My Thoughts on Terry Schiavo

(Feel free to skip this post if you wait to avoid a serious topic)

Unless you've been under a rock for the past month, the Terry Schiavo story has practically everyone picking sides, and boy are people fired up about it. The topic of euthanasia is something I have very strong opinions on, and I'm going to outline a few of my thoughts below.

1. Ultimately, I believe it is a personal decision, and the decision of their family, whether or not to "pull the plug" in the case of coma or vegetative state. There are never any clear rules in determining if a person will or will not recover. All we can depend on are two things, and we can't ignore either of them: scientific data (i.e. CT scans, brainwaves, physical responses, etc), and faith. The scientific data will tell us whether or not a person's cerebral cortex is intact, how much "higher order" brain activity is present, how much motor skills a person has, and things of that sort. Whatever your religious beliefs are, it is faith that defines a person's belief if someone will recover or not, whether or not the soul still resides in the physical body, and how much hope to hold on to. Laws can, by basis of scientific data, define if a person is in a coma or vegetative state. It should never, under any circumstance, define our faith. With that being said, no laws in this country should ever force a person, or family member, to keep a person alive when they are in that situation.

2. The Republican party acted like fools when they stuck their noses into the Schiavo situation. This fight was already litigated for 10 years in the courts and every single decision was in Michael Schiavo's favor. Any time you try to legislate issues of faith, especially one that is deeply personal as death itself, you are asking for trouble. I am terribly dissappointed in the way President Bush, members of the Republican party, and some Christian leaders handled this. Most Christians hold the same stance that I do: whether or not to euthanize someone is a deeply personal issue that should only involve the person and their immediate family. The government has absolutely no right to involve itself in that decision.