Terri Schiavo's ordeal continues. The doctors have a morphine drip running so she won't feel any pain, even though they insist that she can't feel pain despite examinations where Terri clearly has responded to painful procedures.

It's all a matter of perception.

Her family says that she looks like an Auschwitz victim. Her husband's side says that she looks beautiful and at peace.

It's all a matter of perception.

Her family and their doctors say that she was able to respond to them, her husband and the doctors supporting him insist that it is only mindless reflex and that her parents and their supporters are too ignorant to tell the difference.

It's all a matter of perception.

If you believe that there is value in a human life because it is a human life, you're likely to be among the people who support the parents after viewing information like that presented on their website, terrisfight.net. If you recognize no intrinsic value in a human life beyond what that person can contribute to society, you will likely be among those quite willing to believe that Terri is hopelessly brain-dead based on the information tailored to give that impression of her mental state.

It's all a matter of perception.

One would think that medical science could settle such questions without relying on one's personal perception. In many cases, it can. However, it cannot stop people from ignoring the scientific facts when they prefer a different perception of the world.

We have a perception that doctors and judges are impartial in their judgments, but both can be influenced by personal belief as well as knowledge. Conflicts like this spotlight the extent to which a person's belief system can skew the interpretation of information presented to them.

Information can be used for power whether it is true or not. Both sides in this dispute cannot be correct, but Terri's life hangs in the balance depending on which side prevails. Her husband has the power to make the decision that could lead to her death and is willing to use it to bring about that end. He could just as well decide the other way, but his best interests would be served by her death.

His supporters appear to agree with this, although they are clothing their arguments with false sympathy for Terri and her supposedly hopeless state. Their own personal empowerment depends on their agreement with and their support of a system of belief that can order the death of a helpless individual for the best interest of the others involved. It is a system that has been taught for so long that a substantial proportion of the public believes it without realizing how it could ultimately work against them.

They seem unable to grasp that they might be in Terri's place someday, disabled but not to the extent that they were truly brain-dead. Many individuals live in varying states of mental and physical disability while still having a life that they value. Disability does not automatically mean a life so devoid of meaning that its owner would rather have it destroyed than to live at a level less than that previously enjoyed.

It does not take an accident or illness to cause a significant degree of incapacitation. Age will eventually take its toll on those who survive to advanced years. The dwindling of strength as the body declines inevitably leads to increasing restrictions on one's abilities no matter how skilled the individual once was.

However, suicide is not the preferred manner of death for the elderly. Most prefer to live on until death takes them despite their desire to live. Suicide is not the preferred manner of death for the disabled, either. Many are frightened at the possibility of having their lives taken as is happening to Terri if they become unable to defend themselves against someone with enough power to make that decision if he or she does in fact decide that their life is no longer worth living.

They are not the main ones speaking of the right to die for the elderly and infirm. Instead, it is people who fear the effects of age, disease, and disability who support such positions, often when they themselves are not immediately threatened by such possibilities. They want the reassurance that an escape from what they would feel to be unbearable will exist for them if they need it.

That they don't immediately need such an option while its existence may threaten others who might be judged in need of it against their will is of little consequence to them. That they might not feel that way once they were experiencing such conditions is as threatening to consider as the actual condition. They want the feeling of keeping the power over their own life over the well-being of their fellow citizens whose power over their life might be taken away if they cannot defend it.

They deceive themselves into thinking that they will never be in the position that their wishes won't be carried out, whether to continue or cease from living. Yet by supporting her husband in his decision to end her life, they are lowering the very societal barriers to their own undesired untimely end once they reach a state where someone else will be making that decision for them. What will be the best for them, continued care in their disabled state or death?

It's all a matter of perception . . . and whose perception.