Here is the way I and more that 75% of Americans see it: it is true the courts are part of the state, but the state had bupkiss affecting the evidence presented, the judge was someone that the loved ones decided to use to settle their argument, the decision certified the choice of a family. Then the state being manipulated by powerful people with same ideas like you decided that that choice was the wrong one and butted in yet again.
The complaint the majority of people has is that it was the pandering and outrageousness of congress and the president playing loved ones, doctors, and judges with erroneous (and you provided plenty of evidence on how erroneous and lying the info was) information that did go against the evidence.
That act of the state is what we are complaining about, the sad choice of having the tube removed was made a long time ago and the state acted like it was a choice that was never made.
Meh. If he did after I was dead, showing no brain activity and/or with a disintegrated cerebral cortex, I’d be happy for him and hope he found a woman who was worthy of him. Then again, perhaps I’m just funny that way.
If Michael Schiavo had divorced his wife, he would have left her at the mercy of her parents who were intent on defying her wishes. I suspect he would also have been vilified for leaving his “dying wife”.
In light of your response, what do you have to say about her parents having encouraged him to date other women after Ms. Schiavo’s collapse? Do they have some responsibility for this estrangement?
No. But if you are going to apply this to Terri’s situation, she was not dead and he was her legal custodian with life and death power regarding her condition.
The decent thing for him to do would have been to cede custody to her parents, who were more than willing to care for her, and then to get on with his own, new life.
Or, to fulfill his pledge to spend his life with Terri “til death do us part”.
Maybe making sure his wife’s wishes would be respected was more important to him?
If Michael Schiavo was as intent on seeing his wife die as you and others have made him out to be, there would have been no need for him to be at the hospice every day, making sure she was well cared for. There would have been no need for him to have acted in a way that drew nothing but praise from the hospice staff. He could just as easily gone through appeal after appeal without visiting the hospice at all.
I don’t see Michael Schiavo as the villain in this piece. To tell the truth, much as we long for their to be a villain when something like this happens to a vibrant, 20-something year old woman, I’m not sure there is one, although, given the way they turned against Mr. Schiavo after he chose to use the settlement money for his wife’s care rather than giving it to her parents and the way her parents have treated Mr. Schiavo, I could make a case for her parents being the villains. Apparently you disagree.
I understand what it means, it’s another of those grey terms that people without the facts to back them, use to cover their arses.
The problem is you keep stating your opinion as facts, when they are not. They had already done the tests for years, the results never changed. PVS get worst, they don’t get better. The parents asked, and they did it until the doctors said no more, she isn’t going to get better and the risk (ironically) was too great.
As far as harm goes, the court appointed doctors, feared that she would either choke to death or get an infection…again, all this information is in the actual court documents.
I’ll ask you again, how many tests would be adequate? It’s a simple question and one easily answered by anyone with an opinion.
This is the lynchpin that tomdebb mentioned. You admit she won’t get better, then use the fact that she wasn’t given just one more test to cast doubt on a situation, you admit was hopeless. If her brain damage wasn’t going to get better, then neither was her swallowing reflex; if you accept one fact, you must accept the other as they are tied together.
Everytime you mention an opinion which is contradicted by facts and refuse to adjust your stance, you render your argument meaningless and seem unreasonable.
If it had been just “adequately” you would have a way out, unfortunately that was not what you said:
That is your opinion, you are not entitled to lie for it. Three tests for swallowing were performed; everyone saw that the last hour request was made just as a stalling tactic.
Actually, the legal standard is whether there was “clear and convincing” evidence as to her wishes. A standard that was met and reviewed endlessly and upheld every time. The “reasonable doubt” standard applies to criminal convictions and is a phrase with no relevance to this case.
“Vessel for the soul?” What the fuck kind of language is that? Save it for church, lady, we’re talking about legalities here. Religious beliefs have no relevance whatsoever.
The definition of life is absolutely irrelevant to the case. All that matters is whether this individual had the right to refuse medical treatment. It was necessary for her to justify her decision to you or to abide by your asinine definition of life.
