# Let the poor woman die already! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 17, 2005, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029 "2005-03-17T19:11:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 45
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029/881 "2005-03-27T06:37:53Z")
> [@milroyj](#): > > Just to be clear, you are happy with that? Starving human beings to death? But not feral cats, oh no. Would you stop fucking hijacking every goddamn thread you come into? Didn’t **Veb** warn you about that? I already went there, but if you had a cat that was brain dead, on a feeding tube, yes, you should pull the plug. (Fortunately, it’s legal to give a cat a lethal injection when it’s suffering-too bad we can’t say the same for humans!) No, I’m not “happy” about any of it. But for godsakes, **milroyj** , what about the thousands who have feeding tubes disconnected every single fucking day? Do you protest them too? What about patients who die because they can’t afford medical insurance? Terri’s care is funded by Medicaid, IIRC. If some poor little kid is getting insulin through your tax dollars, you’re the first to scream bloody fucking murder!!! Jesus, you’re fucking thick. I swear, I don’t know why you ever decided to join a board that’s FIGHTING ignorance, unless you wanted to make sure that ignorance got a chance to fight back. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029/882 "2005-03-27T06:38:10Z")
> [@milroyj](#): > > Just to be clear, you are happy with that? Starving human beings to death? But not feral cats, oh no. I want to see what happens when you keep slamming your head into the wall like this. ---
**Author:** ![widdleytinks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a4c791/32.png) [@widdleytinks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/widdleytinks)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029/883 "2005-03-27T06:40:23Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Here’s a little tip-when you click on the box for an “automatic link”, first you need to type the NAME of what you want to link to, such as “My link”. Then click okay, and THEN copy and past the url for the site. > > Hope this helps. Thanks. I seem to screw this up every time. I apologize for taking your time to straighten me out. regards, widdley ---
**Author:** ![Avenger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de0a6/32.png) [@Avenger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avenger)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029/884 "2005-03-27T06:42:16Z")
> [@](#): > > I swear, I don’t know why you ever decided to join a board that’s FIGHTING ignorance, unless you wanted to make sure that ignorance got a chance to fight back. Ha ha, is there anyway that we can get **milroyj** to set that as a sig? “Ignorance fights back”. ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lott](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ee7513/32.png) [@Mona\_Lott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lott)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029/885 "2005-03-27T06:43:07Z")
I’ve said it before on these boards, and I’ll repeat it now. You, **milroyj** , are wilfully, pathetically and terminally stupid. Truly, I wonder how you manage to turn your computer on. Carry on, idiot. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029/886 "2005-03-27T06:43:19Z")
> [@widdleytinks](#): > > Thanks. I seem to screw this up every time. I apologize for taking your time to straighten me out. > > regards, > widdley Oh, no need to appologize, silly! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029/887 "2005-03-27T06:45:12Z")
> [@](#): > > Just to be clear, you are happy with that? Starving human beings to death? If the alternative is prolonging someone’s existence when she is no longer able to participate in her life, and when she did not want her life prolonged in that case, and as long as we are taking any necessary measures to ensure her comfort, then yes, I am happy with that. > [@](#): > > But not feral cats, oh no. We have an alternative with feral cats, and other animals–active euthanasia. For a variety of reasons, this is just not considered to be an ethical option in our society for humans, so the best we can do is take every measure to eliminate discomfort and withdraw life-supporting measures. If your beef is the fact that we can’t actively euthanise people, then you’re not alone and the topic probably deserves its own thread. I would be furious to know that an animal is suffering. I would be furious to know if a dying human were suffering, including Terri Schiavo. She is not suffering. ---
**Author:** ![widdleytinks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a4c791/32.png) [@widdleytinks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/widdleytinks)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029/888 "2005-03-27T06:50:25Z")
I’ve been following this thread since the onset. You’ve proven repeatedly that you aren’t interested in informing yourself and content to compulsively crank out what amount to spam posts. Unless you prefer making a total and public ass of yourself, my advice to you is to take a step back and keep going. regards, widdley Heck, you’d think I was a regular here. ---
**Author:** ![widdleytinks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a4c791/32.png) [@widdleytinks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/widdleytinks)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029/889 "2005-03-27T06:57:47Z")
> [@widdleytinks](#): > > I’ve been following this thread since the onset. Onset? Outset. Crap. regards, widdley ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029/890 "2005-03-27T07:06:49Z")
> [@widdleytinks](#): > > I’ve been following this thread since the onset. You’ve proven repeatedly that you aren’t interested in informing yourself and content to compulsively crank out what amount to spam posts. Unless you prefer making a total and public ass of yourself, my advice to you is to take a step back and keep going. > > regards, > widdley > > Heck, you’d think I was a regular here. No, if you you were a regular here, you wouldn’t seem surprised. Because you’d know that a deliberate unwillingness to engage in rational debate, and a consistent tendency to repeat the same inanities over and over is **milroyj** ’s standard operating procedure, in this and just about every other thread that he participates in. ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029/891 "2005-03-27T07:34:14Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > If the church already gave the last rites to Terry, it is not sacrilegious to then allow what remains to receive communion? Not at all. “Last rites” is the popular term, but it’s misleading; the Roman Catholic Church uses the term “Annointing of the Sick”. The sacrament can be given to anyone who is in danger of dying, including quite small risks - it is often given to Catholic patients about to be placed under general anesthesia, for instance. The same person can receive Annointing of the Sick many times during his or her lifetime, and can continue to receive other sacraments afterwards. The purpose is to reassure the recipient and his/her family and loved ones that if the recipient dies, she/he died at peace with God. [/former Catholic schoolgirl mode] Let Terri Schiavo have her (symbolic) communion if it comforts her survivors, sez I - not that I believe in it any more, not that there’s anything left of Terri to believe in it any more, but this one is for the living. ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029/892 "2005-03-27T08:14:15Z")
