Terri Schiavo

[Michael Fornal]

I don't know if any of you have been following this situation, but it has to be one of the most fucked up things in recent memory.

Here's a short summary of the situation. In like 1991, this woman Terri had her heart stop briefly because of some chemical imbalance. After that, she went into a veggie state. Not a coma, but a persitent vegetative state. She no longer has a neocortex, meaning there cannot be a recovery for her.

She lays there basically having her dead body kept alive from a feeding tube. Her body still breathes on its own, but that is all it does. Her husband argues she would never want to live like this and wants her taken off the tube to die. However, her parents intervene and say there's a chance she could recover(they obviously have no idea of the affects of a neocortex being missing). They have fought to keep her alive and it has become a huge political bullshit thing.

Basically, multiple judges have seen enough evidence to have her tube taken off. However, Bush's brother in Florida passed a law to keep her tube in - which was later found unconstitutional. Now they've pushed a bill quickly through to bush that he signed to have her tube staying in, also.

Courts have stooped to a new low - they freakin' subpoena'd(SP?!?) a veggie woman in order to keep her alive. The loophole being that any witness for court must be protected/kept alive leading to the trial (aka must leave tube in).

This is soooo fucked up. Let the poor woman die. There's absolutely nothing that can be done, short of some advancement of stem cell technology. ha! now THAT would be ironic. "Yes, President, we can help her now. With stem cells." "Pull the plug!"

[Michael Fornal]

http://www.rangelmd.com/2003/10/terri-schiavo-case.html



Over the span of this last decade, Theresa's brain has deteriorated because of the lack of oxygen it suffered at the time of the heart attack. By mid 1996, the CAT scans of her brain showed a severely abnormal structure. At this point, much of her cerebral cortex is simply gone and has been replaced by cerebral spinal fluid. Medicine cannot cure this condition. Unless an act of God, a true miracle, were to recreate her brain, Theresa will always remain in an unconscious, reflexive state, totally dependent upon others to feed her and care for her most private needs.

--

At first blush, the video of Terry Schiavo appearing to smile and look lovingly at her mother seemed to represent cognition. This was also true for how she followed the Mickey Mouse balloon held by her father. The court has carefully viewed the videotapes as requested by counsel and does find that these actions were neither consistent nor reproducible. For instance, Terry Schiavo appeared to have the same look on her face when Dr. Cranford rubbed her neck. Dr. Greer testified she had a smile during his (non-videoed) examination. Also, Mr. Schindler tried several more times to have her eyes follow the Mickey Mouse balloon but without success. Also, she clearly does not consistently respond to her mother. The court finds that based on the credible evidence, cognitive function would manifest itself in a constant response to stimuli.

[Magita]

Yeah, I had first heard about it on Oprah, where they had the parents on and the husband via satellite. The parents just seemed pathetic, as in "OH GOD LOOK SHE BLINKED SHE MUST BE ALIVE ON THE INSIDE." It's just so sad that they're so clingy and blindly hopeful that she has to suffer. :/

[AssMaster²]

Personally like on Kill Bill, I think they need to keep her alive and let some random male nurse use her to turn tricks for truck drivers and janitors. If anything is gonna wake her up, I am sure it would be a lot of sex. For real.

[Nyeh]

the problem here is the law that the president just signed in, as it violates many many things in the constitution

[Trent Steel]

the courts and congress and the entire government are over stepping their boundaries

http://www.glennbeck.com/clock/starvedwifeshirt.jpg

[NatrlBornThrllr]

Truth be told, I spent about 15 minutes typing up a ridiculously long response about this case (a case that I've been following closely for a little over a year and a half now). However, I think everything I attempted to say can be summed up by the following (which, believe it or not, is a good bit shorter and a lot more structured than what I'd initially typed):

A -- All studies thus far (in regard to whether or not she's in a persistent vegetative state) have been non-conclusive. Simple as that. Hence the big fuss.

