Living Wills

The Schiavo family's tragedy is none of my business, but the machinations of the politicians are my business and I am disgusted, albeit unsurprised, at the Republicans' exploitation of this poor family. On Morning Sedition today, the hosts were calling for Democrats to speak out, but I think the Democrats would be right to mind their own business and let the Republicans make asses of themselves.

The case has made me wonder about the issues and whether Mrs. Schiavo is, in any meaningful sense, a sentient being and, if not, whether this should matter. It might not be unreasonable for the default position in society to be that, unless you made it clear that you wanted to be maintained in a vegetative state, you would opt for natural death under such circumstances. In the wild, a human in a vegetative state would surely die. The default at present appears to be the converse, and this may lead to perverse results. I understand how one might come down on either side of this issue, but I think a frank discussion about it would be helpful.

I am torn about this myself. On the one hand, I would not want to be a burden on my family. On the other hand, as the comedian Drew Carey remarked about comas- "What if being in a coma is the best thing that ever happened to you?" The vegetative state may be one of bliss for all I know, a state of innocence with no knowledge of good and evil, life and death, self and other. I do know that I would not want Congress to butt in.

UPDATE: I have done research on the issue (for example see http://vegetativestate.org) and have learned that PVS entails a complete lack of awareness, no knowledge of anything, even the self. Is there anything human to preserve in that case? Is the presence of any living brain tissue enough to warrant keeping someone alive? What if it were a handful of cells in a petrie dish? What if it were not brain tissue, but other tissue? Are these endless rhetorical questions annoying or what?