Where was Terri's Soul ?

Terri Schindler Schiavo's saga riveted global attention, polarized our nation, and left her parents and siblings shattered in its wake. The heated fervor spent and the dust now settled, perhaps the price paid for our zeal merits renewed, less adversarial contemplation.

If the pollsters and statisticians are to be believed, a clear majority of Americans upheld Michael Schiavo's contention that his wife Terri would not wish to live on in the aftermath of her catastrophic brain insult, and vociferously maintained that those seeking to prolong Terri's life had no right to interfere. Though in the minority, equally passionate individuals supported Terri's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, in opposing terminating Terri's life via depriving her of nutrition and hydration. In the ensuing battle of Dying with Dignity vs. the Definition of Life, objectivity incurred mortal wounds.

Michael Schiavo and his brother asserted that prior to her incapacitation, Terri, in response to seeing a stroke victim on television, commented that she would not wish to live in that (the stroke victim's) condition. Assuming Terri did make this statement, there is no evidence bearing witness to what she meant by it; no verbally expressed or written testament of how Terri defined "that condition". Thus, her presumed end-of-life wishes were adjudicated on the basis of a youthful, reactionary and passing comment verbally memorialized by Michael Schiavo and his brother. The question we are left to ponder is how Terri herself defined "life" ~ and how that definition would have influenced her wishes and beliefs within the context of the circumstances which so tragically befell her.

What if loss of brain function is not the yardstick by which being alive or being dead should be measured? What if, instead, earthly life begins and ends with the soul entering and departing the physical body? What mortal among us possesses the expertise, let alone the authority, to mandate that the brain and the soul are so inextricably symbiotic that the brain's death compels the soul's departure? These are questions that man and his technology simply cannot answer ~ and perhaps were never meant to.

After peeling away innumerable distracting layers, the foundational issue in Terri's case is not whether her brain was alive and/or what level of functional capabilities it still possessed, but instead whether or not her soul remained on earth. Man's laws endowed Michael Schiavo with the omnipotence to answer that question on Terri's behalf. Ethics and a Higher Power, however, might deem the loving parents who brought her into this world and nurtured her from infancy to the flower of adulthood infintesimally more qualified to make the final call.

© Copyright 2006 Of Fire Born ~ welcome, 2012! (UN: of_fire_born at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Of Fire Born ~ welcome, 2012! has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.