BlessedMan said:
This is regarding the comment I posted about living a life proper to a human being, so I'll clarify as best I can. It's late, I've just gotten off work and I have to be up early, so keep that in mind while you read this.
Life as a human being is more than respiring, digesting and blinking. This may fulfill the bare minimum of being alive, but it does not begin to be proper to the life of a human being.
Human life, fully human, involves far more subtle qualities: consciousness, self-awareness, will, meaningful action, abstraction from reality in the process of planning, creating and the reward of congruence the facts of nature, etc. These things we do on a daily basis, on a momentary thought, and this is proper to our nature as human beings. To be kept chained to a feeding tube, a respirator, to be kept physically alive when there is no consciousness to drive that body, is both an affront to Ms. Schiavo's dignity, and to everyone else's dignity as a human being.
The proponents of keeping her biologically alive don't argue that the brain damage she suffered is profound, nor do they argue that she probably has little hope of even partial recovery. And everyone agrees at this point at least, she's not the woman mentally she used to be.
The issue here is that they cling to the shred of an unfounded hope that "someday" she might recover. How much is anybody's guess, but the real crime here is that the supporters of the feeding tube ignore the facts of her existence RIGHT NOW, and try to invoke a nigh impossible fantasy as justification for keeping her body in this disgusting parody of life.
But, this view of a parody of a life is not inconsistent with writings I've read by Christians on the very nature of life; Mother Theresa of Calcutta lauds suffering and misery as being key to reaching oneness with God. Many Christians see the natural, the physical and the corporeal as being disgusting and depraved, and a satisfaction of that IMO is what they see in Terri Schiavo - her form is how they see human life, mindless, helpless, weak and perpetuated on the mercy of outsiders, i.e. God. Schaivo is the embodiment of their goal, to trap Man in dependence on God, to tie his hands with his own good will, to use the best in him to seek the worst expression of depravity.
In short, they take compassion and turn it against honor for life. What I argue is that life as a human being requires the abstract notion of dignity, respect, and right of self-determination. Terri did not want to live this way, none of us do. This is anathema to a life proper to our existence as human beings. The right thing to do is let her die, the way her mind died some 15 years ago, and let the memory of her be of a fully functioning person with dreams, hopes and successes, not as some political football, some drooling half-live zombie, or puppet for those who hate the most beautiful part of human life.