I had a conversation this evening at a reception, with two people involved in healthcare. We discuss whether Terri should have lived or died, but rather on the issue of “sides.” Somehow, this sad story divided people into black and white issues–taking the side of either the parents or the husband, with nothing in-between.

But really, this wasn’t about the parents or husband, or about being a red voter in a blue state or a blue voter in a red state. It wasn’t about rooting for the parents or husband, or being a liberal or conservative. Rather, it was about a woman named Theresa Schindler Schiavo, and what was really the right thing to do for her. Terri, somehow, had vanished in the media frenzy, and enveloped by the Schindler family versus Michael Schiavo.

So what did Terri really want? We will never know. What really happened to her that night she collapsed? An eating disorder, spousal abuse, or something else? That, too, we will never know.

What we do know is that many facts and circumstances are forever muddled, the stories of her marriage, wishes and desires, and the underlying conflict between her parents and husband appears as blips and sound-bytes in the press. What is the truth?

I think that died with Terri.

You can read the full gory details here, at abc.com. I won’t bore you with details that are readily available. I guess that we can be happy that as a nation, we starved a brain damaged but otherwise healthy young woman to death.

What I don’t know is that after 15 years, why couldn’t the courts just decide that should Terri become ill–and she has had a number of illnesses over the years as are common with someone who is immobile–just to let her go? Just allow her to succumb to her illness rather than removing the source of her feeding while she was healthy?

We have laws which restrict the use of embryonic stem cells, and a lot of hoopla centering around the life of a pre-embryo in a petri dish, but when it comes to full grown living and breathing people, our laws are murky and muddled.

Should Michael Schiavo, a man who is living with another woman and has had two children with her, be the sole decision maker in a life and death question? Should his testimony, made years after Terri’s initial colllapse, that she “wouldn’t want to live this way,” hold any water?

If anything, this case begs for our current laws to be re-examined and puts into the spotlight the need for a living will. We really do need to revisit what constitutes “artificial” live support vs. basic care. We need to take a look at what constitutes “allowing death to naturally occur” as opposed to actively causing it.

Medical ethics is a mess, and as our knowledge and technology keep advancing, it becomes even more so. We learn things that we may wish we never knew, because they effectively annul the knowledge that we thought we had. Take persistent vegetative state. Can anyone really tell us what it means? Do we know that these people are suffering, or that they’re on cloud 9, or that their spirit has long departed from this plane? No, the docs don’t know. Same for patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia. Are we going to decide that they too, can be starved, because their condition is not consistent with life as we know it? And what if a person leaves a living will, which states that “please stop feeding me should I develop Alzheimer’s. I do not choose to live in that manner.” Where do we take that one?

I am glad that Terri is no longer in a state of limbo. Now Michael can live happily ever after with his not-so-new new wife and kids, and the world will be a better place because we “allowed” Terri to die. Just as a footnote; Michael is such a good husband that he is commanding that Terri be cremated immediately, and denying her family the right to give her a Catholic funeral and burial. The woman is dead for God’s sake. What difference does it make if she’s cremated or buried? Terri was a Roman Catholic, and it does seem that she would have preferred a traditional burial. But then, I guess Michael will jolt his memory and suddenly recall, “I think that Terri once said she’d prefer cremation!”

Over and out.

Made it safe and sound to North Carolina. It certainly is pretty here–so woodsy. Unfortunately, they are predicting rain so that might hamper my efforts to explore, although it may keep me indoors at my conference. Then again, I would love a good old fashioned thunder/lightening storm as we don’t get much of that on the Pacific coast.

Postings are going to be lean these next few days, so it will be a reprieve from my usual ranting and raving! I was too tired last night to post anything, and I had to finish up an article and send it in. After traveling all day, and taking a peek around while it was still light out…I was too sleepy to start thinking up something interesting to blog about.

Anyway, speaking of health (and that is what I’m supposed to be doing on this blog), I am now surrounded by healthcare extraordinaire, as well as biotech and pharmaceutical companies. Duke University and the University of North Carolina are just a stone’s throw away, and the Research Triangle just a few miles down the road.

Well, now it’s off to the woods.