Professor to discuss Schiavo, myths about dying

Using the controversial figure Terry Schiavo as a central theme, Rebecca Dresser, a professor of law and ethics in medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, will discuss ideas and myths about death tonight.\nDresser’s speech, “Terry Schiavo and Contemporary Myths about Dying,” will be at 4 p.m. today in Rawles Hall 100. \nDresser will focus on what we know about death versus what we believe about death. She will also discuss how concepts of death have changed in America and how those changes affect medical ethics. \nAmid a flurry of controversy, Schiavo’s feeding tube was removed in 2005 after a lengthy legal battle between her husband and parents.\nAccording to a piece Dresser wrote for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2003, she thinks the Schiavo case should encourage Americans to discuss “difficult questions” about life-sustaining treatment and force legislators to consider revising the law. \nDresser is a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics. The topics she teaches include legal and ethical issues in end-of-life care.\nThe speech is part of a series for the Matthew Vandivier Sims Memorial Lectures program, which commemorates Vandivier, who died as an infant. It is presented in conjunction with the Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions.\nThis series intends to provoke thoughtful discussion about difficult decisions that must be made in medical care, according to the Hutton Honors College Web site.