Grrr. Fuck. This case makes me wish that this whole country HAD euthanasia for everyone, not just mass murderers. Think about it: anyone who tossed a bomb into the crowd of fuckwits outside the hospice would get the death penalty… yet a woman whose wishes were confirmed in court cannot be actively put down by a doctor. So you end up with fuckwits who would put down their dog at the vet trying to convince the country that a human being is starving to death in a hideously painful manner, and that this sort of thing SHOULD NOT be allowed to happen EVAH! Even though death via removal of feeding tube and/or ventilator happens hundreds of times each and every single day. If I could give Terri a lethal shot of morphine I would-- but society has decreed that ain’t allowed anywhere except Oregon. Fuck. ---
**Author:** ![Siege](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029/893 "2005-03-27T09:34:55Z")
> [@milroyj](#): > > I’m curious. What do you think it says about me? It tells me that, even though you and I have never me, you would force my body to continue to exist long after my soul has departed. It tells me that you consider yourself so righteous and so powerful, you think your desires and your opinions override my expressed wishes. Just as I see the extreme pro-lifers who oppose abortion even when the woman’s life is endanger as expecting me to die for their beliefs, so I see you as telling me that what I want, that my expressed opinions now, while I’m alive and fully functioning, have no power whatsoever if you disagree with them. Who are you to control me? When I have told those who love me that I don’t want to end up the way Terry Schiavo has, who are you to override those wishes? Am I a pawn, to live and die at the government’s whim? It seems to me that’s what some people would like me to be. That’s what’s making me furious about this whole mess. That’s what’s making me want to call you every vile obscenity in the book. If, God forbid, I should become incapacitated, nothing I’ve done or said will make a difference if some other person decides to do what I’ve said I do not want done. Nothing. What I’m reading is, in effect, “Well, yes, we know that **Siege** has said repeatedly that she doesn’t want any feeding tubes or other extraodinary measures including in this thread, but **milroyj** disagrees, therefore we’re going to keep her hooked up for another several decades or so, based on her family’s usual lifespan.” What gives you the right to impose your morals on me? No, let me revise that. What gives you the right to jam your morals through my belly and into my stomach through a feeding tube because I’m incapable of swallowing the notion that a the body of woman with no cerebral cortex who has a smaller chance of recovering her ability to swallow than I do of winning the lottery should continue to be hooked up to machines for another decade or so, thus prolonging the death of her body, even though her soul left 15 years ago? The courts in Florida have found repeatedly that Ms, Schiavo said she didn’t want to live like this, and that she told her husband and others this. Who are you to override what Ms. Schiavo herself wanted? CJ ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029/894 "2005-03-27T11:24:41Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > [Tom DeLay Took His Own Father Off Life Support in 1988](http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000855929) For fuck’s sake, these people’s hypocrisy truly has no bounds. Just when I think I’ve heard all the bullshit, they shovel more off the truck. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029/895 "2005-03-27T12:08:10Z")
> [@milroyj](#): > > I’m curious. What do you think it says about me? That you are more concerned about imposing your morality on Terri Schiavo than you are about respecting her decision to reject medical intervention. You want to take away her liberty and interfere in the legal authority she placed in Michael Schiavo to carry out her wishes, all for some misguided theology that ‘life’ must be prolonged, no matter what. ---
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029/896 "2005-03-27T12:38:28Z")
Dear god **milroyj** , must you be so stubbornly ignorant? On the “shack up honey” point, it’s been fifteen years. Let the guy move on. For more information, [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=5961367&postcount=55) is my post from page two of this thread. You likely won’t read it, but I have to try. It’s in the motto and all. Now if you’ll all excuse me, I have to go find a glass of blood. Got the thirst for it. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029/897 "2005-03-27T12:43:51Z")
> [@milroyj](#): > > To bleed from her eyes and tongue, with her skin falling off? There is no evidence to suggest that this is anything other than the self-serving fantasy of Barbara Weller. ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029/898 "2005-03-27T12:54:05Z")
Did anyone read the link **Widdleytinks** and then **Guin** posted? The one that said a) a study of 102 nurses caring for terminal patients who refused food and water found they did not suffer b) that those who refused food and water suffered LESS than those who did not Finally, did you all miss this? “In a 2003 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 102 hospice nurses caring for terminally ill patients who refused food and drink described their patients’ final days as peaceful, with less pain and suffering than those who had elected to die through physician-assisted suicide” That’s right folks, according to that website’s reading of the article, the people who gave up food and water had a BETTER death than the ones who went for physician assisted suicide. That’s beside the fact that TS cannot percieve pain or suffering, is hooked up to a morphine drip just in case, and is still receiving “comfort care” to ensure that her passing is dignified, painless and peaceful. ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029/899 "2005-03-27T13:06:30Z")
> [@irishgirl](#): > > “In a 2003 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 102 hospice nurses caring for terminally ill patients who refused food and drink described their patients’ final days as peaceful, with less pain and suffering than those who had elected to die through physician-assisted suicide” Well, this is a bit chicken and egg really - it stands to reason that patients in greater pain would be more likely to elect for a quicker death through physician-assisted suicide. There’s no indication that this choice _causes_ greater suffering, and in fact that reasoning seems counter-intuitive to me. Not that this makes **milroyj** ’s position any less wilfully stupid, of course - I’m just saying, is all. ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029/900 "2005-03-27T13:34:19Z")
Dead Badger, you make 2 assumptions. 1. All patients in the study had access to PAS. 2. That all people would choose PAS if they believed their suffering to be great. Neither of those is necessarily true. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029.md?page=44) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-poor-woman-die-already/295029.md?page=46)