In the midst of a very sticky ethical situation, I do appreciate the attempt to correlate it to scripture.
However, I think this case points out how far we have come since scripture was written. In Saul's day or Jesus' day or even George Washington's day or your grandfather's day, these questions would not have been able to be asked. Terry would have been dead whether we like it or not. And although she may not be technically brain dead, she certainly has led a long relatively unresponsive life.
Perhaps what this case does more than anything is force us to look at our OWN lives.
1. What would I want if I were in Terry's case?
I personally would want to be dead. I would not want to be an interminable burden for my family if I was not contributing to their well-being. Now were I an invalid, but capable of communicating of actually interacting in life, I would want to live in order to fulfill a purpose in the lives of others. I would NOT want my family rather my wife, my kids or my parents to feel like they were somehow being unloving if they pulled the plug and sent me to heaven. I would expect them to make every reasonable effort to try to help me recover, but if say, after a year there was no hope of recovery, why burden them further?
2. What if I am Terry's husband?
I would want my wife to recover. I love her more than anyone on this planet. But I would also want to respect her wishes. If she had expressed that she did not want to live on only heroic life-saving technological intervention, I would try to be brave enough to respect that, even though I would be the one experiencing the great loss.
3. What if I were the parents?
I would want the best for my daughter. If I TRULY thought there was some chance of recovery for a family member, it would be almost impossible to "pull the plug". But I would also hope that I wouldn't just keep him/her hanging on ONLY for my selfish reasons.
4. What if I am the judges, etc.?
I believe I would try to release Michael from whatever financial and legal obligations he has after this length of time. As a person I despise the fact that he has just let his wife rot. In a technical sense he has abrogated his role as husband and I think forfeitted his right to speak for her by breaking his marriage vows. However, for him, she is already dead. As a judge, I must also see that it is a bit like an MIA case, where the spouse may be declared dead for legal purposes although there is no proof that death has occurred. But I would release Terry to the parents. If there is someone willing to take on the financial and physical aspects of care and there is no EXPRESS written consent to die, what harm could possibly be done releasing her to her own parents?
5. What lessons can we learn?
Write a living will for heaven's sake, for family's sake, for your own sake. Take the time to face the potential reality. Have it down and then, most likely, you will never have to deal with it anyway. But at least there will be an expression of what is wanted by the patient rather than letting families tear themselves apart trying to second-guess each other.
6. My hopes.
I hope they get the tube back in one way or the other. I hope she is released to her parents and then I either hope she dies peacefully, if there is no hope or that there is an amazing recovery once the tube goes in. Who knows? it might shock her system back into functional mode.
