On Death and Dying

I wonder what I would do if I was Michael Schiavo?

Please don’t misinterpret that question. I firmly believe he has every right to attempt to honor his wife’s wishes, and I think the politicos who have inserted themselves into this tragedy are opportunistic, self-serving bastards.

But, just because I believe someone has every right to do something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the choice I would make.

If I had considered this a year ago, I would have firmly stated I would do the same thing Michael Schiavo is doing.

But, a few months ago I read a nice little book titled Stiff. One of the issues that book forced me to consider more deeply was the question of what to do with a person’s body once they are dead. Previously, I would have said that the wishes of the deceased should be honored as much as possible. And if someone wanted to be dressed in a suit and put in an expensive box that’s buried underground… well, their kink is okay.

But “Stiff” made a point that deeply resonated with me, particularly since I have zero belief in an afterlife; the deceased are dead. (Duh!) They are far beyond caring whether their wishes for their corpse are honored or not. And so, if you have to choose between honoring their wishes, versus making some gesture that would help the family and survivors cope with the loss, maybe it makes more sense to lean towards the latter.

And for me, the same issues extend to someone who is in an irreversible vegetative state. Their body may still be alive, but “they”, that person is, for all intents and purposes, dead. And now someone has to make decisions for them about what to do next.

Let me put this in more personal terms. Someday, my girlfriend will die. Or (worse yet) be on life support from some non-recoverable disability. And, unless I’ve beaten her to the finish line, I’ll be in the position of deciding what to do with her body. (She has signed a Medical Directive giving me Power of Attorney for Health Care.) I know what her personal wishes are in such matters; pull the plug, donate to medical science whatever they will take, cremate the rest. (The same as my own personal wishes.)

And then I think of her parents. And if it meant the world to them for her to continue existing, even in a horribly debilitated state, would I really take that away from them? For what purpose? To honor the wishes of the one person who no longer had a single care about the situation? I don’t think I would do it. If her parents passionately wanted to maintain that breathing corpse until the last possible moment, if that gave them some measure of peace and consolation, I would want to give them whatever scrap I could.

Now here’s hoping I won’t have to make such decisions, not for a very long time, not ever.