B -- Her body functions well enough on a fundamental level to keep her living. In other words, there's no machine pumping her heart or breathing for her. Physically, even if not mentally, she's a living being. She's not laying motionless in a coma.

Therefore, the courts are well within their rights to step in here. Why?


Florida Statute 765.309 (http://flsenate.gov/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=Ch0765/SEC309.HTM&Title=-%3E2003-%3ECh0765-%3ESection%20309) Mercy killing or euthanasia not authorized; suicide distinguished. Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to condone, authorize, or approve mercy killing or euthanasia, or to permit any affirmative or deliberate act or omission to end life other than to permit the natural process of dying.Denying her food is a deliberate omission to end life other than to permit the natural process of dying. Simple as that. You're not pulling her off a machine which pumps her heart, in an attempt to let her die naturally. You're starving her to death...same as if you starved a child suffering from a severe mental handicap to death, or if you starved a perfectly healthy kidnapping victim to death. Mentally vegetative or not, killing her via starvation is, according to the Florida' statutes, illegal (and rightfully so, dehydration and starvation due to neglect is a horrible way to die, especially if we realize the fact that it's possible that she's aware enough to know what's happening and doesn't approve).

After following this case for so long, I kind of hate that it's blowing up in the media, because it'll eventually go the way of every other political topic: democrat vs. republican...and ignorant people will believe whatever they hear Al Franken or Bill O'Reilly say about congressmen, bills, laws, Bush, and politics...ignoring the matter at hand (which, quite simply, is the fact that there's a woman, capable of living without the assistance of a machine, that we want to starve to death because sometimes she's not as responsive as we think she should be).

One last thing...if the family wants her alive, what benefit is there to killing her? Her husband? He got engaged to another woman in 1997. Given that, I'll assume that he's moved on with his life (at least, for his new wife's sake, I hope he has). The rest of her family hasn't...they're still there with her however frequently. So why starve her to death? If she's not alert to her surroundings, then she's not really suffering, is she? And if she's alert to her surroundings, killing her would technically be no different from (or less illegal than) performing an assisted suicide (worse, even, since you're not really certain if you have the person's consent).

I think it's horrible that she's alive, potentially aware of her surroundings, and can't function as a normal human being. However, I think the alternative we've come up with (based on inconclusive assumptions) would be far worse.

-JP

[Michael Fornal]

I'm not buying all that. Do you not know what "persitent vegetative state with no chance of recovery" means? She is fucking dead. Every appointed doctor has declared she has no chance to recover. Her neocortex is gone - that alone is the final nail in the coffin, IMO. That's not going to change. She's not going to get better.

She's not like a mentally retarted person that can't feed herself. SHE CAN'T EAT. Even if they took her off the tube and fed her something, she'd choke on it and die because she can't swallow anything. She's as good as dead.

I wish one of those dumbasses trying to smuggle her food would get in there and actually feed it to her because she would die. And i would laugh my ass off.

And I really can't wait until that witness loophole is used. When people start making up reasons to go to court and calling people on death row to testify so they can't be killed in the meantime. Way to open up that one, politicians.

I can't stand so much of what goes on in this country anymore.. it just seems like it gets worse and worse. The sole reason you're saying the courts should be allowed to step in on this is because of a stupid law that's in place to begin with (no euthanasia). People are so fucking caught up with trying to run everyone elses' lives according to their stupid beliefs that they make laws that cause things like this to occur.

[Michael Fornal]

Fuck yeah... as of 6:13AM.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/22/schiavo/index.html

[sketch]

why they think its more humane to keep this woman alive an against what she would want than to end her suffering or whatever is beyond me...

if it was my mum, sister etc then it'd b a hard desicion, but id let her die...who would want to carry on seeing her like that....

[NatrlBornThrllr]

I'm not buying all that. Do you not know what "persitent vegetative state with no chance of recovery" means? She is fucking dead. Every appointed doctor has declared she has no chance to recover. Her neocortex is gone - that alone is the final nail in the coffin, IMO. That's not going to change. She's not going to get better.

