Terry Schiavo is the brain-dead woman whose husband is trying to take her off life support, while her parents try to keep her alive.

This is a fascinating case which blends aspects of medicine, ethics, law, religion, and psychology.

I won’t comment on the repulsive political posturing and grandstanding in which our nation’s elected representatives are now engaged in Washington.

What caught my eye was the sentence in the NYT that

But many doctors say that what appear to be emotion and cognition are in fact involuntary reflexes.

But what if the “emotion” and “cognition” we all show every day is actually “involuntary”? What does “involuntary” mean? Is it an “emotion” when a baby smiles back at you, and is it “voluntary”? Is it “cognition” when my cat intently follows a bird flying outside our window?

(It being completely irrelevant from the legal standpoint, of course, whether Terry is showing “cognition” or “emotion” when she follows a balloon with her eyes—she can’t make or communicate decisions about her medical treatment, and the law says in that case her husband gets to make them for her. I guess that’s too complicated for the hyprocrites claiming to be in favor of a “culture of life”, who would better be described as in favor of a “culture of vegetables”.)

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 20th, 2005 at 11:07 and is filed under history and culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.