The Terri Schiavo Case

Marcus,

"Bush said that when we are in doubt that we must err on the side of life.
He never seemed to have any doubts when issuing death penalties as Governor of Texas!!!"

How I wish it had been someone other than Bush to have said that. The err on the side of life thing is exactly what I think, but it sure takes the zing out of it coming from his mouth.

Now all that's missing from this discussion is for some enlightened soul to pop up and accuse Barbara of fence-sitting.

Barbara - I agree wholly and heartily with your last post. But I personally admit to bias when you can't undo stuff - like an execution. I want absolute certainty first, which is almost impossible to obtain in a case like this. Even with absolute certainty, I have seen governments expand their authority way too much after starting from pretty correct moral grounds. I prefer government out of the sanctioned death business. And this is one bias I intend to keep. However, in my case, you are extremely right about bias prompting an inner filter of the facts. Gotta keep an eye on this inside me. Thanks for lighting that particular corner.

Michael

Post 61

Monday, March 21, 2005 - 4:56pm

Michael, in asking for "absolute" certainty you are confirming the point I made earlier -- that the epistemological standard being demanded here is utterly platonic. It's an impossible quest for metaphysical certainty (omniscience), rather than epistemological certainty (rational, contextual certainty).

While I sympathize with your desire to make sure that an irreversible injustice can't ever occur, how do you reconcile this methodology with that we must use in many everyday decisions that could have life-or-death repercussions?

Is the principle that anytime someone's life is at stake, we should seek "absolute certainty" before making a decision that could deprive an innocent person of life? If so, why draw the line, then, at cases like this one -- or cases involving the death penalty?

Should we seek "absolute" certainty in the infallible safety of our products, such as drugs or guns or planes or automobiles, where thousands of lives may be at stake? Do we demand "absolute" certainty about the trustworthiness of police officers and soldiers, who wield weapons (and sometimes WMD)? Should we insist upon "absolute" certainty in the infallibility of doctors? Etc.

Traditionally, political "liberals" have been the ones to seek such "absolute" reassurances in the name of a platonic standard of safety. Objectivists, by contrast, have employed an epistemological standard of knowledge -- a human, contextually based standard that might be described as "to the fullest and best of our rational knowledge."

On what grounds do we begin to jettison that standard, employing instead the old platonic standard of "absolute" (metaphysical) certainty?

I'd love for someone to sort this out for me.

Post 62

Monday, March 21, 2005 - 5:14pm

Following up to Barbra's post #51, in addition to the excellent point she makes, the other thing that strikes me regarding this issue is how few actual facts are being discussed. It is OK to defer to authority under certain circumstances, but when experts (like doctors or judges in this case) are alleged to be in conflict on their interpretation of events, it is important to trace back further to more concrete information. I paid no attention to this story until just a few days ago when things exploded. So far, in all newspaper accounts and in the discussion on this forum, there have been no actual medical facts presented regarding the current state of Terri Schiavo - only references to assertions by others.

Robert Bidnotto, in post #43, recognized this and posted a link to a summary by the Florida Supreme Court. Reading this gave me the first bits of serious medical information concerning the state of Schiavo's brain. I think it is appalling that we can be flooded by so much "news" about important topics such as this one, where assertions are now completely substituted for facts. In addition to the original moral issue and then the political issue which are at stake, I think we should be concerned to an even greater extent about just how badly the press does its job. If reporters were painstakingly connecting facts to all of the assertions being tossed about, I am sure that there would be greater consensus on issues such as Schiavo or the Iraq war.

If we cannot rely on the press to do their job, then we have to place a greater burden on ourselves to do the digging before forming an opinion.

Post 63

Monday, March 21, 2005 - 5:22pm

Well said, C. (Jeffery? Mr. Small?) :)

I just saw this news link about the case -- perhaps the presiding judge will inject some objectivity to counteract the hysteria surrounding this case.

http://story.news.yahoo.com

Marcus, based on what you had originally explained to me regarding the stem cell research issue (and what I read during the election campaign), I too thought this was the case. I need to look into this further, as now I'm confused.

Barbara, your points are very well made, and I have also gone through the back-and-forth of all of it. Though I really should not be 'wasting' time on this, it could one day be very much my problem, so it is time well spent.

Post 64

Monday, March 21, 2005 - 5:38pm

I am perplexed that this issue seems so hard for many of you.

There are others willing to take over the guardianship and care of Terry Shiavo at no expense to her husband. No one is being harmed by her persisting to live. Many people have expressed their intense desire that she should not be caused to die. Are they chopped liver? Does the quality of their lives matter? What is gained, by anyone who is expressing the desire that she be allowed to die, by her death? What is lost by these same people if Terry Schiavo is allowed to live? If she dies, her parents will perhaps be devastated for the rest of their lives. Terry Schiavo may or may not be a "vegetable", I don't know. But the people that desire her to live are certainly not vegetables. If she lives, no harm to anyone. But many people will see a great good.

