THE TERRI SCHIAVO PARADOX

OR, WHOM CAN’T YOU KILL: PART I

The conventional criminological wisdom is, the more someone wants to die, the less you can kill them. We call this the “Terri Schiavo Paradox,” although some of us with slightly darker outlooks prefer “Why I Can’t Kill Grandma.”

Sadly to say, you can’t kill the old, the terminally ill, or vegetables (and while I am sure to offend some with this term, few seem to like “permanent vegetative state” any better—they think it’s too hopeless; I tend to believe this whole fuss has more to do with our hatred of all things with the “veg-“ prefix: real vegetables, vegetarians, vegans, and people vegetables).

Although many in the public believe that we murderers are an evil lot, I must contest this stereotype. Of course, there are some among us who are, but so are there those who wish to make this a better world, free of pain and sadness.

It frustrates us greatly that we can’t bring an end to the pain and sadness of those who suffer terminably. Think of the couple, married sixty-one years. Mr. X has terminal cancer, barely four months to live. Every moment is bathed in excruciating pain; neither morphine or marijuana can do anything anymore. He begs Mrs. X to unplug his ventilator, to push a pillow down over his head. She wants to, but the law says no, and everyone would know it was her. She would spend her last years in the Big House, making tea-coseys for the cafeteria.

Or Mrs. Y, who went into a coma after a boating accident. She’s not done anything in twenty-three years. The hospital now doubles the room as a storage closet—in fact, for almost two weeks after the hospital doubled her room, Mr. Y was talking to the mop.

You can’t even help those poor, depression-ridden teens who think one bad relationship is the end of the world.

If only our society would let us kill those who want to die (or those whom we think should die), we wouldn’t have to target the random individuals who make such easy prey.

Letting murderers kill those who want to die is a win-win-win-win scenario. The killers are happy, the dead are happy (insomuch as the dead could ever be happy), the family is saved the trauma of having to end the life of their loved one, and the public is saved the costs for long, term, pointless medical windowdressing  (and we killers would gladly do the public service for free).

No, the sad reality is, good intentions will only get you thrown in jail. Or if you’re in Texas, it’ll get you executed—now isn’t that ironic.