Let the poor woman die already!

[Blalron]

@milroyj

Right now, she is bleeding from her tongue and eyes, and her skin is falling off. Doesn’t sound very peaceful, to me.

If you want to make the argument that she should die quickly and more pleasantly (from the perspective of outside observers), I fully concur. I don’t see why Death Row inmates get a more dignified death than Terri Schiavo is having.

Our society has some serious hangups about death that we need to deal with. The distinction between “active” methods and “passive” methods truly misses the point (the end result is the same).

That being said, her death (according to her wishes) is preferable to her parents and politicians keeping her shell alive in this media circus.

[Jenaroph]

“Doctors have said the 41-year-old woman would probably die within a week or two of the tube being removed. By Friday, dehydration was taking its toll. Terri Schiavo’s tongue and eyes were bleeding and her skin was flaking off, Weller said.”

Well, I saw a press conference with George Selos around 3:00, wherein he said he had just visited Terri and that despite what the Schindlers wanted the public to believe, she was NOT bleeding from the mouth and eyes and her skin was NOT flaking off. In other words, I see your “she said” and raise you a “he said.” So, nyah. :rolleyes:

Jeesh, is this what the argument is degrading into? Nobody said her death would be pretty, just that it was what she preferred, and what the court had granted. Too bad she can’t just be given a nice, quick OD of barbituates and go peacefully and quietly. But noooo, that would be Assisted Suicide = BAD according to the life-no-matter-what cabal; so, long, drawn out and ugly it is!

[Fear_Itself]

@milroyj

“Doctors have said the 41-year-old woman would probably die within a week or two of the tube being removed. By Friday, dehydration was taking its toll. Terri Schiavo’s tongue and eyes were bleeding and her skin was flaking off, Weller said.”

HeadlineAlley

That would be Barbara Weller, attorney for the Schindlers, the same one who made this claim:

"An attorney for Terri Schiavo’s parents said **the severely brain-injured woman cried and yelled out that she wants to live ** after being told today her life-sustaining feeding tube was about to be removed by court order.

"Barbara Weller was in Terri Schiavo’s room at the Woodside Hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla., when the encounter took place, according to activist Randall Terry, who spoke with WorldNetDaily from outside the building as demonstrators continued a vigil.

http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_7441.shtml

But in the latest motion from Schindler’s lawyer, David Gibbs, attorney Barbara Weller stated: "Mrs Weller told Mrs Schiavo that this whole matter could end if Mrs Schiavo could articular one sentence: ‘I want to live.’
“In the presence of Suzanne Vitadamo (Schiavo’s sister) and Suzanne’s aunt, **Mrs Schiavo attempted to verbalise that sentence. ** She managed to articulate the first two vowel sounds, first articulating ‘AHHHHH’ and then virtually screaming, ‘WAAAAAAA’. She became very agitated but could not complete the vocalisation attempted.”

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/03/26/025052.php

But family members and others who have spent time with Terri maintain that **she exhibits signs of arousal and awareness. ** Faith2Action’s Folger says Barbara Weller, one of the attorneys representing Terri, has had occasion to visit and spend time with her and reports that interaction with the brain-injured woman was nothing like what she anticipated. The pro-life advocate says the lawyer “expected to see a woman on her bed, barely able to recognize, communicate, and function,” but what Weller found instead was "a woman sitting in a chair, responding, trying to communicate."

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/2/242005a.asp

Credible? I don’t believe a word of it. The Schindlers have surrounded themselves with zealots like Randal Terry who will say anything to further their political agenda, and I see no reason not to believe Weller is more of the same.

[brownie55]

@Fear Itself

Credible? I don’t believe a word of it. The Schindlers have surrounded themselves with zealots like Randal Terry who will say anything to further their political agenda, and I see no reason not to believe Weller is more of the same.

I was starting to hope that I would not feel any dirtier than I did after listening to the taped conversation we heard earleir this week. That just went away.

