Damn right! That’s why I have a living will, complete with “do not resuscitate if in a vegetative state” orders.
I have not change my mind either. I wanted to parents to keep her alive. There were many more issues involved in this case than a simple choice between spouse and parent. If those circumstances were taken into account I don’t see how anyone could have voted to stave her to death.
Well, staving her would certainly have been quicker.
Her parents were NOT right. That is an established fact, not an opinion. Terri Schiavo had no consciousness or ability to experience anything. Any suggestion to contrary is as absurd as saying somebody just might be able to see without eyes. No they can’t. And they can’t be aware without a brain.
Her parents also had no legal standing to override her own wishes. People’s end of life decisions are not subject to rescension by mom and dad.
This is how I remember it. I wondered why they didn’t do it again as a matter of course instead of referring back to it as a final arbiter of sorts.
They did do it again, but, in point of fact, there was no reason to. Brains don’t grow back any more than arms or legs do.
I’m not arguing her condition but I don’t remember any recent brain scans during the proceedings and I was looking for it.
She had intrathalamic stimulators implanted at some point after 2002 - which was why an MRI was never performed - so an EEG would essentially have been useless, as it would be recording currents produced by the stimulators as well as whatever brain activity there was (which, as it turned out, was none).
That makes sense. For all the searching I did I never came across this.
There’s no coming back from “no cortical activity”. A hundred negative brain scans wouldn’t have convinced anyone who didn’t want to be convinced.
While I was poking around I found this article about a study from Neurology that documented the atrocities in the media’s Schiavo coverage:
I remember how horrible it was. (It’s why I spent so much time (here and elsewhere) trying to set facts straight.) And yet one study asked people if they would want to be kept alive if they were in Schiavo’s situation, and even with the misinformation out there something like 87% of people said they wouldn’t.
AMEN! While it’s pretty much a fact we have only the vaguest idea of how the body works, there are STILL quite a few cases where it’s so freaking obvious that the parents are really severely in denial about how profoundly affected their kid is. I think part of it was the terminlogy used. It irrirtates me when the media uses the term “severe” as a synomyn for profound. Sorry, but there is a difference. People think “severe, and they think their little Smashlie who is a teenager but has the mentality of a toddler. Then everyone gets upset. " Oh NOES! They are trying to kill off people with disabilites!” No. It’s that the public does not understand the difference between severe and profound disabilites. Hell, maybe there should even be a subcatagory called extreme profound, for people who are extremely profoundly affected.
I am a hardcore disabilty rights advocate. Hardcore. But the general public and a lot of parents do not understand that for a significent minority of people, they don’t have ANY quality of life. They’re not “disabled” They literally aren’t THERE any more!
In Terry’s case there were doctors claiming she was a vegatable, while other doctors claimed she was reacting to them. I guess you just pick which one you wish to believe in that case.
IIRC, the doctors claiming the woman was reacting were the doctors who had not actually examined the woman.
Not true. Not one of the doctors who examined her thought she was reacting to them. The only doctors who ever said that she even might have some awareness were paid by the parents and did not examine her directly.
This is kind of beside the point anyway since the EEG and brains cans proved beyond all doubt that she had no awareness, and did not have the part of the brain where consiousness resides.
Originally, this was the case. However, there were two doctors testifying before the court (part of a panel of five) who opined that there was hope of recovery, but (surprise surprise) both were peddling unproven and improbable miracle therapies.
(Emphasis mine)
Which is, of course, exactly what you seem to be doing. As has been pointed out, the doctors who said that Terry was responsive were those who were paid by the parents (or other interested outside parties) and who actually hadn’t examined her.
Yes, you are right, and the doctors who said she was a vegetable were paid for by the husband who wanted Terry dead so he could marry the woman he had children with and was living with before? or after Terry’s strange accident about which he was question extensively. It is not clear exactly what happened, but it is clear he wanted her dead. It made his life less complicated. Now I don’t know exactly what happened or whether she was a vegetable or not. But the whole scenario was raft with questions that needed to be answered. I don’t have the faith most do in MRI’s and things like that, there is more to being human than just a body.
No, they were not. This was known at the time and has already been discussed in this thread. Please get your facts straight. Her care was handled by the court. He was not living with another woman when Terri Schaivo had her “strange accident.” She and Michael Schaivo were married at the time and while it was sudden, some causes have been suggested. He began a relationship with another woman many years later with the blessing of the Schindler family.
Clearly.
No they weren’t, actually. They were apponited by the court, and he coul have gotten married regardless. That’s a ridiculous insinusation. Terri’s parents were the one who encouraged him to start another family, by the way…
This contaons too many falsehoods to even bother with. You don’t know what you’re talking about. For someone who claims to be so spiritual, you sure don’t have a problem with bearing false witness.
That is a f*cking despicable accusation to make. You should be ashamed of yourself.