Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to re: And if you had a dog that was permanently crippled...

Maybe he loves her.
Mary Anne — (archived)

Have you thought of that?

He hasn't been effectively divorced from her. He's been effectively widowed. The woman is gone. A shell is left that must be watered and dusted, like a houseplant, except the houseplant is what it is whereas the shell that was his wife is only a shell.

She told him she would never want to be kept "alive" in a vegetative state. Numerous courts have been convinced of this. He saw to her care for a number of years before concluding that even a partial recovery is a lost cause.

Her pain centers are gone. There is no pain without them, except in the minds of the people who are watching.

He may very well be trying to carry out the wishes of a woman he loved in real life, not this grotesque pantomime of life that has been going on for years. He may be intent on keeping a promise that he made to her, earnestly, to love, honor and cherish. She asked him not to keep her alive. He could be loving the woman she was, honoring the promise that she asked him to make, and cherishing the marriage that once was. Maybe he doesn't want to shirk that responsibility and abandon her to people who will keep her body like a doll to dress, feed and play "let's pretend" with. Maybe he believes that offends her dignity.

After many years, he has moved on with his life. There's no point in pillorying him for that.

It's easy to think of the parents as the heroes, but they aren't. I don't think of them as villains, either. I think they are people who want to believe in something that's impossible because they haven't the strength to deal with the truth.

They are wrong to try to change the law for all the people of Florida, or maybe even for all the people of the United States, because they can't take what life has dealt them.

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