DefenseBlog

When someone is brain dead and a number of medical tests confirm that they are brain dead, it is legal and ethical to take their heart and lungs off of life support.

However, there have been cases of persons whose medical tests showed that they were brain dead. And the family refused to pull the plug on the life support. And later the patient became conscious and returned to a normal life.

Now suppose that someone is not brain dead, but in a coma, in other words, they are persistently unconscious. They may awaken from the coma. There was a case in the news recently of a girl who awoke from a coma. For someone who is not brain dead, but is in a coma, it may or may not be ethical to end their life by withdrawing life support. If there is any chance that they will recover, they should be given that chance. If someone has been in a coma for many years without recovery, it may be ethical to withdraw life support.

But now let's consider the case of Terry Schiavo. She collapsed from an eating disorder in 1990 and suffered some brain damage. She is no longer as intelligent or as aware as she once was.

But she is not brain dead. And she is not in a coma. In fact, she is not even temporarily unconscious, as one might be after a fall or a car accident. She is awake. She breathes and her heart beats without life support. She is aware of her surroundings and responds to visits from her parents. She looks at people who are talking to her and responds to what they say.

She is unable to speak and she clearly has some brain damage that resulted in a state of mental retardation. But she is awake and aware. Some persons have claimed that she is in a "persistent vegitative state." There is no such medical diagnosis. There is no such term in the Merck Manual. She is merely mentally retarded as a result of prior brain damage (when her heart temporarily stopped beating and her brain was deprived of oxygen).

She needs to receive food and water through a feeding tube. Some other handicapped persons and many persons who are recovering from surgery also need to receive food and water through a feeding tube. Such efforts to keep her alive are not extraordinary.

Some people want to kill Terry Schiavo by withdrawing her feeding tube and slowly starving her to death, depriving her of food and water. We do not kill persons recovering from surgery by withdrawing their feeding tube. We do not kill handicapped persons by refusing to feed them with a feeding tube. There is no reasonable ethical argument to be make in favor of withdrawing her feeding tube.

She is not brain dead. She is not in a coma. She is not unconscious. She is not in a "persistent vegitative state" (that's just a nice way of calling her a vegetable). She is not a vegetable. She is an awake and aware human being who responds to the people and things around her.

Withdrawing her feeding tube is clearly unethical and immoral. And it certainly runs contrary to established medical ethics in both theory and practice.