In a house on Chicago�s southeast side, a Mexican family is going through a heartbreak like the tragedy that befell the American Terri Schiavo�s family and deeply affected both those who defend the right to life and partisans of euthanasia. But no voices had been raised so far in this case because very few knew about the situation concerning the 39-year-old Latin woman whose husband decided to disconnect the tube that had been feeding her during her three and a half years in a vegetative state.
As of the close of this edition, Clara Martinez, 39 years old and mother of two children aged five and seven years � had been almost 30 days without food and was still alive, taking only water. For the last year she has been cared for in her home, with special medical equipment installed in the living room, while the rest of the family try to go on with their lives.
This woman has remained in this condition since suffering a stroke. She was cared for in the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Medical Center, later at an intermediate care facility, then at the hospital again, and finally she was taken to her home. At that time the physicians had judged her condition to be irreversible.
Under these conditions her husband Salvador Martinez, 35 years old and also Mexican, resolved that his wife should not live artificially. He signed a �Do Not Resuscitate� order to keep her from being revived artificially and disconnected the feeding machine. Under these conditions the woman should have died by withdrawal of feeding and the case would have gone unnoticed, had it not been for the intervention of a pastor of the Hispanic Evangelical Church at 4340 W. 87th St.
The wife�s mother, Gregoria Ruano, who has lived 33 years in the US after coming from the state of Durango in Mexico, attends this church. She disagrees with her son-in-law�s decision and spoke about the situation with Pastor Guillermo Espinoza.
Indeed, family and members of this church seem to be against euthanasia, which has led the husband to refuse an interview with La Raza, saying he doesn�t want to go public with my troubles. �My problems are mine, I will take care of them, and when I need you, I will call you,� was his reply.
According to Pastor Espinoza, who is from Bolivia, �The husband made a decision and will not change it, even though the family does not agree.�
Just as in the much-discussed case of Terri Schiavo, in which even the Vatican has called death by withholding feeding �an offense against life,� the Evangelical pastor feels that withholding feeding is �a form of hastening a death that definitely was not occurring.�
In the interview he said that when he was with the wife, �she moved, opened her eyes, and when we prayed and sang together by her bedside, she blinked as though she was listening.� He said it was also significant that, in spite of her condition, the woman was still �able to take water.�
Espinoza said that his was not a personal opinion on the right to life but from the Bible, which establishes that �God is the one who gives life and takes it away at such times as He sees fit.� According to Espinoza, �We conceptualize life in the context of a perfection, and when perfection is lacking, we feel it is incomplete.�
And so, �The husband�s ideal is the sublimated ideal of life. He wants to see his wife healthy like always and can�t conceive of seeing her like this.�
Living will
Comparing Terri Schiavo�s case with that of the Mexican family, Pastor Espinoza told La Raza he is worried about laws that could be passed. �If we allow a law to determine who will or will not live, it will be an offense against God�s principles of ethics.� In his opinion, nobody should be allowed to determine that �this person is not a living human being, so I decide when I give life or take away life. It�s a sophisticated way of murdering somebody.�
The �Schiavo Case� points to the need for people to make arrangements for having a �living will� in which they set forth their wishes for not being resuscitated or kept alive by artificial means, although opinions have been expressed that feeding and hydration � with or without tubes � are not considered artificial. As for the Catholic Church, its followers cannot request in a living will that denied water and nutrition be withheld, �as that is starvation, a deliberate mutilation of the body.�
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