The Other Self-Righteous Fanatics
Jesse Walker | March 29, 2005, 1:02pm
Whatever else the Schiavo case might be, it's a circus of self-righteous certainty. And I'm not just referring to the save-Terri side -- the folks who just prompted Cathy to write this:
I don't think the religious right is our own homegrown Taliban, but maybe it's about as close to a Taliban as you can have in modern American society. These are people who really do want the state to enforce their vision of "what God wants."
If anything, the forces of dehydration are even more of a headache. At least the pro-lifers -- not all of whom hail from the religious right -- know that they're on a moral crusade. Much of the pro-death side pretends that they're neutral bystanders who don't want to "interfere" with a family's private business, even as they actively argue for one side of the family dispute. They say they want to respect the woman's wishes, even as they refer more readily to what they'd want for themselves in such a situation. And they warn gravely of a slippery slope to theocracy, without pausing to wonder whether there are any other slippery slopes to worry about.
It's a conservative Christian, Nancy Valko, who has best expressed why some of us non-conservative non-Christians can't be so blase about pulling Schiavo's feeding tube:
Most people assume that either they or their families will have the right to decide about medical treatment when they become seriously or critically ill. The biggest problem, people are told, is that they or their loved one will be tethered to a machine forever if they do not sign a "living will" or other health care directive. The "right to die" movement has convinced most people and medical personnel that the ability to refuse treatment is one of the most important aspects of medical care to prevent patients and families from needless suffering. Indeed, poll after poll shows that most people say they would rather die than be a "vegetable". And many people automatically assume that they would never want their lives prolonged if they had a terminal illness, were paralyzed or senile, etc. Most people assume that refusing treatment, like assisted suicide (the other goal of the "right to die" movement), means choice and control.
But a funny thing happened on the way to this supposed "right to die" nirvana.
Some families and patients did not "get with the program" and insisted that medical treatment be continued for themselves or their loved ones despite a "hopeless" prognosis and the recommendations of doctors and/or ethicists to stop treatment. Many doctors and ethicists were appalled that their expertise would be challenged and they theorized that such families or patients were unrealistic, "in denial" about the prognosis or were mired in dysfunctional family relationships. (In contrast, families who agree to withdraw treatment are almost always referred to as "loving" and their motives are spared such scrutiny.)
At a 1994 pediatric ethics conference I attended, one participant was even applauded when he suggested that parents who refused to withdraw treatment from their "vegetative" children were being "cruel" and even "abusive" by not "allowing" their children to die. In some cases, doctors and ethicists have even gone to court to force withdrawal of treatment over a family's objections. These ethicists and doctors were stunned when judges were often reluctant to overrule the families.
Yet over the years and unknown to most of the public, many ethicists have still refused to concede the choice of a right to live and instead have developed a new theory that doctors cannot be forced to provide "inappropriate" or "futile" care and treatment to patients deemed "hopeless". This theory has now evolved into "futile care" policies at hospitals in Houston, Des Moines, California and many other areas. Even Catholic hospitals are now becoming involved.
In the July-August 2000 issue of the Catholic Health Association's magazine Health Progress3, Catherine M. Mikus and Reverend Peter Clark -- a lawyer and an ethicist -- argue that it is "time for a formalized medical futility policy" in Catholic hospitals. Like many such articles in secular ethics journals, the authors refrain from being too specific about what conditions and which patients would be subject to such a policy. The authors concede that even the American Medical Association says that medical futility is a concept that "cannot be meaningfully defined" and is a "subjective judgment" on which there is no widespread agreement.
Mikus and Clark make it clear that they are not talking about treatments that are "harmful, ineffective, or impossible", the traditional concept of medical futility that, of course, is not ethically obligatory. For example, no doctor would honor a family's request for a kidney transplant for a person who is imminently dying. Instead, the authors argue for a new definition of futility to overrule patients and/or families on a case-by-case basis based on the doctor's and/or ethicist's determination of the "patient's best interest". Ironically, the "right to die" movement was founded on the premise that patients and/or families are the best judges of when it is time to die. Now, however, we are being told that doctors and/or ethicists are really the best judges of when we should die.
