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No matter where you fall on the Terri Schiavo debate, it's important to remember one very important thing: that you let your family know what you want done if you end up in desperate condition like Terri. Most states have "living wills" (and/or "Advance Directives for Health Care" power of attorney forms) where you can spell out your wishes in a legal way. One source for such is the U.S. Living Will Registry. (You may or may not want to use their service to store your directives, but you can still get proper forms from their site.) If you don't have a "living will" (or, for that matter, a Last Will and Testament!), you need one. Even if you're young and healthy: Schiavo was only in her mid-20s when she was stricken -- the same as the other two seminal cases in this field, Karen Ann Quinlan and Nancy Cruzan. Don't let your inaction lead the courts (or, much worse, legislators!) to determine your fate. If you have questions about the forms, go see a lawyer. It'll cost a few bucks, sure -- but how much did the Schiavo fight cost? From This is True for 10 April 2005 Suggestions for further reading:
 By: Eleanor Clift List Price: $26.00 Amazon Price: $17.16 Editorial Review: What has become known as the Schiavo affair-the death of a brain-damaged woman in Florida in 2005, and the controversy that surrounded it-was a revelatory moment in American society. For the first time, the nation got a clear view of both the fanaticism gripping the religious right and the political power it could bring to bear even when the vast majority of the country disagreed with it. But it was also a turning point: a moment when America seemed to glimpse a dangerous radicalism, and began to pull back. Eleanor Clift witnessed this event from a unique vantage point. At the same time that Schiavo was dying in her Florida hospice, Clift’s husband, Tom Brazaitis, was dying of cancer at home; the two passed away within a day of each other. Two Weeks of Life alternates between these two stories to provide a moving commentary on how we deal, or fail to deal, with dying in modern America.  By: Sidney WanzerJoseph Glenmullen List Price: $15.00 Amazon Price: $10.20 Editorial Review: Knowing our rights to refuse treatment, and ways to bring death earlier if pain or distress cannot be alleviated, will spare us the frightening helplessness that can rob our last days of meaning and personal connection. Drs. Wanzer and Glenmullen clarify what patients should insist of their doctors, including the right to enough pain medication even if it shortens life. Everyone needs their wise and comforting advice.  By: Rex Stout List Price: $6.50 Amazon Price: $6.50 Editorial Review: When a bright young heiress with a flair for romance and one too many enemies is found brutally murdered, Nero Wolfe and his sidekick, Archie, find themselves embroiled in a case that is not as black and white as it first appears. Susan Brooke has everything going for her. Men would have killed themselves to marry her, and, in fact, one did. Susan came to New York to find love and fulfillment, and ended up dead on a tenement floor. The police say her black fiance did it, but Wolfe has other ideas. Before he's done, he'll prove that good intentions and bad deeds often go hand in hand and that the highest ideals can sometimes have the deadliest consequences. CSI Miami: Right to Die By: Jeff Mariotte List Price: $7.99 Amazon Price: $7.99 Editorial Review: A young man is killed in Miami's Bicentennial Park. Two shots -- one a through-and-through -- and on his body a quantity of coke is found. It would be easy to mark down his killing as gang related or a drug deal gone bad. While the simplest explanation may be the best, it does not follow that it is always true. There is something about the angles of the bullets that killed him that are off...and why take his gun and money, and leave the drugs? And who would have the skill to carry all of this out without leaving a path in the grass? A serial bomber has been spreading terror across the western states. The FBI has been on his trail for years, but always one day too late, leaving frustrated agents to sweep through bombed sites, looking for leads. A search of an Albuquerque motel and its Dumpsters has led the agent-in-charge to Miami, hoping this time he will not need the services of the Miami-Dade Crime Lab. A bomb set in a house kills a doctor and all of his family. If this is the same bomber, he has changed his pattern. Why? Does he feel more comfortable here in Miami? Lieutenant Horatio Caine is going to find him, and make sure the only comfort the bomber finds is offered by the state -- in jail.  By: Cheryl Kaye Tardif List Price: $12.95 Amazon Price: $10.36 Editorial Review: Based on native legends of killer whales and wolves, this haunting tale of change and choice sensitively explores issues of the right to die, integrating the optimistic spiritualism of native myth and the hard realities of modern-day life. This beautiful story, told in flashback, straddles the genres of mystery and family drama, as the only witness to a tragedy loses her memory and an innocent person may be in prison for the crime, posing the difficult question Which is the higher morality—love or law? This special edition includes new scenes from the author's screenplay. |
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