Post 65

Monday, March 21, 2005 - 5:53pm

Robert,

"Is the principle that anytime someone's life is at stake, we should seek "absolute certainty" before making a decision that could deprive an innocent person of life?"

With respect to the government sanctioned death business, my answer is resoundingly YES. Even then I don't want the government there.

In many of the other situations you postulated, I am not sure that killing a human being is the purpose of the activity - it is an effect of something else.

Police, military, etc., constitutes a serious set of issues and conditions that really need rational guidelines.

Once again, I get the feeling that we disagree over degrees and not essentials.

btw - Would you personally pull the plug (with your own hand) on a life support system after a court says for you to do it?

I would have a problem (admittedly emotional response).

Michael

Edit - Mike, I have the same questions. I don't like some of the answers I arrive at. I also think that life thriving (in this case) is an end in itself - and in this manner this woman is clearly showing that she changed her own mind about living.

(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 3/21, 5:55pm)

(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 3/21, 5:58pm)

Post 66

Monday, March 21, 2005 - 5:54pm

Tom, you wrote: "President Bush's position on stem cell research is that the government will not fund the creation of fetal stem cell lines beyond those lines which have already been created at taxpayer expense. . . . Sounds to me like a reasonable move in the direction of getting government out of an area where it has no business."

The question that has to be raised is: Why start cutting back on government power by limiting something as important as stem cell research? It makes sense to start by privatizing Social Security and by cutting taxes, but to cut back on this research clearly is the result of a religious agenda.

Barbara

Post 67

Monday, March 21, 2005 - 5:55pm

Mike, one of the key issues here is that it has been proven, time and again, that Terry Schiavo did not want to live in such an incapacitated state. From what you are saying, you are advocating the will of a group over the will of an individual -- whose life is the one in question.

Post 68

Monday, March 21, 2005 - 6:02pm

Jennifer,

As I mentioned above, I see indications that Terri herself has changed her mind (well... not mind, but desire to live, lifeforce or whatever you want to call it). Does her present right to life not count because of her previous position?

Michael

Post 69

Monday, March 21, 2005 - 6:12pm

What indications, Michael?

All I see, when I watch those video clips, is random actions by someone who is utterly unconscious. How can she express a desire when the part of her brain that does so has turned to liquid? I am not a doctor, and have not done enough of the research to speak to the quality of the medical opinions -- but I see what I see.

Post 70

Monday, March 21, 2005 - 6:16pm

Robert, Michael K. raises an important point about the difference between certainty about the safety of drugs -- which are not created for the purpose of taking lives -- and the deliberate ending of a life. If we wait for the unlikely day when he can have total certainty about drugs, great numbers of people will die while we're waiting. People -- a very, very few -- have died after taking an aspirin; if we waited until we could know, which we never can, that no one will be damaged by aspirin, we'd be seeing a disastrous increase in the number of heart attacks. In such issues, contextual certainty is eminently satisfactory.

But is it really enough in such cases as that of Terri Schiavo, and/or the death penalty? I'm against the death penalty because of the possibility of mistakes; it's horrifying to see how many people have been taken off death row after DNA testing, and to think of how many were executed before such testing was available.

I'm not suggesting that no conclusion can be reached in the present case. As I continue to read, I'm more and more inclined to think it can, and that Terri Schiavo should be taken off life support. But I am suggesting that more than our usual "absence of reasonable doubt" ought to be employed here.

(By the way, I'm opposed to the death penalty for another important reason as well: I don't want the government -- any government, at any time -- to be given the power to execute its citizens.)

Barbara

Post 71

Monday, March 21, 2005 - 6:24pm

Jennifer,

This from Thomas Knapp [post #37 of this thread]:

"The early court proceedings centered around Michael Schiavo's suit against the hospital/doctors for malpractice, and against his insurance company. At that time, he mentioned nothing about any alleged wishes of Terri Schiavo to be "allowed to die" if in a persistent vegetative state. As a matter of fact, the point of the suit, and the end to which Schiavo testified under oath that he would put any funds rendered in judgment, was the maintenance of her life in the state she was in.

It was only six years after the accident/incident, and only after receiving the settlement referred to above, that Michael Schiavo suddenly and inexplicably remembered "Terri's expressed views" which were at odds with the stated goal of the suit."

This, if true, places doubt in my mind that Terri Schiavo had ever expressed these wishes. If she had indeed expressed that she did not want to be kept alive, I would agree with you. But from the above quote, and this second one from Thomas Knapp:

"It was only in 2003 that the 1991 bone scan showing blunt trauma to various areas of Ms. Schiavo's body, consistent in time with her admission to the hospital in an unconscious state (according to the deposition of a medical doctor who examined the scans), was even available to anyone other than her guardian, Michael Schiavo."

This causes me to doubt the veracity of her husband. And with no written evidence of Terri Schiavo's wishes, I have to side with her parents. That combined with my reasoning in my previous post.

Post 72

Monday, March 21, 2005 - 6:33pm

My take on the case is that some people are willing to care for the vegetative woman in question, and she never specified in a written will that she'd prefer, in her current situation, that her life support be terminated.

