Eluana Englaro Died of Cardiac Arrest--The Young Support her Dehydration
The autopsy of Eluana Englaro shows she died of cardiac arrest. From the story:
An autopsy performed on the controversial 'right to die' woman, Eluana Englaro, who died in Italy on Monday has shown she died of cardiac arrest, provoked by dehydration after her feeding tubes were removed last week. The fate of 38-year-old Englaro, who had been in a vegetative state since 1992, provoked a euthanasia debate that has divided Italy and caused a constitutional crisis.The life of Eluana is over, but the controversy has just begun in Italy:
People who are my age (nearly 60) and above should be very afraid. The majority of the young seem to have rejected the sanctity/equality of human life. That bodes ill for us when we become dependent upon others for care and support."It is wrong to insult others and it is equally wrong to accuse Catholics of fundamentalism when they fight for life," said Fisichella in an interview with Italian daily, La Repubblica. "There is a great reversal of values. Freedom is good, but there should also be freedom to decide against death and not in favour of death. "Analysing the latest polls, we can see that the 18-25 age bracket asked for the death of Eluana, while the older the age, the more people were in favour of allowing her to live. This should ring some alarm bells."
Recent opinion polls showed Italians were clearly divided over the issue with 47 percent of those surveyed in favour of Englaro's right to die and 47 percent opposed to it. Six percent were undecided.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:54 AM
14 Comments
14 Comments:
'Oh, it can't happen here, 'my daughters would never do that': pft--that is what they are most of them thinking, more's the pity.
Thanks for all your good work!
In my experience so far talking about this with young people (here in the U.S., anyway), the thinking that I am seeing is this:
It is seen as an issue of personal autonomy, first and foremost. If the scenario is cast in the light of "she wished it to be so," they are vehemently defending her right to be "taken off of artificial life support."
To me there are major thinking errors, beginning with what Wesley has rightly pointed out as the difference between food and water, and other means of supporting life. (But this is hard to delineated for the generations of young people who also believe that autonomy trumps the basic sustenance of teh womb, too.)
Also, very few people are equipped with, or deign to make the effort to do, the logical follow-through to the area of the rights of the disabled. In fact, in discussions, when I make the point that liberals atheists and other supporters of the rights of the individual against the government machine were against Terry Schiavo's killing, at most I get a blank stare. It doesn't compute. And usualy I have been ignored.
"..in favor of Englaro's right to die.." What a joke. She was clearly not indicating she wanted to die. It is more clear to say that they are in favor of her father's right to kill her. Her desire (and that of Schiavo, et al) is not the issue because they are not in the position to make that determination and don't appear to be in any pain.
The real debate is about the right of others to decide they don't want to have to deal with the severely disabled anymore. But mouthing concern for the disabled and "their" desire for death allows their killers to claim the mantle of "compassion". We need to keep engaging the debate more than ever in the coming years.
If it were YOUR daughter, you'd be perfectly justified in continuing her feeding and hydration. And if she had previously expressed to you her desire not to continue life in a vegetative state, it would be on your conscience as to whether or not life-sustaining treatment should be continued. What I find difficult to understand is the desire by perfect strangers to interject themselves into a family's private business, and to second-guess a father's most agonizing decision simply because they imagine they have some sort of moral superiority. It's the height of arrogance for any of them to be involved in the matter at all --- and that includes the Pope. To paraphrase attorney Joseph Welsh in 1954: "at long last, have [they] left no sense of decency at all?"
HistoryWriter:
Odd, that you ask if we Catholics have no decency, when it isn't us who are eugenically destroying Down syndrome babies. Odd, too, that you equate killing someone with decency.
Consider this (thankfully) improbable senario:
Suppose a man had gotten a bi-racial woman pregnant and their daughter was dark complected. We would say "black." Suppose the man in question thought that as a "black" child his daughter had no chance of a worthy life, that she would be no better than a vegetable, because she's unable to experience life as a better (light complected) person. Suppose he wanted to have his daughter starved to death to spare her from a life of being inadequate. And suppose the Italian government permitted it.
Improbable, yes, thankfully. Nobody should be killed based on color of skin or gender or any other reason. We want to protect *all* life. That means sacrificing to make sure a woman who is "vegetative" is not starved to death. She was murdered, plain and simple. She would have lived if they let her eat, but they starved and dehydrated her to death. That is NOT natural.
Why is it so much better that she die?
I have said it before and I say it again - either there is a God or there isn't.
If there is a God, then starving one of His image bearers to death is not exactly the way to get on His good side. And everyone involved will be judged and dealt with accordingly.
If there is no God, then her father has turned her into dust. She's nothing more than a pile of kibble. Her bones will rot. Her body will decay. She'll putrify. She's nothing but a lump of dirt turning back into dirt. How is that better than being alive? She's gone, not there anymore, and as soon as all her family dies she won't be anything. She has left no legacy, nothing. Had she lived, and been cared for by her family and community, then she would have left a legacy that passed on to them, though I think that's a poor sort of "immortality." But still, in that event, she shouldn't be shoved off this mortal coil for an eternal dirt nap ahead of schedule.
