Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - If you were in Terri Schiavo's shoes, what would you want done?

roachboy · 03-22-2005, 09:55 AM

ever read "johnny got his gun"?
it's about someone greivously wounded in world war 1 who is kept alilve in the basement of a hospital as a kind of medical curiousity.
the schiavo case seems to me about the technological capacity to prolong physical life well beyond the flickering out of consciousness.
it is about machinery.

i frankly do not understand the motivations of schiavo's parents in this--what they are hoping will happen---whether this whole saga, the whole raft of litigation, is about anything beyond the fact that her parents cannot let go. i feel quite a sympathy for them insofar as i imagine it completely unclear to them, this question of what exactly they are fighting for.

as for political correlates, i cant see any rational basis for linking this case to anything in a "pro-life" position, unless by doing it those who support such a position are interested, for some reason, in making a mockery of their own beliefs. this is not life that is being defended here. this is the maintenance of the minimal metabolic features that define physical life by mechanical means. this is not life.

03-22-2005, 09:55 AM	#44 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	ever read "johnny got his gun"? it's about someone greivously wounded in world war 1 who is kept alilve in the basement of a hospital as a kind of medical curiousity. the schiavo case seems to me about the technological capacity to prolong physical life well beyond the flickering out of consciousness. it is about machinery. i frankly do not understand the motivations of schiavo's parents in this--what they are hoping will happen---whether this whole saga, the whole raft of litigation, is about anything beyond the fact that her parents cannot let go. i feel quite a sympathy for them insofar as i imagine it completely unclear to them, this question of what exactly they are fighting for. as for political correlates, i cant see any rational basis for linking this case to anything in a "pro-life" position, unless by doing it those who support such a position are interested, for some reason, in making a mockery of their own beliefs. this is not life that is being defended here. this is the maintenance of the minimal metabolic features that define physical life by mechanical means. this is not life. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 03-22-2005 at 10:03 AM..