Thursday, March 31, 2005
When Pointing Your Fingers, Use a Body
Breaking news: Terri Schiavo's dead.
I'm relieved. Now nothing more can be done for her. No more protests. No more appeals. No more rejections of appeals.
If the neurologists' reports are accurate, then the moment when something could have been done for Terri has long passed. Everything, at this point, that happened with her happened not for her but for the people around her.
This is a critique, of course, of her parents, who have for years seemed unable to just let this case go, to let their daughter go. I understand this, I do--especially since people in Terri's state do make noises and look around and all. Despite this, when the case is advanced as Terri's--and everything I was reading about her condition would indicate that she was beyond recovery--wanting to keep her alive just so that she can recover (which seemed to me, anyway, to be more the stance we received from her parents than it was from the Vatican arguments, which were more cleanly and basically right-to-life) is futile, and it quickly starts to appear that in this her parents wanted Terri alive more for themselves than they did for her.
But each sides want an autopsy to prove it's right, and it seems to demonstrate that the arguments have outgrown the comatose woman at their centers. When the autopsy demonstrates that Michael Schiavo's been right all this time, he'll finally be able to wave a big middle finger at the Schindlers. He might as well push Terri's fingers into shape for that gesture and wave her lifeless arm at her parents, since he's already using her body to prove his point.
I'm relieved. Now nothing more can be done for her. No more protests. No more appeals. No more rejections of appeals.
If the neurologists' reports are accurate, then the moment when something could have been done for Terri has long passed. Everything, at this point, that happened with her happened not for her but for the people around her.
This is a critique, of course, of her parents, who have for years seemed unable to just let this case go, to let their daughter go. I understand this, I do--especially since people in Terri's state do make noises and look around and all. Despite this, when the case is advanced as Terri's--and everything I was reading about her condition would indicate that she was beyond recovery--wanting to keep her alive just so that she can recover (which seemed to me, anyway, to be more the stance we received from her parents than it was from the Vatican arguments, which were more cleanly and basically right-to-life) is futile, and it quickly starts to appear that in this her parents wanted Terri alive more for themselves than they did for her.
But each sides want an autopsy to prove it's right, and it seems to demonstrate that the arguments have outgrown the comatose woman at their centers. When the autopsy demonstrates that Michael Schiavo's been right all this time, he'll finally be able to wave a big middle finger at the Schindlers. He might as well push Terri's fingers into shape for that gesture and wave her lifeless arm at her parents, since he's already using her body to prove his point.
Comments:
Post a Comment