Do me a favor - explain why it's okay for YOU to live but not for her. If death is so much better than life, then I think your family should be able to look at you as you are right now, say, "We think you're better off dead," and starve you, even now as you read this.
And if you disagree, then you're a hipocrite. Because it's a family matter, and your family should be allowed to kill you if they see fit.
Why is death so much greater than life?! Yes, natural death happens and is a part of life, and it's what keeps us humble and points us in the right direction, and helps us to mature. But for goodness sake, that's a *natural* death! We don't put up with people murdering other people in the streets. Why should this be any different?
Nobody has given me a satisfactory answer as to why turning that girl into a pile of dirt is better than keeping her alive by simply *feeding* her.
The only answer I've gotten that was at least honest was, "Well, she was taking up space and costing money." Honest. Sick, but honest.
Wesley, I'm not sure the young have rejected the sanctity of life ethic as much as we might think. They are pro-life in regards to abortion. Two thirds of HS seniors told the 2006 Hamilton College Hot Issues Poll (I think that's the name)that abortion was morally wrong or morally wrong most of the time. Planned Parenthood, NARAL et al are in a tizzy over this. They haven't integrated their beliefs about the morality of it with public policy yet, but I think they'll get there. Pro-lifers are ecstatic about the future. The young know it could have been them. So, I think it's likely that these kids will appropriate their pro-life views to the end of life too. The only thing I fear is the massive debt the boomers and their parents have laid up on the young. They'll have to choose between us and the chains we've put on them. But I'm hopeful.
"And if she had previously expressed to you her desire not to continue life in a vegetative state, it would be on your conscience as to whether or not life-sustaining treatment should be continued."
Which doesn't appear to be the case here, just as it wasn't the case with Terri Schiavo. The issue is: if others want someone to be killed, shouldn't that person's want NOT to be killed supercede everyone else's wishes?
And once again, I asked, why is life better than death, and I get no answer. There seems to be a large gap whenever I ask that question.
I ask it again - why is this woman's death better than being alive?
T.E. The hell it is. Of course it isn't. Some people just want everything to be ass-backwards because they are that way themselves. That's all.
How many of these young people have tattoos, piercings, etc.? Where were their parents? How could anyone do that? Yet they do, and it's accepted. There's the answer.
TE Fine:
You have nailed it, exactly. No one has given me an answer, either. There is NO reason she should die rather than lve other than she is a "useless eater."
I would like to hear from History Writer or anyone else who can give an answer. I will be waiting.
I am not acquainted with the laws of Italy.
The laws of England, the United States, and all peoples who draw their laws from England allow anyone to refuse any medical treatment whatever, even lifesaving treatment, for any reason or for no reason. This is from time immemorial.
A court of competent jurisdiction in the United States held, after a full hearing, that there was "clear and convincing evidence" that Theresa Schiavo had stated her intended refusal of the treatment (feeding tube, which must be inserted surgically) which was keeping her alive under the circumstances she found herself in. This decision was reviewed extensively by higher courts, all of whom held the trial court verdict to be correct.
Is this want Theresa wanted? A court held that it was. That's how we deal with disputed facts in this culture.
If you didn't know Theresa personally, how do you know that this decision was wrong? If you did, why were you not at the hearing? If you have a better way to determine disputed facts, what is it?
If you think that you have the right to force me to undergo surgery against my will, I would respectfully disagree.
HistoryWriter: You should see how often strangers interject their views and prevail, and feel they have a right to, against the wishes of the family (and the person)when the person, and the family, wants to live, not die. That happens more often than it does in the opposite scenario. It's a reality, and it's horrible. I don't think it should be "the family's" decision, anyway. It's the person's. And if the person can't speak for themself in any way (and if it's through a prior document it may not be what they actually turn out to want at the time, and these doctors aren't what a lot of people think they are, in terms of competence, character, or ethics) the benefit of the doubt in favor of life has to be given. The other way is irreversible and taking a chance like that would be like risking putting someone who's been convicted but actually is innocent but Barry Scheck and the Innocence Project didn't get there in time in the electric chair and pulling the switch.
When it is okay to "withdraw care," "allow someone to die," or what ever polite euphemism one wishes to rename it, when they WANT it - supposedly - then it slowly becomes okay to do it when their family says they want it, or they would have wanted it, or the government says THEY want it. It's not called the slippery slope for nothing. It starts somewhere and ends on YOUR doorstep. We owe it -- selfishly -- to ourselves if no one else, to feed, care for, sit with , rock, cuddle, cradle, soothe, bathe, tend, and turn till the very end - the NATURAL end - every single one. Or we will ALL end like this.
HistoryWriter, when someone is allowed to die this way, it is everyone's business -- society at large, in fact. It has been proven over and over that every inhibition destroyed makes the next one easier to justify. What this woman needed was love and support, not abandonment to death by withholding of basic necessities. If we don't protect the most vulnerable, why is anyone else worth protecting?
Wesley, if that is true then God help the young: they will find themselves in their grandparents' shoes soon enough.
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