China’s Terri Schiavo
Two years ago in the United States, Terri Schiavo—a brain-damaged woman in a persistent vegetative state—made headlines with her famous euthanasia case. Her husband and her parents were battling over whether she should be unhooked from her machines so she could die peacefully. Now the debate over euthanasia is raging on the opposite side of the ...
Two years ago in the United States, Terri Schiavo—a brain-damaged woman in a persistent vegetative state—made headlines with her famous euthanasia case. Her husband and her parents were battling over whether she should be unhooked from her machines so she could die peacefully.
Two years ago in the United States, Terri Schiavo—a brain-damaged woman in a persistent vegetative state—made headlines with her famous euthanasia case. Her husband and her parents were battling over whether she should be unhooked from her machines so she could die peacefully.
Now the debate over euthanasia is raging on the opposite side of the planet, in China.
Typing with a chopstick held in her mouth, 28-year-old Li Yan has been writing a blog called “Nowhere to go” that calls for China to enact legislation on euthanasia, or “peaceful death.” Li Yan has suffered from terminal cancer since she was a baby. She can only move her head slightly, along with several fingers. Her mother must feed her, take her to the toilet, and turn her a dozen times during the night.
“I treasure life, but I don’t want to live,” she writes.
Schiavo and Li are unusual cases, but controversy over when to pull the plug is bound to grow more common as the world population ages. My hunch? Euthanasia will become more accepted as terminal illness hits closer to home for more people.
And although it’s repugnant to make human life a matter of money, crippling financial costs will be an unspoken factor that makes euthanasia more accepted. When U.S. President George W. Bush was governor of Texas, he signed the Texas Futile Care Law. It allows hospitals to discontinue life-sustaining treatment if the patient is so sick that all care is, well, futile. Families get a 10-day notice before the plug is pulled. While the Schiavo debate raged, a Texas baby was unplugged against his mother’s wishes.
As the world grays and financial resources remain finite, some tough decisions will have to be made. So let the worldwide debates continue.
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