It is said that our lives are given—by God. This is certainly true in the case of birth. We come to this world without our consent. In terms of death, however, we do have right to do something about it.

Literally, death is a status starting from the end of life, thus belonging to the opposite side of our earthly world. Some may go to the underground which is ruled by Hades or Satan, depending on your preference. Some believe they will go to heaven in which one can either enjoy seventy virgins or flirt with angels freely.

Nevertheless, since dying is a process through which a living human reaches the other world, it is one part of the life. The right to die (or precisely, the right to choose the way of dying) is consistent with the right to life. Everyone should be able to choose how he dies.

Ironically, despite many religious people sincerely and hysterically advocate the right to life, they fail to recognize the above subtle point on the right to die. Furthermore, they submit their lives to the God but they fail to acknowledge that for terminally ill patients, the call to die is also the God’s message to these patients. Again fortunately, CNN’s poll showed that more than half of religious Americans supported the right to die (in the Terri’s case).

Understandably, the decision to die is extremely hard to make and many even refuse to think about death. It is natural to avoid death because evolution makes us to do so. Fortunately, when the final time comes, human beings can learn to accept the death peacefully. Initially denying, then feeling depressed, and finally accepting the death are merely stages of learning to die. In fact, many old people explicitly refuse medical treatments and are sort of welcoming the death. The death is indeed a relief of pains and tries they have suffered for too long.

When it comes to those patients who have lost their consciousness for a long time and may suffer irreversible brain damage, things get complicated. The Terri case gives us an excellent example on how the court deals with this “right to die” issue.

From the very beginning, the court had identified four major conclusions on the “right to die” in Terri’s case. Quote from the earlier decision (quoted in June 6, 2003 opinion):

“the trial court’s rulings that (1) Mrs. Schiavo’s medical condition was the type of end-stage condition that permits the withdrawal of life-prolonging procedures, (2) she did not have a reasonable medical probability of recovering capacity so that she could make her own decision to maintain or withdraw life-prolonging procedures, (3) the trial court had the authority to make such a decision when a conflict within the family prevented a qualified person from effectively exercising the responsibilities of a proxy, and (4) clear and convincing evidence at the time of trial supported a determination that Mrs. Schiavo would have chosen in February 2000 to withdraw the life-prolonging procedures.”

The dispute on the Terri’s death has been centered on whether Terri would express the wish to die if she was given (by the God) one minute of chance to talk. The judge said Terri would choose to die to relieve her and her family.

“In the final analysis, the difficult question that faced the trial court was whether Theresa Marie Schindler Schiavo, not after a few weeks in a coma, but after ten years in a persistent vegetative state that has robbed her of most of her cerebrum and all but the most instinctive of neurological functions, with no hope of a medical cure but with sufficient money and strength of body to live indefinitely, would choose to continue the constant nursing care and the supporting tubes in hopes that a miracle would somehow recreate her missing brain tissue, or whether she would wish to permit a natural death process to take its course and for her family members and loved ones to be free to continue their lives. After due consideration, we conclude that the trial judge had clear and convincing evidence to answer this question as he did.”

Furthermore, the judge also stated that

“this case is not about the aspirations that loving parents have for their children. It is about Theresa Schiavo’s right to make her own decision, independent of her parents and independent of her husband. In circumstances such as these, when families cannot agree, the law has opened the doors of the circuit courts to permit trial judges to serve as surrogates or proxies to make decisions about life prolonging procedures.”

Therefore, although protestors against the removal Terri’s feeding tube are motivated mostly by religious belief and sympathy, Terri’s parents can’t resort to judges’ passions to restore Terri’s feeding tube. Instead, they have to show that Terri’s cortex is not completely damaged, that is, she is not in “persistent vegetative state”. This proves much harder than they thought.

The above court rulings have also been endorsed by the Federal judges in Florida and Atlanta who ruled against Terri’s parents. Now their last hope is the Supreme Court. However, a good chance is that the Supreme Court may turn down their request, thus ending a litigation which has lasted for more than ten years.

Meanwhile, Terri is dying, in a much cruel way.