The bad news is, I’m probably not done yet! Did you SEE the news conference? Are you as amazed as I am by the pervasive ignorance on the part of our politicians? Probably not! Does it occur to anyone that the Schindler’s are pathologically using the government to entertain their fantasies and we’re fucking paying for it?
regards,
widdley
Obviously there was enough evidence for *twenty freaking judges over the course of 7 years * to rule on removing the tube. The family is beating the same old tired drum with arguments that have been refuted time and time again.
Even if there is, how is whatever difference there might be between those 2 options relevant to this case? Terri Schiavo is not in a coma. Her cerebral cortex has deteriorated to such a degree that it is liquified. It’s not a matter of being comatose vs simply being unable to attend to her own basic needs; it’s about the fact that she has no brain function at all, and never will, EVER. Terri cannot blink her eyes to signify yes or no, in spite of her parents’ lies to the contrary. Hours and hours and hours of unedited video tape have proven that beyond all doubt in a court of law, as has the fact that her brain scans show no activity. None. No cognitive ability exists. The remaining brain stem allows her heart to beat and her lungs to pump air, merely as basic body functions. Terri Schiavo made it clear to several people that she would not want to live like this. And she made it clear enough that every judge who has heard arguments on the merits of that testimony has concluded that her wishes were clear and convincing. What on earth is so hard to understand about that?
Being in a state like you describe is not what living wills are about. What you are describing is a conscious, aware person who’s being kept alive by machines. In that state, no-one would dream of pulling the plug - indeed, it would be illegal, (IANAL) and in fact, to do so might constitute assisted suicide, rather than the issue that is being discussed here.
This issue involves someone who is completely unconscious (regardless of her open eyes), non-aware entity, which is alive only in the sense that it continues metabolic function. This, not the situation you describe, is the purpose of a living will and healthcare directive.
If you think you’d want to be kept alive even if you had no chance of ever recovering consciousness, you can make arrangements to that effect, just as Terry effectively did the opposite. And your wishes would (ideally) be carried out. I say ideally because in this situation Terry’s wishes are not being carried out.
That’s really the point: not what anyone else thinks they would want, but what Terry wanted, and that wish has been proven. The rest is just crap. If you want your wishes, whatever they might be, respected when you’re gone/partially incapacitated/totally incapacitated, then this whole issue is a no-brainer.
Don’t worry that b/c of Terry Schiavo, people are going to run around yanking the plug on conscious, though traumatized people.
You do realize that she is far beyond this state right?
Who exactly would want to live if they were in her current state? I think anybody in her shoes would want to go with some dignity. Am I wrong?
Again because people seem to be missing this. And with some code-sarcasm because maybe then they won’t just skip over the paragraphs.
Terri Schiavo is NOT in a coma.
Terri Schiavo is NOT in a coma.
Coma? That’s not what Terri Schiavo’s in.
She’s in a Perpetually Vegetative State
PVS != coma
PVS <> coma
They are not the same thing.
Refer to Shayna’s post again. And after that, read and re-read every post by eleanorigby and DoctorJ on this topic, because they’ve already gone over the distinction many times, and with great detail.
You’re right. Apologies all 'round for my posts – my thinking on this has gone in circles, from “let her die as she would wish” to “let her parents take responsibility” to “maybe there’ll be a miracle”.
It’s hard (for me, anyway) to think rationally about this.
Thanks for listening, and responding.
I don’t think even in that case it would be illegal-people have a right to refuse medical treatment for themselves-and it’s not considered assisted suicide.
Well, it’s unpleasant for anyone to concieve of. Just look at the Schindlers, for chrissakes. It’s been 15 years and they’re still not thinking rationally about it.
Quite right - my bad and thanks for the correction.
I’d like to see them try the National Guard. Imagine the public reaction to that one. Considering that this is Florida, they can bust in there with full gear (maybe even taking Janet Reno along for the ride) and we can have a whole new series of Flash cartoons like this one. (Work safe, though there are some not work safe links in the major site, but none on the page.)
The “new information” is actually a doctor who did examine Terri: Dr. William Hammesfahr. He was one of the parent’s doctors in the 2001 case.
If you read his report, however, you’ll note that his diagnosis that Terri was responsive is based on an absurdly low standard for what counted as a “hit” (i.e. a response to a command). I.e., he would ask her about 80 times to close her eyes, and when she did it several minutes after he asked, this counted as a “hit” (a sign of responsiveness). Viewing the full tapes of his sessions reveals this: hundreds of commands of all sorts are given, and a few movements, consistent with the movements Terri makes all the time anyway, in no consistent time proximity to the commands, are counted as her responding. This is why the courts did not find him credible the first time around. How this becomes “new evidence” is beyond me.
He currently wants to treat her with a drug used for Alzheimers which is, to say the least, bizarre and has no clinical evidence behind it for this sort of patient.
He claims he’s “Nobel-nominated” but that’s because he wrote to his Congressman, and his Congressman wrote the Nobel Committee to nominate him for “The Nobel Peace Prize in Medicine” (and award which doesn’t actually exist). This is, suffice to say, not the normal mechnism of nomination (not to mention the names of actual nominees are kept secret for 50 years).
Here’s the nominating letter.
http://www.hnionline.com/nobel_prize_nomination.htm
Here’s the fisking of all the hubbub over his near-miss Nobel prize.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200503220009
Here’s Hammesfahr getting knocked back down to the status of an intern for six months in 2003 over another matter on which he was disciplined for exploiting a patient for financial gain (i.e. not actually providing services paid for in this case):
http://www.doh.state.fl.us/mqa/FinalOrders/03-17-03/DOH-03-0182.pdf
Thanks for the link to the ruling, Shayna.
I actually feel a bit silly for not being able to work out what the Schindlers hoped to accomplish by trying to prove that she was actually MCS. On reflection, it’s pretty obvious. They could then have Terri “decide for herself,” during a period where she’s vocalizing.
Another tape of Mr. Schindler interjecting questions in between her reflexive groans (uh, I mean, “conversing with her during a lucid moment,”) would appear, right?
Here’s Tom Delay. Looks like even in losing the case, they win the REAL battle: politics:
He didn’t just basically assert the existence of A Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy, did he?
No, it is a vast Left Wing Syndicate. That’s much worse than a Conspiracy.
I know this makes me a horrible person, I can live with that, but I would like to see the people who keep trying to break in to the hospice to give Terri food and water succeed. So that when they pour the water down her throat and she quite literally chokes to death, those people can be tried for murder. The irony of that would keep my happy for days!
I halfway expect to see this plot on South Park soon.
I’ve never seen it, but I may have to check it out, soon.
I was wrong: it’s not Hammesfahr that’s the new evidence after all (forgive me, since Hammesfahr has been going around claiming that he has explosive new evidence, so I assumed it was one and the same)
It’s William Polk Cheshire.
Here’s his affidavit:
http://www.nationalreview.com/pdf/Affidavit.pdf