Terri Schindler Schiavo died last Thursday. She was starved to death after a feeding tube that was giving her nourishment was removed on March 18, that is around two weeks ago.
Schiavo was deliberately starved to death in one of the world's richest countries. Those, including her husband, who for many years waged a legal battle to win this 'right' said that they wanted Terri to die in dignity.
But is a slow death through starvation a way of dying in dignity? We beg to differ. It takes so long to die of hunger and thirst!
It is important to remember that Schiavo was not in a coma; neither was she on life supporting machines. Schiavo was not brain dead or terminally ill. Her heart used to beat on its own and her lungs used to work without assistance.
She only needed basic care and assistance to obtain food and water. This was denied her.
Terri Schiavo, 41, had been impaired for the past 15 years. A resident of a nursing home in Pinellas Park, Florida, she had been receiving food and water through a feeding tube since 1990, when she collapsed at her home in St Petersburg because of what doctors believe was a potassium imbalance. Her brain was deprived of oxygen for several minutes.
Several doctors testified in Florida courts that Schiavo was in an irreversible vegetative state. Her parents, Mary and Bob Schindler, have said other doctors dispute this diagnosis.
The champion of the 'remove the feeding tube' campaign was Michael Schiavo. He is her husband. The media always presented him as such' and they were correct to do so since he remained legally married to Terri Schiavo.
Many must have believed him to be a loyal, loving husband, fighting to defend the wishes of his dear wife. Does he deserve this description? We are not our neighbour's judges, so we refrain from expressing an opinion.
But readers should be aware of the fact that he had been living with Jodi Centonze for several years and that he has two children by her. Mr Schiavo also saw it fit to deprive Terri's parents to be with her at the point of her death.
Terri's parents had fought a political and legal battle to try to prevent the removal of their daughter's feeding tube. They say their daughter would have wanted to live, in part because of her Catholic beliefs.
Throughout, Catholic leaders supported providing Schiavo with food and nutrition. This position was based on a 2004 papal speech to an international meeting on life-sustaining treatments in which Pope John Paul said that "the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act".
The Pope added that such provision of food and water "should be considered, in principle, ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatory" as long as the aim "consists in providing nourishment to the patient and alleviation of his suffering".
Schiavo's agony coincided with the 10th anniversary of the encyclical Evangelium Vitae, which warned of an encroaching "culture of death". John Paul II signed the encyclical Evangelium Vitae on March 25, 1995, the solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord.
The Schiavo case illustrates Pope John Paul's concerns that human persons would be valued more for their utility and 'quality of life' than for their inherent worth. In fact, the Holy Father wrote in No. 64 of the encyclical: "Here we are faced with one of the more alarming symptoms of the 'culture of death', which is advancing above all in prosperous societies, marked by an attitude of excessive preoccupation with efficiency and which sees the growing number of elderly and disabled people as intolerable and too burdensome."
US religious leaders reflected the Pope's position. Schiavo should not be allowed to die through denial of food and water, said Baltimore Cardinal William H. Keeler, chairman of the US bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities.
"God will call Terri Schiavo to himself when it is her time to die. It is not for us to determine when that time is," he said in a March 24 statement released at the Washington headquarters of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
It was issued shortly before the US Supreme Court declined a request by Schiavo's parents to intervene so that the feeding tube could be reinserted.
Bishop Samuel J. Aquila of Fargo, ND, said in a Good Friday homily on March 25 that Schiavo "is totally innocent and yet who would have imagined, even 25 years ago, that some judge would permit a person to be starved and to be dehydrated to death".
Pittsburgh Bishop Donald W. Wuerl wrote in the March 25 issue of his diocesan newspaper, The Pittsburgh Catholic, that Schiavo is entitled to basic human care, which includes water and food.
"We are not dealing with extraordinary treatment such as a ventilator or dialysis," he said. No one is obliged to undergo extraordinary treatment if it would add to suffering and prolong death, he added.
The Pennsylvania bishops in a March 23 statement said withholding food and water from "a patient in the persistent vegetative state, who is not imminently terminal" amounts to euthanasia.
Chicago Cardinal Francis E. George said "this case is not about letting a terminally ill woman die a natural death. It is about ending the life of a person with a significant disability prematurely."
A similar case occurred in the late 1990s. Hugh Finn, a newscaster in Louisville, Ky., was diagnosed as in a persistent vegetative state after a car accident. His wife wanted the feeding tube removed but some of Finn's relatives did not. In the ensuing legal battle, the wife, Michele Finn, won.
At that time Louisville Archbishop Thomas C. Kelly said he supported the wife's decision but that the case involves "a grey area" in Catholic ethical teaching.
"Her decision is within the church's realm of acceptable moral decisions," for such cases, said the archbishop in 1998 after the tube had been removed. Other Catholic officials, however, said Finn's feeding tube should not have been removed.
Catholic News Service posed the following question to a number of moral theologians: Can a Catholic leave instructions that a feeding tube not be used, given the strong statements by Vatican and US church officials opposing the removal of the tube from Schiavo?
Catholic experts in bioethics have differing opinions as to the circumstances that could justify removing a feeding tube or instructing that one not be inserted.
Dominican Father Kevin O'Rourke, ethics professor at the Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy at the medical school of Loyola University in Chicago, said it would be morally permissible to draft an advance directive saying a feeding tube should not be inserted or should be removed if a person is diagnosed as in an irreversible vegetative state.
"If a Catholic in an advance directive says no to artificial hydration and nutrition, he is saying that if he becomes comatose this will be too much of a burden for the family," Fr O'Rourke said.
Edward Furton, specialist in medical ethics at the National Catholic Bioethics Centre in Philadelphia, disagreed.
"An advance directive that makes blanket statements that food and water be removed from a brain-damaged or persistent vegetative state patient is not appropriate for Catholics," Furton said.
It would be morally permissible to remove a feeding tube if the tube was causing more harm than good. Cases he cited include: the body is not assimilating food and water; the tube is causing infection; and the patient is disturbed and constantly removes the tube.
The Terri Schiavo saga brought to the fore not only the human tragedy involved in such cases but the complex legal, medical and ethical issues involved.
Many times there are no easy answers and most of the time there are different answers. A lot depends on the analysis made.
In such cases this tends to be clouded, sometimes, by a highly emotive atmosphere. The words spoken by President George W. Bush as soon as Terri's death was announce provide food for thought. "I urge all those who honour Terri Schiavo to continue to work to build a culture of life where all Americans are welcomed, valued and protected.
"Especially those who live at the mercy of others. The essence of civilization is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak. In cases where there are serious doubts and questions, the presumption should be in the favour of life." One hopes that the death of Terri would not have been in vain.