Well then, I hope you’re prepared to go from hospital to hospital to protest this, because every day, thousands upon thousands of people in conditions like Schiavo’s have feeding tubes removed EVERY SINGLE DAY, often on just their spouses’ word, rather than numerous court cases with dozens of witnesses.
Cite?
How long ago did this occur? In Deb’s hospice program, they are certainly not permitted to simply OD a patient with an opiate, but they clearly do give as much morphine “as is needed” to control pain, even if that dosage depresses respiration and blood pressure, possibly hastening death.
On the other hand, the whole issue regarding Ms. Schiavo was the question of “starvation” associated with the removal of the feeding tube and I was not aware that this was a commonly permitted practice in all jusrisdictions.
(I am not taking a position on these issues, just trying to sort out the legal facts.)
I worked in a hospital for several years, and did volunteer work at a hospice for several more. In all that time I never saw one patient starved to death. Most of the time when feeding tubes were withdrawn death was eminent. Also, most were on other life support systems at the time.
Terri didn’t need anything but food, the nursing homes are full of these patients and they are not being starved to death. They are that way from strokes, parkinson’s, and other diseases. They can’t communicate, can’t feed themselves or take care of any other of their bodily functions. One young individual was totally paralized except for breathing, couldn’t even roll his eyes. This is common in nursing homes.
Doctors don’t know how much brain is needed to do anything, each individual is different.
Michael had a way out, he could have divorced Terri and let the parents take care of her, what was the need to kill her. The questions remain unanswered and this case needs to be investigated until some reasonable answers surface.
I understand when the paramedics arrived they called the police, why? This should be easy to check out and see if it was true or not.
Why was Terri any different?
HAW! HAW! HAW!
I Am Using Teh Internet!!!11!!11
Lekatt The problem is you don’t appear to want reasonable answers…you want whispered half-truths. It is not unreasonable to believe that Mr. Schiavo believed that his wife wouldn’t want to be trapped in that shell…regardless of who was taking care of her. He didn’t want a way out, he wanted to do what he promised he would do.
Ms. Holmes has make me promise to not let her end up a PVS like Mrs. Schiavo. I take her at her word and gave her mine. That means, that I don’t let her parents take her; because my responsibility is to her, not her parents. I promised her.
You look for every crumb you can find, as a means to smear Mr. Schiavo…You ask why did they call the police…? Didn’t Mr. Schiavo call 911? Did the dispatcher call the police? Is it standard procedure to have the police arrive at a home emergency? Do you even care, or do you simply want to keep tossing whatever poop you can find and hope some of it sticks? You believe…? You believe what…? That Mrs. Schiavo could follow a ballon with her eyes? That Mrs. Schiavo screamed, “I want to live…!” That Mr. Schiavo beat, poisoned or strangled his wife…? Oops.
Now its, “He didn’t call EMS fast enough…he didn’t do CPR…he left her face down…or maybe he smothered her…”
You and your ilk should be ashamed.
According to the latest copy of Newsweek, the “good doctor” Frist is backpedalling like crazy and is trying to deny he ever made his infamous TV diagnosis. *“I never made the diagnosis. I wouldn’t even attempt to make a diagnosis based on a videotape.” * <---- The words of Frist hiself.
I thought this was a holy crusade to save Terri from a heinous and terrible murder. If so, then why the BLEEP is Frist trying to lie his way out of it now? Why have most of the politicians become quiet about it? Because the entire country called Bullshit on them. I dropped out of this thread because quite frankly I got sick of dealing with LeKatt. I just thought I’d stop by and and toss in this new tidbit.
I wonder if anyone has complained about Frist’s breach of medical ethics:
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/2512.html
Fair’s fair, right?
I think a change of the thread title is in order. 
Maybe to something like “Terri Schiavo, now that we are all a few months older.”
What section of the hospital did you work in? Was it a Catholic hospital?
You do realize that personal anecdotes are not the best proof of anything, right?
Each individual is different, but not that different. If your cerebral cortex is not showing any evidence of activity, you’re not capable of thinking, feeling, emoting, or anything like that. If a specimen’s brain is that much different, it’s likely that it’s not a mammal.
Also keep in mind that the brain is not an undifferentiated mass of gray matter. Different areas control different things. “…how much brain is needed…” might not be the best way to phrase your argument.
Again, Terri was taken off the feeding tube because it, ostensibly, was her wish as expressed by the person with the legal right to make that decision. You don’t have to like it, but it’s the law. The question is dead and needs no further investigation. That’s the answer. Sometimes in life we don’t get the answers we want.
Let us know when you find out, but be sure to keep in mind the questions that holmes poses a few posts above.
And this is the 64,000 dollar question. Why, indeed, was Terri any different? Why did Congress find this woman to be so exceptional that they were trying to pass laws that applied to this individual? Why were those politicians who readily decry “activist judges” at every turn so incensed when judges applied the law without making new law from the bench? Activist judges for me, but not for thee.
