Uh, no. After reading what happened, I think that those who would rather remove peoples right to die are still twisting the truth like in the Schaivo case, It leads less credence to them.
What I clearly see is that in this case the prosecution of a criminal affected the care of a patient. Laws must be passed to add more time to make unbiased diagnostics, but at the end of a third opinion (Schaivo got more than that) you have to let go.
Did you just say that the doctors didn’t diagnose the patient with persistant vegetative state but they diagnosed her with permanent vegetative state? From my googling, the terms are basically interchagngeable.
There is still the missdiagnosis of a permanent vegitative state. If we are to consider that it is ethical to allow someone in such a state to die, then we need to have a sufficiently sound method of diagnosing such a state that mistakes should not occur.
The fact that competent doctors cannot diagnose a permanent vegitative state with sufficient accuracy in the time they are given, just means they should not make such a diagnosis, or should at least couch the diagnosis in a reasonable estimate of potential error. If the doctors involved said they were 99% certain that the girl was in a permanent vegitative state, then I seriously doubt that any attempt to remove life support would have been taken at that stage.
If this girl is the first ever case of someone making such a level of recovery from her apparent pvs then the doctors cannot be faulted in believing that her state was 100% permanent, but there would then need to be a reevaluation of how such states are tested/evaluated.
If, as seems to have happened, the doctors gave a somwhat rushed diagnosis, and that given time they could have given a much better diagnosis, then the doctors should be pitted to extremis for having presented there rushed diagnosis as anything other than a rushed and potentially faulty diagnosis. The laws that gave the doctors no time to achieve a diagnosis that was not rushed and subject to such exterme error also need a similar level of pitting.
And that is virtually all I was trying to say **Bippy the Beardless **
This case is showing the time that needs to be added and further actions to get a better opinion. The problem here is the idea from **Abbie Normal ** that doctors had an agenda and they were following it no matter what, fact is the nanosecond an improvement was noticed, the decision in favor of taking life support away was dumped. So much for “pushing an agenda”
Gots to say, lotta anal in this thread.
No there was clearly an agenda, from a premature diagnosis, to the states premature court approval to remove life support to DtC saying the shit he said in that thread. The agenda was to compare this case to the Terri case, which as I stated both in this thread and that thread have nothing to do with one another. In that case she had someone with her well being in mind as well as her wishes known, in Michael. For Haleigh there was no one and IMO that is why she almost got the shaft. And to the chagrine of DtC I will say it again they wanted to KILL her.
And this is still not the truth, her stepfather was and it is a lie to say the doctors wanted her dead, more likely the prosecution was.
I really don’t understand what the fuss is all about. I mean, it’s not like she was particularly pretty or anything–what would have been the loss if they yanked ther plug?
Straight to hell, I tell ya…
Abbie, this is the exact same shrill, hysterical tone that got you nowhere in the orgininal thread. If you want people to listen to you, it’s best to not sound like the crazy homeless guy in front of the 7-11.
And no one wanted to KILL the girl except for the man who put her into that state to begin with. Saying it over and over again doesn’t make it true. It just makes you sound like a raving lunatic.
Was there motive for wanting to kill her? Do the doctors get paid a $75 bonus for every foster child they “kill”? What exactly is the reason you insist doctors “wanted” to “kill” her?
(And I fucking knew it was DtC about to suck off the doctors in that “Kill the Autistic Kid” hospital specialty porn, but he would never admit to it! BTW, “Kill the Autistic Kid” hospital specialty porn is one helluva lot better than Showgirls. )
Sort of. But there’s two different terms being used, here;
Persistent Vegetative State disorder, PVS; Characterised by the patient being in a vegetative state for at least one month, as well as other factors. The name given to a whole condition.
Permanent vegetative state (note not capatalised); A term for the patient being in, well, a vegetative state permanently. A symptom of a condition, not the name of that condition itself.
Now, PVS requires that there has been a vegetative state for at least a month. In order for the patient to be diagnosed with it, according to the AMA, among other things is that the patient must be in a consistent vegetative state for at least a month. That’s the problem Abbie’s pointing out - he’s saying the doctors diagnosed her with PVS after only 8 days, which would suggest the doctors acted incorrectly.
However, the story Abbie cited doesn’t mention PVS - what it does say is that the doctors diagnosed the patient as being in a permanent vegetative state, a diagnosis which may be made when the doctors have sufficient evidence that it is the case. One of those factors mentioned is substantial brain stem damage, for example. The doctors, in that story, seem to have diagnosed the patient as being in a permanent vegetative state, which has *no time restriction * that the patient must be in that state for. It’s totally reliant on evidence, in which (I assume) the length of time the patient is in a vegetative state could be used as one point of evidence, but does not have to be (unlike PVS).
So it’s not a case of the two terms being interchangeable - PVS is a clinical diagnosis of a condition, a permanent vegetative state is a symptom of a condition. PVS can have, and often does, have a permanent vegetative state as a symptom, which is why they’re so closely linked.
I reckon I’m old enough to remember Abbie Hoffman, the male Yippie activist, one of the Chicago Seven. I’m also old enough to remember the scene in Young Frankenstein where Eye-gor admits that the brain inside the monster is from “Abbie Somebody…Abbie Normal.” You don’t hear it much these days, but Abbie is short for Abner, not just Abigail.
I am NOT defending Abbie Normal’s rant, by the way. In this thread, he’s gone right 'round the bend.
Her stepfather was around, but wasn’t he the one who put her in that condition to begin with? I wouldn’t let him make decisions on her behalf.
Me neither, I was replying to Abbie Normal’s convenient way of missing evidence.
The unique circumstances of this case makes it less valid as an example in favor of what he is saying here.
For the record,
The state was in a rush to get the legal standing to make the decision about if the plug would be pulled or not. Both her bio-mom and bio-dad (at the time) wanted life support removed. My post with links.
Nothing I could find at the time supports the accusation that “stepfather” (“stepfather” was married to adoptive-mom but never adopted Haleigh) caused the injury. Here’s my post with more details.
The story as best as I could put it together, adoptive-mom beats the hell out of Haleigh, her mother (grandmother of Haleigh, mother of bio-mom and adoptive-mom) finds out and kills adoptive-mom, then commits suicide, leaving the state with no one to prosecute but stepdad, [
[
](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7046043&postcount=125)Rush?, or did the state know it would take 5 months to get a decision?
CMC fnord!
In Hoffman’s case, it was short for Abbott.