The recent intervention by the Florida legislature and Governor
Jeb Bush in the case of Terri Schiavo was a just action.

Terri Schiavo is a disabled woman in Florida who has been
bedridden with serious brain damage since a collapse in 1990. She
requires no respirator or life support, but she draws her
sustenance from a feeding tube inserted into her stomach.

In this case, I won’t have to make too many comments of my own.
The facts of the case (many of which have been ignored by the
media) speak for themselves.

In 1992, Schiavo and her husband Michael were awarded more than
$1 million in medical malpractice lawsuits, a large portion of
which was awarded after Michael promised to use the money for
Terri’s rehabilitation.

In 1993, Terri’s family and Michael Schiavo had a falling out
over his refusal to seek therapy for Terri. Since 1997, he has
sought to end her life by termination of nutrition and
hydration–that is, death by starvation. For six years, a battle
has been waged in the courts, and twice, Terri’s feeding tube has
been removed (in 2000 for two days and most recently in October for
almost a week).

Recently, Terri was rehydrated and her feeding tube reinserted
as a result of the intervention of the Florida legislature and
Governor Jeb Bush.

Michael Schiavo is Terri’s guardian, and he has testified that
in casual conversations Terri indicated she wouldn’t want to be
kept alive “artificially.” The judge overseeing the case, George
Greer, has sided with Michael, despite the fact that Schiavo didn’t
remember Terri’s wish until 1997, several years after winning award
money for her rehabilitation.

While one can’t make a definitive statement about Schiavo’s
motivations, things seem somewhat awry when a husband, who has been
living with another woman (with whom he has two children) since
1992, and who stands to inherit substantial sums of money upon
Terri’s death, has actively sought her death for more than a
decade, only after winning award money that was meant to go for her
treatment.

The basic question is whether, in any case, providing food and
water is “extreme medical treatment” or “being kept alive
artificially.” The typical assertion is that a feeding tube is an
extreme measure in the case of a person who is in a vegetative
state with no chance of recovery.

Is this the case? Is providing a person with food and water ever
extreme? I contend that it is not. Fortunately, however, the facts
of this case make it such that there isn’t even a need to answer
this question.

The plot thickens even more. While Terri is typically
characterized as comatose or in a persistent vegetative state, the
truth (easily verified by looking at the Web site of the Terri
Schindler-Schiavo Foundation, www.terrisfight.org) is that she is
responsive to communication.

There is no contesting the fact that she would feel pain in
being starved to death. And while Michael Schiavo and his lawyer,
the well-known “right to die” advocate George Felos, have claimed
only to be carrying out Terri’s wishes, what they have consistently
sought is the starvation of a helpless woman contrary to the wishes
of the rest of her family.

This is not a typical “right to die” living will type of case.
Terri has no living will, and the man relentlessly seeking her
death has at least a few obvious conflicts of interest: He stands
to inherit a lot from her when she dies, and he would probably have
to pay alimony to help pay for her medical care if he were to
divorce her.

The question here is whether legal guardianship over a ward
should extend so far as giving the guardian the right to decide
when to actively terminate the life of his ward. But in this case,
even backers of euthanasia should cringe–starving to death is not
exactly a “good death.”

Governor Bush should be commended for responding to the public
outcry that came mostly from people who found out about the case
over the Internet.

In stepping in to save Terri’s life, Bush took a stand for the
sanctity of human life against those who would–asserting that
Terri’s life is worthless–stand by and watch her starve to
death.

Brian Carl is a junior studying philosophy and
history.