Terri-able

Those who read my blog probably read other blogs too; so I don't have to tell you the Bush signed a law as Governor of Texas that pulls the plug on people like Schiavo, or that GOP congressmen that are grandstanding also voted to cut Medicare which goes to people in Terri's situation, or other such hypocrisies. I don't have to tell you that the bill they are voting on clearly is a bill of retainer and prohibited by the US Constitution.

So I will just go with my favorite angle of this story: the psychoanalysis of Terri's parents. And there the New York Times as an excellent article that I actually read in print today because I was house sitting for my parents. It feels wired to fold and hold a newspaper nowadays.

...the heightened hope of open eyes, combined with memories of the patient when fully aware, can act to infuse any motion at all with meaning, psychologists say. A limp mouth may look like a concerned frown. A movement of the eyes may make a visitor gasp. Still alive in memory, and still living and breathing in body, vegetative patients seem sometimes to be on the verge of re-inhabiting themselves, like an old actor coming out of retirement to reprise a familiar role.

It is so very sad that their daughter is in a permanent vegetative state, and truly feel sorry for those parents. But I equally feel bad for the husband, whose spat with his mother- and father-in-law have been dragged out on an international stage, and whose wife's wishes are being denied so that extreme Christian conservative groups can talk about the "sanctity of life."