The first question has been answered. The second is of no importance. You have not been called ignorant because of you personal definition of “life” but because you have continuously posted factually incorrect information about the case.
You have been more than sufficiently informed, linked and corrected about this information. Simple ignorance is no longer an excuse. You are not just innocently misinformed, you are lying, and you KNOW you are lying.
Here are some questions for you to ignore:
1.) Do you retract your assertions that Terri had been denied a swallow test in light of the linked court records that show there were several?
2.) Were the Schindlers lying when they testified that Michael was a loving and attentive husband or are they lying now?
3.) Do the Schindlers bear any culpability for Michael’s “estrangement” since they were the ones who encouraged him to begin seeing other women after it was clear that Terri was never going to recover?
4.) Do you still maintain that the courts made the decision to discontinue life support solely on the word of Michael Schiavo or are you willing to acknowledge other witnesses?
5.) In your medical opinion, what would a PET scan or an MRI have shown that the CT did not?
6.) Please enumerate (with cites) any possible motive (pecuniary or otherwise) that Michael would have had to lie in his testimony as to Terri’s expressed wishes to him about artificial life support? (And remember, that testimony was Michael’s sole contribution to how the decision was made. He did not make the decision to remove the tube himself and the court did not base that decision on Michael’s testimony alone). In other words, what do you think Michael had to gain by letting Terri die?
It is possible that, in time, science and technology will be able to prolong life indefinitely by artifical means. Consider that a hundred years ago Terri could not have been kept alive with a feeding tube. This man-made devise kept her alive by artificial means – just as other discoveries in medicine have added to our life expectancy.
As Christians, should we necessarily assume that these artificial ways of sustaining life are the will of God? “Erring in favor of life” is still making an error; it remains a mistake.
I am a Christian, and although I’m uncertain about the soul’s relationship to the body, I know that I wouldn’t want my soul burdened with a body for hundreds of thousands of years in a PVS – or until I could be “restructured.” (That’s just my own wishes.)
What would your choice for yourself be under those circumstances? What about for a loved one who had not left a living will? Would you be able to leave behind you on this earth your six year old little girl in suspended animation?
Just wanting your opinion. (Please don’t restructure the hypothetical.)
The court is obligated to follow the law. The crux of the dispute DeLay has with the court, as I understand it, is that they should have abandoned the law for what he considered to be a higher moral cause. This is so far outside the realm of the American legal system that even other Republicans have repudiated it. So, the question is what responsibility does a court have for a finding of fact, especially one that held up under several appeals. If you need to assign additional responsibility, it should go to the legislators who wrote the applicable laws.
This was indeed a case of legislative mob rule. This possibility was seen by the Founding Fathers, and is a reason for the independence of the courts. It is not surprising that the leader of the mob now sees this as a bad idea.
Thanks
But the state need not be, and usually is not, involved, even in cases of direct euthenasia. Might it not be a matter between a person and a doctor, or team of doctors and ethicists to double check there is no coercion? It boils down to the control of a person over his own fate. For primarily religious reasons, in the US for a long time people were not allowed to end their lives legally either through action or inaction. The lack of means to prolong life made this a moot point until recently. We are just now recognizing that a person should have a right to spurn being kept alive at all costs. So, where you see euthanasia with state involvement, I see the state finally removing itself from this decision.
I don’t think anyone’s positing the infallibilty of judges, but the repetitiveness of the appeals process makes it very likely to come up with the right judgement.
consider that a large number of judges have reviewed the case. I’m afraid I’m uncertain as to how many count for our purposes (do judges who refuse to take the case count? do courts that rule that Michial is the proper legal guardian before the tube removal count?) but for the sake of arguement, let’s say it is 18. Pretend that those judges are only a little bit better than flipping a coin, so that a judge has a 51% chance of getting the correct answer to any given case, and 49% against.
going through CNN’s timeline, I could only find 1 judge who disagreed that the tube should be removed( http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/schiavo/) (March 23, 2005: In a 2-1 ruling at 2:30 a.m., a panel of judges in the Court of Appeals rejects the Schindlers’ appeal, saying they “failed to demonstrate a substantial case on the merits of any of their claims.”)
