01 April, 2005 - 12:32

This ludicrous Terri Schiavo case is driving me nuts: Terry was anorexic and her condition came about because of a potassium imbalance caused by an eating disorder. This makes the irony of her dying from starvation (i.e., retracting the feeding tube) even more pointed. The fact that the media is focusing so intently on driving public opinion on the right-to-life debate is insidious. As a casual peruser of the Canadian media during this Schiavo Fiasco, not one passive indication of "anorexia" entered into my analysis of the situation. Apparently, the media establishment preferred it that way - or wanted to give more attention to some polemical Democrat versus Republican argument in order to further divide a country separated on binary notions of good and evil and hence strengthening nascent momentum for another civil war. If only we could talk about the real issue: Terri Sciavo was anorexic. A potassium imbalance caused her to collapse in 1990 which lead to a serious lack of oxygen in her brain and left her in a "permanent vegetative state". Terri personifies the engagement that U.S. media plays out in our everyday lives: we, too, enter a vegetative state which prevents us from communicating with the rest of the world and the rest of the world communicating back to us. There is a disconnect. We become zombies much like Terri. (The worst part is that we don't often realise that it is happening. It's a slow, banal spiral to complete subordination.) It's not the doctors who decided to end Terri's life. It's not her husband who ended it. They couldn't because Terri, in collaboration with popular media, decided to end her own life. She committed suicide. It's impossible to know who exactly to blame but I could start with a few: L'Oreal GQ Saks Fifth Avenue FHM The Gap Banana Republic . . . and on, and on, and on. Because these are the villains who are deliberately selling us guilt. We willingly walk into stores everyday and charge it up on our credit cards; hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars, yen, pounds and euros of shame, guilt, culpability, self-hatred and fear. And the double irony is that the same seemingly altruistic Republicans who wanted to save Terri's life in her vegetative state are now rather disingenuously voting to directly assist in the suicide of thousands of other people by blocking the passage of a bill that would assist people with eating disorders. The U.S., once again, outdoes itself.