A Tale of Two Comatose Women
USA Today has a fascinating and inspiring cover story today about a man keeping his brain dead wife alive in hopes that she can live long enough to deliver their unborn baby. Susan Torres, 26, fell in love with her husband Jason when they became study partners during a sophomore year in Rome. In 2002 she married him, and soon after became a researcher at the National Institutes of Health. Tragically, on May 7 she suffered a stroke caused by an undetected brain tumor that left her all but dead. Her husband Jason, convinced that his wife would have wished it, is keeping her on life support due to the miraculous continued growth of the baby in her womb.
“I hate seeing her on those darned machines,” Jason says, “and I hate using her as a husk, a carrying case, because she herself is worth so much more. But Susan really wanted this baby. And she's a very — how should I put this? — a willful lady. That's probably why she's made it this far.”
The article states that since 1977 at least nine comatose women have given birth. Amazing! Doctors think that Susan needs to stay alive another month to make her fetus viable. It really is an amazing story.
And it stands in stark contrast to the story of Terry Shiavo, a woman we now know had no hope of progressing toward life, whose autopsy reveals she was irreversibly brain dead, had suffered astounding brain atrophy, and was entirely blind. The 10 second video clip of her seemingly responding to family and a ballon was a coincidental mirage.
There is no joy in proving that Dr. Bill Frist and Tom Delay (and so many others) were wrong about Terry's condition; only a sobering lesson. That a culture that deeply values life is different than a culture that blindly fetishes it. And that a middle ground exists between euthanasia and an endless prolonging of grossly unnatural human life.
Those who cherish life because it is divinely created must surely believe that Terry was born to laugh, love, and bring joy to her Creator. I would say that she is finally now able to do these things in heaven, but the truth is she may already have been there 10 years. It's possible that she began living again shortly after her mind perished, enjoying a life so glorious she never stopped to look back and puzzle at the political forces being galvanized to win her body.
Her parents were wrong, but cannot be faulted--the way they knew how to love their daughter was to try and keep whatever was left of her alive. But hindsight grants us the ability to see that while life is an incredible miracle, and modern medicine a gift toward protecting and preserving that miracle (just read the story above!), it has limits, and is not the final end in itself.
Here's hoping that a new life is granted to the Torres family.
“I hate seeing her on those darned machines,” Jason says, “and I hate using her as a husk, a carrying case, because she herself is worth so much more. But Susan really wanted this baby. And she's a very — how should I put this? — a willful lady. That's probably why she's made it this far.”
The article states that since 1977 at least nine comatose women have given birth. Amazing! Doctors think that Susan needs to stay alive another month to make her fetus viable. It really is an amazing story.
And it stands in stark contrast to the story of Terry Shiavo, a woman we now know had no hope of progressing toward life, whose autopsy reveals she was irreversibly brain dead, had suffered astounding brain atrophy, and was entirely blind. The 10 second video clip of her seemingly responding to family and a ballon was a coincidental mirage.
There is no joy in proving that Dr. Bill Frist and Tom Delay (and so many others) were wrong about Terry's condition; only a sobering lesson. That a culture that deeply values life is different than a culture that blindly fetishes it. And that a middle ground exists between euthanasia and an endless prolonging of grossly unnatural human life.
Those who cherish life because it is divinely created must surely believe that Terry was born to laugh, love, and bring joy to her Creator. I would say that she is finally now able to do these things in heaven, but the truth is she may already have been there 10 years. It's possible that she began living again shortly after her mind perished, enjoying a life so glorious she never stopped to look back and puzzle at the political forces being galvanized to win her body.
Her parents were wrong, but cannot be faulted--the way they knew how to love their daughter was to try and keep whatever was left of her alive. But hindsight grants us the ability to see that while life is an incredible miracle, and modern medicine a gift toward protecting and preserving that miracle (just read the story above!), it has limits, and is not the final end in itself.
Here's hoping that a new life is granted to the Torres family.
posted by Luke @ 3:10 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home