Death with dignity

After years upon years of judicial battles, legislation, finger pointing and allegations, a proper decision was finally reached on March 18.

Terri Schiavo's drawn-out life, which had gone on much longer than she wished it to, has ended. Schiavo died in her hospice yesterday, March 31. Now she can finally rest in peace.

About 15 years ago, Schiavo collapsed from a potassium imbalance. That caused a severe deprivation of oxygen in her brain, which caused her to fall into a state where she could not eat, speak or react. A state that doctors and politically correct enthusiasts have been calling a "persistent vegetative state."

After years of being in a persistent legislative state, Schiavo's case found its way to the United States Supreme Court, which essentially ruled to uphold a Florida court's decision to remove Schiavo's feeding tube, by refusing to hear oral arguments at all.

The Supreme Court has consistently ruled in this way, finding that the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause includes in it an implicit right to die with dignity.

Understandably, the dissenters will argue that there is no dignity in the manner that Schiavo died, having starved her from water and nutrition for nearly two weeks. However, in most states, including Florida, doctors are barred from assisting a terminally ill patient in committing suicide. Therefore, the removal of her feeding tube was the only way for doctors to follow Schiavo's wishes.

Thankfully, now that Schiavo's life has ended, and President George W. Bush has made his speech on the matter, the hordes of people who were protesting against her right to die with dignity will go home. The people who protested outside of Schiavo's hospice, including her parents sadly enough, have been wrong and arguing mundane, outdated points the entire time they have been there.

It has gone so far that people are saying Schiavo was being punished for committing the crime of being disabled in America.

I don't think I have ever heard a more ignorant sentence.

Regardless of the disputes concerning Michael Schiavo's legal rights as Terri's guardian, Terri Schiavo's feeding tube should still have been removed, in accordance with her desire not to be kept alive if she was ever in a persistent vegetative state and not as any kind of punishment.

She wanted to exercise her constitutionally protected right to die.

Michael Schiavo was Terri's legal guardian, despite her parents' attempts to have him removed. As Terri's legal guardian, Michael Schiavo petitioned a court in 1998 to finally execute his wife's wishes and to remove her feeding tube and in 2000, a Florida circuit court rules that Schiavo's feeding tube should be removed.

That should have been the end of any and all legal battles. That ruling meant that Michael Schiavo proved with a preponderance of evidence that Terri Schiavo's wishes would have been for her feeding tube to be removed. At that point, all the bleeding-heart liberals, or the staunch conservatives - whichever group decided that assisted suicide is the news flavor of the week - should have packed up their things and left town.

Of course, that's not actually what happened. This is America after all, and the people will protest as loud as they can for as long as they can, or until the story drops out of the media.

On a side note, where were the protestors in 1998? In 2000? To my knowledge they all just sort of appeared in late 2004. It's odd how that coincides with the national coverage of Schiavo's story.

The protestors were arguing not just that the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube represented some sort of punishment, but that there was actually a way in which Schiavo would miraculously "snap out" of her state.

There was not a single doctor who examined the Schiavo case and thought there was any chance whatsoever that she would at any point have come out of her persistent vegetative state.

It was a lost cause. Schiavo was never going to recover from her state, and has finally left this world and will be able to rest in peace.

Everyone who kept Schiavo alive for all the years longer was doing so because they believed in some miracle that would bring her back to this world when she was already gone.

I'm sorry, Terri Schiavo, on behalf of every person who extended your life far beyond your wishes.

e-mail: dsgvertz@buffalo.edu