheimer's disease? they lack any capacity to think. to think... is that the character which defines if a person must live or not? they do not have the potential to grow....

lets exterminate all alzheimer people!


just a thought.

No one (that I'm aware of) is advocating that EVERYONE who is in a persistant vegetative state and requires mechanical assistance to continue living (mechanical assistance including a feeding tube) be disconnected and allowed to die. What people ARE advocating is that when someone has expressed a desire not to be kept alive in such a condition - as the courts have REPEATEDLY found Mrs. Schiavo did - then those wishes should be respected. By the same token, if someone has made it known that they want their body kept alive by whatever means are possible for as long as possible, then those wishes should be respected also.

What you're talking about in your hypothetical situation above, though, is for society to decide when a person should die based on their "usefulness" or other such criteria, and that has nothing to do with what's being discussed in the Schiavo case. No one is trying to establish a "one size fits all" policy here, no is anyone trying to "exterminate" any group of people. Its about allowing for individuals or their legal guardians to make life-and-death decisions in accordance with their own beliefs and wishes, and to have those decisions respected.