Euthanasia: Should Terri Schiavo Have Been Removed From Life Support, Research Paper Example

This essay aims to demonstrate that the Permanent Vegetative State did not take Terri Schiavo’s life: people did. Terri Schiavo was an apparently healthy woman in 1990, when a cardiac arrest cut the oxygen to her brain for a few minutes, enough to cause her to enter in a vegetative state. Though the 15 years in which the parents battled with the husband who wanted her to be disconnected from her feeding support, the case enjoyed extensive media coverage and both pro-life advocates and groups sustaining “her right to die” tried to influence the decision of the court. This decision was so disputed because Terri appeared to be able to communicate with her parents by means of facial expressions and attempts to communicate verbally. The case of Terri Schiavo who had been in a permanent vegetative state (PVS) for the last 15 years when the court decided that her feeding tube should be removed was highly controversial. While some believe that Terri’s brain was not alive anymore, others think that she was in fact conscious and responsive. There are still too many unanswered questions concerning this case and PVS is a condition which needs to be researched more and this is why Terry Schiavo should have not been removed from life support.

The permanent vegetative state is defined by Jennett and Plum (cited by The Multi-Society Task Force) as the condition of patients with severe brain damage in whom coma has progressed to a state of wakefulness without detectable awareness. According to the same source, the family of the victim could decide to terminate the life of such patients by removing their feeding and hydration tube. This is controversial, as patients who are in PVS are not suffering from a painful, terminal stage illness and the feeding support is not actually a life support system.

PVS, as a condition, is not fully documented and was only defined in 1972 by Jennett and Plum. Moreover, there is still much confusion governing this area. Also, according to a research by Andrews, Murphy and Littlewood, for the British Medical Journal, “of the 40 patients diagnosed as being in the vegetative state, 10 (25%) remained vegetative, 13 (33%) slowly emerged from the vegetative state during the rehabilitation programme, and 17 (43%) were considered to have been misdiagnosed as vegetative” (2011, n.pag.).This could have been Terri’s case, because during the trial, both parties brought experienced doctors to examine Terri and they reached different conclusions concerning her state. It is clear thus that the decision to remove her feeding tube was not based on unarguable evidence concerning her state.

Although this seems an impossible situation, the case of Terri Wallis, who recovered miraculously from a state almost similar to that of Schiavo, is a proof that this is not quite so. Terri Wallis, whose brain was severely damaged in a car accident, started to speak and subsequently, to move after doctors had claimed that he will not be able to interact with the world ever again. Despite their diagnosis, Terri Wallis made significant recovery in a short period of time after having been considered in coma for almost 20 years (Ertelt).

This incredible case shows that the brain’s power to heal itself is greater than it was initially believed and doctors lack full knowledge on the phenomenon. As such, drastic measures as that of taking one person’s life should not be taken especially when there is no need for that. Wallis’s brain was able to establish new neural connections (Ertelt) and while doctors claim that the two cases are different, Schiavo’s parents are of the opinion that the fact that their daughter lacked proper treatment (which was denied to her by her husband), was one of the factors why their daughter did not show signs of improvement.

There are many people who claim that Terri Schiavo was dead since her cardiac arrest and it was only her body which was still kept alive by artificial means. Also, pro-euthanasia supporters claim that her family was not ready to let their daughter go and yet, this would have been the wisest decision as Terri Schiavo’s reactions were merely the normal reactions of persons in her state and not a sign that Terri was actually aware of what happens around her. Thus, according to Perry, Churchill and Kirshner (744):

The criteria makes it clear that the patient can have periods of sleep alternating with periods of awake-like state in which his or her eyes may open and may move about and the patient may breathe, yawn and open his or her mouth, but do not interact meaningfully with others.

While their inductive reasoning is based on strong arguments, it is the purpose of this paper to demonstrate that Terri Schiavo should have been allowed to remain alive. As the stunning case of Terri Wallis showed, there are times when the family is right while the doctors are wrong. Furthermore, even though there is no treatment for this terrible diagnosis so far, this does not mean that it will not be found five years from now or 10 years from now. If the family is willing to assume the task of caring for their daughter during this time, and the patient is not in pain, there is no reason why such a person should be denied this chance, which may be minuscule, but it does exist.

The controversial case of Terri Schiavo, who was denied the right to live even though her parents claimed that she was responsive and tried to interact with them proves once more that the way in which the human brain functions is not yet fully understood. Also, it is obvious that both the legislation concerning patients in PVS and medical knowledge in this field still needs to be improved and until this happens, patients should not be condemned to death based on unclear and confusing data. If Terri Schiavo could have communicated with those who sentenced her to death, she probably would have implored them to let her live.

References

Andrews, K., Murphy, M.,  Littlewood C. (2011) “Misdiagnosis of the vegetative state: retrospective study in a rehabilitation unit”. British Medical Journal 313.

Joshua P., Churchill L., Kirshner H., (2005). “The Terri Schiavo Case: Legal, Ethical and Medical Perspectives”. Annals of the Internal Medicine. 143(10), 744-748. Retrieved from: http://science.kennesaw.edu/~echen1/Bioethics/Readings%20and%20slides%20for%20Quarter%201/Quarter%201%20readings/Terri%20Schiavo-Perry%20et%20al.pdf

Ertelt S., (2011)-. “Terri Schiavo Family Says Terry Wallis Case Shows Errors Diagnosing PVS”. LifeNews. Retrieved from: http://www.lifenews.com/2006/07/12/bio-1613/

The Multi-Society Task Force on PVS, (1994). “Medical Aspects of the Persistent Vegetative State”. The New England Journal of Medicine 330, 149-158.