Terri Schiavo and Lost Causes

With the passing of Terri Schiavo today it seems that not only have her advocates lost a mighty battle, but that those who advocate a culture of life have lost an important battle. Yet, though a life has been lost and a cause has been lost, the cause itself is not lost.

To be sure, over these last few weeks as I have engaged the issues I have seen that the issues surrounding the life and death saga are far more complex than I originally thought.  

There is the issue of defining exactly what we mean by the phrase “extraordinary measures.” Personally, I don’t buy the argument that a feeding tube is an “extraordinary measure.” Several times I have heard advocates for removal of the feeding tube say that, in times gone by, people in Terri’s condition would have died naturally, having no access to a feeding tube. Thus, we can “let nature take its course.” But that is a silly argument in my mind – none of us want to allow nature to take its course. This is why we immunize our kids and why we give them penicillin when they have an infection. Vaccines for polio and smallpox were invented for the purpose of interfering with the course of nature. In Terri’s case, a feeding tube was simply an alternative means of delivering nutrition to her. Since when is providing nutrition an “extraordinary measure?”

At the same time, I have read people who I consider friends and others I don’t know but respect who have differing opinions. I have been asked time and again what I would do if someone was in a persistent vegetative state and had written directives instructing caregivers to withhold such nutrition. In such a case, though I might not like it, I would respect the wishes of the one who gave such directives. The caveat I would offer is that great care must be taken up front to have the individual make an informed decision, so that they understood just what they meant by a persistent vegetative state. And great care must be taken on the back end to insure that a proper diagnosis was made. In this case, with all of the evidence offered by Reverend Robert Johansen and others, it seems that there was enough doubt about whether Terri was in a persistent vegetative state that they should have erred in favor of keeping Terri alive. 

There are difficult legal matters involved. Not being a lawyer or a political scientist, I won’t begin to claim to understand all of the issues involved in matters of jurisdiction, federalism and other issues that have been raised. Jeb Bush claims that he has been acting in accordance with the law and he has done all that he can legally do. Others say that, as governor, he had the power to intervene and didn’t use it. I don’t know. I do know that, as Christians we believe in Lex Rex, law is king, the rule of law. This means that the law of God takes precedence over the law of man – the kings of the earth will be held accountable for their obedience to the laws of the King of Kings.

At the same time, some Christians will use such reasoning as a justification for anarchy. The trouble with such folks is that they forget that the law of God tells us to be submissive to the law of man. Romans 13:1-2 says: 

¹Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. ^2 Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.

Let us not forget that this is the apostle Paul writing under the reign of Nero. If any society was riddled with unjust laws it was Roman society under Nero. Yet Paul did not advocate anarchy. This doesn’t mean that we are required to tolerate unjust laws, but it does mean that we should work to change unjust laws in a lawful manner. In this particular case, there are laws which allowed an outcome that I, and many others, believe is unjust. Any attempts we make to change such laws must be done in a lawful manner. 

I realize that courts have determined that Michael Schiavo is Terri’s legal representative and the parents were not, thus according to the courts he acted within his rights. Yet, here we have a set of parents who love their daughter, regardless of her condition, and who were willing to care for her. I realize I don’t know the ins and outs of the law, but I am mystified as to why the law can’t allow for custody to be granted to someone who not only wants the person to live but who will take it upon themselves to care for that person.

The most troubling thing about this situation is that our courts have decreed that nourishment may be withheld from a person who is not in the process of dying, in order to cause them to die, and this in the presence of contrary medical opinion and in the absence of clear written directives from the individual him/her self. 

When I heard the news this morning of Terri’s death I pulled out my copy of George Grant’s book Lost Causes, where he reminds us, among other things, that:

Even when the hope of victory is at best remote, some movements are worth staking our lives, our fortunes, and sacred honor on.  

And

. . . the verdict of the moment is not always the verdict of time. Through the centuries many causes that appeared to be defeated continued to live on in the hearts of people, surviving defeat and ultimately outliving the forces that appeared to conquer them. 

And

History is replete with examples of great lost causes, ill-fated designs, subjugated aspirations that somehow continued to capture the imaginations, stir the passions, and tug at the sympathies of men and nations long after they had supposedly been vanquished. They seem to be those perpetually defeated things that nevertheless managed to survive their conquerors – instilling in their adherents eternal hope, blazing idealism and irrepressible romanticism. 

The fight to create and/or maintain a bias for life, or a culture of life, has taken a blow in this battle, but it is not a lost cause. 

Comments

[Jeremy Pierce]

One thing about this case that isn't true of many other cases, is that feeding tubes are withheld or pulled all the time when the person is going to die within a day or so anyway. The difference with this case is that she wasn't. It doesn't seem anywhere near as bad to pull a feeding tube or even to refrain from inserting it under those conditions. I'm not sure why we should be absolutists about going out of our way to provide artificial nourishment to someone who is very near death. That wasn't the case here, though.

[Rev John Telfer Brown]

This has not been a lost cause David, I believe that all of society will learn from this in time to come...

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

GBYAY

[Tommy Ham]

I, too, am ignorant of the legal complexities. It seems as though the decision may have been legally "right" but morally wrong...horribly, terribly wrong. I still have trouble believing that we (as a culture) allowed a woman to starve to death. Even more troubling is the realization that we didn't just allow it...we caused it.

[Eric]

"None of us want to allow nature to take its course." Viagra, in vitro, surrogate motherhood, artificial insemination or blastocyt implantion in women in their 50s or 60s, cosmetic surgery, etc. I do not know where the line between aspirin and Viagra is, but I seem to see a fat grey smudge dividing the two.

