The Corner

Of One Life, and Many

Wesley Smith in Standard on Terri Schiavo: there will be more Terris forced to die, but we won’t hear about them:

The Schiavo case has drawn attention only because her family is in profound disagreement about the care she should receive. If futile care theory takes hold, we may see fewer such cases, if only because the unilateral refusal of treatment will quietly take place without anyone speaking up for the patient.

The sad truth is, many practitioners of bioethics, medicine, and law no longer believe that people like Terri Schiavo are fully human. As a consequence, these patients are being systematically stripped of their fundamental right to life and, perhaps worse, are increasingly looked upon as mere natural resources whose bodies can be plundered for the benefit of others. If it is true that a nation is judged by the way it treats its most vulnerable citizens, a lot is riding on the Schiavo case.

For more on futile-care theory from Wesley, see here.

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