The Schiavo case and end-of-life issues

Catholic New Times, April 10, 2005

The spectacle of the U.S. Congress in emergency session at midnight debating the re-insertion of the feeding tube of Terry Schiavo, and the sight of U.S. resident Bush hurrying back to Washington to sign into law an expected bill to call for such re-insertion, overturning a Federal Court decision, made some of us in Canada blanch once again.

Extreme, highly sentimentalized, political positions poison American public discourse in ever-increasing ways. No personal predicament, no matter how agonizing, can escape the moralizing interventions of right-wing "religious" zealots now in ascendancy in public positions. In an unsigned memo to party senators from the Reublican leadership, the tragic 'and heartbreaking Schiavo case had become "a great political issue."

Listening to the ethically-challenged Republican House leader Tom Delay, himself currently being investigated for his lack of ethics, prat on about the "Palm Sunday Law", makes even hardened observers gag. The president assures the U.S. that they must "err on the side of life" when as governor of Texas, he signed into law a bill that allowed hospitals the right to cut off treatment of poor folks--those with unlikely prospects for any quality of life. Not to mention the same "quality of life" enjoyed by 100,000 dead Iraqis in an illegal and unjust war, or the 45 million Americans with no health care, who are held hostage by the Republican private health-care providers.

Today, the reactionary Bush policies have increased the American infant mortality rate in the past two years. It is now 10 per cent higher than Cuba's. According to writer Nicholas Kristof, if the U.S. had the same mortality rate as Cuba, 2,200 more babies would be saved each year. This does not count the thousands of babies who have died under the blockade of Bush's "for-profit" compassion. For these hypocrites to link abortion with this end-of-life case is beyond the pale.

One would like to hear Catholic moralists and the religious left articulate the long Catholic tradition which speaks to the discontinuance of medical procedures for someone who is irreversibly comatose, which seems best to describe Ms. Schiavo's condition.

John Paul II's Evangelium Vitae (#65) speaks to this as does the Catechism of the church which insists that "Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of "overzealous treatment."

In Canada, the political temperature is not as hot. Contrast the screaming headlines south of the border and the demonstrators on the street outside Ms Schiavo's hospice with the welcome Canadian moderation both in the press and among the people, which accompanied the news, not long ago, of the decision of the man in Ottawa at age 78, to end his life.

We must urgently turn to a civil national discussion on end-of-life issues, considering among other sources but not exclusively, the pope's statement on nutrition and hydration for comatose patients delivered in April 2004. Other voices need to be heard, including those of terminally ill people, their families and caregivers, medical personnel and the general population.

CNT would be happy to facilitate such a discussion among our readers, people of conscience and discernment. We would like to publish, for example, your experience with Living Wills, your thinking, your advice: your real-life dilemmas, the solutions you have found. End-of-life decisions are upon us. They have been taken and worked out quietly for many years. It is time to break the silence and join the debate.

Your contribution to this discussion may well serve others. We have an aging population, many people kept alive by technology, many people squeezed in the sandwich generation, even new theologies of suffering and its meaning.

The quality submissions received by CNT on homosexuality and gay marriage convince us that our readers have much wisdom to contribute on end-of-life questions. Please be our guests.