Out of Egypt:

Why I'm not a Lutheran, in case anyone was wondering (plus my only statement on the Schiavo case)

Read this post, and see if it evinces utter despair and cynicism. Then see the comments, where people pick up on that, and see how the Lutherans say that anything else would be works-righteousness. I believe in sola fide, but not how it's construed here.

Also, here's all I have to say about Schiavo's case: if she had consciousness, then what just happened was legalized murder. However, things aren't as simple as 99% of the conservative Christian world makes them out to be. If she was brain dead, and it could be proven, then I don't think that's euthanasia, in any meaningful sense of the term, because I don't think that someone who is irredeemably brain-dead is a person in the same sense that you or I or even a comatose person is a person. I don't think that the "preserve life at all costs & use all heroic measures that you can" mentality of many evangelicals is actually the Christian mentality - after all, if death is a defeated enemy, why must we do whatever we can, using medical methods that never existed until recently to keep people when "naturally" they would die.

Notice what I am not saying. I don't think that withholding food and water if anyone is potentially capable of sensation is humane. Therefore, I think what happened to Schiavo is grotesque and barbaric. However, I don't want Christians to take their rightful opposition to what happened here and generalize it such that all advance directives and DNRs seem immoral. Because they're not. When I'm old, I plan to have one. I don't want to go through the old dance of having a series of heart attacks, be resuscitated over and over again, and end up losing most of my brain functioning. Better to die and be with the Lord, I say. It would be irresponsible of me, I believe, to ask my family to pay to have me kept alive in some kind of half-life state, when I could have simply had a heart attack and been done with it.

I agree with you. I don't think it's euthenasia to allow somone who is braindead to die. However, this was not the case from what little (and i tried extensively to find stuff) I have found out. The biggest problem you already touched on and probably don't know it.

"...and it could be proven..."

It could have been proven but unfortunately shortly after Terri's husband got the settelment money he stoped any form of rehab and would not let doctors see her. So in the end one could not prove either way. I wish we could have just proven that she was brain dead and not capable of recovery or feeling but her "husband" refused any form of brain scan or professional opinions. So I just have to wonder why and for me that's where the biggest problem lies.

[-p]

Posted by: pablo at April 2, 2005 5:26 PM

Just a couple of curious questions: what is a person, and do we get to decide this criteria? What you mean when you say that you don't think X is a person in the same way as Y? Does brain activity consitute personhood, or is it something else? I guess I am just asking because the current way we seem to define entities is based upon an abstract, rationalistic assembly of properties (I am a person because I have X, Y, and Z properties) rather than on the relational aspect of the entity's context (I am a person because of who I relate to, or I am a person because God said that I am). I get a little worried about purely property-based definitions of entities, because I believe that such ways of reasoning lead to racism, sexism, and a host of other "justifiable" discriminations.

Posted by: funkefreak at April 2, 2005 5:44 PM

I believe that you have a powerful point here - death is not something that we, as Christians, should blindly fight against without considering the situation or circumstances. I think that one reason many conservative Christians (who sadly seem to always be blindly and loudly condemning something, without much thought) are fighting so hard for this case is that if we admit that self-consciousness and rationality defines a person, then we would have to concede that early term abortions are allowable. I believe that there is a distinct difference, and I know you do too - in fact, I'm even hesitant to say that what happened to T.S. was wrong. But that is one reason that many Christians are fighting so vehemently for this issue.

Posted by: KDL at April 2, 2005 7:43 PM

Thanks for your comments, all. Sarah, I see where you're coming from, but you've got to admit there are difficulties with that position. What about hydrocephalic infants, who are born with water where their brain should be, to name one of them? If we let them die, are we complicit in murder?

Keri, as for the abortion argument, I think the difference there is still clear: in one case, there's a human life already, or at the very least the potential for a human life, which will come to be if we don't interfere. In the other case, what is generally regarded as characteristic of adult human life has existed, but exists no longer, and life is being sustained only by artificial means.

Finally, Pablo, I'm glad to hear from you, because I was concerned that you might be one of the people to consider all advanced directives a form of euthanasia, simply from the tone of your posts earlier. For that assumption, I apologize.

Posted by: Evan Donovan at April 3, 2005 1:56 AM

I would still call the hydrocephelic infant a person, and its death a tragedy. I'm not really sure what I would call the action of letting it die, though; maybe it's murder, maybe it's not. I don't really know, because I'm sure that each particular case will be surrounded by its own details.

I don't have a problem with DNRs. I have a bigger problem with X deciding that Y's life isn't worth living. It seems to invite an elite group to play God. The mentally ill were the first to go in the Third Reich. Not that I am trying to be alarmist, but I am concerned about the ramifications of these issues.

Posted by: funkefreak at April 3, 2005 10:34 PM