Scare-mongering? Maybe. Maybe not. As threatening scenarios go, it looks a lot more plausible than any American Taliban nightmare.
For a libertarian, the crux of the Terri Schiavo case is the woman's own preferences; and of course, her preferences are a matter of dispute. That's why, of all the plug-pulling cases in the country, it's this one that's become so polarizing: Each side can project its own wishes onto a woman who can't speak for herself.
Reasonable people reading the evidence can differ as to what Schiavo would have preferred, but one thing they can't do is declare there's no question about what she wanted 16 years ago. In the last few weeks, alas, reasonable people have sometimes been scarce.
Jesse Walker | March 29, 2005, 2:32pm | #
Plunge: I understood what you were saying. My reply, which I'll say directly this time rather than relying on sarcasm, is that the evidence is not nearly as slanted in this case as it is in the creationism debate.
Joe: The ickiness of government officials -- by the way, only one of the four people in your list is a government official, but I'll set that aside -- is out of bounds when it's irrelevant. You wrote, "The only thing I'm certain of, Mr. Walker, is that it is none of your, Tom Delay's, Randall Terry's, or BillyRay's goddamn business." I'm not sure why I'm on that list, or why you're not.
Gary: Since you're big on intellectual honesty, please go back to the
thread where I allegedly "stupidly claimed that the only witness who saw her speak of her wish to die was Michael Schiavo." In fact, my exact words were "Far as I can tell, there's no strong evidence of what her wishes were." Nothing in there about who the purported witnesses were.
Henry: I didn't say you were being blase. But there are people on your side who are very blase.
When is enough enough? I don't know. It's not my decision to make. In my ideal world, either (a) Shiavo would have left direct testimony as to her preferences, such as a living will, or (b) her husband, upon giving up on her chances to recover, would have simply divorced her and let her parents carry the burden. (Actually, in my ideal world, she'd still be healthy today. Also, ice cream would be good for you. La di da.)
When is enough enough? It's gonna come at different times for different people. But as long as her parents are willing to maintain her care -- and as long as there's reasonable doubt as to her own preferences -- I don't think we've reached that time yet.
Henry | March 29, 2005, 2:51pm | #
"(b) her husband, upon giving up on her chances to recover, would have simply divorced her and let her parents carry the burden."
Well, other than the fact that this result would have eliminated this pseudo-crisis from our national agenda, I can't find much to recommend for this alternative. "Here, do what you want with this sack of crap--I'm done."
"When is enough enough? It's gonna come at different times for different people. But as long as her parents are willing to maintain her care -- and as long as there's reasonable doubt as to her own preferences -- I don't think we've reached that time yet."
I notice your construction address the willingness of the parents--fair enough. Is that a limitation? Would siblings do? Cousins? Strangers? The court has resolved this issue, obviously, and you are a critic--so I think you have responsibility to flesh this out.
Also, is just "willing" enough? How about able, finacially? Or is this another cost to be socialized? If so, why should we choose the cost of subsidizing "PVS" life over the cost of stopping all those malaria deaths (or hunger, or whatever) of non-PVS life?
To be fair, these last two paragraphs appear to go beyond the facts of this case (where we just disagree, I guess), but I'm trying to see if there is any point where there can be common ground.
I had to bring in "common ground" in honor of the OTHER Jesse.
Gary Gunnels | March 29, 2005, 3:57pm | #
plunge,
You are essentially right. And they call me a fanatic. :)
_____________________________________________
My last comment on this matter are via the words of Robert Browning (whether it posts correctly will be interesting to see):
The Bishop Orders His Tomb
Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
Nephews - sons mine . . . ah God, I know not! Well--
She, men would have to be your mother once,
5 Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!
What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
And as she died so must we die ourselves,
And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.
10 Life, how and what is it? As here I lie
In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,
Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask
"Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all.
Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace;
15 And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought
With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:
--Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;
Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South
He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!
