For the right to die............

I'm a self professed news whore, unless..........................

• George Bush gets re-elected.
• Michael Jackson molests some kid, allegedly, ok.
• Or lately, Terry Schiavo and the right to die debate hits hard..

I guess I'm selectively news savvy. It's hard for me to really keep tuned in. Sometimes it's just painful. But on a serious note, heres some thoughts on the current events that are consuming us.

1. Michael Jackson, who knows. I guess you must be innocent till proven guilty and I believe in that principle. He creeps me out either way though.
2. Terry Schiavo. This one I have to write on. I'm horrified by the whole thing.

Here's the deal. When the founding fathers gave us the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they were not pondering Terry Schiavo. This person is a vegetable. Now bible thumpers are worked up to defend her "right to live". Does God hate us so much that he would have one of his children suffer in a vegetative state by artificial means for indefinite time periods? I want to ask that. Nobody will. Why won't someone, anyone stand up and ask that?

I keep hearing people quote the Bible as if scripture addresses her situation. This is a personal issue for me as well. I'll explain that later. When I gave up on my fundamentalist past for good, I eventually found a more liberal congregation in Dallas that made more sense to me. The female minister there had a sermon one time on "convenient bible". It was her term for how many take today's issues, find a cut and dried, one size fits all solution on issues that never happened in that day. She pointed out that when you take the Bible out of it's natural context and extrapolate to issues it never really discussed, you get bad bible and bad theology. How can these people really claim that God wants Terry to live that way? Where is the compassion? This is going to prompt me to get a living will just to say that you'd better pull the damn plug if that ever happens to me.

Now this is personal for a reason to me. My mother died 3 years ago. She was suffering terribly. After a bout with pneumonia, ceptic shock from being allergic to the antibiotics and losing her kidneys and some appendages as a result, 2 mild strokes and a heart attack, she decided to forego any further dialysis. She was no longer transplant eligible. She could not survive the surgery. I watched my mother who was so incredibly alive become not even a shell of her old self. She called me one day while I was in Boston on business. Her words were unusually succinct. She said "I love you, I'm suffering, your father is suffering; I'm not living son; please don't stop me and just understand". She then told me of her decision to not do dialysis anymore.

Well my dad called me and my brother and rallied us to change her mind. I tried, but quickly gave up. It dawned on me that she really knew what she was doing and did not want to be stopped. My brother came to the same conclusion. My father knew she was right too, but didn't want to accept it.

Then, wouldn't you know it, my old conservative church stepped in. They tried to coax my dad into having her declared legally insane so that we could force dialysis on her. The inference was that she was committing suicide and could not be forgiven by God. Then after they failed in that, they told us that we could not have the music my Mom chose for her funeral. It didn't match the church service criteria by allowing recordings with my second cousin singing to it, and with musical backup that the church did not approve of to other gospel songs my mom wanted. Needless to say, my relationship with our old minister and church was further strained. I had him backed into a corner at my Dad's house with an Aunt of mine (thankfully) tersely explaining to him that this was not one of his services he was having; it was my Mother's farewell. It would be done the way she wanted period. Anyway, I digress, that's a whole other subject.

I guess on hot button issues like this, you can't ever convince people otherwise. My mom's situation was controversial in my family and to others. Now I'm watching another right to die play out on tv every time I turn it on. It's hard and emotional for me. I honestly can't watch it for any length of time. Why do we treat our animals better than we treat our relatives and friends?