I would not break my vows for anyone, certainly not because someone asked me too. I have been married 46 years to the woman I love, and have not had sex with any other.
Don’t you people understand integrity, honesty, or loyalty?
Have you no morals at all?
How 'bout those Red Sox!
No. A lot of us have decided to trust that an independent judiciary that has evaluated the case something like 18 times (?) and consistently ruled in the same direction is a better gauge of the facts than a distraught family being manipulated by anti-choice groups. We’re not pitting Michael versus the Schindlers: we’re pitting consistent legal opinion against them.
Daniel
lekatt Your morally is just that yours. Part of being a rational person is understanding that. Integrity to ME would be following my wife’s wishes and if that meant fighting 15 freaking years to ensure that the animal part of her brain no longer has dominance over her body, then that’s what I do.
My wife, that’s MY wife, not yours; would not want me to spend year after year, after year attending the living dead. She would want me to continue with my life, to have children and grandchildren, BUT not abandon her to the limbo that Terri was in. This isn’t an either or answer, one can move on and still honour a person. In report, after report, after report it has been noted how well he took care of her. There are reasons why he couldn’t leave her to her parents, you choose to ignore them.
We make all types of vows in this world, some of them we can keep, others we have to break. That’s what being an adult means sometimes. Would you really want your wife to spend the next 20-30 years tied your deathbed? Does her finding companionship eslewhere means she no longer loves and cares for you? You guys scream and cry about integrity, honesty and loyalty when all you really mean is selfishness, greed and being afraid of dying alone.
If you really loved your wife of 46 years, you would wish her well and let her go on with her life, not demand she remain trapped to your husk, or that she denies herself companionship as PROOF of her love.
She may chose not to and that’s great, but that’s her choice; I simple ask that you respect that people make different choices. You want to have an opinion, that’s great; but you’re not in this guy’s shoes; in this instance; your morally ends at your front door.
This bugs me.
All over the world, today, people are starving to death. From famine in North Korea and Africa and crushing poverty in South and Central America. I’ve heard many people say this about Terri Schiavo, “I wouldn’t allow an animal to starve to death” who then have the nerve to live their comfortable first world lives. Guess what - when you buy a candy bar from a vending machine instead of using those resources to feed the hungry, you are contributing to people starving to death. If that is indeed your philosophy, put your money where your mouth is. Realize that EVERY DAY we as a global society allow people to starve to death, while others live lives of relative plenty. Anyone who has time and energy to post here is, by definition, choosing not to do all they can do to fight poverty and hunger. Stop being a hypocrite - at least admit to your choices.
Then you must agree that Terri was euthanized in a prolonged process.
I said it earlier in the thread - let’s be honest about what really happened and develop appropriate public policy. If we are to have euthanasia, let’s have a humane method.
I’m not the first one to compare Terri’s situation to that of other severely disabled individuals. Not Dead Yet, and 19 other organizations representing the disabled objected to the decision to remove Terri’s assisted nutrition.
They rightly identify that this is a dangerous precedent.
The words of a Harvard student with cerebral palsy.
Wow - that is quite a guilt trip. Thank you for sharing.
So, because there are starving people around the world (often due to the policies of the brutal, depositic tyrants who terrorize them), we should feel guilty for spending the money we earn on food for ourselves?
And we should withhold nutrition from severely disabled people for this reason?
(BTW, you know absolutely nothing about me and how I conduct my private life.)
It’s a precedent for nothing. (look! hyperbole!) We’ve had several board members testify in threads about their own experiences with removing feeding tubes from their loved ones. It is not as you, or this organization describes. This decision is made every day in hospitals around the country, the others just aren’t mixed up in a court battle. That you are not the first to make an invalid analog doesn’t make it OK to make it.
Terri was not “disabled”, which conjures images of someone lucent in a wheelchair. Her. Brain. Was. Gone.
And judges are infallible?
Sorry. I am not going to substitute my own ability to make moral judgements and worship the judiciary as omnipotent.
One judge made a decision. His decision was never actually reviewed - only the process he used to arrive at it. All of the other judges were only tasked with judging whether or not he violated the law in making the decision. They did not perform an independent de novo review of the facts and merits of the case.
No, she was not brain dead. Her cognitive reasoning ability was gone. But she was abloe to breathe on her own and her organs functioned.
She was severely disabled. The semantic pretzel logic to recategorize her as non-human is appalling.
I feel no guilt about this. This is simply the way it works. Nor am I suggesting you feel guilt about it. However, if you really believe no one should starve to death, go do something about world hunger and starvation. Use your disposible resources (and not basic food, but most Americans consume a lot more than what is necessary - cars, clothes, entertainment) to feed the hungry. And no, I don’t know that you don’t, perhaps you are almost St. Francis - I do know you aren’t putting 100% of your energy to fighting hunger because you are spending at least part of your time in this debate.
Welcome to reading comphrension 101. I didn’t say she was brain-dead … that would require a brain. From the CAT scans, there was a small nub of cerebellum, which controlled the breathing and where the cerebral cortex should be, there was a large black spot.
The comparison to someone with cerebral palsy is like comparing a ticking watch that doesn’t keep correct time to an empty watch case.
You said her brain was gone. If one’s brain is gone - then how is that not being brain dead.
The person who made the comparison to cerebral palsy suffers from the condition himself.
How about listening to the disabled people who are horrified by what was done to Terri?
Specious reasoning.
People starving because the tyrants who run their countries do not allow food aid to reach them are not the equivalent of withholding nutrition from a patient how is currently receiving care. Terri was an American citizen protected by our Consitution. She did not receive equal treament under the law, imo.
