I don't know about you, but sh!tting myself, pissing myself, bedridden for the remainder of my days, drooling and not having enough motor control or mental facilities to formulate even the most basic of actions and thoughts isn't a life worth living, ESPECIALLY if it ever comes at the financial or mental/emotional expense of my loved ones.
Again, why do some people let doctrine and dogma blind them to the concept of quality of life vs. quantity of life? Is the mantra of suffering and penance so strong in Christian observance that it must be forced onto those without conscious choice?
It's little short of torture, except the recepient of the punishment is too far gone to complain, scream and despair over the situation. For those that see this as a religious fight, I ask this simple question:
In biblical times (and in any time outside the 20th century), what would have happened to this woman?
I seem to recall that a number of people that were struck with unknown afflictions in earlier times were claimed to have been "possessed of the devil" or otherwise tarnished; they were banished, stoned, lynched or even tortured in the name of God. This certainly wasn't the rule, but it was far from being the exception throughout history.
Even if any of this wasn't the case and the best doctors or healers of the day could care for her, she would have died days after her initial episode.
What would have been the religious outcry then? Is technology such a powerful tool that it overrides our very sense of dignity and respect for the GOD-GIVEN natural processes and occurances of life and death (especially in such an extreme case)? Yet again, I'll ask is quantity of life a better thing than QUALITY of life?
If you answer "yes", please tell me why.
Ultimately, why further rob her of the beauty of an afterlife when she is as close to a hollow shell of a person that can exist? I know one of the MAJOR shortcomings of the Christian Bible is it's blind eye towards slavery, but why should Terry be enslaved to machinery that only prolongs her compromised existance? Biblical principle?
The word of God is a wonderful and fulfilling doctrine, but I must part ways with many conservatives that find it sensible and "correct" to prop up this woman's woes with the Good Book.
Her continued existance is the abomonation and sin here, in that it runs counter to mercy and what appears to be her wishes in this matter. Hope and faith are POWERFUL things, though it pains me to see so many prey and wish for her continued existance, when it amounts little more than a fervent wish that she be tortured and kept in an entirely unnatural state of existance.
Any 17th century preacher seeing what was being done to her in the hospice in terms of the machinery attached to her would probably scream "witchcraft" and I don't know if he would be out of line in doing so in this particular case.
Mercy is something this woman should finally experience in my opinion and her passing into realms unknown should be the gift that is provided to her, along with prayers of a quick and painless passing, instead of prayers of another decade or so of meaningless existance in limbo, or what I would personally consider "Hell on Earth"...
