2008 Woodie Awards
The Importance of Living Wills
It's never too early to write your living will.
Jean Bernard Chery
Issue date: 4/8/05 Section: Opinions
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It is extremely rare for anyone to claim that something good may come out of someone's death, despite how ill one might be. However, Terri Schiavo's death proves 'le contraire.' For fifteen years, her condition gave way to perhaps the most heated controversy over the right to die, advocated by her husband Michael Schiavo, and the right to life, supported by her parents.
Her case became a national issue when Congress and President George W. Bush intervened on behalf of the family with a last minute law intended not only to transfer her case to the federal legal system but also to reinsert her feeding tube for the third time. Unfortunately for the family, as the Florida Supreme Court struck down a state law authorizing Governor Jeb Bush to overturn an early state court decision, the federal legal system implicitly declared the law passed by Congress and signed by the President unconstitutional.
The family ran out of luck when Terri passed away while the state legislature was debating another law attempting to save her life. Her death put an end to the dispute, presumably. For the entire fifteen years she had been in a state characterized by doctors and neurologists as PVS, or Permanent Vegetative State. The entire controversy evolved around the husband's claim that Terri did not want to stay alive by artificial means while her parent wanted to keep her alive by any means possible.
Now all these legal and political controversies surrounding her conditions could have been prevented if she had had a living will that explicitly expressed her wishes. Regrettably she was among the 85% of Americans who do not have a living will, specifically the younger generations. Thus, the good that comes out of her death is the attention drawn to the importance of a living will. Since her case went national, people all over the country and perhaps all over the world started to contemplate ways to spare their loved-ones of a similar ordeal. By far, almost everyone agrees that having a living will is the solution.
Her case became a national issue when Congress and President George W. Bush intervened on behalf of the family with a last minute law intended not only to transfer her case to the federal legal system but also to reinsert her feeding tube for the third time. Unfortunately for the family, as the Florida Supreme Court struck down a state law authorizing Governor Jeb Bush to overturn an early state court decision, the federal legal system implicitly declared the law passed by Congress and signed by the President unconstitutional.
The family ran out of luck when Terri passed away while the state legislature was debating another law attempting to save her life. Her death put an end to the dispute, presumably. For the entire fifteen years she had been in a state characterized by doctors and neurologists as PVS, or Permanent Vegetative State. The entire controversy evolved around the husband's claim that Terri did not want to stay alive by artificial means while her parent wanted to keep her alive by any means possible.
Now all these legal and political controversies surrounding her conditions could have been prevented if she had had a living will that explicitly expressed her wishes. Regrettably she was among the 85% of Americans who do not have a living will, specifically the younger generations. Thus, the good that comes out of her death is the attention drawn to the importance of a living will. Since her case went national, people all over the country and perhaps all over the world started to contemplate ways to spare their loved-ones of a similar ordeal. By far, almost everyone agrees that having a living will is the solution.