FLORIDA:  LEGALLY ASSISTED SUICIDE?

Carl F. Worden
Mar. 28, 2005

As far as I know, Oregon is the only state where voters have passed a law allowing for a physician to assist a terminally ill patient to commit suicide.  President George W. Bush and former Attorney General John Ashcroft had a cow about it, so they filed several federal lawsuits to get Oregon’s law overturned, but to date they have failed miserably.

That got me to thinking.

After having received a voluminous amount of input from health care professionals, many involved in hospice care, the stealth issue nobody is talking about in the Terri Schiavo case comes down to this:  Did Terri Schiavo have a legal right to direct another party to assist her in committing suicide at some time in the future?  If assisted suicide is illegal in Florida, the answer is no, so why was her feeding tube removed?

If a person is truly brain dead, they are dead whether their heart is pumping or not, right?  If you unplug what keeps the heart going, the heart will cease to function.  That always was the standard for determining when life support could ethically be withdrawn.  But as I’ve written before, the Schiavo case crosses that line.

Terri Schiavo is a brain-damaged, living human being who is severely disabled and needs help eating and drinking.  Guess what?  Every quadriplegic out there is severely disabled and requires help eating and drinking, among other things.  Some are also brain damaged, but let’s assume brain damage isn’t in the mix in the following scenario.

Would it be legally enforceable for me to tell my wife that if I am ever injured to the point of being a quadriplegic in a coma and unable to communicate, that all life support be withdrawn if the only life support I require is nutritional?  If my heart is beating and if I am breathing on my own, and if my brain EEG shows activity of any kind, I am not brain dead and therefore I am legally and ethically still alive.

If my wife went to a judge and told him, “Carl always told me that if he was injured so badly he became a quadriplegic, he would not want to live that way, and it is his wish all life support be withdrawn now that this has occurred.”  Would it be legal for that judge to order my feeding tube withdrawn even though I am able to live on my own in every other way?  Even though I am not brain dead?  No way.

You see, contrary to so much of the information out there, Terri Schiavo has never been declared brain dead.  She may be in a “persistent vegetative state”, but so what?  That diagnosis is announced out as if it is the same thing.  But you can be very much alive while in a persistent vegetative state, fully able to breath on your own and with no mechanical devices being used to keep your heart beating.  Even including a limited EEG reading.  If you are truly brain dead, there is no EEG reading no matter how the rest of your body is doing.  If you are brain dead, you’re dead.

But Terri Schiavo was not brain dead when they pulled her feeding tube.  She was doing just fine under the circumstances.  She was breathing on her own.  She required no external means to keep her strong little heart going.  She is a severely disabled human being, but she was not brain dead when they removed her feeding tube.

So getting back to the thesis of this message:  Let’s say Terri Schiavo got on the bullhorn in a crowded football stadium and pleaded that if she was ever to find herself in the exact same condition she is now in, her wish was that she wanted somebody to help her commit suicide.

(Saying, “I wouldn’t want to live that way.” Is the same thing.)

Would it be legal for anyone to help her commit suicide in the State of Florida if they were able to prove her statement?  And if she couldn’t assist in her suicide at all, would it be legal for another party to murder Terri Schiavo by removing her feeding tube because they could prove she made that statement?

If suicide and murder are illegal in the State of Florida, the answer is no.

If a person is brain dead and their heart is kept beating by artificial and external means, they are legally and ethically dead, and no charges of murder or assisted suicide can be brought against the person who pulls the plug.

Although Terri Schiavo is severely disabled, no one with any credentials has tried to claim Terri Schiavo is brain dead.  If Terri Schiavo is NOT brain dead and shows even slight activity on her EEG, then Terri Schiavo was a living human being when she was deprived of food and water eleven days ago.

Since when is that not defined as assisted suicide at best, and murder at worst?  That is where Judge Greer crossed the line.

And you Bush lovers need to remember this:  A United States Marine was recently convicted of mercy-killing an Iraqi teenager who lay terminally wounded on the floor of a mosque in Baghdad, moaning.  That was murder, plain & simple, and why?  Because the Iraqi teen was still alive when the Marine shot him lying unarmed on the floor.  But when that black-robed SOB in Florida ordered Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube removed, he was just obeying Florida law.  Since when did the voters of Florida approve an assisted suicide law?  They didn’t.

Now we should feel even more stupid for allowing this to happen.