So, we hve 17 judges who think that the tube should be removed, and 1 who doesn’t. given a 51% rate of success, the probability that they ruled correctly is equal to the probability that they ruled correctly, given a 17-1 split, which is equal to the probability that they ruled correctly, and that it is a 17-1 split, divided by the probability of a 17-1 split
so, if judges have a 51% success rate, then there is a 65.5% chance that they ruled correctly in the Schiavo case is. However, I bet that most people are willing to grant the judiciary a success rate much higher than 51%, or they’d just stay home, and flip coins to decide things. Let’s say a 70% chance that a judge is right. That gives a 99.9998% chance that the Schiavo case was correctly judged. I’m comfortable with that number. If an individual judge has an 80% chance of ruling correctly, the Schiavo case has a 99.9999999767% of being judged correctly.
Of course this doesn’t show that Terri’s tube should have been pulled, this just shows that the judges correctly interpretted the law in this case.
That is a subjective and personal decision. I have a Living Will with a do not resuscitate clause. But I do not believe I have the right to assume or demand that others should have the same.
If God did not wish us to use technology to prolong life, (s)he would not have given us reasoning and inquisitive minds.
The choice about a child is a tough one. I don’t know what I would do.
I do think it would be rather cool to live for thousands of years, if my knees and cheekbones held up.
This opinion of yours that Judge Greer ‘tipped his hand’ when he considered convenience of the family is a perfect example of willful ignorance on your part. It is definitive proof of 1) that you have not read Judge Greer’s opinion or 2) that you truly did not understand it if you did read it. In any case, your construction of the judge’s opion on this point is assinine. Judge Greer specifically stated that Terri did not pose a burden other than an emotional one. The convenience of the family is something that was never considered and has been fabricated by yourself. The word ‘convenience’ does not appear in the opinion.
wonderwench, thanks for your response. (I think the cheekbones last forever; the perfect complexion to cover them is another matter.)
“Proof beyond a reasonable doubt” is the standard in criminal cases but not in civil matters. I’m not an attorney, but I think that the highest evidentiary standard in civil cases is “by clear and convincing evidence.” It would have been desireable to have known for certain and beyond any doubt, but I think the courts did the best that they could according to the laws.
Your friend who posted as a guest wrote of your sentiment. I believe in tempering rational analyses and logical conclusions with some measure of feelings in my own life. Your friend may not be aware that there are strong feelings on both sides of the issue. Generally, both sides wanted to do the moral thing; we had a difference of opinion on what that was. And, unfortunately, many people tried to use the tragedy to their own advantage.
You may have noticed, wonderwench, that periodically there are picture threads on the SDMB - people post links to pictures of themselves so that we have appearances to go with their words.
It’s nice to know that there’s no need for such a thing in your case. All anyone who wants to know what you look like needs to do is to look up *disingenuous * in the dictionary.
There was a repeat CT scan and a repeat EEG performed in either 2001 or 2002. This was cited in the court decision from around that time at Abstract Appeal. As someone said earlier, you are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.
What good would it have done? Easing their minds? Absolutely not. Do you think that after those tests were done, the parents would have said, “Oh well, I guess she’s in a PVS after all”? Of course not–people would dispute those results, and find new tests to claim that Michael was a monster for denying.
None of those tests could have changed her diagnosis; that’s not how it works. I have a patient who is in severe end-stage liver failure; we know why, and we know he’s not eligible for a transplant, and he’s on the proper therapy for his complications. Every time he comes in, he asks me why there aren’t more tests that can be done. It’s hard to explain to him that medical tests answer questions, and any questions we have left for him simply don’t have tests to provide answers. I could get a bunch of random blood tests every time he comes in, but I’m not going to be able to tell him anything else based on them, so why should I do them?
