Ok...I've got a few free minutes; hopefully I can finally type out a halfway intelligent response to this.'93HonoluluCat wrote:2. This wasn't about Terri's "right to die" case, as stated by some. Terri had never requested to die. All we have, and had, for witnesses on her state of mind was her husband--who waited until after he had won a large lawsuit to finally remember a conversation in which Terri made an "oh, by the way" comment about not wanting to live on a machine--and two of his own relatives who corroborated his story. The husband had a conflict of interest in the matter, because of his relationship with another woman and fathering two children, all polygamy arguments aside. On Terri's side, her family was willing to take over her medical care and the responsibility for its costs.
Grizlaw, care to comment on the ramifications of these facts?
First -- this is one of those areas where the "right" answer from a legal standpoint, regardless of what it is, is always going to seem to be the "wrong" answer for a lot of people, because this is one of those areas where it's really hard to separate the law from ethics and morality. Theoretically, the two should be one in the same, but since we as a society have not reached consensus on a collective morality (nor should we, necessarily), democracy has to prevail.
With that in mind -- we as a society have decided that, with regard to a person in a "persistant vegatative state," the victim's wishes are the controlling factor in deciding whether they should be kept on life support or allowed to die. Since, by definition, a person in a PVV will not be able to communicate her wishes at the time, courts are left to do the best they can to determine what the victim's wishes would be based on the evidence they do have, which may include testimony of family, husband, etc. The best evidence a court can possibly have is a properly signed, witnessed, and notarized document stating the victim's wishes (in New York, such a document is called a "health care proxy," in many cases it's called a living will).
Now, that's the background. The main point I want to emphasize in all of this is that it is the victim's wishes that are legally relevant. Why am I stressing that fact? Because one of the facts that HC emphasized in his post was that Terri's family was willing to take responsibility for Terri's medical care and its costs. From a moral and equitable standpoint, that might seem like it ought to be relevant; after all, part of me can see the logic in the "well if they want to pay for it, what's the harm in keeping her alive?" mentality. However, from a strictly legal standpoint, that fact has absolutely no relevance! Why? Because the fact that her family is willing to pay her medical costs has nothing to do with the question of what Terri wants. If a court is convinced that Terri would want to die, then legally she must be allowed to die regardless of whether her family is willing to pay for her care or not.
As to HC's other point: I can recognize the fact that her husband arguably has a conflict of interest, and of course his own relatives are going to side with him and corroborate his version of events. Those credibility issues are the types of things that the judges who reviewed this case must surely have considered when they weighed the evidence and made their determination as to what Terri's wishes were. I recognize that he has credibility issues (as would any witnesses from Terri's family who testified; they're obviously not impartial either). It is possible that if I were to review all of the evidence that the judge in the case had before him, I might reach the opposite conclusion. From where I sit now, though, all I can say is that a judge who was in a far better position than I reviewed the evidence and made his decision. It was no doubt a difficult decision, and, while I recognize that all of the evidence on both sides is questionable, I am not in a position to disagree with the outcome.