Oh really...you don't buy it? Well in that case, let's string her up in the woods and leave her to the critters. Mikey doesn't buy it, everybody...case closed.

Regardless of whether you "buy all that" or not, there is no clear evidence that she's in a PVT. A doctor from Michael Schiavo's medical team (Dr. Victor Gambone) testified that he's "surprised to see her level of awareness." 14 independent medical professionals (including 6 neurologists) have given testimony that she's not in a persistent vegetative state. So thanks for the condescending and extremely assuming dictionary.com reference, but I'm well aware of what her alleged condition is. My point is that there's no certainty in regard to whether or not she is, indeed, in a PVT. No chance of recovery? Perhaps...but that's the case with plenty of disabled people. The issue is whether or not she's in a vegetative state, and that hasn't yet been confirmed. It's as simple as that.


She's not like a mentally retarted person that can't feed herself. SHE CAN'T EAT. Even if they took her off the tube and fed her something, she'd choke on it and die because she can't swallow anything. She's as good as dead.

As of about 6 months ago, there's never once been any medical dispute of her ability to swallow. Cite a reputable source to the contrary, please. And in the event that a doctor has made this claim since I last heard, a lot of her debilitations were formerly eased by (or even ceased altogether due to) various forms of therapy, therapy that Michael Schiavo has been denying her outright for 10 years, and therapy that could help her to be able to swallow (in the same way that it helped her to stop certain involuntary contractions, and so forth).


And I really can't wait until that witness loophole is used. When people start making up reasons to go to court and calling people on death row to testify so they can't be killed in the meantime. Way to open up that one, politicians.

Because that doesn't already happen.

-JP

[AssMaster²]

I think she needs to die. I know if I was her state, I would not want to drag down my family. I do not think she will recover. And what if she does? Let her die, and we will never know if she is gonna recover. Let her move on to whatever comes next and quit holding her down.

[Michael Fornal]

Well, thankfully you're not a judge, JP.

Also, humorous:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2270&e=4&u=/krwashbureau/20050322/ts_krwashbureau/_bc_braindamagedwoman_bush_wa_1


WASHINGTON - The federal law that President Bush (news (http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/krwashbureau/ts_krwashbureau/_bc_braindamagedwoman_bush_wa/14646219/*http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news?fr=news-storylinks&p=%22President%20Bush%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw) - web sites (http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/krwashbureau/ts_krwashbureau/_bc_braindamagedwoman_bush_wa/14646219/*http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=web-storylinks&p=President%20Bush)) signed early Monday in an effort to prolong Terri Schiavo's life appears to contradict a right-to-die law that he signed as Texas governor, prompting cries of hypocrisy from congressional Democrats and some bioethicists.

In 1999, then-Gov. Bush signed the Advance Directives Act, which lets a patient's surrogate make life-ending decisions on his or her behalf. The measure also allows Texas hospitals to disconnect patients from life-sustaining systems if a physician, in consultation with a hospital bioethics committee, concludes that the patient's condition is hopeless.

[Michael Fornal]

As of about 6 months ago, there's never once been any medical dispute of her ability to swallow. Cite a reputable source to the contrary, please.

Care to share, then, why she will die of hunger/thirst if the tube is taken out of her?

Oh, maybe she's just having a fit and being stubborn, you know conscientiously objecting to eating. OH WAIT! That'd require an actual conscience!

Someone is wasting some serious money keeping that lump of flesh breathing.
Now, kids... this is why you don't throw up your food after you eat it. you'll become a veggie girl that people will force to stay alive to give them some false notion that the brain will magically dump all the spinal fluids out and regrow the brain that has decayed.

And I'm not sure what you're talking about on the dictionary.com reference.

[NatrlBornThrllr]

Care to share, then, why she will die of hunger/thirst if the tube is taken out of her?

Sure.

