Subjective Quality

As I just alluded to, quality of life is an extremely shifting scale. Here's Mark Steyn (via The Corner):

In practice, a culture that thinks Terri Schiavo's life in Florida or the cleft-lipped baby's in Herefordshire has no value winds up ascribing no value to life in general.

People often say things like "I wouldn't want to live that way" until, that is, it happens to them.

I can imagine Joni Eareckson Tada saying she wouldn't want to live as a quadriplegic, until she was confined to a wheel chair. Her quality of life was redefined so that she could get the most out of the life she had.

And of course, there's Christopher Reeve, who spearheaded the Left's bandwagon about scientific advances. Or, as SharpKnife said:

If Terry Schiavo had only starred in "Superwoman", we'd find a way not to kill her.

Superman probably wouldn't have wanted to live that way. But he did. He found a way, he found a cause. Terri Schiavo has become a cause. But she IS a life.