[cwv warrior]

We should be absolutists because God is. It is in God's power alone to take life, the same as Him giving it. To remove or deprive someone of nourishment is like taking away their oxygen tank. As long as someone is living and breathing, why shouldn't the medical profession provide complete care. To include feeding tubes in extraordinary measures has opened a door for god-man that should never have been opened!

[David Talcott]

This is an excellent quote, thank you for it:

"Even when the hope of victory is at best remote, some movements are worth staking our lives, our fortunes, and sacred honor on."

I wonder how many of us will stake our fortune, our reputation, on the cause of life...

[Public Theologian]

David--

As a Florida pastor I have seen this type of thing occur regularly. I understand that people want to err on the side of life, but we can't have the government forcing medical treatment on people who don't want it, even if their family wants them to have it. The courts found "clear and convincing" evidence (the highest standard of proof under the law) that Terri did not want this kind of care (five people testified to this fact) and they simply saw to it that her wishes were carried out. If the judge knew this to be the case in that strong of terms, how in the world could he ignore what he knew the woman's wishes to be? What kind of mockery would that make of the law? Aren't conservatives the ones who are always complaining about activist judges? Wouldn't such a decision have made this judge about as activist as they come?

Some people need a villian to blame for this, but the perpetrator in this case was the victim. The state did not starve Terri. Michael did not starve Terri. Terri starved Terri--this was what she wanted.

Public Theologian

[DLE]

I was reading through the latest National Geographic today and was startled by a damning story and illustrations that may speak to how far we have fallen in the Terri Schiavo case.

I blogged about it:
http://www.dedelen.com/2005/03/will-bones-speak-against-us.html

Keep up the good writing, David.

[Bill Hayes]

David --
Thanks so much for your input. For me, the bottom line in the Terri Schiavo case is not the right to die -- or the right to make our own decisions about quality of life. The bottom line is this: "How do we care for those who can not make decisions for themselves"?
Can we, as a society, make decisions that are in the best interest of those who can not make the decisions for themselves?
Only if we try to look at what is best for the person involved -- whether we would want it for ourselves or not -- can we begin to decide what is best for those who can not make those decisions for themselves.
This is not an easy task because it means we have to put aside what we might want or feel needs to be done and begin to consider what the person whose life -- or the quality of it -- is concerned might wish be done.
I've posted more on this at ny blog --
http://revbill.blogspot.com/2005...i-and- pope.html
Thanks again for your input.

[DT]

All I could do was pray when I heard the news that Terri died. Pray for healing of the relationships between the Shindler's and the Shiavo's. And pray that Michael Shiavo's heart will be softened and he will seek forgivenss. This story just tears me apart in the aspect that it has never been about Terri and all about the broken relationship between the two families.

[Mwalimu Daudi]

I am concerned by way the media dehumanized Terri Schiavo with its often ill-informed commentary. There was a tendency for many journalists to imply that being in a PVS somehow meant she was not a human being anymore, and therefore unworthy of food and drink. How did it come to this?

I lived and worked in Africa for many years and saw famine with my own eyes. It is terrifying that there are some people who are putting forward the notion that starvation is quiet, painless, and even "beautiful" and "euphoric".

Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

[Joel Thomas]

Interestingly, most religious conservatives who insist that their position is for a "culture of life" also oppose Medicare and Medicaid. Without those two programs, perhaps the majority of people in pvs, with or without living wills, would die because there would be no money to pay for extended medical care and hospitals would be under no legal obligation to use feeding tubes in the absence of compensation for those services.

[Catez]

Good post David. God's victories aren't always apparent to us. This was a terrible injustice - and for me it was not so much about a general cause but simply that a woman was being killed unjustly. Some weird guy left a comment on my blog about what I am doing to medicaid. I still don't see how trying to prevent the legislated murder of a disabled woman will upset medicaid. What a red herring. Then there were all the people letting the world know they have a living will. I'm sure that was a great consolation to the Schindler family.
I thank God that there were people who saw that this was an other-focus issue - that this was actually about doing something for some-one else. It showed me that God still moves through people. Not everyone is all about me, me, me - "what I would want if it were me", "my medicaid" etc. I agree that we should err on the side of life. I find no biblical basis for giving a family the right to kill another family member because they are disabled. I re-read your post on the Conspiracy again. I'm inclined to agree. Initially I thought there were just some very stubborn individuals involved - but looking at the way evidence was ignored, or not even allowed to be admitted, the attitude of judges (i.e. even though a dissenting federal judge said that the appeals hadn't even been given adequate time to be considered by the courts, they still ruled that they simply wouldn't hear them). The "clear and compelling evidence" lie - it was a lie - her close lifelong friend testified and it was misinterpreted, but they wouldn't recall her or re-examine what she said. On and on it went - and it raises more issues. The inhumanity of keeping some-one in a room for years and not allowing the blinds to be pulled up so the sunlight can come in, not allowing music - as these things are "stimualtion" and could be "therapy". I'm glad to come across a blog where a pastor is able to clearly get to the heart of the issue. Thankyou.

[Joel Thomas]

Lest anyone be confused, my comments about Medicaid and Medicare have no relationship to anything Catez has written.

The general view of many religious conservatives is against government-provided or funded health care. I'm a strong supporter of Medicaid and Medicare and by that reckoning, I have a much stronger "culture of life" position than those who oppose Medicaid and Medicare. Many religious conservatives will make a show of saving one life while supporting policies that would allow millions of people to die because there wouldn't be any funds to provide "culture of life" medical care.

[Catez]

Just to avoid confusion my comments do not have anything to do with what Joel has written. Some US citizens seem to be currently obsessed with medicaid and medicare.

[Catez]

Just to promote clarity - this issue is about Terri Schiavo (in fact the post here is). In which case my comments directly relate to the "me, me, me" attitude of those who wish to make her death about medicaid.