You are perfectly free to disagree.
BTW - do you spend 100% of your energy ensuring that starving people around the world are supplied with Snickers and Reeses Pieces?
** wonderwench** You see this is where you get into trouble, the constant misinformation and ignoring what’s true. Terri wasn’t like most severaly disabled individuals, her cerebral cortex was liquid; do you understand what that means? It’s not like stroke, or cerebral palsy; it’s not like being retarded or having a one leg shorter than another.
It would no different if I cut off your head and using alien technology, managed to keep your body alive. That was her existence, only it wasn’t science fiction, that was her life. That was her life.
Do you understand how you should not be bringing in cites comparing cerebral palsy to this woman?
You would have a point, if the court randomly walked in, pointed to Terri and pulled her; that didn’t happen. It’s been 15 years of court battles, 15 years of doctors and lawyers and Indian Chiefs looking at this case. Had the parents any bit of evidence, you don’t think the court would’ve ruled in their favor? They didn’t, in fact they proved time and time again, that they were freaking NUTS.
The real precedent you should be worried about is whether or not someone can walk into your life and take away your guardianship rights…you don’t want Timmy to see his grandparents, opps sorry, your parents take you to court and sue. Off goes Timmy, regardless of what your reasons are; because we ALL know that children MUST be with their grandparents.
Wonderwench, in all seriousness, what standard of proof would satisfy you that an individual’s wishes were followed? The repeated court rulings in the Terri Schiavo case weren’t based just on what her husband had said she told him she wanted, but on what several of her friends had said she told them she wanted. Would complete agreement among all family and friends satisfy you? My family’s been known to have trouble agreeing on what to have for dinner. A friend of mine’s brother converted from Judaism to Fundamentalist Christianity and became somewhat estranged from the rest of his family because they weren’t interested in converting. If my friend were in a PVS and his brother objected to removing a feeding tube, would his brother’s wishes override his father’s and other brother’s? What standard of proof is sufficient?
I’m not advocating pulling the plug on or starving all disabled individuals. Several years ago, my 27 year old cousin’s heart stopped for several minutes while she was working out at a gym. Like Terri Schiavo, her brain was deprived of oxygen for several minutes. Unlike Terri Schiavo, she did not enter a Persistent Vegetative State and is capable of swallowing, feeding herself, acting and thinking independently. My family and I don’t know how fully she’ll be able to recover; we don’t know if she’ll ever be able to return to her former career as a shepherd or even live independently. We do know that there’s a very large difference between her and Ms. Schiavo who was not capable of swallowing, who showed a flat EEG, meaning no indication of brain activity other than in her medula oblongata, the part of the brain responsible for reflex actions, and whose cerebral cortex had apparently, become liquefied. I realize this can be incredibly difficult for a grieving family to grasp, but there was no hope of recovery. None. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you and/or himself. Cerebral cortexes don’t regenerate, not even in fairy tales told by loving parents.
You seem willing to believe all sorts of horrendous things about Michael Schiavo. Did you overlook what I said earlier about the relationship between him and his wife’s parents turning nasty when he refused to give them half the money from the settlement in the malpractice case? Did you overlook the fact that her parents encouraged him to date other people? Are you sure the fault is only on one side?
I don’t think any of those of us who are objecting to the way Terri Schiavo’s parents behaved are advocating that disabled people be put to death. A close childhood friend of mine is not only mentally handicapped, this past October she had a stroke. It did not produce anywhere near the same level of disability as what happened to Ms. Schiavo did; among other things, a couple of weeks later, she was grumbling because, thanks to the timing of the stroke, she was unable to vote in this year’s presidential election! What we are objecting to and what we are afraid of is people trying to override what a person told people she wanted. Frankly, I’m afraid someone like you will try to override what I want. No doubt people on the other side of this argument are afraid of the very same thing. Where I see a nightmare of my body slowly deteriorating long after my mind and soul are departed because someone clings to a faint, false hope that I might rise up and walk someday, no doubt others have a nightmare of someone forcibly ending their life while they’re still very much alive and fighting. I will willingly, stridently, and loudly fight for you to have whatever life-sustaining measures you want for as long as you want them. I just ask that you do the same for me and, when a close friend who I’ve trusted for years says, “No, she didn’t want it this way”, that you not say “No. That’s starving her.” The close friend in question has medical training. He knows the difference and he’ll pull the plug or pull the tube if it’s come to that. Please, let’s both of us live our lives in peace.
CJ
Because brain death is a specific medical diagnosis. A brain-dead brain is one that is there and has no electrical activity. There was no brain in her head.
And it’s still wrong.
I have. Their fears are misplaced.
Not all people starve due to tyrants. You could help the ones that starve otherwise. And only American citizens deserve not to starve?..guess those foreigners are a step down for animals. But people starve here in the U.S. Terri, according to the malpractice suit, was bulemic, a common cause of starvation right here at home. Working to fight eating disorders is a noble cause. And I’m not arguing for or against equal treatment, my point has nothing at all to do with the law in this case.
And no, I don’t. But I’m not the one claiming I wouldn’t allow an animal to starve to death.
The disabled people who protested the Schiavo case are actually a pretty small and radical minority. Most people with disabilities (and it’s the field I work in) understand the difference between being disabled and not having a brain. They also recognize that this was a case about the right to make end of life choices, not “killing disabled people.” Many of them were embarrassed by the display put on by those in front of the hospice by a radical protest group who were flinging themselves out of their wheelchairs, etc. This is not a genunine issue of rights for people with disabilities and there was no groundswell of outrage among them against the Schiavo decision. They can tell when they’re being exploited for bullshit politics.