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by Josh Baltzell.
Original Post: The mandatory Terri Schiavo blog post
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Since one of the resons I posted this blog was so that I could look back at my life in years to come I thought I would make my first post about Terri Schiavo. I haven't posted more than a comment on other blogs about this until now but for posterity I thought I would lay out my opinions.
Let me say that I am posting this almost entirely based on the issue not the case. What I mean by that is that I am not going to delve in to the endless amount of information about court case money, stopped rehabilitation and general “Michael Schiavo is an assclown” arguments. I just want to say a couple of things about the issues.
Is it okay to let Terri die of starvation?
Yes. I wish we lived in a place where we could let her die more quickly (Lethal injection), but since this seems to be our only option in this country then yes it is morally okay. Idealy it would have been nice to let her pass in a way that would have let her donate her organs to people who needed them (assuming that she wanted that.)
How can you say it is morally okay to let someone die?
That answer is simple. She died 15 years ago and all that is left today is a shell. Your brain is who you are so when it is gone you are no more. Even if the rest of your body can keep working.
Take a look at the MRI and some opinions about that MRI. The doctors will tell you again, and again that the dark area is just liquid. Her body replaced the dead brain cells with that liquid and there is no fixing that. This is not the same as breaking your neck of losing a limb. She lost everything that made Terri who she was. All that is left now is her shell.
For the geeks out there: If you took the processor, hard drives and memory out of a computer but the power supply still powered up would you still have a computer?
But what about her soul?
Well I don't really believe in the classic definition of a soul, but let's pretend that I do. I would have to say that there are a couple of options for how the soul works. Either it is tied to the body so that it resides in it until the body is dead, or it resides in your brain so that when that is destroyed it leaves to go to whatever destination is next.
If anyone has another suggestion then please let me know, but in both of those options letting Terri die was the humane thing to do. Either her sould was trapped in a body that was totally incapable of even the most basic activities, or she was already in heaven.
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