The controversy over the life and death of Terry Schiavo is one that forces us to focus on basic questions about human rights, family responsibilities, government intervention, privacy and ethics. It takes these issues and puts a human face on them, elevating the debate to a personal level that enhances the emotion and heightens the controversy. Yet it is an exercise we should be taking if we are to resolve the conundrum presented to us by the advances of science.

It’s easy to debate an issue in the classroom, the work place or around a dining room table when they are simply that—issues. No one’s life hangs in the balance, and we don’t have to immediately watch another human being die from starvation and dehydration as a result of our decisions. But we have to recognize that, with or without such glaring results staring us in the face, how we decide these questions as a community and as a country will impact on thousands of individuals and families in the future the way it is impacting on Terry Schiavo, her husband and her family today.

What we should be asking ourselves is what rights and responsibilities do we have as individuals to decide the course of our health care treatment, and how do we transfer those rights to others in the event we are incapacitated?

As families, we should be asking whether we want to be obligated to comply with the wishes of our loved ones under extraordinary situations such as this, and whether we want those responsibilities legally be transferred to us?

As citizens, we need to determine to what extent we should allow the government to interfere with those decisions, and what the impact will be on our lives if government is allowed to become involved in this and similar debates.

Of course, when all of this is held up to the glare of the Schiavo case, the answers are not as easy to come by. We see a divided family with opposing views and a tremendous animosity toward each other, which makes keeping the decisions within that family almost impossible. And we see health care professionals divided on the extent of Terry Schiavo’s disability, and her prognosis.

That brings us to the point where we are today as a dying Terry Schiavo becomes the great teacher of society. Her life and ultimate death should be an enduring lesson about contemporary society’s vital need to resolve the conflicts presented to us by science and technology, and to do it in such a way as to maintain our freedom, our dignity and our human values. Perhaps we will never be able to address, as a society, the complicated and unique issues with this particular case, but we can, at least, find a common purpose that will serve us all thanks to Terry.