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March 20, 2005
Brain Death
I've been trying really hard figuring out how to voice my feelings on poor Terry Schiavo.
I thought about being snarky and pointing out that the GOP and the Religious Right are fighting for her because they need as many brain-dead supporters as they can muster.
I thought about being optimistic, and hoping that maybe we could have an honest debate in this country about euthanasia and death with dignity. This summer, I took my roommate and her cat to the vet. She held her li'l Nino, wracked with kidney failure, in her arms as the vet game him a tiny injection and he fell asleep, instantly, forever. A damn cat has more of a right to die with dignity than a person.
I thought about feigning surprise that our absentee President is cutting short one of his legendary vacations (or reading My Pet Goat II) to rush back to Washington in case his signature's needed on an emergency Congressional bill that the Republicans (motto: "We Used to Act Like We Were Against Government Meddling") have scrambled to assemble to keep this epic going.
I thought about taking an inquisitive tack: why is the so-called "culture of life" in this country fixated only on pre-embryonic clumps of protoplasm and nonresponsive liquified brains? Aren't there a lot of Americans (and not a few people in other parts of the world) suffering and ailing, who could actually benefit from some of the misguided energy the save-Terry crowd is expending?
I thought about all these things, then settle on just a request. If my brain should somehow liquify and go beyond hope of repair (shaddap out there), just let me go. As quickly and painlessly as possible. Don't put people I care about in the center of a media and legal tug-of-war. Don't put my "life" in the hands of Jeb Bush and the First Rancher and Bill Frist (see, we're back to killing cats) and Jerry Falwell. I'm too cheap to make out a living will, so let this stand forever as a declaration of my intent. No wrangling over what I told to whom when. Hell, I beg for a coup-de-grace when I twist my ankle.
Can we get back to real news now?
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