From Essays After Montaigne

...the wise man liveth as long as he ought, and not so long as he can. And that the favourablest gift nature hath bequeathed us, and which removeth all meanes from us to complaine of our condition, is, that she hath left us the key of the fields. She hath appointed but one entrance unto life, but many a thousand ways out of it: Well may we want ground to live upon, but never ground to die, in; as Boiocalus answered the Romanes. Why dost thou complaine against this world? It doth not containe thee: If thou livest in paine and sorrow, thy base courage is the cause of it. To die there wanteth but will.

And it is not a receipt to one malady alone; Death is a remedy against all evils: It is a most assured haven, never to be feared, and often to be sought: All comes to one period, whether man make an end of himselfe, or whether he endure it; whether he run before his day, or whether he expect it: whence soever it come, it is ever his owne, where ever the threed be broken, it is all there, it's the end of the web. The voluntariest death is the fairest. Life dependeth on the will of others, death on ours. In nothing should we so much accommodate our selves to our humors as in that. Reputation doth nothing concerne such an enterprise, it is folly to have any respect unto it. To live is to serve, if the libertie to dye be wanting. The common course of curing any infirmitie is ever directed at the charge of life: we have incisions made into us, we are cauterized, we have limbs cut and mangled, we are let bloud, we are dieted. Goe we but one step further, we need no more physicke, we are perfectly whole. Why is not our jugular or throat-veine as much at our command as the mediane? To extreme sicknesses, extreme remedies. Servius the Grammarian being troubled with the gowt, found no better meanes to be rid of it than to apply poison to mortifie his legs. He cared not whether they were Podagrees or no, so they were insensible. God giveth us sufficient privilege, when be placeth us in such an estate, as life is worse than death unto us. It is weaknesse to yeeld to evils, but folly to foster them. The Stoikes say it is a convenient naturall life, for a wise man, to forgoe life, although he abound in all happinesse, if he doe it opportunely: And for a foole to prolong his life, albeit he be most miserable, provided he be in most part of things, which they say to be according unto nature...

A great deal of time and energy is being spent determining whether Terri Schiavo is in an irreversible vegetative state or not, but does it really matter? Certainly it's our responsibility to sustain and nurture the young, the ill, and the helpless as long as there is hope that they may recover. But just as certainly, it's against nature (and, by extension, against God) to force those who cannot and will not live on their own to live nonetheless. I won't pretend to know the state of Schiavo's neurological health, but I do know that she can't eat, and hasn't been able to for fourteen years. It's terrible for everyone directly involved--a bad situation that has only been debased by cynical and divisive political involvement.

We (myself more than most) must accept that it doesn't much matter when we die. Our life is the briefest instant, but death (whatever it entails) is eternal, the natural, destined state toward which we tend. How important can years, decades, even centuries be when measured against eternity? As A. R. Ammons puts it at the opening of his splendid and shocking valedictory epic Glare:

wdn't it be silly to be serious, now:
I mean, the hardheads and the eggheads

are agreed that we are an absurd
irrelevance on this slice of curvature

and that a boulder from the blue
could confirm it: imagine, mathematics

wiped out by a wandering stone, or
grecian urns not forever fair when

the sun expands...

...meaninglessness

our only meaning: our deepest concerns
such as death or love or child-pain

arousing a belly laugh or a witty
dismissal: a bunch of baloney: it's

already starting to feel funny: I
think I may laugh...

however much we learn, tho, we may
grow daunted by our dismissibility

in so sizable a place: do our gods
penetrate those reaches, or do all

those other places have their godly
nativities: or if the greatest god

is the stillness all the motions add
up to, then we must ineluctably be

included: perhaps a dribble of
what-is is what what-is is: it is

nice to be included, especially from
so minor a pew...

To try to delay the inevitable, to prolong this magical instant only to poison it with pointless suffering, seems absurd to me. Life is to be enjoyed, not in any base sense, but in the profound sense that we must each choose for ourselves. In that sense, pain and sacrifice can be redeeming, and thus can be part of how we define our fulfillment. But I challenge anyone to name any redemption to be found for the Schiavos, humanity, or God in Terri's continued existence. To suggest that some might be found is simply cruel.

This case reminds me again of deep contradictions in fundamentalist thought (if "thought" is the correct term for something so unreflective and willfully illogical). There is, of course, the superficial inconsistency in defenders of the "right to life" killing doctors and supporting execution. But there are deeper problems. If the afterlife is eternal reward or punishment as chosen by God, what's the point of intervening to delay Terri Schiavo from achieving her final reward? If life is as nothing against that eternal reward, what is gained by preserving it at the expense of that reward? And what is accomplished by taking something so worthless as a life as punishment? I sense a nervous lack of faith in the fundamentalist notion that they must involve themselves in matters of life and death, as if God somehow needs their help.