[nukkad] After Terri Schiavo

["Pravin Walunjkar" <>]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Email gives you the ability to feel guilty about not communicating
with people you would have never felt guilty about before.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------


Terri Schiavo, 41, Dies in Fla. Hospice 

Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman kept alive by a feeding tube for
15 years during an epic legal and medical battle, has died.
____________________________

After Terri Schiavo 

Friday, April 1, 2005

THE DEATH yesterday of Terri Schiavo concludes a legal battle, but its
moral quandaries live on. The Schiavo case gripped the nation because of
the lines drawn between life and death, and the middle ground of
dementia or coma, agonizingly hard areas to delineate. In addition,
because of a mute understanding that this subject is too awful to
contemplate, a discussion of Schiavo-like choices has not fully
penetrated the public square. It will be a healthy thing if this taboo
is permanently shattered. We may not want to discuss death, but it will
come to all of us. And, because of medical technology, more people will
be empowered, or perhaps some would say condemned, to make judgments
about when life is worth living, and when not. 

A century ago, death usually came abruptly; the most frequent causes
were pneumonia, tuberculosis, diarrhea and injuries, sudden killers all.
Today, the average American spends two years disabled enough to need
help with the routine activities of living; and growing numbers survive
to be 85 and older, at which point they have a 50 percent chance of
suffering dementia before they die. In 2000, there were 4.2 million
Americans in the 85-plus cohort, but by 2030 there will be nearly 9
million, according to a paper for the Rand institute by Joanne Lynn and
David M. Adamson. We speak of people being "snatched from life." Death,
for more and more Americans, however, is the final stumble in a slow
decline. 

We have not adjusted to this transformation, in emotional, moral or
economic terms. Death is often portrayed in the movies as gunfights or
as heroic battles against diseases. Less discussed are the fading
figures in hospices where agonizing questions about the end of life,
pain, dementia and, yes, financial costs are confronted. We speak of
medicine as "saving lives." But at some point, arguably, medicine isn't
so much about saving life as managing the options for parting with it. 

Many Americans, and not just social conservatives, feel that life is
always worth preserving and that wavering from this principle opens the
door to selfish relatives who don't want the burden of caring for the
vulnerable. It's an honorable outlook -- also a natural one. Many
believe on religious grounds that life is sacrosanct. With the survival
instinct hard-wired into human nature, others find it difficult to
contemplate the extinction of the self. Yet there has to be space in a
free society for others to differ: to draw up living wills that specify
limits to life-prolonging medical interventions, and perhaps also to opt
for assisted suicide. 

It isn't possible for government to withdraw from this sphere
altogether. The Terri Schiavo case featured two claims to speak on her
behalf; inevitably Florida's legal system had to adjudicate between them
and to decide what standard of evidence was necessary to establish that
Mrs. Schiavo herself would have chosen to die. Equally, laws permitting
assisted suicide, such as the one in Oregon, require government to
create and enforce tight limits on its use. But it's clear that, on a
matter as imponderable as this one, the federal role should be
minimized. Thanks to Terri Schiavo, a national conversation is, we hope,
beginning.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17377-2005Mar31.html


-----------------------------------------------------------
have  a  great day !
- pravin  walunjkar. 



Disclaimer:
This e-mail may contain Privileged/Confidential information and is
intended only for the individual(s) named. Please notify the sender, if
you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete it from your system.
Information in this message that do not relate to the official business
of  the company shall be understood as neither given nor endorsed by it.
E-mail transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free. The
sender does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the
contents of this message which arise as a result of e-mail transmission.
If verification is required please request a hard-copy version. Visit us
at 


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To join/leave, use the form at: http://www.mumbai-central.com/nukkad/#options
This list is archived at: http://www.mumbai-central.com/nukkad/archive.html