Revolutionary Moderation

Have you heard about this Terry Schiavo?



Of course you have - the woman lives in Florida, is described as being in a coma, and has been sentenced to death by a Florida judge. Here come seven words you've likely never heard together before - they're going to sound particularly strange to servants of the American justice system: Governor Bush has commuted that death sentence.



This all ringing a bell? Good.



While I'm sure the debate over Terry Schiavo's life and death means something different in the U.S., where every debate seems to take on meaning that can't be imagined outside the States, the Terry Schiavo discussion is something else entirely in Canada - and it has the left against the left. Disability advocates argue that the devaluation of a life devalues all life, and that we can't possibly evaluate what her quality of life is (and no, this doesn't turn into a "pro-life" argument, in the abortion sense of the phrase). It might not be a life we'd want for ourselves, but we can't possibly make that decision for someone else.



Right-to-die advocates argue, also quite reasonably, that her life is devoid of the basic human dignity we all deserve, and that she should be allowed that dignity in death that her life currently lacks. She may not even be "alive" at all, in any real sense of the word, and keeping the body's motor functions operating long after everything that was Terry Schiavo has left the building is monstrous.



I personally lean toward the former - toward a belief that if I've expressed that in such-and-such set of circumstances (let's say, for example, I turn into my parents, or I lose that rock-'n-roll spirit) I'd prefer to be dead, then the government shouldn't be wasting time prosecuting the person who *ahem* executes those wishes. But if I haven't given permission, if there's some brain activity, and if your denial of medical attention hasn't killed me, killing me with more forceful means (whether starvation or blunt head trauma) may cross a level of hubris that should give even non-religious people pause.



But both sides of the argument in Canada seem to agree about one thing. Under no circumstances is it right to fucking starve her to death. Give her a lethal volume of morphine, shoot her in the head, or send her to the guillotine - any option is less cruel than denying food. If you refused to feed your dog, you'd go to jail. Starving to death is not death with dignity, in any possible interpretaion of the word.