It really doesn't seem like a difficult situation: turn her over to the people who wish to care for her, and let them become her legal guardians. Euthansia in this case is inappropriate, as she didn't leave written instructions, and there are people willing to act as her guardians.

On a personal level, this issue has provided me with the motivation to write a will, an issue I've had on the back burner for a while now. I'll be sitting down with my wife tonight to discuss it.

Post 73

Monday, March 21, 2005 - 6:38pm

Jennifer, this is a very personal way of defining it, but if she did not "want" to live any longer, she would wither and die. She doesn't. She thrives, despite not being able to eat by herself.

However, if she is to be put down for not being considered a human being anymore, then this whole mess should be a mercy killing. Why call it and do it as anything else? (Sorry to be shoulding on things, to borrow a turn of phrase from Barbara's post on Ellis.) It should be quick. Not slow starvation - which is sick, sick, sick to me anyway I look at it. That bothers me greatly and probably makes me considered by many as a bleeding-heart liberal or something (which I am not). What does starvation have to recommend it as moral?

Barbara,

"I don't want the government -- any government, at any time -- to be given the power to execute its citizens."

Amen.

I would add: and under any circumstances, whatsoever, without any exceptions, with no possibility for repeal, and no special considerations ever. (I feel strongly about this.)

Michael

Post 74

Monday, March 21, 2005 - 6:42pm

Thank you for responding to my question, Mike. I was digging into some of that research yesterday as well, and every time I look at the information, I have to question which side is being untruthful.

I do not envy the judge who now presides over this case. I hope he is well protected by a 24-hour guard, because no matter what the outcome, there is likely to be some nut eager for retribution. Such are the emotions and opinions that are permeating this case.

Duncan, I am with you on writing a living will, and have insisted that my mother do the same. I no longer wish to risk ambiguity in such a situation.

Now I'm going to go watch something other than the news.

(Edited by Jennifer Iannolo on 3/21, 8:18pm)

Post 75

Monday, March 21, 2005 - 8:52pm

Thomas, and anyone else who was not here during, or has already forgotten, the substance of our earlier discussion of the status of stem cell research:

1. Although private institutions remain nominally free to create new lines of embryonic stem cells, all biological products are "regulated" by the FDA, which is appointed by the Administration. In the case of Plan B, Bush's FDA had explicitly and arbitrarily gone against all relevant science, banning a product solely because the company did not knuckle under to Bush's religious agenda. Since it is obvious that any company which tried to do research that Bush views as undesirable for religious reasons, would be similarly destroyed by a similar naked exercise of arbitrary power, the arguments about how the market would work in the absence of the FDA are so much mental masturbation.

2. Embryonic stem cell technology is the only therapeutic cloning technology that is not already banned in the United States. Other therapeutic cloning technologies, such as fetal organ transplantation, are known from happenstance experiments to be much more effective - but are legally banned for religious reasons.

3. The disregard for facts known with "merely" scientific certainty is, as was already pointed out by Robert and George, pervasive among the primacy-of-consciousness crowd. Given that what used to be the part of Terri's brain that was responsible for consciousness, is known to be necrotic - as is acknowledged by every neurologist who has looked at her brain scans without a religious agenda - the claims that she could somehow recover consciousness in the future, or experience pain if not fed, are counterfactual blather.

Which brings me to Barbara's point about confirmation bias. That is the scientific name of the phenomenon that she experienced when reading what the lawyers on either side have written. Scientists, on the other hand, learn in school about their own biases - including confirmation bias - and consciously and constantly practice the art of doing one's best to prove oneself wrong. Another name for that art is "science" - which is why, when it comes to science, the postmodern "nobody is objective" claim is precisely false.

Post 76

Monday, March 21, 2005 - 9:03pm

Adam,

Very well said.

George

Post 77

Monday, March 21, 2005 - 9:04pm

Adam, you have saved me a great deal of work with that explanation of stem cell research issues, and I thank you for sharing the information.

If 'mere' scientific certainty isn't enough, I wonder then, what those who question it would find to be acceptable. I'm very surprised -- nay, incredulous -- that it is being dismissed here in "but how do we know?" fashion.

Post 78

Monday, March 21, 2005 - 10:03pm

I saw my mother recover from a stroke where one part of her brain took over for the dead part.

I'm no expert at this, but I cannot dismiss it so easily - especially when a life is involved.

Nor can I dismiss the other side either. This needs much thought.

It's not my call, but I personally would not pull that feeding tube out. What's wrong with letting her die when her organism gets too old or worn out to live? That day will surely come. There are people who would gladly pay for her care. I still see that her body is thriving, so there is a life force there wanting to live. I personally will never be the one to kill that when there is an alternative. And I will not state that nothing can possibly exist in the future to change this - there are way too many variables.

Not a counterfactual position. Nor irrational. Just radically different choices.

Also, I greatly prefer science to be used to enhance the living, not to provide reasons to kill. One other personal choice.

Michael

(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 3/21, 10:07pm)

Post 79

Monday, March 21, 2005 - 10:07pm