Greetings Economists,
Knownot writes,
The above "because,etc." is neither an accurate nor fair. The predominant
reason for disagreement with some of those recently claiming to speak for
ADAPT and "Not Dead Yet and some asserted like minded others has not been
"because the Bush right has chosen to grand stand about Terri Schiavo's
life and death in Florida" but (quite apart from what "the Bush right" has
done) because several ADAPT/NDY,etc., spokespersons and some like-minded
others have (in too many instances: egregiously)
- misrepresented what/how the courts ruled the past and have been
doing the past week or so in the Schiavo-Shindler litigations,
- in so doing, adopted O'Reilly/Limbaugh/Delay/Frist-like tactics
(e.g., entirely without any factual or other reasonable basis to do, by
substituting vile fantasies of Mr. Schiavo's background and motives for
readily confirmable reality), and yet
- meanwhile failed coherently much less persuasively to formulate
arguments to advance the Not Dead Yet positions themselves.
Doyle,
Knownot says we egregiously, with vile fantasies, in alliance with
O'Reilly/Limbaugh/Delay/Frist-like tactics etc.
According to press accounts, Schiavo's husband spent five years trying to
bring her out of the vegetative state, then lost hope. Partly because the
medical sources they went to claiming they could help turned out to be false
leads. The family is Catholic. They were following their religion. At
some point prior to her heart attack, Schiavo appears to have said after a
relatives death that she would not like to follow that course of action.
This was not in writing. And after being disillusioned, the husband decided
to stop feeding her in her vegetative state.
The legal system does not have a law that says pull the plug at five years,
one month, 65 seconds, five centuries. The legal system has a framework of
who gets to decide. After her husband changed his mind, the parents broke
with him. They would not pull the plug. The court recognizes the husband
over the parents and that's it legally with the modification a state
guardian was inserted to represent the legal interests of the state.
First and foremost, the disabled rights community sees Schiavo as disabled.
Those who support the right to pull the plug often argue this person is dead
already. Or more blandly 'not there'. However, the medical judgment
persistent vegetative state, is not the same as brain dead. In any case the
claim Schiavo is not there is a metaphysical construct rather than a realism
about what exactly we are dealing with.
If we are to say the criterion of putting someone to death without their
consent is not being there, then what exactly does that mean? A stroke or
schizophrenia might be interpreted that way. But disabled rights folks
don't agree that we ought to put those persons to death.
We can support the civic structures that give the husband the right to
choose. We can also support the parents were they legally given the right
to choose to let Schiavo continue to live this way. And we do not advocate
putting Schiavo to death because she is not there. And we have many
perfectly sound arguments in a scientific sense against the right to suicide
movement.
I would suggest that most of the left anger here has to do with personal
experience of some relative at the end of the life. And the family deciding
that some medical procedure should stop. That would naturally vary from
person to person when they stop that. This process is purposefully left to
the family to decide rather than the state. Doctors who take that into
their hands are consider mercy killers when they are found out. Though
there is fine line between some doctor who pulled a plug for the family and
someone who just thinks they are angel of mercy. And I would not condemn a
doctor who really is acting in the family's name.
The arena of unity between disability rights activists and the larger
progressive community is support of civic structures. The wedge issue is
the right to die versus disabled rights. It is obvious Bush wants to pull
down judges independent constitutional perspectives by using the blunt
instrument of religious solidarity against that. Defending the civic
structures is in the interests of all progressives.
Do I need to persuade persons with a clear commitment to the right to die
they are wrong? No I will stay within my community and continue to develop
and refine our views of disability. Once Schiavo fades into memory our
position will continue. The right to die movement is a narrow position
about death and what it means. Simply put in a foggy area of what we know
about life we leave the decision to the families. Giving them the option of
a right to die, but not foreclosing for someone who does not agree with
their position.
So for the catholic and protestant believers, roughly 20% of the country
according to the polls, they might find some comfort amongst disabled views
of why they would not pull the plug. That in fact the progressive movement
is not set to start proscribing via the state who ought to die. But rather
the choice to pull the plug is currently in the families rights.
On the other hand, the science of consciousness is moving toward this area
in a definite sense. While some might claim right now a cure for these
things and be giving false hopes for bad reasons. There is already a part
of the democratic party that supports this view of offering hope for a cure.
Those who held up Christopher Reeves as a model of disabled persons. Reeves
often claimed the cure was just on the horizon. Stem cell research is being
promoted upon this hope.
Militant disabled rights groups advocate a different position than Reeves.
They advocate accepting people for who they are. So they eschew arguing for
a cure. So for them it is enough to give life support to a vegetable. That
vegetable to disabled rights folks is a disabled human being. The argument
they are not there is the crux of our differences with the right to die
argument.
One can then make a hypothetical strictly about the concept of being there.
Taking Reeves point of view, can we insert stem cells at some point perhaps
in Schiavo's life time? Can we in "Not Dead Yet's" terms say let them live
without a cerebellum? Why is this strictly a case of pulling the plug
versus disabled rights. Why is this the necessary dividing line to expel
the vile disable rights movement?
In most of this situation for the last few days defining this has been about
intense passion. Positions held to the death. Passion is an important part
of building progressive political movements. I'm not going to give up here
my disable rights position to go along with the pull the plug argument that
Schiavo is brain dead.
What I see is the lack of left institutions to even realistically address
the profound scientific issues that this brings up. The sense of national
unity and purpose that Venezuela might embody, or Cuba. Instead this is a
momentary rise of passions on the left in which the complexity of the
disable rights movement has hit the radar, but will subside soon, and we'll
still have not established a unified movement. Except a lot of people will
still be dithering about which side I'm on instead of knowing there are ways
to unite everyone without destroying the disabled rights community.
That's what is at stake here. Out numbered and facing reckless charges on
all sides from what ought to be friends, our enemies are bringing pressure
bear upon us to break away from our current disabled people are part of the
disabled rights movement to a position that is equally narrow and
unrepresentative of the left. The most civilized voice in my view who has
not agreed to the Disability Rights movements views has been Max Sawicky.
We can't just have one or two friends though. There has to be people like
Carroll Cox get down from the rigidity of their just kill them vegetables
perspective and admit this is a bit more complex than the attackers make it
out to be.
thanks,
Doyle Saylor