I feel so sorry for poor Mr Schaivo, to have to endure all of these lies. I always believed I was stubborn, but I can’t say that I would have carried on through the filth that has been aimed at him. And not only has he carried on, but he has maintained his dignity. He is my newest hero.

[milroyj]

@Blalron

I don’t see why Death Row inmates get a more dignified death than Terri Schiavo is having.

Or cats and dogs, for that matter.

[asterion]

I don’t know if the link will work, but this is the only place I can find it. Parents seek to give Schiavo communion. “Schiavo, who cannot swallow, would have a minuscule piece of bread and a drop of wine placed in her mouth.”

[Good_Egg]

Do they get in trouble; those who help people die? I recall in 98 Anita Hoffman got an injection of something which killed her. She had terminal cancer. Was her dr. prosecuted? I would think thats a much better way to go, why would they not do this in Terri’s case? WHats the difference? Active or neglectful killing her?

[Jenaroph]

@asterion

I don’t know if the link will work, but this is the only place I can find it. Parents seek to give Schiavo communion. “Schiavo, who cannot swallow, would have a minuscule piece of bread and a drop of wine placed in her mouth.”

What’s not in that article is something else George Felos (mistyped in the earlier post) said during the press conference: Terri has already received last rites and will receive communion - but NOT administered by Paul O’Donnell. He will be allowed to be in the room while one of the hospice’s priests adminsters communion to Terri. Her family can’t argue that she’s being denied the rituals of her faith.

[Blalron]

@Good Egg

Do they get in trouble; those who help people die?

Since whoever removed the feeding tube was doing so pursuant to a court order, I don’t see how he/she would get in trouble. If Governor Bush could use the law to scare the hospice into keeping the feeding tube in, don’t you think he would have already?

[GraceTX]

@asterion

I don’t know if the link will work, but this is the only place I can find it. Parents seek to give Schiavo communion. “Schiavo, who cannot swallow, would have a minuscule piece of bread and a drop of wine placed in her mouth.”

The Schiavo lawyer confirmed this when he gave his interview this afternoon. Michael Schiavo refused to allow the Schinlder’s spiritual advisor give her communion. He (Felos?) said that the were following the judge’s orders that said she would be given communion the day the feeding tubes were removed and that it would be administered one last time by the Hospice priest. He made it sound like this was also what the judged ordered. He added that when communion was given before, the day the tubes were removed, it was done through her feeding tube.

[Jenaroph]

@Good Egg

Do they get in trouble; those who help people die? I recall in 98 Anita Hoffman got an injection of something which killed her. She had terminal cancer. Was her dr. prosecuted? I would think thats a much better way to go, why would they not do this in Terri’s case? WHats the difference? Active or neglectful killing her?

I did not know of Anita Hoffman’s situation. References are sparse, most sites say she died of breast cancer. After some googling, I did find one interesting comment here by Paul Krassner, who I know nothing about:

Anita’s decision to take her own life was known in her community but, with few exceptions, not by friends in other cities. She asked that her plan be kept secret from the media until after her death. She wanted my article to serve as the model for a serene alternative to Jack Kevorkian’s methodology, and requested only that I not divulge the name of the doctor who had unofficially assisted her.

This is exactly all I know about Anita Hoffman’s death, but it sounds like Anita’s method of dying was a secret, and that so was the doctor’s name, to protect him/her from prosecution. Jack Kervorkian for one is still in prison.

[Fear_Itself]

@Good Egg

Do they get in trouble; those who help people die? I recall in 98 Anita Hoffman got an injection of something which killed her. She had terminal cancer. Was her dr. prosecuted? I would think thats a much better way to go, why would they not do this in Terri’s case? WHats the difference? Active or neglectful killing her?

The law, in its infinite wisdom, reasons that a person has the right to reject medical treatment, even if that leads to death; but they may not request medical treatment that will lead to death, and doctors may not provide such treatment.

