Current Events: Who Has the Authority?

I'm sick of blogging about this Shiavo soap opera. But I have come to realize that the question of Terri's fate is a question of who has the authority to decide her fate.

Ultimately, Terri Schiavo herself is the only one with real authority to decide her own fate. But if she honestly told her husband that she would not want to be kept alive like that, then she has given him the authority, as her legal guardian, to carry out her wishes. Who are we to automatically assume that Michael's lying, allowing us to step in and prevent her wishes from being carried out?

It's a valid argument, but it breaks down. Since she has no living will, all we have to go on is Michael's word. Now this may be a matter of opinion, but I don't think second-hand accounts should be regarded with as much authority as official, legal documents. There's too many variables. Even if she did say something like that, since there's nothing concrete written down, how do we know to what extent she was talking about? Did she mean she didn't want to be kept alive if she couldn't breathe on her own? Or if her heart couldn't beat on its own? Or only if she couldn't eat on her own? Michael's account is too vague.

There's also the question of his character. In general, it is unjust to automatically assume people are lying about things. We have to assume they are telling the truth, unless confronted with evidence to the contrary. I would like to assume that Michael is telling the truth about his wife's wishes, but it is obvious that he doesn't care about her. There is some evidence that he abused her and didn't even want to help her recover---he just wanted her to die and be rid of her. And it's suspicious that he only started using the "wife's wishes" argument in 2000, closer to the time that he found a different girlfriend than the time his wife was first brain-damaged.

Because Michael's account of her wishes is uncertain and unreliable, and because his character calls into question the truthfulness of his account, we cannot be certain that Terri would want to die rather than be kept alive. Once we are uncertain about Terri's wishes, then an outsider has to decide her fate, which becomes a judgment call---a philosophical question---on whether she deserves to live or not.

Now it becomes a question of who has the authority to make that judgment call. As her legal guardian, Michael is the most likely candidate. And he has decided that she does not deserve life.

OK, that's his right, we can't interfere, too bad. But if he hates her and has an obvious bias against her, then does he still retain that right? That's another judgment call.

I don't know who has or should have the authority. Her husband? Her parents? Apparently the government thinks it does. No matter the outcome of this case, in the aftermath there needs to be reform that clearly outlines who has the authority to decide in cases like these and what can cause legal guardians to lose that authority. Until then, we're forced to let the government step in.