My Second Google 20% Project

For my second Google 20% project I plan on working around the topic of travel. I've always been mesmerized by the world’s beauty (well maybe not always I’m pretty sure as a child all I wanted was food and toys). I plan on finding and researching some the most remarkable places on Earth there is to visit. An obstacle I know I will face from the start is the three places I want to research. I know I could go the easy way and say places like London and Fiji but I've been thinking a lot about risks. When asked to pick a topic for this Google 20% project, we were told to take risks. I’m not quite sure how to make this risky but for now all I know is that I want to find hidden places, the kind of places that don’t show up on your world travel calendar. I want to make this project great and different. I’m just not so sure on how to do that yet.

Terri Schiavo Case Study Conclusion

For information on background, legal cases, etc. about Terri Schaivo click here.

To wrap-up our bioethics unit, we've been given the question: Do you believe that the decision to disconnect Terri Schiavo from life-support was justified? 

I had to think about this question a lot and I've changed my mind a few times. There's a lot to consider when having to decide on whether someone lives or not. If I were asked this question say last week, I probably would have answered straight away, NO. I believed, at the time, that Terri had just as much of a right to live as I did, and I still do, but I don't think it was completely wrong for them to pull the plug. There are many articles out there on this case where you can find information on how active Terri was all those years. (look here) At one point in time she was doing okay, she could react, open her eyes, and she still had a personality(check out this article by Attorney Barbara Weller). Because of this, I believed that Terri should stay on life-support. I thought through the perspective of "she could still get better." But, the truth is that Terri was said to be in a persistent vegetative state(PVS) and she would most likely not improve. I had to take a step back from my initial beliefs and look at the big picture. I thought of all the people that were being negatively effected by Terri staying alive. A lot of people, especially her family, were suffering. So, yes, I believe it was justified to pull the plug on Terri Schiavo. It had been 15 years and she hadn't had any major break-troughs. Terri herself probably wasn't all that happy either. Of course she had her family but her family had lives too, they had things to do and couldn't be with her 24/7. So Terri for the majority of the day was stuck in a hospitable bed with nothing to do but look forward to a possible visit from her parents. I think it was best for everyone that Terri be disconnected from life-support. My only wish would have been to do it in a more humane way. For 14 days Terri starved to death. That could have clearly been avoided.

QUALITY OF LIFE: What is in Terri Schiavo’s best interest? Is her life still worth living? What makes life meaningful?

I thought a lot about these specific questions when making my final decision. I believe it was in Terri's best interest to disconnect the life support. Life is always worth living, there is always hope and love and good things to look forward to in any kind of situation. But in Terri's case, there's no much hope left. Life is worth living if you can make it meaningful. There wasn't much Terri could do and its painful to think she was stuck in a tiny room  in her bed for so long. Yes, it was good that they tried therapy but they didn't accomplish anything. She was still in the same state. After 15 years of agonizing boredom  it seems almost just as inhumane to have kept her alive as it was to let her starve to death for 14 days  Terri didn't have much of a life for those 15 years. She was more stuck in a moment than alive. And she wouldn't have been able to escape that moment. Everyday was pretty much the same. The routine soon became meaningless. I believe what makes life meaningful is the ability to live it. To be able to do what you want and to think on your own. To be able to express yourself and accept the ways others express themselves too. IN this case, Terri would have been able to do much with her life but sleep and eat and even to do that she needed help. Overall, it was in her best interest to be disconnected from life support because there wasn't much of her life left to be worth living for. She wasn't able to make her life meaningful and if you can bring meaning into your life, then what is there for you to do?