[DoctorJ]

There are ways to give communion to someone who can’t eat or drink. I had a patient once with severe pancreatitis, so he was very very strictly NPO (nothing by mouth), and I found a note in the chart from the chaplain saying that he had given him communion. I called the priest and he said that he hadn’t swallowed anything.

(I told my resident, “We should probably find out if he believes in transsubstantiation. A little bread and wine is probably OK, but the blood and body of Christ is really pushing it.”)

[Good_Egg]

@Fear Itself

The law, in its infinite wisdom, reasons that a person has the right to reject medical treatment, even if that leads to death; but they may not request medical treatment that will lead to death, and doctors may not provide such treatment.

Thank you.

[Larry_Mudd]

Barbara Weller has never hesitated to lie through her teeth to further her ideological agenda. This is a woman who has said “Terri has never won in court and yet, miraculously, she continues to live.” For someone who pretends to speak with authority on legal issues, this is absurd. The courts have ruled consistently that Terri would not want to be sustained artificially, and there’s no way around that. Every judgement has been a win for Terri, except those that required her to linger in this limbo to give the courts more opportunities to argue that her parents’ wishes (and by extension those of the the people who are using them) should come before hers

@milroyj

@Blalron

I don’t see why Death Row inmates get a more dignified death than Terri Schiavo is having.

Or cats and dogs, for that matter.

Yes, it’s extremely undignified to be unnaturally sustained, beyond all hope, and against your expressed will, for such a long time.

It infuriates me that so many people say “If I starved a dog, I’d be charged with cruelty.” There’s no analogy. Terri is not being starved. It would be wrong (and cruel) for a dog to be subjected to a lingering death through artificial means after it became incapable of eating.

Fifteen years (or more), bedridden, filling diapers, incapable of swallowing even your own saliva. If you would want that as an epilogue to your life, then that’s your right. It’s not what she wanted, and that’s all this has been about. For many people, the thought of such an indignant and drawn-out end is monstrous.

People have the right to choose a natural death in such circumstances. If you can’t eat or drink, it’s natural that you will die. Euthanasia doesn’t enter into it, even if many people would choose to ease the way even more.

What kind of moral argument is it when you’re basically saying that life (if you can even call it that) should be artificially sustained? Can’t eat? It’s a sin not to bypass that function and take nutrition through a tube. Can’t breathe? Ventilate. Heart’s given out? Install a pump. God would demand it, wouldn’t he?

Just keep singing, “Any day now – any day – I shall be released.”

[GawnFishin]

One would think that if God wanted her to live, if he had plans for her then having the tube removed would matter little in the long run. Doesn’t he have the power to keep her alive once the tube has been removed? Is he not all powerful? Seems to me that to beleive in God one must accept his judgement. If you believe in a supreme being one would think that he would be the ultimate judge. If she were meant to be alive he would sustain her with or without a feeding tube wouldn’t he. I guess if he did keep her alive then that would be proof of God’s existance and as we all know proof denies faith, now I get it.

[milroyj]

@Larry Mudd

Terri is not being starved.

Yes she is, by definition. They are withholding nutrition and hydration. She is starving to death right now, but will likely die of dehydration first. It’s sick and disgusting; we don’t treat dogs that way.

[Marley23]

@milroyj

It’s sick and disgusting; we don’t treat dogs that way.

So far nobody’s argued a dog should be kept on life support for 15 years after its brain turns to mush.

[GawnFishin]

@milroyj

Yes she is, by definition. They are withholding nutrition and hydration. She is starving to death right now, but will likely die of dehydration first. It’s sick and disgusting; we don’t treat dogs that way.

No, we wouldn’t treat a dog like that your absoluely right. Although if a dog was in the same condition as Ms Schiavo we’d put the poor creature out of it’s misery and seeing that Ms Schiavo isn’t a dog we’ll just allow her to continue suffering needlessly for fifteen years. She’s human after all why don’t we make her suffer against her wishes for another forty years.

[Marley23]

Sounds like the Florida Supreme Court has rejected the parents’ latest petition. Is that it?