just my $0.02

While I’m thinking about it, I’m going to make my first political/religious opinion posting. I may get some negative comments on this (that is, assuming anyone ever reads this), but too bad.

I think Terri Schiavo has a right to die and I think the media and the politicians should stop making her life a circus. I’ve been saying for a long time. First, let me address the politicians.

I don’t think Jeb Bush is a bad guy. I think his heart is in the right place. I can’t imagine the pain that Terri’s husband and Terri’s parents have been going through for the last 15 years, and I don’t think Jeb does either. I think he was trying to do what he thought was right. However, I still think his motives are somewhat political. I think George W. is basically being the flip-flop artist he accused Senator Kerry of being however. While Governor of Texas, G.W. allowed legislation to pass that allows terminally ill patients have their support pulled if the family can’t pay for the medical care. So, as I see it, it is okay to keep someone alive in G.W.’s eyes, but only if the money is there. This is the same man who allowed the congressional ban on assault rifles to expire (I’m still waiting for the news report on the bear that was so big that the hunter needed an uzi to kill it). How can someone who supports assault rifles and pulling the plug on economically challenge terminally ill patients stand up and say he’s pro life?

Now for the religious side of the argument. Let me start by stating that I am a Catholic and that I attend church every week. This morning I read an interesting interview on MSNBC.com with a Jesuit priest. He basically said what I’ve been saying (although he had the right background to back his statements up. He basically stated that while a breathing tube may not be an extraordinary way of sustaining life, keeping someone alive with the aid of one is disproportionately burdensome. Therefore, she’s really is being kept alive in an extraordinary way. He also pointed out that in the Catholic faith, death is not ‘bad’. If she hasn’t sinned (or if she has and those sins have forgiven) then Terri is on her way to heaven.
I’d also like to note that she’s not suffering, at least according to the doctors who have actually examined her to make their assessment of her condition. They have stated that she is in a vegetative state (for every expert on one side, there is another expert who will argue for the other side) and that she isn’t really sensing pain or truly reacting to her surroundings. Also, when the body is starved, it begins to shut down different processes. Starving isn’t painful like a bleeding stomach or pancreatic cancer. Terri is being a humanly terminated at U.S. law allows (see: Kevorkian, Dr.)

In my opinion, which is not really important at all, Terri should be allowed to die. In all honesty, she was heading that way herself in 1991 when she suffered the heart attack that caused the lack of oxygen to her brain that put her in this state. And what caused the heart attack? Terri was bulimic. It could be argued that she was trying to kill herself, which is also against Catholic teaching.

My last point is a little scary too. It seems there are about 30,000 cases of people in a vegetative state in the U.S. Why aren’t any of these cases in the spotlight? What makes Terri’s case so special? Is it that her husband and her parents stand on opposite sides? I also read that the parents’ claims that Mr. Schiavo neglected Terri are unfounded. In 15 years, Terri has never had a single bedsore. In 15 years!! The home she is being cared for in wanted to have a restraining order on him. Not because he was abusing her, but because his demands that the home was not providing the best care for Terri was burdening them. Her parents need to accept the fact that in all aspects but the physical, Terri is already gone. God rest her soul.