We will never forget the violent collapse of our World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001, and the families who received phone calls from their trapped loved ones who couldn’t be saved.
We were stunned by the heartbroken families looking for their loved ones and also by the strangeness of the psychology of the hijackers.
Americans read in disbelief how small changes in the fine print of non-mainstream Islamic interpretation were activated and spread to the point where a large pool of young men became available to commit mass murder.
How ironic that on September 11th, 2003, a hearing is scheduled where Judge Greer, a Florida judge, is expected to allow the feeding tube to be removed from Terri Schiavo, after a five year long struggle in which her husband and guardian has tried to remove her feeding tube and her parents have tried to save her life. How is the agony of Robert and Mary Schindler, her parents, to whom she still responds with smiles, any different than the agony of the families who were helpless to prevent their still-alive loved ones from dying in the World Trade Center? They would also have to stand by, helpless to prevent death, and bewildered by the changes in our belief system that have allowed this to happen.
The right to refuse unwanted medical treatment has morphed gradually into a situation where a husband has life and death power over his wife.
Our clumsy laws designate her husband as next of kin, regardless of the troubled nature of this couple's relationship and the fact that he now lives with another woman and has a child by her and regardless of the fact that Terri Schiavo has two parents who want to take care of her.
Even more problematic than who should be the guardian is the institution of guardianship itself, dating from a time when medical choices were clear. It was the guardian's job to see that treatment was carried out. Now, since the right-to-die movement, the guardian's job has been distorted beyond recognition. In a free society, how can we allow an American to be subservient to a guardian who can deny rehabilitation, deny visitors, deny a priest, and deny nourishment?
Terri Schiavo, like any other adult in the United States, had the opportunity to write a living will or to name a health care surrogate, but she chose not to. That is the choice that we have to respect. She didn't make arrangements to be allowed to die or to deteriorate.
To allow her guardian's interpretation of long-lost remarks that she made to have more legal significance than her own choice is to put every American in the situation of those living in a dictatorship, who fear to speak lest their words be reported. In an America where anyone's memory of what you said during someone else's sickness could cause your own death at a later time, people will not be able to share feelings with one another.
If we cannot respect this woman's choice not to plan her death and to continue to enjoy her existence whether she improves or not, then we must ask ourselves whether we are beginning to resemble those who attacked us on September 11th, 2001, because our ideas have also slipped and we are also killing innocent people.
Dr. Olevitch is a clinical psychologist and author of Protecting Psychiatric Patients and Others from the Assisted-Suicide Movement Insights and Strategies (Praeger, 2002).
