Depraved Cynic checking in:
Those videos are heartbreaking. It is very difficult to totally discount any responsiveness. Reflex? Yeah, maybe. But damn coincidental. Did the family cherry-pick the best clips? Yeah, probably.
I saw a show on PBS about how remarkable the human brain is and how when some parts are damaged, other parts may pick up the slack.
How do we really know what condition she is in? Glad I don’t have to make the call.
One more thing: This issue should have been addressed 12 yrs and 9 mos. ago, if you ask me.
She told me she loved me like a brother. She was from Arkansas, hence the Joy!
How did a woman in her twenties have a heart attack in the first place?
According to this news source, the heart attack was caused by
anorexia. See below:
http://www.abcactionnews.com/stories/2002/10/021011schavio.shtml
This a tough call no matter how you slice it; I’ll agree that 13 years is enough, and it’s her time. It stings a little that her husband will benefit from her death, though. I guess there’s not much in life that isn’t messy, eh?
Shit. Poor woman. The whole thing’s fucked up.
They need to let go. 
I agree with you. We shouldn’t have to watch the play-by-play as the media covers this story, it’s stealing her dignity. Let her go, and I for one will write my own Living Will.
Peace to Terri.
Guin, ten times as many women die from heart disease and stroke as do breast cancer, so while it’s rare, it’s not altogether unheard of. As far as Terri goes, this poor creature needs the same kind of humane treatment shown to her that is usually shown domestic animals. A quick, dignified death.
I recall my mother, who died of sepsis after a long fight with hypertension and diabetes, and a wicked infection, to which she succumbed. She looked nothing like the mother of my far distant memory, and acted even less like it. In time, she failed to respond, and couldn’t speak.
In the end, she was a mechanical person for a short time, and that time was the most difficult I have ever spent, not to mention her. Her death, while sad, was a real blessing on her and our family, and, I suspect, after the cloudy fog of emotion burns away in the bright sun of reality, all parties involved will see it that way as well.
And you’re right gato, this should have been taken care of years ago.
As far as the family, they’re embroiled in the notariety. Emboldened by their ‘supporters’ who will be as vacant as a flint michigan row house once Terri dies or the fight ends, these poor folks who live in denial now, will have their world again come crashing down on them when they realize that Terri has been kept alive to, subconsciously i suspect, sate their vanity and denial.
The husband ain’t necessarily a saint either, but the loss is just as much his, (in fact more so, imo) as the womans’ parents. You choose your spouse, you are ‘given’ your child, a loss of either is crushing, to be certain, but the loss of spirit and verve in a person so dear to you that you married them, IMO, is far more so than the simple loss of a life.
To watch someone in her state makes me immeasurably sad, and on some level, physically ill, that we treat our fellow humans with such disregard and such a lack of humanity. If Terri Schiavo were a dog, a horse or even a gerbil (not that I’m necessarily equating us all on the food chain, but to some degree, life is life is life) this story would have never been.
Peace on her and her family.
Not much to add, but I’d also like to give a hearty fuck you to the following:
[ul][li]Diane Coleman of Not Dead Yet. Diane, this is not a disability issue. Nobody is advocating the death of every disabled person on this planet. Stop using this to get exposure to your organization.[/li]
[li]Jeb! Bush. You know, Jeb!, usually when you make your naked grabs for votes, they aren’t quite so, you know, naked. There are two families at stake here, and one dead woman, and they should not be used for your political gain.[/li]
[li]The Schindlers, but gently. Y’all, I know it’s hard, but your daughter’s dead. She died in the back of an ambulance 13 years ago. She’s never had a chance to recover, and you do her memory a disservice by hanging on to this puppet.[/li]
[li]Randall Terry, of Operation Rescue. This is not a pro-life issue. This is not a concerted effort by liberals to kill the inconvenient, and your saying it is disgusts me.[/li]
[li]The Florida Legislature. You people are the ones who specifically added to §765 of the state code explicitly allowing withholding a feeding and hydration tube from a person in a persistent vegetative state. Moreover, the governor is not king. He may not, with or without your approval, override the judicial system except in cases of pardons and clemencies. What sort of tortured logic would allow you to draw the conclusion that the governor can intervene in this case? That’s right, vote-grabbing.[/li]
[li]The Republicans who support this. Aren’t you the “small government that stays out of personal business” guys? What could be more personal than the death of a wife? How could you support this? The same way you support the continued ostracization of gays and others, I suppose.[/li]
[li]The protestors on-site at the hospice. This hospice, not ten blocks from my house, is next to an elementary school. Will these pro-life people clear the sidewalk for the children coming and going? Will they pull down their signs with images and words of death on them while the children pass? No. Of course not. These “pro-innocent” protestors don’t care what these kids see. The school has taken to escorting the children who walk past the hospice to make sure they can get through the crowd without having to walk in the street. If not for my schedule, I’d be tempted to go down there with a sign that says “Terri’s Brain is as Dead as Yours” sign to see if they were forgiving of a dissenting voice.[/ul][/li]
This whole situation is just awful. Terri’s body should join her mind in death. I’ve seen the videos that are linked, and all I see is an empty, jerky shell – an orchestra with no conductor.
