If my family has been through nearly this exact situation, then I would assume that this has happened in America more than just those two times. Why is there such an outpouring of hate about it now? First of all, before I proceed, we did not end my aunt's life by removing the feeding tube, she contracted pnuemonia in her 11th year of the 'vegetative state'. Therefore be rest assured I am not speaking from the corner of guilt. Both my aunt and Terry had apparantly problematic lives. I know my aunt's story and Terry was bulemic. Now imagine this: you go from your crappy life to suddenly being in a room that smells like a diaper, has flourescent lighting, and a big naked woman masturbating and teaching the second grade at the same time in the bed facing yours. You haven't been outside in 12 years. Conceivably they could put the TV within your line of sight but you get angry when it goes on so they don't. You haven't tasted good food in 12 years, you haven't spoken your mind in 12 years, you've been in a diaper or had a catheter, you have gross mean jerks giving you spongebaths, you have no dignity, you can't ask for what you want. All you have to look forward to is the next visit from a family member. You light up like a candle when they walk in the room but you thrash with fits and grunts when they leave. For 12 years saliva has collected at the corners of your mouth drying and bleeding and hurting. Your mouth is always open so it is always dry and hot and painful. When your nieces come to visit they bring lollipops and q-tips soaked in water so you can taste something else besides the dried spit, but no nurse here is going to do you that favor.
Now imagine a prison. TV, baseball, magazines, books, food, cigarettes, sunshine, the ability to move around, relationships with people even if they are prisoners, conjugal visits with your spouse, the ability to read the letters from your kids or parents. Most people think prison is terrible.
Now imagine Heaven. Imagine Heaven from my Aunt's point of view when she got there. Now do you think we should have kept her on that respirator for ten years like my grandparents wanted her to? When my aunt got pneumonia, she was put on a respirator and began to decline. The doctors said they could keep her alive like that indefinitely if we wanted. For 13 years my family had weighed this decision. It is a horrible, terrible, gut wrenching decision to make. You think about it (even I, as a young person growing up to adulthood) every day for those 13 years. It is not an idle decision. Parents hate losing their children. My grandparents, Sean's grandparents, Terry Schiavo's parents. Sean's mother had a sneak peek at the lives of Terry and my aunt, being in the hospital for over 6 months and she was quite clear when she said she wanted to go to Heaven. I fully stand behind my next statement. It is sometimes selfish to enforce life. I am not taking a position per se on this case. I am not a member of her family. But here is what I have to say about the Schiavo case to the fanatics (on EITHER side): It is an incredibly tough decision that takes decades to make, not just a few months, and takes information to pour over and examine, not just news stories, and also personal experience with the person in question. The media just needs to leave the family and the situation alone, and the government doesn't need to be making split second decisions that could effect so many other different things.
Now, imagine my family going into Heaven and extracting my aunt and putting her back in that bed. Would that not be the most heinous thing you could imagine?
One more thing. Mary Baker Eddy would certainly not agree with the right on this one. God's will is not necessarily being respected. Oh, and I'm not a liberal or a leftist. I've just been through this.
See these articles for some info. Not necessarily the best info, but from a different source:
http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2005/03/debunking_lies_.html
http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2005/03/religious_zealo.html
