abortion, removing feeding tubes - similar debates on core level?

[The Straight Story]

If you're in a pissy mood, go ahead and flame me - my in laws are coming Tuesday and nothing you can say is worse than that :)

So at any rate, here is the core of the question as best I can frame it at this moment in time: A fetus (if you will please, since my thesarus is not handy) is a blob of tissue to some, unable to survive witout the life support of the mother - who makes the choice regarding whether or not she wishes to continue to carry the child.

Someone in a brain dead state (et al, insert as needed terms) is no more advanced (in some basic ways, obviously not all) and also does not have the prospect (usually I would guess) of changing their state in 9 months.

One is progressing, the other regressing to (perhaps) the starting point of where the other is progressing from.

Are these discussions somehow intertwined on these levels - and is this part of the reason behind the right's view of this case (which, I may add is not the only case - but hell it is not really important until the MSM makes is so it seems...) and many on the left's?

Oddly enough, a friend of mine on left told me the other day she did not think the tube should be removed because it was a throwback to men having power over their wives (and I don't really see that as related here) and that the other woman, her mother - should have more say and not some man. I mention this here because it brings out the diversity of opinion on the left in the big tent - so feel free to share yours.

Once again - I am hoping this is not flamebait or turns into a flame fest, I was merely thinking today about abortion and the state of life at varying times. We chose not to give my mom life saving procedures in her last days as we knew well that she no longer wanted to live, no one doubted it a single bit. I miss her, sometimes wonder if maybe we did the right thing (and missing simply adds to that vicious cycle), but I know firsthand what it was she wanted - and I will say here honestly that she was not in a comatose/brain dead/vegatative state, she was in a very painful one at 70 and did not want to suffer anymore - so there are differences, but I thought it honest to mention it.

[concord]

1. It's a question of who owns our bodies

The gov't or us?

Good observation.

[The Straight Story]

3. Thanks, was expecting some flames :)

It just seems that the government is wanting to get more control over our lives from day to day things to our very bodies (and how we treat them from being overweight to smoking, et al).

We do not live for the state - it is there for us.

[Warpy]

2. Life at any cost is one issue

whether the cost is enslaving a living, breathing human being against her will and risking her life by using her body as an incubator for the state, or keeping a patient in a vegetative state alive against her will and against the will of her significant other by fiat by the state.

[BrendaStarr]

4. Very well said.

To all of the above.

(Hopefully)

[Az]

5. It goes to the core of the issue re life, souls, and identity

Life is complex. Even the most informed do not fully understand life. Where the bit that is our identity or soul is difficult to conceptualize. Some hold the position that such things arise from the stuff of the brain. Others believe that the stuff of identity is a bit called the soul that associates itself with the body.

Those in the second camp do not equate braindeath with the loss of identity. They see life as evidence of the presense of this identity still. Until the body dies naturally in their mind the soul is still associated with it. Ending the bodies life just because the brain is dead is still murder in their minds.

[Cuban_Liberal]

6. You've stated it well.

Reasonable people can (and do) disagree on what constitutes 'life'.

:thumbsup:

[The Straight Story]

11. An interesting thing lays beneath somewhere perhaps

in a historical view over the ages and the age yet to come. How death is defined, was defined, and will yet again someday be redefined from a scientific view.

From a religion point of view one could look back over the biblical times and wonder why death is such a bad thing - Jesus could have saved himself and did not, prophets could have fled their duties when facing death - and chose to die, and even today many are willing to put their lives on the line for their job, et al.

So many ways to look at a situation...

[Horse with no Name]

7. It comes down to choice and the existing law

It is the Pro-Choice argument on both ends of the spectrum.

The woman can choose whether or not she wishes to carry the fetus. It is her CHOICE.
After the fetus is born up until the age of 18 (except in the circumstance of emancipation by the child) the parent is the legal guardian and is the legal next of kin and has the right to make decisions regarding that child.
The child then chooses a spouse. At that point, the spouse takes over the responsibility of legal next of kin for that person relieving the parents of that responsibility.
It is the legal right of the legal next of kin to be able to make life and death decisions for their spouse in the event that they are incapacitated to do so.

It is the CHOICE of the legal next of kin which avenue to follow, whether it is from discussions or other situations that they were familiar with.
That is the argument we need to keep in the forefront....we deserve a choice over what happens to our bodies.

[demigoddess]

8. better a husband have control over a woman's body than the GoP

Better still to have it ourselves but at least husbands listen to us most of the time but the government never. Also it takes women's controls away from our husbands if they get to be in this condition and we have to decide to pull the feeding tubes. That is what the GOP really hates. They think we will kill husbands right and left. Also it puts children in the category of being wards of the state so they can decide what to do with our children even over our wishes.

[bartstratton]

9. Its about giving government power to force medical procedures

Frist and Delay are asserting the Federal government has the power to override Shiavo's right to refuse a medical procedure. They are saying the government can forcibly intubate someone. This principle can be used to for forced lobotomies, sterilization, abortions.

Under US law Shiavo has the right to choose her medical procedures, including the right to refuse the procedure. Under Florida case law, Shaivo's oral statements that she wouldn't want life support can be challenged. The Schindlers challenged her oral statements and lost. Now the right wing is trying to override Shiavo's choice.


Shiavo is a stepping Stone to overturing Roe v Wade. And ultimately, to the Federal Government having the power to force any media procedure on us.

Specifically, the right wing is trying to get around John F Memorial Hospital, Inc vs Bludworth where the Court held that the constitutionally protected right to choose or reject medical treatment was not diminished by virtue of physical or mental incapacity or incompetence.

Check out page 7 of this abstract of the Shiavo case:

http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/trialctorder02-00.pdf

[crispini]

13. Well written!

and welcome to DU! :hi:

[mondo joe]

10. Yup. It's all about denying autonomy over our lives and bodies.

Those opposed to either want you to be a slave.

[crispini]

12. This factoid

tells me everything I need to know:

"Randall Terry, an anti-abortion activist who is acting as a Schindler family spokesman..."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050320/ap_on_re_us/brain_damaged_woman&e=3

[jab105]

14. I'm as anti-abortion as they come on this board...and have gotten

flamed numerous times for it...

But, the difference is that the fetus will become a living thinking human being if nature is left to happen...

Terri will not...she will never improve, she is gone...

Many years were spent trying to rehabilitate her, but they were of no use because her brain was/is a pile of goo...

SHE is dead...has been for a long time...

Even my southern baptist mother, who votes republican only because of abortion sees this one...but she was a nurse, so she knows better about this...

I think what has people upset is seeing the videos...but, thats not the reality of the situation...its just reflexes that they TIMED to asking her questions...

What the Republicans are doing is disgusting...and what the Democrats are doing by hiding under a rock while this crap is going on, is just as bad...

[enough]

15. Thought experiment:

What if Terri Schiavo were a man? Would any of this be happening?