Judge: Michael Schiavo may order removal of wife's feeding tube
A Florida judge has given Michael Schiavo permission to remove the feeding tube that has kept his brain-damaged wife, Terri, alive for 15 years:
The ruling by Pinellas Circuit Court Judge George Greer will allow the husband ... to order the tube removed at 1 p.m. on March 18. In the meantime, the woman’s parents, who want her kept alive, are expected to ask another court to block the order from taking effect.
I don't want to rehash this case; it's already been rehashed enough. But I do want to take issue with this statement from Cardinal Renato Martino:
If Mr. Schiavo legally succeeded in provoking the death of his wife, this would not only be tragic in itself, but it would be a serious step toward legally approving euthanasia in the United States.
That's just flat wrong, and it elides the important distinction between euthanasia, which refers to the induction of death, and the withdrawal of artificial support, which refers to the cessation of heroic intervention.
Here's the difference, expressed in practical terms.
Were Mr. Schiavo asking his wife's doctors and nurses to inject her with a lethal dose of, say, morphine, that would be euthanasia. He'd be asking them to cause her death. But that's not what he's asking. He's asking instead that they stop the human intervention preventing her death. But for the presence of that feeding tube, Mrs. Schiavo would die naturally.
Terri Schiavo's case is remarkable for the extent to which the media have covered it. But her case is not remarkable medically. Everyday in this country, in the waiting rooms of ERs and ICUs, families make a decision to cease heroic intervention -- whether in the form of a ventilator, feeding tube or other measure -- and allow their loved ones to die naturally.
If, as Cardinal Martino asserts, the withdrawal of artificial support puts us on the road to euthanasia, then we've been on it for decades and have yet to arrive at our supposed destination.