Dignity

I think it’s time to accept that Terri Schiavo is probably going to die, as the latest of seven years’ worth of court decisions refused to order her feeding tube be reinserted.

Let’s not get into the arguments over whether her husband or her parents were right, or whether or not Congress should have interfered.

Once the decision has been made that she is to be allowed to die, how do we (as a society) go about it? We withhold food and water until she dies. We starve, or more accurately, dehydrate her to death.

What’s the logic here? That allowing her to die is somehow different than killing her humanely? That a quick and painless death is worse than a long drawn-out one because the former would be ‘active and the latter ‘passive’?

Imagine if you heard about an animal shelter that, when a dog or cat needed to be destroyed, starved it to death. Imagine the rightful outrage. It’s inhumane.

But not, it seems, inhuman.