20 Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence
One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side,
And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,
And up into the aery dome where live
The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk:
25 And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,
And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest,
With those nine columns round me, two and two,
The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands:
Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe
30 As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse.
--Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone,
Put me where I may look at him! True peach,
Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!
Draw close: that conflagration of my church
35 --What then? So much was saved if aught were missed!
My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig
The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood,
Drop water gently till the surface sink,
And if ye find . . . Ah God, I know not, I! ...
40 Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft,
And corded up in a tight olive-frail,
Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli,
Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,
Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast ...
45 Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,
That brave Frascati villa with its bath,
So, let the blue lump poise between my knees,
Like God the Father's globe on both His hands
Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay,
50 For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!
Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years:
Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?
Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black--
'Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else
55 Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?
The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,
Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance
Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,
The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,
60 Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan
Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off,
And Moses with the tables . . . but I know
Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee,
Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope
65 To revel down my villas while I gasp
Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine
Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!
Nay, boys, ye love me--all of jasper, then!
'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve.
70 My bath must needs be left behind, alas!
One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut,
There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world--
And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray
Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,
75 And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?
--That's if ye carve my epitaph aright,
Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word,
No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line--
Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!
80 And then how I shall lie through centuries,
And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
And see God made and eaten all day long,
And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste
Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!
85 For as I lie here, hours of the dead night,
Dying in state and by such slow degrees,
I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook,
And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point,
And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop
90 Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work:
And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts
Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,
About the life before I lived this life,
And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests,
95 Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount,
Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,
And new-found agate urns as fresh as day,
And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet,
--Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?
100 No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best!
Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.
All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope
My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?
Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick,
105 They glitter like your mother's for my soul,
Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze,
Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase
With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term,
And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx
110 That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down,
To comfort me on my entablature
Whereon I am to lie till I must ask
"Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there!
For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude
115 To death--ye wish it--God, ye wish it! Stone--
Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat
As if the corpse they keep were oozing through--
And no more lapis to delight the world!
Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there,
120 But in a row: and, going, turn your backs
--Ay, like departing altar-ministrants,
And leave me in my church, the church for peace,
That I may watch at leisure if he leers--
Old Gandolf, at me, from his onion-stone,
125 As still he envied me, so fair she was!
Barney Fife, BATF | March 29, 2005, 5:18pm | #
Excellent post, Jesse.
This reminds me of a line in a recent Dilbert cartoon: "I listed both the pros and the cons; people are so conditioned to take sides that they interpreted that as hating it."
This post seems to be functioning as a Rorschach test. The most strident reactions seem to be coming from people who interpret any recognition of nuance or uncertainty as a hidden agenda for the other side.
As for myself, I seriously doubt the agitprop on both sides that attributes base motives to either Michael Schiavo (his financial motivations or alleged spousal abuse) or the Schindlers (their "sick agenda"). Frankly, I suspect that both husband and parents have been focusing their lives on this battle for so long that they've forgotten where Terri Schiavo's interests and wishes leave off and their own agendas begin. But I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of either.
I tend to agree with Jesse that the courts should have erred on the side of caution, given the willingness of the parents to provide financial support and the uncertainty over Mrs. Schiavo's wishes. I also, however, share the "Dehydration Party's" utter revulsion at the self-serving grandstanders like Frist and Delay who inserted themselves into the issue.
As the Adventus blog recently commented, Tom Delay should be asking himself, very carefully, exactly what Michael Schiavo did to make himself a public figure. Delay's scurrilous and utterly despicable remarks are enough to leave him without a pot to piss in, should Schiavo decide to see him in court. I recently saw a quote from Delay referring to Schiavo's attorney as "the face of evil," or some such thing. One of the lowest points of this whole circus has got to be hearing a repulsive and putrid *thing* like Tom Delay referring to anybody else in those terms.
I am not comfortable with judging Schiavo's or the Schindlers' motives, but I have absolutely no such reservation about Delay. I'd bet a month's pay he's never done anything in his life for noble motives. Despite all his Jesus-shouting in front of audiences stupid enough to be taken in by it, I'll bet he's got a Satanic altar concealed in the back of his office. What a fucking creep.
