http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Persistent_vegetative_state
http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/en.asp?TopicID=606
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/330/21/1499
Some googling turned up these articles on PVS. Hope they help.
They won’t.
And I see absolutely nothing wrong with this. Does anybody really consider spending 15 years in a vegetative state living? If given the choice between dying and spending several years in a state which would not allow you to walk, talk, eat or drink of your own free will…how many people would choose death over the latter?
I never would have thought the mind-body problem would have practical applications - but it does here. It strikes me that some people just don’t get that without much of the brain there is no mind. There was no Terri Schiavo left. None.
Not to mention that the vast majority of the American public say they would want their tube pulled in a similar situations. And I doubt that a living will would have stopped this circus - the parents could have said she changed her mind without changing the directive.
Your willful desire to ignore reality, the autonomic nervous system, and behaving as if you know better than her doctors and her wishes via her husband and friends is incredibly arrogant.
You seem to have a disability when it comes to an ability to deal with truth and overcoming your paranoid fears.
Oh, and you said you were done a page ago. Why return to spew your same uneducated dogma?
Is that what I said? Of course it’s not. This is a craptastic way to argue, substituting easily-refuted statements for the harder-to-refute statements that your debate opponents ACTUALLY said. Booo!
I said, paraphrased
I trust that you can see the difference between this and saying “judges are infallible.” I don’t know WHY I trust this, but I do.
You and your ilk keep setting this up as, “Who do you believe? Michael or the parents?” I was pointing out that a lot of us, not having immersed ourselves fully in the case and not having studied it in great detail, trust the judges to make the decision MORE THAN we trust Michael or the parents to make it.
You, who have chosen to remain astonishingly ignorant about the facts of the case, are the only one who is choosing between Michael’s version and the parents’ version.
Daniel
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Yes, let’s be honest and open our eyes to the reality that Terri’s wishes were finally heard and respected.
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Let’s also be honest and look at the one state with Physician Assisted Suicide and that it has been under attack by the Attorney General since Ashcroft. If the Justice Department(priving that justice isn’t what it’s about) feels they can override the will of the Oregon voters and attempt to invalidate that, what makes you think that anything else along that line will pass muster?
You have no respect for the decisions of others when it comes to when and how their lives end. You and your arrogant ilk think that forcing your religious beliefs on others is the right thing to do. Hubris is what it is.
I believe her parents stated that even if she had had a living will, they wouldn’t honor it.
And wonderwench, no one said Terri isn’t a person, or that she isn’t human. Of course she is (or was, rather). But the fact stands that the part of her that made Terri TERRI was gone.
Just out of curiosity, do you believe Terri’s parents love all of their children, or just Terri?
If they are capable of loving all of their children plus Terri, why isn’t Michael capable of loving the mother of his children plus Terri?
Once upon a time I was in an accident and in a coma (traumatic brain injury). The doctors informed my wife that I could stay that way indefinately. She made an informed but independent decision to remove all life support on the fourth day. As she put it, "I put you in God’s hands. You would live or you would die, but I would not see you exist as a potted plant. Last year my wife became ill. When she was moved to the ICU I calmly informed the doctor, “When the shit hits, make her comfortable!!!” Rest her soul.
We made our decisions based on sound medical judgement. It was our right. I am appalled that the same people that use the sanctity of marriage to argue for one issue and then flip-flop and say that parents right should trump spousal rights.
Love is not the issue, integrity is, he vowed to forsake all others. He lied, I don’t think he is telling the truth about anything.
Did he? Not all marriage vows include such a statement. Mine didn’t. Did his?
And let’s say that they did. Is it your argument that if someone ever lies about anything they can never be trusted again? If I could, for example, show that the Schindlers lied, would they, too, be entirely untrustworthy?
Even if his lying totally impeaches his testimony, we’ve got other people who corroborated his story whose testimony was not similarly impeached: the courts’ judgments were based off multiple testimonies, not just his.
However, even if he’d lied once before about another issue, it’s absurd to suggest that that would impeach his testimony: you won’t find anyone on earth above the age of five who hasn’t told a lie at some point, and yet our courts continue to function based on testimony.
However, do you think when he made the oath he had any intention of breaking it? If so, what’s your evidence for that? If not, then he didn’t lie: he (at worst) broke an oath, which is different from lying, and does not indicate a propensity to lie.
However, that oath he took probably concluded, “until death do us part.” And Terri was functionally dead: death had parted them by that point. Her heart beat, but Terri was gone. So the claim that he’s an oathbreaker is very weak.
In short, that dog won’t hunt.
Daniel
Lekatt Well? If it can be proven that the Schindlers lied, are they to be trusted about anything? If so? Why?
This goes for the other posts about this “what if” game. I don’t do “what ifs”. There is enough reality to deal with without them.
Lekatt It wasn’t a what if. I was asking you to draw a line in the sand for the Schindlers; as you were so eager to draw one for Michael Schiavo. I didn’t expect you would, but wanted to a least give you the chance.
Anyway:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/04/15/schiavo.report/index.html
The Schindlers are liars.
And yet lekatt and wonderwench will find a way to warp reality with their Faith Based Improbability Drive™ and will still characterize Michael Schaivo as evil, Terri as a victim, and her parents as selfless parents.
So, what do lekatt and wonderwench gain from believing and disseminating these lies? Is it a security blanket for people who are terrified of death and wish to exist at all costs? Is it holding on to a world view which obscures sanity and rationality?
I’d like to know how these two people can continue to ignore every bit of evidence they are given, still put forth proven lies, and remain in a debate where not only does everyone disagree with them, but continually proves them wrong.
Oh please. I’m asking you a very simple question. Is one lie all it takes to be permanently expelled from your “trustworthy” category? Is the standard you’re holding Michael Schiavo to the same standard you hold everyone else to?
You are correct, Guinastasia. While WW continues to argue that we don’t know what TS’s wishes were, and her own parents stated they disagreed with testimonies regarding her wishes…it wouldn’t have mattered one bit for they themselves stated that had Terri had a Living Will and/or had she had the capacity to TELL THEM HERSELF that she wanted the feeding tube withdrawn, they wouldn’t have honored her wishes because her presence in their life brought them “joy”.
For the Schindler’s, it appears this wasn’t about Terri’s wishes, it was about THEIRS.
I apologize for lack of cite. The GAL report (containing the above information) can be viewed on the Abstract Appeal Site. I believe this information is to be found on or about page 14.
regards,
widdley
I’ve been reading all the responses so far, and there are two distinct groups of thought on the Schiavo case, that’s obvious… I’m still shaking my head at the irony of this woman’s [TS] circumstances, that is–>
T.Schiavo WAS INTENTIONALLY STARVING HERSELF TO DEATH, HER BULLEMIA directly caused her vegetative state, and then she DIES via STARVATION… why someone with apparently SERIOUS Psych problems deserved so much attention, I’ll never understand it… maybe her parents got swepted up in the political agenda manipulation, maybe not… maybe they were really guilt-riddened and jumped on the right-to-life band wagon to cover their own denial of the entire T.S. IRONY. Why wasn’t there some type of crisis intervention by her parents prior to T.S. VS? talk about ‘What if’s’ … I imagine they ‘what if’ that one 24/7.
If T.S. had left a written Living Will what would it have said? “If I can no longer starve myself, you do it for me.”
no apologies.