Especially in a case as publicly distorted as the Terri Schiavo case. Here is a poor woman, who, when suffering from Bulimia (most likely caused by society’s sickeningly skewed view of what a person “should” look like), was misdiagnosed by doctors, leading to a potassium imbalance that caused her to have a heart attack. Her heart stopped for long enough to cause brain damage. Her husband attempted therapy for her for four years, but after that time was informed by experts that his wife’s brain was beyond rehabilitation–her cerebral cortex, the part of the brain where intelligence and personality–in essence, the person–lives, had deteriorated down to almost nothing, leaving little else but spinal fluid in its place. She was in a permanent vegetative state (not “persistent”). No one has recovered from a permanent vegetative state after so many years.

Her husband then placed her in a nursing home, visiting her regularly, until in 1998, he asked a court to decide what should be done. The court determined (from not just her husband but also from the testimony of others) that Terri Schiavo’s wishes were to not be kept alive if she were ever in this state. So the court orders her feeding tube to be removed…

And in comes the clown parade of politics. Her parents–understandably–want to keep her alive, to cling to the false hope that she may recover. But they go beyond ordinary measures–they resort to the right-to-life movement (the same love-of-life of people who want to execute underaged mentally disabled kids), and they drag in the whole right-wing bandwagon.

They take videos of Terri displaying ordinary PVS random movements, then edit the tape carefully to make it seem like she is actually aware of her surroundings and reacting to people and objects around her. The court reviews the unedited tape, and finds that nothing of the sort was happening–her movements on the tape were indeed random, and not in response to any stimulus. If a person in PVS smiles randomly every five or ten minutes, and you position yourself in front of her for that time waving a balloon, at some point she’ll smile. But not because of anything happening in the room, just because it’s an automatic reflex.

People all around the “save Terri” side of things endlessly claim that she can be rehabilitated, that she’ll just pop out of it and I’ve known people who were in comas for twenty years and they came out of it so she can too! Except she’s not in a coma, so she can’t awaken. Her cerebral cortex can’t be rehabilitated, because it’s not there. You can’t re-grow missing parts of your brain.

And then there’s the piranha-like, unbelievably vicious character attack on Michael Schiavo. Her husband, who dedicated years of his life until there was no reasonable hope left, who treated her with aggressive therapy until the doctors confirmed she was beyond help–this man was endlessly vilified by the “right to life” groups, who branded him a murderous thug who abused Terri, made up lies about how he actually viciously beat her to death before she was revived, then abandoned her to waste away without any treatment or therapy, who kept her alive so he could make money off of her and then wanted to kill her off so he could marry another woman. All lies, distortions, and slander, but that didn’t stop them.

And when court after court, Supreme Courts at state and federal level, all sided with the husband, the politicians–ever on the lookout for a way to pander massively so as to distract from their own lies and misadventures–boldly took up the rallying cry to “save” Terri. First the Florida legislature and Jeb Bush, and now the Republicans in Congress and George W. himself.

Get this straight. Terri Schiavo died years ago. Her body has been in a permanent vegetative state. The part of her brain that made her a living human being has vanished. She spoke clearly to her husband and friends that she would not want to be kept alive in such a case. And the only part of the government that doesn’t have to get elected, the part most schooled and expert in law, has judged that her wishes be followed. Terri is dead. Let her body follow her.

But the clown circus that is the political parade we see today will do everything it can to prop up her body without her soul, call her “alive,” and whoop up the cause for their own selfish political motives. And of course, even if they succeed, they will never, ever cure her. And of course they’ll blame her husband for it, in the end, either way.

It is a travesty against the memory of Terri Schiavo.

Take it as a hint. If you don’t want yourself to be made a lifeless puppet for the amusement of the “right to life” groups and vacuous, pandering politicians, make a living will–make it undeniably clear as to when you do an do not want to be kept alive. As for me, if there is an actual hope of recovery, then I’d want hope to be held out only so far as it was reasonable. But for a PVS, where there was no hope at all, I would want my family to remove the feeding tube, because I wouldn’t be there any more. And that is the only saving grace of the Terri Schiavo case: she’s not there to suffer from this. It’s just her body, what she left behind. The only thing the political bozos are harming is her memory. Still bad, and if Terri is looking down at this from somewhere, she must surely be sickened by it all, but at least she can’t be physically hurt by any of it.

It’s still twisted and sick, though.

You want to comment? Fine. But please, at least read up on the case first.

An excellent, non-side-taking legal review of her case is at Abstract Appeal.