Pretty Damn Hard

Over the next couple of days Nancy spoke with Maggie's friends who remembered an argument she had with her boyfriend during the national debate about Terri Schiavo. Nancy thinks that Maggie must have been especially upset because she came back and shared the details of the conversation with her girlfriends.

Her boyfriend told Maggie that, “if that were me I would pull the plug.” Margaret, as her mother would often refer to her daughter, responded, “I would never do that. If that were you I would do everything I could first to make sure that, to give you every chance to recover or survive. …” Nancy's response to her daughter's views was pragmatic. It would be helpful because, “I mean, it wasn't really about Terri Schiavo” it was about her daughter. “It was kind of this whole unplugged scenario.” With a little bit of digging she had discerned that Maggie had a point of view. As Nancy summed it up, “she had an opinion.”

But Nancy was not done looking for guidance on what to do next. She recalled that Maggie had written a paper in college about her desire to become a veterinarian. It had included a paragraph on euthanasia and euthanizing animals. Nancy called Smith to see if they could send her the paper, because “I didn't have any other way of accessing it.” In the paper, Maggie expressed “great admiration for her mentor” in veterinary medicine “who had euthanized animals.” But Nancy noted that Maggie was cautious in her endorsement. She suggested an incremental approach and argued that “before she would make that decision she would give them any number or a different number of ways to succeed … like, to get better.”

In the paper, Maggie argued that, “she would try medication or she would try physical or loving care, or just anything that she could think of.” But she would consider the euthanasia option if the animal did not have “quality of life.” In Maggie's view euthanasia was a tough choice, “but after trying as many ideas as she could think of she would make that hard decision.” The paper's logic and ethical framing of the options was very important to Nancy's thinking about Maggie and whether to continue to advocate for ongoing care or to pull back and let nature take its course.