Terri's Case -- It's All About Money, Power, and Our Constitution
Donald R. May, MD

March 21, 2005

The efforts to end the life of Theresa "Terri" Schiavo have come to our national center stage.  Members of Congress returned to Washington in order to pass bipartisan legislation protecting Terri.  President Bush returned from vacation to sign it.  Why is ending or preserving the life of one disabled woman of such great political importance?  Not since Elian Gonzales was refused refuge and liberty in the United States and returned to Cuba has there been such a public concern over the life of one person.

Terri's Case is not just about whether she is allowed to live or die.  It is about establishing legal and social precedents regarding the rights and protection of the disabled.  The outcome will establish case law as to whether the disabled are entitled to equal protection under The Constitution of the United States of America.  Section l of Amendment XIV protects citizens from being killed unjustly under the laws of a state by guaranteeing them "due process of law" and "equal protection of the laws."  As Terri has apparently not received these protections in Florida, she is entitled to a Federal Court review of her case.  It is the obligation of Congress to insure this is done.  The legislation urgently crafted in Congress is intended to do just that.  The power to be determined in Terri's Case is whether states can grant the authority for the disabled to be killed without protection under the U.S. Constitution.

The money question is whether the disabled and unwanted can be eliminated to increase the financial status of their heirs or to save money for families, governments, and other payers of health care.  The outcome of Terri's Case will determine whether it will be increasingly acceptable and permissible to eliminate disabled and otherwise nonproductive persons for the convenience and financial benefit of others.  Just think how much could be saved on Social Security and Medicare.

How disabled persons are killed is another important issue of Terri's Case.  It has become legally acceptable for patients' lives to be ended by not giving them water or food.  By perverse logic this is considered to allow patients to die "naturally," even "with dignity," rather than mercifully killing them quickly.  Feeding persons not able to feed themselves, infants, elderly, or disabled, is not artificial life support.  It is normal human nurturing.

If Terri were suffering or in pain, the news media would have undoubtedly shown us evidence.  As some physicians have attested, Terri is not in a vegetative state.  She responds to stimuli and appears to attempt communication. Since her husband has apparently banned her from being taken outdoors, has kept the windows in her room covered, and has denied her even basic rehabilitation, further investigation is warranted.

If Terri were killed, the door would be opened wider for death on demand for the unwanted disabled, pushing humanity more rapidly down the oiled slope of moral relativism with ever less regard for human life.  Roe v. Wade opened the door to kill the undesirable unborn on demand without court intervention.  Abortion criteria quickly expanded until there were no criteria.

Terri is not a unique patient.  In every city there are disabled persons, many much less responsive than Terri.  They are in nursing homes and hospital wards, mental institutions, hospices, and private homes.  Some have brain injuries, Alzheimer's, or insanity.  Others are malformed, retarded, or simply have the infirmities of disease and aging.

If they succeed in killing Terri, judges and politicians will increasingly determine who will be born, live, and die.  We will enter a progressively more frightening and dreary society moving ever closer to the America portrayed in Joseph Bayly's, Winterflight,  where the elderly, and even the young who have treatable chronic diseases, are eliminated.

I have seen progressive changes in attitudes of many physicians and other medical personnel since my medical school class took the full Hippocratic Oath in 1972.   The Oath has subsequently been modified eliminating references to abortion and killing patients.  As a surgeon, I had not realized how far the attitudes of some had changed toward disabled patients until my own mother sustained brain damage like Terri's.  From time to time throughout her hospitalization, I received physician offers to euthanize her.

With therapy, Terri might experience significant recovery.  A recent study of two patients with brain damage similar to Terri's showed their brain activity was equal to that of healthy individuals when listening to the voices of loved ones.
Sarah Scantlin, also with disabilities similar to Terri's, recently awoke and started talking after 20 years.

The news media, normally championing the rights of the disabled and strongly opposing capital punishment, now side with those wanting to kill Terri.  If Terri were a murderer who had become immobilized, there would be an outcry that a disabled person must not be executed.

The concept that people whose quality of life does not meet some utopian standard should be killed results from allowing relativism to replace the concept of right and wrong, clearly delineated in The Ten Commandments and our Constitution.  Our government's job is to protect all its citizens from threats both domestic and foreign.  It is time for courage and resolve from our elected leaders, our courts, and us.

"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government."  Thomas Jefferson

Dr. May resides in Lubbock, Texas and is a retina surgeon; he lectures on economics, and he has been on the faculties of the University of Illinois, the University of Texas, the University of California, Tulane University, and Texas Tech Health Sciences University. He has lectured and taught surgery throughout the United States and in Canada, China, India, Japan, Great Britain, and Western Europe.