right to die...

The right-to-die issue has been politicized by both the left and right, and the Supreme Court's recent refusal to hear the Florida case of Terri Schiavo has fueled the flames of the religious right and added political ramifications with Jeb Bush and the Florida Legislature's intercession in the case. Last year I read a controversial book by Peter Singer called Rethinking Life and Death: the collapse of our traditional ethics, which discussed the ethics of animal rights, abortion, the brain dead, as well as poverty and the crime of "speciesism". What interests me about this book in relation to the Schiavo case is this desire to regulate the moral decisions of individuals by the religous right, especially this issue of "right-to-life". In the Schiavo case, it appears that the husband wants to let his wife die naturally, but the parents claim she is "alive" and "responds". Is it ethically valid to keep someone (who is in a persistent vegetative state and has no brain function whatsoever) "alive" on a feeding tube at the same time when there are countless people around the world starving and dying of curable diseases? Many criticize Singer for his views, but more importantly, I think he tries to make valid arguments for issues we need to discuss openly in society. Along the same lines, Harper's Magazine has an essay this month by Garret Keizer which is worth reading. The author gives a rational argument for why PAS (physician assisted suicide) must be a personal decision between a person and his or her doctor, and is currently being thwarted by the religious right and moral relativism. Fascinating...