New Book -- "If That Ever Happens to Me: Making Life and Death Decisions after Terri Schiavo"

UVA professor Lois Shepherd has a new book, "If That Ever Happens to Me: Making Life and Death Decisions after Terri Schiavo," that was released yesterday by the University of North Carolina Press.

Shepherd details why simple answers were not right for Schiavo and are not right for end-of-life decisions today. She looks behind labels like "starvation," "care" and "medical treatment" to consider what care and feeding really mean, when feeding tubes might be removed, and why disability groups, the people of faith and even the dying themselves often suggest end-of-life solutions they might later regret. For example, Shepherd cautions against living wills as a pat answer. She provides evidence that attempting to create letter-perfect documents can actually weaken, rather than bolster, patient choice.

"For a number of years, there's been a legal and medical consensus that removing a feeding tube from a person in a permanent vegetative state is acceptable – but a good portion of the American public seemed surprised about that and uncertain that it was right. So much of the commentary at the time painted the story as being about 'starvation' or, on the other hand, 'what Terri wanted.' Neither of these is accurate. Nor can we answer the question of what to do in these cases just by focusing on people's rights. We also have to look at people's responsibilities."

When asked how she hopes to reframe some of the issues surrounding the controversy, such as respect, the value of life and the right to die, Shepherd said, "In the book, I urge that we move away from framing these issues primarily in terms of a trade-off or balancing of rights – the right to die or the right to life – and think more broadly about our responsibilities to respect and care for people, especially those who are vulnerable."