Just saw that a judge will not order the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube.
I’ve been asked about my opinion on this, but haven’t spoken about it with too many people. But since no one else seems to be holding back…
What bothers me is that people on all sides are missing what I see as the main issue (as if what I see is the most important thing). The idea of congress and the courts deciding these matters is ludicrous, but shows very well how we no longer have moral dilemmas but political ones.
And, from my understanding, both sides are guilty of bringing this on. Of course the parents are fighting, but from my reading the husband first asked the courts to make a decision.
The simple matter — in my mind, anyway — is that she is not brain dead. Vegetative state, whatever you want to call it, is not brain death. She does not respond as her parents claim; again, from my understanding, what you see on TV is not conistent, and sometimes she responds when there’s no one in the room, and this is natural for a vegetative state.
She is, however, breathing on her own. So we’re not talking about unhooking her from a life-support machine. We’re talking about starving her to death. The question, then, is this: “Is it ever moral to starve someone to death?” And I will answer, No.
To state that the feeding tube is all that’s keeping her alive is stupidly obvious. Of course the food is keeping her alive, food keeps everyone alive. That’s the same as saying “The oxygen in the air is allowing her to breathe.” Why not, then, put her in a room and suck all the oxygen out? Such a death would be as natural as one by starvation, for one can not live without breathing.
She is not being kept alive by artificial means, since feeding someone is a perfectly natural thing. Her desire (and I think this is well established) to not be kept alive on life-support machines is moot: She is not being kept alive by a machine that breathes for her or that pumps her blood. We’re being asked to have watch her starve to death.
This touches on to what I have said before: Why does it not bother the Christians who are rightly fighting this that many of these same congressmen, and certainly the president, allow torture and abuse that shows the lie to their stance on the sanctity of human life? This is what happens when we allow politicians to decide morals, and abdicate our right to state what God’s Word tells us.