TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Obituary: Schiavo Dies After Feeding Tube Removed

Re: Obituary: Schiavo Dies After Feeding Tube Removed

John McHarry (jmcharry@comcast.net)
Wed, 06 Apr 2005 02:16:17 GMT

On Sun, 03 Apr 2005 05:05:12 +0000, jmeissen wrote:

> What is more disturbing, in my mind, is that once they decided to let
> the body die (regardless of the state of the mind), they chose to let
> it happen through two weeks of starvation and dehydration.

> This is a sad statement about humanity, that we'll use drugs to
> painlessly put a mortally wounded dog out of its misery, but a human
> body must be forced to endure two weeks of torture until its organs
> fail.

It is certainly the Peronismo sin Peron of euthanasia, but the medical
authorities claim it is painless and without feelings of hunger or
thirst. I think part of their motivation is laws criminalizing
euthanasia, including voluntary suicide for the competent.

Part of it also must be the feeling that there is a moral difference
between not acting to prolong "life" and acting to end it. Most of the
world failed to act to stop the genocide in the Balkans, and in
Africa, but seems to see a difference between that and actively
slitting the throats. I don't know why there is a feeling that one is
more answerable for action than for inaction, but it seems to fit some
sort of primitive moral intuition.

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Do we have Ms. Shiavo buried yet, at
least for the purposes of this Digest? PAT]

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