The case of Terri Schaivo is a perfect example of using the right to die movement to rid ourselves of people whose lives we do not value. Terri Schaivo was by all accounts a healthy young woman who inexplicably collapsed at home while her husband was also home. Terri was just twenty-six. Over the next fifteen years, Terri’s birth family fought bitterly with her husband, Michael Schaivo, over whether Terri was in a persistent vegetative state or not and whether Terri would want to live like that or not. Terri’s parents claimed she was able to communicate on a minimal level. She could breathe and swallow on her own and she could look at people who were speaking to her. Michael claimed that in the past, Terri verbally stated her wish that she would never want to live in a persistent vegetative state. During the fifteen years Terri was in the hospital, her husband Michael lived with another woman and had two children. Finally, Michael won in his fight to end Terri’s life. After fifteen years, Terri’s feeding tube was removed causing Terri to die of dehydration after thirteen days. Terri was inconvenient to Michael’s life and he was successful in using the right to die movement to eliminate Terri from his life. This is wrong.
Doctor assisted suicide has been going on in the Netherlands since at least 1990. Over one thousand people were killed by their doctor without their consent in 1990. Fourteen percent of these people were fully competent. Seventy-two percent never expressed a wish to end their lives. Doctors in the Netherlands are allowed to euthanize newborns as long as they fit in one of three categories as outlined in The Groningen Protocol. This makes the lives of the parents much more convenient. Now they do not have to take care of the babies who are going to be very dependent on their parents for the rest of their lives. Now the parents can go on living their lives. There is hope for justice though as each of these cases goes before the attorney general for review or for the chance to prosecute the doctor.
References
Corbella, L. (2011, November 19). Corbella: doctor-assisted suicide is dangerous for us all.
Calgary Herald. Retrieved from http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/Corbella+Doctor+assisted+suicide+dangerous/5734619/story.html?cid=megadrop_story.
Terri Schaivo Life & Hope Network. (n.d.) Terri’s story. Retrieved from Terrisfight website
http://www.terrisfight.org/timeline/.
Verhagen, E. and Sauer, P. J. J. (2005, March 10). Perspective the Groningen protocol –
euthanasia in severely ill newborns. The New England Journal of Medicine. 352:959-962.
Retrieved from http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp058026.
