right to life

I was listening to Art Bell the other night...he declared how easy it was to analyze the whole Terri Schiavo case: "...if there is no signed declaration to the contrary, you have to continue her feeding tube/life support..." (paraphrase)...Art is obviously correct...her so-called "husband" should have been eliminated from any caretaking decisions when he abandoned Terri and shacked up with his current mistress, as pointed out by my friend, Hugh Hewitt



but this all got me thinking about what I would want to have done for me if I were in Terri's place...my initial inclination is I would never want to live like that...it just seems like it would be a horrible existence and an awful burden on my family and friends...situations like this often end up financially bankrupting families...I made plans to draw up living wills for my wife and myself

and then I started thinking about the human capacity for adapting to life's situations...how, when people are thrown into an environment that seems unbearable, unliveable, they rise above our expectations and survive and often even thrive...think about that soccer team that crashed in the mountains and survived by eating their dead teammates...think about innocent people imprisoned and even placed on death row...think about p.o.w.'s like John McCain who survived horrible conditions...in a lesser degree, consider those who were once wealthy adjusting to an average or poorer lifestyle...the human animal has an extraordinary ability to adapt

and so, could it be that Terri, or some remnant of her being, is surviving, even thriving in the shell that we see?...could whatever is in there actually still be enjoying her life?...may she be progressing, healing, advancing in some way?...and even if she is not, might someone else in her position, maybe even you or I, survive or overcome such an illness or condition?

so you see, this is yet just another gray area, of so many gray areas, in the human existence, our decision trees...abortion, euthanasia, suicide, right to die, obligation to die...Solomon would be challenged

even those who cry that taking out the feeding tube is tantamount to murder, recognize the compromise of their position...if you truly believe someone is being "murdered" you take whatever means is necessary to stop it...if the President truly believed it, if the Governor truly believed it, they would send in police or troops to put the feeding tube back...if the rest of us truly believed it was murder, we would heartily support that action

but we don't...we acquiesce to the courts...we tacitly acknowledge that it is a judgment call...largely because most of us think we would not want to live as Terri does now

but still, I wonder...