The courts had only allowed removal of Terri's feeding tube, not regular food and water. Terri's husband illegally ordered this. The law only allows the removal of "life-prolonging procedures," not regular food and water:

She'll die of hunger/thirst because they're offering her no nutrition whatsoever. They're not just removing her feeding tube and letting her live/die based on whether she can or can't consume nutrients naturally...they're disallowing her feeding tube and regular food and water, on her husband's command.


Oh, maybe she's just having a fit and being stubborn, you know conscientiously objecting to eating. OH WAIT! That'd require an actual conscience!

Ah, good ol' sarcasm...the first sign that somebody can't come up with a valid response.


Someone is wasting some serious money keeping that lump of flesh breathing.

That "lump of flesh" responds to stimuli, tries to communicate verbally, follows limited commands (granted, only some of the time), laughs or cries in interaction with loved ones, physically distances herself from irritating or painful stimulation, and watches people as they move around her. I'll reiterate the one point I've repeated through both of my previous posts: there is no conclusive evidence to state that she's just a "lump of flesh," no matter how many times you try to drive that point home.


Now, kids... this is why you don't throw up your food after you eat it. you'll become a veggie girl that people will force to stay alive to give them some false notion that the brain will magically dump all the spinal fluids out and regrow the brain that has decayed.

Ah, yes...more sarcasm.

I guess you hoped your sarcastic ramblings would hide the fact that you didn't respond to any of the following:


there is no clear evidence that she's in a PVS. A doctor from Michael Schiavo's medical team (Dr. Victor Gambone) testified that he's "surprised to see her level of awareness." 14 independent medical professionals (including 6 neurologists) have given testimony that she's NOT in a persistent vegetative state.

a lot of her debilitations were formerly eased by (or even ceased altogether due to) various forms of therapy, therapy that Michael Schiavo has been denying her outright for 10 years, and therapy that could help her to be able to swallow (in the same way that it helped her to stop certain involuntary contractions, and so forth).

No chance of recovery? Perhaps...but that's the case with plenty of disabled people. The issue is whether or not she's in a vegetative state, and that hasn't yet been confirmed. It's as simple as that.

One last thing...if the family wants her alive, what benefit is there to killing her? Her husband? He got engaged to another woman in 1997. Given that, I'll assume that he's moved on with his life (at least, for his new wife's sake, I hope he has). The rest of her family hasn't...they're still there with her however frequently. So why starve her to death? If she's not alert to her surroundings, then she's not really suffering, is she? And if she's alert to her surroundings, starving her to death via neglect would technically be no different from (or less illegal than) performing an assisted suicide (worse, even, since you're not really certain if you have the person's consent).

-JP

[AssMaster²]

You would think yall would get along better, considering you are going to his house and shit.

[NatrlBornThrllr]

Yeah, but he's making me cook for him. The least I can do is turn his simple post into a raging debate that will last pages and pages, weeks and weeks.

...or something.

-JP

[AssMaster²]

Touche. Poisen him if he does not give into your point of view, even though I agree with him. Poisening him would be funny though.

[Michael Fornal]

Kyle agrees with me and that's good enough for me. Not to mention the courts and the majority of america. I won't lose any sleep over your bleeding heart arguments.


;) I never get to use that.

[AssMaster²]

Ha, Mike said bleeding heart. That makes me happy.

[NatrlBornThrllr]

Kyle agrees with me and that's good enough for me. Not to mention the courts and the majority of america. I won't lose any sleep over your bleeding heart arguments.


;) I never get to use that.

Apparently you won't (see also: can't) come up with a valid response to them, either. :D

-JP

[AssMaster²]

Using a feeding tube on her is forcing her to eat. If she has any chance of recovery, she needs to be able to take substinace(sp?) on her own, or at the very least be able to request it or give some sign to that is what she wants. Even a baby can cry when she is hungry. Now is she starts screaming to eat but can not swallow, by all means put the feeding tube back in. As for now let the poor woman alone and let her misery end.