In short, Terri was different because some twisted politicians saw an opportunity to make political hay by exploiting this poor woman and her family.
No. You think that this case needs to be investigated until something, anything that declares Michael Schiavo the bad guy in this whole sordid affair is declared. In direct opposition to the fact that her parents are the actual ghouls. Newsflash: that will never happen. You are wrong in your beliefs that Michael was the most evilest. Deal with it.
And I think this is the thing that people should be hammering away at.
Waste
I read the posts, they were basically the same as before. People claiming to know the thoughts of others including mine. Many false assumptions, and some of the same questions I asked. Nothing new to add.
I know you don’t understand, or don’t want to understand, but this case has far reaching precedents for the treatment of helpless people.
I know you have been taught about theories, scientific facts, methods, and critical thinking.
But I have been taught since birth to love truth, honesty, and integrity, values that remain obscure in our judicial system. So I just can’t help wanting to know what really happened. I hope some day you will too.
Without theories, scientific facts, methods, and critical thinking, how will you know truth when you find it? Like the Tin Man, will you just *feel * it, in your heart? I like my truth a bit more substantial, myself.
I have not. I was raised by a ruthless automaton who taught me to value p=.05 above all else. I wore a gray jumpsuit every day (although at the prom I was allowed to wear a pink cummerbund with it).
Can you teach me? Can you show me the love of truth, honesty and integrity? Can you show me how Michael Schiavo violated these things, because I cling to a basis in fact as my guideline. How can I find the truth while simultaneously avoiding any facts? Show me, and release me from my empirical torment, my cell of cold facts, my daily ration of rational thought.
You, on the other hand, only presume to know the mind of God. It’s apparently a revealed truth to you that Michael beat the living crap out of her and wished her nothing but dead, dead, dead from the moment they first met.
You can’t help but to want to know what happened. Nope, you can’t stand that you know what happened and it doesn’t fit your world view.
What a sad fact that you learned none of those values.
You have ignored truth, repeated lies, and have shown a bankruptcy of integrity.
What is truly obscure is what you are getting out of this.
Cite? It is my understanding that, other than the grandstanding and publicity, this case was like dozens (hundreds?) of other cases that happen regularly across the country. The only threat to the treatment of helpless people that I’ve seen are the poorly considered and hastily enacted laws that the Legislature and Congress kept throwing out.
I have a cousin who, when she was 27, collapsed while working out at the gym. Her heart stopped for several minutes and she suffered fairly severe brain damage. I have no fear whatsoever that her life is in some way endangered because of what happened to Terri Schiavo. Here’s why. My cousin may never fully recover from her attack, but ever since it happened she has responded well and positively to treatment, barring the odd set back. Not only does she talk and follow objects, she plays cards and well. Her short term memory is gone, but not her long term. She knows who her family and old friends are, even though she couldn’t remember someone she worked for a couple of years before her stroke. She lives with her parents who had their home modified for her wheelchair. She’s about as far from being in a Persistent Vegetative State as I am.
On the other hand, this past January, my 90 year old grandmother also collapsed. She spent part of a day in a nursing home, then was taken to a hospital where she died less than 24 hours later. I thank God that lekatt and his ilk weren’t around to jam tubes into her stomach and into her veins and prolong a life that she was ready to have end. Grandmama had been a widow for over 35 years and had outlived most of her friends. She was horrified by the idea of being stuck in a hospital or nursing home, supported by machines in a travesty of the active life she enjoyed, as does my mother, as do I. The last thing Grandmama saw was 3 of her 4 children going happily off to lunch together while she drifted off to sleep. The fourth, my mother, was on her way to her bedside in England, as Grandmama knew.
Prolonging the existence of a body the soul has long since departed isn’t love; it’s hatred and willful cruelty in my book. Over-riding what a person has said repeatedly that they want in the name of whatever deity one claims to follow isn’t faith; it’s tyranny. I’d prefer an honest hatred to something which claims to be love but takes that form. At least hatred has a certain integrity in that it doesn’t claim to have my best interests at heart. Lekatt, my opinion of you and your integrity is extremely low, yet I proclaim here and in public by all I hold Holy which is a great deal more than you give me credit for, that, if I am ever in a position to decide what happens should you become incapacitated, I will do everything in my power including using physical force to see to it that your wishes are carried out. If you don’t want life support ended, be it a respirator or a feeding tube or only one or the other, I will do everything I can to prevent that life support from being ended.
The courtesy you appear unwilling to grant me, those I love, or Ms. Schiavo is that of similarly respecting our wishes. It doesn’t appear to matter to you that I, my family, and my closest friends know I don’t want to be hooked to a feeding tube or respirator. You in the name of something you call “love” apparently see fit to override those wishes and prolong what should be a natural, graceful, Grace-filled act. You’ve levelled incredibly vile accusations against a man who sought only to do what his wife repeatedly said she wanted. With friends like you, I’ll take my enemies.
CJ