Please, please, read this thread for cited arguments on either side before you come to any conclusions.
I can`t believe there are people here that feel this way.
She reminds me of a severely mentally handicapped person, the kind that have to fed and cleaned, and have no idea what the hell is going on around them. The same ones that are wheel-chair bound, move their limbs around wildly and drool on themselves. Are you saying that these people should be allowed to die of starvation?? Shouldnt be fed and cared for by their parents or siblings? Terry (who possibly by no fault of her own is now in this state) used to have all the feelings and emotions of a normal adult human. We dont know exactly whats going on in her head. I wager she has more going on upstairs than some severly mentally challenged people. So, unless your willing to kill all of the severly mentally challenged people (who were born that way, and had no say in the matter), you should give Terry a break. Caution on the side of life, not death. I also think that she isnt technically on lide support either, in as much as a baby needs a breast to keep it alive, she needs a feeding tube to sustain her.
If there is any question in the matter, and a plan hasn`t been layed out ahead of time, she needs to be kept alive.
Others - I know a former bio-med engineer who was in a serious car accident and was in a coma for three months-he was a mess. He came out with amnesia, and needed years of therapy to gain back his motor skills. His wife left him because he wasnt the same person anymore. Even his laugh was entirely different. Well, fifteen years later he graduated college with his bio-med degree (again). When do you give up on someones life?
Bambi - then explain why the liberals, who claim to be compassionate, want Terry dead, and voted to keep PBAs legal. And yes, it will come to the point where severely mentally challenged people will be euthanized. Just as its becoming more acceptable to neglect babies in this country, -parents who murder their babies get less heat from society than a guy who forgets his dog is leashed to the car and drives off. And thats a direct result of our evergrowing liberal societies' reaction to such things as the Terry story. Human life is becoming less and less precious, and that you cant argue.
I do not think people here are advocating killing severly mentally handicapped people. This Terri woman has to be on life support- food and hydration in order to stay alive. Most, even severly handicapped people can survive without assisstance of life support. I say If she can survive without her feeding/hydration tubes and take food/liquids like a living functional person let her live. But if she dies when removed from the life support- then so be it. I know that if I were in that condition I would want to die. Especially if I had a shred of knowledge of what was going on around me. To have brain function and not be abe to communicate my feelings (nad no- random grunts and mouth-smacking dont cut it for me- that is primal behavior) in any manner- for me- would be a personal hell.
I feel that it is pathetic that the parents wont let go and come to some sort of agreement with the husband (and/or vice versa). After 13 years, i am pretty sure she’s not “coming back”. I also feel that it is a total load of shit that the government sticks its nose where it does not belong, in people personal lives.
At the time of this post, your post count was 17000, Guinastasia. Congratulations!
Of course Terri Schiavo is on life support. She’s not on a respirator, but a feeding tube counts as life support. It’s a crying shame that we can’t just euthanize her instead of her family watching her die of dehydration, but that’s the stupid way things are in this country.
And no, she’s not on a level with the profoundly retarded who have to be washed and fed. She’s not nearly that well-off. She cannot be fed. If she was cognizant enough of her surroundings to swallow food that’s put in her mouth, she wouldn’t have to bloody feeding tube in the first place. When a person is too out of it to even know they’re being fed, how in the nine thousand names of God can anyone think she’s aware enough to try to communicate? If she was truly aware, as her parents claim, she’d be blinking once for yes and twice for no, or at least eating her damned pudding, wouldn’t she?
Terri Schiavo isn’t being allowed to die because she’s inconvenient or messy or expensive. She’s being allowed to die because there is no hope for her to recover. Her cerebral cortex is gone, and it ain’t coming back. Brain tissue has never, to my knowledge, grown back, especially once it’s been resorbed and replaced with cerebrospinal fluid. It’s time to stop flogging this dead horse and let this woman’s pitiful shell go.
