From Austin Cline,
Your Guide to Agnosticism / Atheism.
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The debate over the fate of Terri Schiavo has also been, on a very fundamental level, a debate about the nature of our humanity and of human life. The disagreement can be described as one about the presence or absence of Terri Schiavo as a person: does the absence of her cerebral cortex and higher brain functions represent the absence of her as a person, or does she have a soul which means that “she” is still there?

Frank J. Veith writes in his article “Brain Death”:

“The principal reason for deciding that a person is dead should be based upon a fundamental understanding of the nature of man. Our present conceptualization of man almost reflexively draws a distinction between a person whose organs are under nervous system influence and the remnant of a person or his corpse in which residual and nonhomeostatic functions may or may not have completely ceased. Without a brain, the body becomes the convenient medium in which the energy-requiring states of organs run down and the organs decay. These residual activities do not confer an iota of humanity or personality. Thus, in the circumstances of brain death, neither a human being nor a person any longer exists.”

Veith is not talking about Terri Schiavo here and he’s not talking about people in Terri’s condition. Veith is talking about people suffering from whole-brain death and whose organs cannot function without aid, not people suffering from higher-brain death who lost all higher functions of consciousness and awareness, but who retain enough of a brain stem to maintain basic organ functions.

Nevertheless, Veith’s comments here are helpful because they do express some of the perspective of those who support Michael Schiavo’s decision to remove the feeding tube from his wife Terri: the brain, but specifically the regions responsible for higher-brain functions, are responsible for what makes us us. They are responsible for our ability to experience love or hate, hope or despair, pride or regret. They are what make it possible for us to be autonomous, have personalities, and realize meaning in our lives.

Once the regions of our brain responsible for higher functions cease to do their job — or, as in Terri Schiavo’s case, cease to exist at all — then who we are as an individual human being ends. There is no recovery from higher-brain death (much less higher-brain absence) and so once we reach that condition, there is no good reason to use modern medical technology to keep our organs functioning.

There are various philosophical objections to and criticisms of the above, but the most common position taken in opposition to it and the one which motivates those who wish to keep Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube inserted is known as mind-body dualism. According to this position, the “mind” (defined as inclusive of the aforementioned higher-brain activities) is not a function of the physical brain.

Explanations of what the brain is responsible for vary, but there is “something” like a soul or spirit which is actually responsible for our emotions, personality, autonomy, consciousness, etc. This immaterial “stuff” cannot be harmed by physical injury or illness. Its ability to communicate with the physical world may be impaired, but it remains intact, and therefore what makes Terri Schiavo a person remains. She is still there, just not in a way that can be understood by those whose materialistic biases prejudice their judgments.

There is no evidence that supports the truth of this dualistic position; at the same time, there is abundant evidence that is best explained by materialistic explanations of personality, memory, and behavior. This is why medicine is almost ruthlessly materialistic: when doctors detect a problem with someone’s brain functioning, they seek and find solutions in the physical realm, not through prayer or exorcism.

This conflict between materialistic accounts of our humanity and faith-based explanations that rely on souls or spirits is why the Terri Schiavo case has become so important to the Christian Right. Removal of the feeding tube is perceived as a triumph of materialistic premises about the nature of life; restoration of the feeding tube is perceived as the triumph of their own religious values and religious definitions of the nature of life.

The fact that feeding tubes and/or breathing machines are disconnected every day all over the nation doesn’t matter. When it comes to the bare medical facts, Terri Schiavo’s case isn’t that unusual. Terri Schiavo is slightly unusual in that the she is able to move around in ways that can make it appear as though she is conscious. This has allowed the Christian Right to transform her into a symbol in their struggle against materialism and modernism.