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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (106884)	3/31/2005 4:09:32 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 793670

I heard a medical ethicist present the case as a simple syllogism. Patients have the right to refuse treatment. Period. A feeding tube is treatment. (Food is not treatment, but a feeding tube is treatment, just as air is not treatment, but a respirator is treatment.) If Terri Schiavo had been compos mentis, she could have pulled the feeding tube herself. Patients who are not compos mentis must have a proxy make their decisions, according to what they would have wished, it that is known. Michael Schiavo was Terri's proxy, and the court accepted that Terri's wish was not to live on a feeding tube in such a completely disabled state. Therefore Michael Schiavo had the right to pull the feeding tube on Terri's behalf. If the parents had not contested the decision, there never would have been a case.