When there is no hope for meaningful recovery.
I don’t care about your engineer buddy who recovered. He was lucky; his injuries weren’t as severe as Ms. Schiavo’s. She’s been in this state for thirteen years. So let me ask you this: When do you let go and accept the inevitable?
Robin
When there is a mutual agreement among family members and the medical staff, do we have that? No.
CCL, LVgoegeek - youre drawng too fine a line here with the feeding tube and having to spoon feed someone. We have all seen the same situation with the mentally retarded - that they were too far out of it to even know what they were eating, the only difference is that they could swallow on their own. What about the aged in nursing homes? When they get to the point in thier lives that they can no longer care for themselves, and approach Terrys state, do we just let them starve to death?
OK, exactly when do you draw the line? Three months, three years, thirteen years?
And who makes that call? — Could you, if she were your sister?
First of all, a little backstory.
I have made the call. In 1994, my older son, Andrew, contracted meningitis. He lapsed into a coma when he was about a month old. He was examined by neurologists, neurosurgeons, and damn near every other specialist at that hospital. All of them were in agreement that even with the maximum intervention and treatment possible, that even if Andrew made it out of his coma, he was going to be so severely brain-damaged that his quality of life was going to be minimal if not non-existent. After consulting with a rabbi, I and the baby’s father decided to terminate life support. Andrew’s primary physician was in agreement, and support was terminated 10 days later. Andrew died peacefully.
I’m not going to lie and say that it was the easiest decision I’ve ever made. Part of me desperately wanted Andrew to live, even if it meant his being a vegetable. The rational part, however, knew that there was no meaningful recovery possible, and that the best course of action was to let him go. I have not regretted that decision one whit. It was the best possible thing to do.
If that makes me a murderer or a monster in your eyes, fine. I don’t have to justify that decision to you. But please be aware that I’ve made it in real life and not in some hypothetical discussion.
Robin
MsRobyn that was a brave thing to do, I applaude your courage, I am sure it was not an easy decision, I think you were a very loving and humane mother.
MsRobyn: If only all parents were as rational as you seem to be, the world would be a better place, and poor Terry wouldn’t have to smear her dignity all over newspapers across the world.
If her parents and medical staff agree to the termination, then I go along with it.
MsRobyn, that was a courageos decision you made, one that I would have agreed with too. No, you are not a monster in my eyes. Compassion was called for in your sons case.
The reason I balk at this current story is because there appears to be conflicting stories regarding her abilities. When an agreement is reached that satisfies the important people involved here, then I will rest. Frankly, I dont consider her husband to be a decision maker in her life anymore. They were only married for a year, and hes moved on to someone else, plus, what does he have to loose by letting her be?
Of course he’s still a decision maker in her life. By marrying him, she entrusted him to make these kinds of decisions should the need arise. The duration of the marriage doesn’t matter. I mean, by that logic, DrJ shouldn’t get to make any decisions about my treatment if I was to collapse right now, because we’ve been married less than 10 months. The man has already accepted that his wife is dead in everything but name, and has been for 13 years so he’s found someone else to love. So what? None of that negates the fact that Terri, by her actions, willingly granted him the right to make these decisions. Her appointed decision-maker and her doctors are in agreement already. There, whuck, your criteria are met.
If her parents weren’t trying to make decisions that haven’t been theirs to make since the day Terri got married, she’d have been dead and buried long enough ago that nobody would think a thing in the world about Micheal marrying again.
As for conflicting reports of Terri’s abilities, the only people claiming she’s got any real abilities at all are her parents and brother, who are just delusional. I mean, the woman can’t even realize she’s got food in her mouth (the profoundly retarded might not realize much else, but they do at least realize that and take the appropriate action), so there’s just no fucking way she’s laughing at jokes and trying to talk. She might be laughing, but it’s not actually in response to anything outside.
Trust me, the difference between spoon feeding and inserting a feeding tube is more than just splitting hairs. It’s like the difference between slapping an oxygen mask on someone and putting them on a respirator. One is helping someone with something they’re still at least somewhat capable of, the other is having a machine do something their brain no longer tells their body to do. It sucks that there’s not a nicer legal way of removing Terri Schiavo’s life support, but that’s the fault of those who oppose right-to-die and euthanasia laws, not the people who have to decide to pull somebody’s tube.