2008 Woodie Awards
Who is Michael Schiavo to Decide?
When the judge rules, will it already be too late?
Jami Furo
Issue date: 3/25/05 Section: Opinions
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Terri Schiavo, the cause of much debate in America today, is the 41-year-old woman who has been in a coma as a result of extreme brain damage from a heart attack for the past 15 years. Michael Schiavo, Terri's husband, ordered the hospital to remove his wife's feeding tube, allowing her to slowly starve to death.
The controversy has pervaded American society. It is on everyone's minds and everyone's mouths. Personally, I don't see how it's even a question.
How can it be one person's decision to choose whether another person lives or dies? It does not matter that it is her husband. It sets a bad precedent to allow one person to decide whether another person deserves to live or die.
How is that legal? This is different than pulling life support. If a person cannot breathe on their own, and their heart cannot beat on its own, I can see how someone can make a case that that person is not actually alive anyway, and they would not want to live in that state. Besides, when you pull life support, and the person truly cannot breathe without it, they die within a matter of minutes. The theory is that they never know the difference, and in certain cases, it is actually a blessing.
However, this is not that situation. This is starving a person to death. This is a slow and insidious way to die. She is slowly deteriorating-fading away and not having the ability to argue.
Why is Michael Schiavo so adamant about removing the feeding tube from his wife, anyway? Her parents and brother have agreed to take care of her. Her parents have told him that if he wants to leave her and move on with his life they would understand. So why does he so much want her to die?
I don't know the answer, and I am not prepared to begin any conspiracy theories. However, I fail to see why this is even an issue. How is starving a person to death allowed, and why is the majority of American society accepting it?
Again, this is an issue that has me stunned. I just worry about a society where a man is allowed to let his wife lie helplessly in a bed while her parents watch her slowly die. That's just sick.
We sit here and debate this issue. We talk about Terri Schiavo, and we argue about her case. But while we're arguing, time is running out. Put the feeding tube back in until we figure it out. As it stands, a woman that does not have the power to defend herself is lying in a hospital bed dying a slow and agonizing death. Something must be done, and the clock is ticking.