After two early morning classes and loads of work waiting for me at work, I sit down in front of my desktop in my lab and open up my browser to do the first thing I do, check mails. msn.com being my home page there was this small box with the flashing message “Terri Schiavo dies”, I thought "I have never heard this name before, what could the news possibly be about…" I click on the message and start reading out of curiosity…. the article shocked me so much that I was not able to stop reading…. I went about reading related articles, and when slowly people started coming in to work I realized this is not something I ought to be doing at work, but I somehow could not concentrate on my work the entire day. After a long day, I came back home and watched the videos of her story online.
I am not able to figure out answers for a lot of questions…. For those who really don’t know want I am talking about, (you can read up first hand information though, this is just for convenience sake) Terri Schiavo had a heart attack at the age of 25, this lead her to an incapacitated state caused by some kind of brain damage. She was not exactly in comma state but had long cycles of sleep and being awake. She was in such a state for 15 years; her husband wanted her food pipe to be removed because he claimed that she said that she did not want to live artificially and be a burden to people and her parents denied the claim. The case was taken to the court and after a long battle, the court ordered her food pipe to be removed some days ago and she eventually passed away.
I am not sure whose side to take. These are my mixed emotions....
1) If the husband really did not love the wife why would he struggle for her case and be with her in spite of her state for the past 15 years? So maybe he does understand her well
2) Its difficult from the parents point of view to just let their daughter die and they being spiritual people (as I noticed) had their hopes and trust high
3) The husband wanted to full fill her wish and not want her to struggle?
4) The parents saw no reason how a mortal can decide whether she should die when he did not give her life?
5) The husband thought it would do her suffering soul good because she had absolutely no senses of her surroundings and was not actually living a life?
6) The parent’s thought whatever her state was, she had the right to live and all she needed was love and care?
7) Can a judicial court actually decide something as critical as this?
This sure has disturbed me….But now that she has gone, what are we to learn out of this? What best I can do now is pray for her soul and pray even harder that no one else should face such a struggle ever ever ever!!! I would like to hear some comments about this issue….
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3 comments:
Well Pavi, what i think in this kind of situation is
a) Somebody had to take the stand in this fragile situation. The husband took the stand, that the feeding tube be removed.
b) Somebody had to support him. The court did.Law abiding citizens respect them atleast.
Its nothing to do abt good or bad. That lady has been suffering for quite sometime. Her hubby took care of her to an certain extent, beyond which I guess he jus gave up hope. If you are aware he has a second family. So you can understand the kind of pressure he must be facing in house.
Many people depart to the heavenly abode everyday like this announced or unannounced. Its the goddamn media which manipulates the whole scenario to its own advantage.Now if were to assume media was not there ..then how wud have been the situation??? Morever the family members jus resorted to indiscriminate press meetings and made it as a medium to garner support and sympathy.
Jus take the Hyd incident.The guy who knew that he was dying due to , wanted to donate his organs. That was his last wish , but the indian court ruled out against that wish.
End of the day my heart felt condolences goes out to Terry, if they were to let her die.. at the max they shudn't have starved her to death..its inhumane.. they could have just put her to sleep.Euthanesia is the right word!!!!
I've been following this piece of controversy ever since it got elevated to the Yahoo! Headlines. A cursory glance through the article pained me at first, but now, after delving into a few legal facets of the case, I stand neutral, not passive, partly because of my inability to be swayed by emotions, and partly because, after rifling through the hundreds of articles on it, someone had to step in to end a traumatic soul. But, in my humble opinion, Terry's daylight was snubbed out by starving her to death, and since everyone deserves a dignified rest, it was sheer indignity to let someone die of starvation, unmindful of several other humane alternate climaxes. She is finally resting in peace, but history wouldn't.
hey pavi,
it was nice to read ur blog, i admire ur writing style...keep up the good work!
well, as per my comments on this - life is too incomprehensible at times when it comes to the question of survival! Its quite evident that husband was nt trying to escape out of this, he was right in his own way and its harder for parents to accept their daughter's non-existence, they were right in their own way, the court does have a very legitimate right over these issues and they did their job, in this case they took the right decision... life is all about right and wrong decisions sometimes more than anything else :D!
hope to read more of ur blogs!!
Rashmi
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