Terri's Law Struck Down
Jan. 24th, 2005 04:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenWell, the Supreme Court says the husband can remove the feeding tube again. (click here for the story).
I don't know how I feel about this. I've followed the case only intermittantly, I don't know the particulars, but I'm pretty well acquainted with what's gone on so far. It's hard to call, really. While I definitely don't think the state has any right to order someone to stay on life support, I'm not sure I like the husband's reaction. If he wants to move on with his life, and the parents are bound and determined to keep their daughter on life support, I say he should move on. He should be granted a divorce in the courts, have access to her life insurance when and if she dies even with life support. It's a bit sketchy that he's so determined to have the tube removed, seeing what he stands to get with her dead (money, the chance to remarry), but then again, he could really love her and not want her to stay alive and 'suffer.'
Of course, this whole mess might have been avoided if they had, in writing, what the husband claims is her wish not to live as a vegetable. That's bothering me, too. I could see a woman telling her husband that but not her parents and the parents being mistrustful of the husband's recounting the story. It's a shame. We never think these things through. We always assume, when our time comes, it'll come--we won't be stuck like this poor woman. It's an unhappy situation all around.
But, it has taught me to let it be known, and to encourage others to do the same, what I want to have happen to me if faced with the same situation. I don't want to be a vegetable. Never, never ever. Not even if ten years down the road there might be a cure. It's for the same reason I get weirded out by the idea of another person being in control of my body (hence, zombie-phobia)--whoever woke up ten years later would not really be me. I want my organs donated, I want to be sonicated and have the rest of me turned into mulch with a tree growing out of it. No way am I to be left on life support when I could help others. I can't say what should be done for this woman, but I can say and will what should be done with me. It's not easy, to comprehend your own mortality, but don't let it go unsaid and leave your loved ones wondering. Tell them, tell someone, in writing, leave a record so, God forbid, if this happens, someone can show your mother or spouse or children and say, "This is what he/she wanted, please respect that."
Mary Roach had it right in Stiff. The body that's left behind is not your beloved. It is a thing. The person you love is in your memories, and once that person, that anima, is no more, clinging to the body does nothing. The shell will only trick you, hurt you, make it worse to move on. We've such an awful preoccupation with the body, the corporeal, that we can't let go. But it's just a body. If you need it for the symbolism, the closure, all right, that's fine. Just remember that the living dead person (a 'beating-heart donor' in Roach's lingo) is as lost as the corpse. Let go.
In more upbeat news, or perhaps silly news, I was home this weekend and did diddly squat, except for some rather ill-advised shopping in the midst of the blizzard of 2005 (yes, that's what the local news channels are calling it... ::groan::). I've been preoccupied with acquiring Mumford, this really cute little romantic comedy, over the past week, and went to check it out at Best Buy. No luck, but I'll keep looking (there's a reference to my home town in it, and two cute--not HOTT!--guys in it, plus Hope Davis, whom I love in anything--caught her in Next Stop, Wonderland this weekend). I played Scene It with my younger sisters and their friends and my friend, Liz C. Predictably, Liz and I were halfway around the board before we lost our first turn, we won easily, and asked the questions until everyone else finished or went home. Liz and I went head to head and I actually lost! Weird.
When I got back to the city, I had huge fluffy pillows for the couch, elastic snappers to hold our sheet in place (those of you who know our couch will appreciate having a sheet on it instead of just the exposed, ratty mattress), loads of good food, and a borrowed copy of The In-Laws, a movie I'd started at home and didn't get to finish, so I borrowed my family's copy. Of course, as it's about a wedding and my sister's getting married, I started getting all teary at the end when the couple in it got married. I'm going to be such a mess in March. What a basket case I'll be. Time to start investing in waterproof makeup. Anyone have any good suggestions?
I don't know how I feel about this. I've followed the case only intermittantly, I don't know the particulars, but I'm pretty well acquainted with what's gone on so far. It's hard to call, really. While I definitely don't think the state has any right to order someone to stay on life support, I'm not sure I like the husband's reaction. If he wants to move on with his life, and the parents are bound and determined to keep their daughter on life support, I say he should move on. He should be granted a divorce in the courts, have access to her life insurance when and if she dies even with life support. It's a bit sketchy that he's so determined to have the tube removed, seeing what he stands to get with her dead (money, the chance to remarry), but then again, he could really love her and not want her to stay alive and 'suffer.'
Of course, this whole mess might have been avoided if they had, in writing, what the husband claims is her wish not to live as a vegetable. That's bothering me, too. I could see a woman telling her husband that but not her parents and the parents being mistrustful of the husband's recounting the story. It's a shame. We never think these things through. We always assume, when our time comes, it'll come--we won't be stuck like this poor woman. It's an unhappy situation all around.
But, it has taught me to let it be known, and to encourage others to do the same, what I want to have happen to me if faced with the same situation. I don't want to be a vegetable. Never, never ever. Not even if ten years down the road there might be a cure. It's for the same reason I get weirded out by the idea of another person being in control of my body (hence, zombie-phobia)--whoever woke up ten years later would not really be me. I want my organs donated, I want to be sonicated and have the rest of me turned into mulch with a tree growing out of it. No way am I to be left on life support when I could help others. I can't say what should be done for this woman, but I can say and will what should be done with me. It's not easy, to comprehend your own mortality, but don't let it go unsaid and leave your loved ones wondering. Tell them, tell someone, in writing, leave a record so, God forbid, if this happens, someone can show your mother or spouse or children and say, "This is what he/she wanted, please respect that."
Mary Roach had it right in Stiff. The body that's left behind is not your beloved. It is a thing. The person you love is in your memories, and once that person, that anima, is no more, clinging to the body does nothing. The shell will only trick you, hurt you, make it worse to move on. We've such an awful preoccupation with the body, the corporeal, that we can't let go. But it's just a body. If you need it for the symbolism, the closure, all right, that's fine. Just remember that the living dead person (a 'beating-heart donor' in Roach's lingo) is as lost as the corpse. Let go.
In more upbeat news, or perhaps silly news, I was home this weekend and did diddly squat, except for some rather ill-advised shopping in the midst of the blizzard of 2005 (yes, that's what the local news channels are calling it... ::groan::). I've been preoccupied with acquiring Mumford, this really cute little romantic comedy, over the past week, and went to check it out at Best Buy. No luck, but I'll keep looking (there's a reference to my home town in it, and two cute--not HOTT!--guys in it, plus Hope Davis, whom I love in anything--caught her in Next Stop, Wonderland this weekend). I played Scene It with my younger sisters and their friends and my friend, Liz C. Predictably, Liz and I were halfway around the board before we lost our first turn, we won easily, and asked the questions until everyone else finished or went home. Liz and I went head to head and I actually lost! Weird.
When I got back to the city, I had huge fluffy pillows for the couch, elastic snappers to hold our sheet in place (those of you who know our couch will appreciate having a sheet on it instead of just the exposed, ratty mattress), loads of good food, and a borrowed copy of The In-Laws, a movie I'd started at home and didn't get to finish, so I borrowed my family's copy. Of course, as it's about a wedding and my sister's getting married, I started getting all teary at the end when the couple in it got married. I'm going to be such a mess in March. What a basket case I'll be. Time to start investing in waterproof makeup. Anyone have any good suggestions?
