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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us March 25, 2005 Life is best defined at home As we watch the issue of Terri Schiavo play out on the national stage it becomes clear that her life or death has become the crucible in which at least three very important issues are being tested. One is definition of what it means to be a human being: when is life life and when is it not? Is Terri Schiavo living or has she long gone and all that remains is the memory of who she was prior to her heart attack wherein she suffered extensive brain damage? On the continuum, from the fertilization of the egg to that individual lying in a coma, sustained by feeding tubes and respirators, how do we define life? And when is it appropriate to discontinue it - if it is at all? Clearly, medical science has unequivocally determined that Schiavo's cerebral cortex - that part of our brain that allows us to do all that we define as living, such as speech, movement, hearing, somatic sensation and thought - has been liquefied. According to the doctors who have examined her over the last 15 years, there is no therapy that will ever return Schiavo to her parents, as much as they might wish it to be otherwise. She is in a deep vegetative state. So, is it unreasonable, even moral, to let her go and disconnect her feeding tube? Congress thinks not. And here is another conundrum brought to the fore by our lawmakers, as represented most vociferously by this administration as well as Republican and many Democratic legislators. Though the Republicans are a party that historically has stood steadfast with the Federalist approach to governance, meaning states' rights should prevail in most contests of local vs federal power, they have in the case of Schiavo reversed themselves. The right to life issue supercedes states' rights. From the moment an embryo is formed and as long as the heart is beating, made to do so by any means, there is, by their definition, life. And to abort an embryo or to disconnect a brain-dead person from life support, is wrong. And this position takes precedence over the rulings of the state courts and what is represented as Schiavo's wishes. By extension, Oregon's Death with Dignity Act is also an attempt at terminating life before it has been ended by natural causes. This act has been challenged by the current administration's Justice Department in the courts. And the senate will, in several weeks, begin a debate on a bill called the Pain Relief Promotion Act. Its passage would, in effect, nullify Oregon's Death with Dignity Act and make it illegal for any doctor to use a controlled substance to assist someone to terminate his or her life. Certainly the debate will rage on. But rallying cry of "Right to Life" can only have meaning if we are in agreement on when life is life and when it is not. These decision a are best left up to the individuals involved and the states who express the will of its residents: the woman who must choose whether to terminate a pregnancy; the family who must decide whether to disconnect heroic life support efforts; and in the case of Oregon, that person who sees the final days of life as being far less than dignified, instead fraught with pain and finally reduced to unconscious agony. It is no way to say good-bye. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Online Pharmacy Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations Hammocks Water Filter Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams