A Kansas woman regained her ability to speak after having been in a coma for 20 years, a Florida woman could starve to death because of a court order, and over a period of 6 years 171 people in Oregon have died from legally administered drug overdoses. While none of these incidences may seem to be connected, they each raise important questions concerning the value of a human life.
SARAH
In 1984, 18-year-old Sarah Scantlin was severely injured when a drunk driver ran into her as she walked to her car. The accident damaged her body and her brain, and for the past 20 years Sarah has been able to communicate only through blinking her eyes. Two years ago, Sarah did start to make a variety of noises, but her parents had to learn to interpret them. Nobody knew how much mental capacity Sarah truly had, although she seemed alert and aware of her surroundings. Then, at the beginning of February - though the doctors still do not understand why - Sarah began to speak. She has steadily progressed, addressing family members and friends by name. Although Sarah is extremely handicapped in her damaged body and is still unable to swallow, her parents are overjoyed to speak with their daughter again
"There's just no words," said Sarah's mother, Betsy Scantlin. "Twenty years ago, I cried a lot. This week, all I've done is laugh because, when I heard her say, 'Hi Mom,' I said, 'Sarah, is that you?' And she said, 'Yeah.' And all I can do is just say - I've just laughed ever since, because it's just so amazing."
Sarah's miraculous recovery offers hope to the families and friends of severely brain-damaged people everywhere.
TERRI
Meanwhile, a few states away in Florida, Terri Schiavo has been granted another day of nutrition and hydration. Terri has been in a similar state as Sarah Scantlin -severely brain damaged and unable to speak, but aware of her surroundings - since she collapsed almost exactly 15 years ago on February 25, 1990. Terri's husband Michael Schiavo has been fighting a legal battle to have her feeding tube removed in spite of her parents' desire to care for their daughter and provide rehabilitation for her.
"I've watched [Terri] respond to her mother and father," David Gibbs, the attorney for the Schindler family told Fox's On The Record. "I have watched her make different noises. I've watched her curl up at her dad's moustache. I watched her get upset when you turn the music off. I was... candidly, quite shocked at how alive Terri was. And it's one of those profound things you see it in a video and that's two dimensional, but when you're in the room and she lights up and gets excited to see her mom, it's shocking to me to think that we would starve to death a human being that's that alive."
An emergency hearing on the case will be heard on Wednesday afternoon. Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer agreed to issue a one-day stay to keep Michael from having Terri's tube removed on Tuesday afternoon as he had planned. Terri's parents are seeking every legal venue possible to keep their daughter alive and eventually to get her rehabilitation that would improve her condition. One of their next efforts will be to have Terri's brain activity medically tested, to prove that she is mentally aware even though she is physically disabled. At this point, Michael Schiavo could still have Terri's tube removed on Wednesday evening.
Terri's is a watershed case, paving the way for future court decisions on how to handle situations involving the severely disabled. Sitting in her bed in the hospice, still unable to vocalize her thoughts, Terri represents life and death to others in similar situations.
OREGON
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case to determine whether doctors may be held responsible for giving overdose prescriptions to ill patients to help them commit suicide, or whether Congress could prohibit physician assisted suicide.
In 1997, the US Supreme Court ruled to uphold state laws that prohibit physician-assisted suicide, arguing that the Constitution does not guarantee a "right to die". However, the case left open the door for individual states to legalize assisted suicide, and in 1998, Oregon's Death with Dignity Act went into effect. Over 170 people have died during the past 6 years under the protection of this law.
In today's relativistic society, human life has increasingly been treated as something that grows or dwindles in value depending on its "quality." People of compassion naturally want to ease or end the pain of those whose lives seem to be not worth living. However, there is great danger in making judgment calls on the value of any human life. God considers human life precious because God made humankind in His own image. Only He knows the purposes he has in our lives, even in our very last hours.
When we start killing off the terminally ill, it is easy to go on to the brain-damaged, and then on to the ill-but-not-terminally, and then on to any person who is perceived as inconvenient to society. If the terminally ill person's life has no value, if the brain-damaged person's life has no value, then no human life is guaranteed valuable, and it becomes easy to rationalize killing off just about anyone. Sarah Scantlin's miraculous recovery reminds us that there is always hope, even in the lives of those the world considers not worth living.
Related Links:
• Coma Woman Regains Speech, Memory - CBS News