Ed Morrissey notes:
…The study in Cambridge showed that 17% of patients assumed to have no brain activity beyond involuntary impulses actually show cognitive understanding using an MRI to map brain responses to questions asked by researchers. None of the 17% had brain injury due to hypoxia, the underlying cause of the injury to Terri Schiavo, whose case became a national political crisis a few years ago, but the implications of this study are still horrific…
…The new diagnostic ability that this study suggests could mean that patients once dismissed for years as nonresponsive have actually had an interior life without any ability to recognize it or communicate it to the outside world. It could also mean that previous decisions to suspend care may have been made in error, although entirely in good-faith belief that the person inside had utterly vanished.
This could change all of our perceptions on the victims of tramautic brain damage, as well as offer hope for those who remain trapped but conscious inside unresponsive bodies.
Our point, as pro-lifers, is that given we do not have – and cannot have – 100% knowledge of the interior condition of a human being, it is always better to err on the side of life. This is outside of theology – as a Christian I believe that the soul comes in at the moment of conception and goes out at the moment of physical death; but nobody has to subscribe to this view if they don’t wish to. But even outside of that, we just don’t know.
The Culture of Death is very sure of itself. Most lies are. And, additionally, most lies are very vehement in self defense. We on the pro-life side, being people of faith, are quite capable of admitting doubt. Was Terri Schiavo’s mind (soul, if you will) already departed before they removed the feeding tube? We don’t know. Didn’t know then. Don’t know now.
You could slice and dice her brain post-mortem to your heart’s content and you still won’t get that answer because while we have a good deal of knowledge of how the organ called the brain works, we haven’t the foggiest notion of how mind works. Disbelieve in God if you will – but perhaps that “persistent vegetative” person is actually thinking of things? Still having a life; and a life no one is permitted to take without just cause. Unless and until someone figures out how to measure my thought which put a bit more oregano in to the spaghetti sauce – and tell me where, precisely, it is stored for me to recall days later while writing a blog post – there is just no way anyone can say whether a person who has physical life is aware or not at some level.
Err on the side of mercy. Err on the side of love. Err on the side of life.
UPDATE: And the global Culture of Death suffers a defeat in Costa Rica.
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