Journal bmetzler's Journal: Today We Kill A Defenseless Victim 52
Today Terri Schiavo is scheduled to be starved to death. There is a lot of debate over whether she wishes to live or not, but she cannot tell us, even though she can laugh, and respond to music and track things with her eyes. However, if society does wish to kill her, starving her is the most inhumane way of doing it. Death must always be quick and painless.
If we were to starve a cat or a dog, society would judge us harshly. We cannot even starve a death row inmate who has brutally taken the life of another. But we can starve the life of a helpless person, just because they cannot speak to us their pain. This seems like something a modern world would not do, but yet today, at noon, we will do it. Again.
Not over yet (Score:2)
She may or may not be brain dead, I honestly don't know. But if an error is to be made, it's always better to err on the side of life.
Re:Not over yet (Score:1)
are you sure you're not my boss? he just came into the NOC and had a good half-hour rant, er, I mean debate on that same issue.
Re:Not over yet (Score:2)
Re:Not over yet (Score:1)
Ha! My boss drives a blue Honda Civic, or a white Ford Truck.
She's dead already (Score:2)
Let the woman die already. Stop FORCING her to live when she cannot be beneficial to society. A few remaining reflexes do not constitute life.
Re:She's dead already (Score:2)
A heartbeat does not a life make.
Re:She's dead already (Score:2)
Re:She's dead already (Score:3, Insightful)
While I don't neccessariy disagree with a right to die, and am even sympathetic to assisted suicide, I reject the test you suggest here. That someone is not beneficial to society should not be the standard that we use in our modern socienty to justify euthanasia. By that particular standard many elderly, handicapped, and mentally ill people would be eligible for euthanasia.
No, I don't have a precisely formulated alternative, but I'd pro
Re:She's dead already (Score:2)
But why shouldn't it be? This woman is a drain on society, and all of us are nonethebetter for her being alive. Its a false hope that she will EVER return from this state, and there is a chance that the equipment that she's tying up at the hospital could be used to save someone with a chance to have a higher quality of life. I'm sure she has perfectly usable organs that could go to those in n
Re:She's dead already (Score:2)
Minnesota, like many other states I'm sure, has a shortage of nursing home beds. Nursing homes are FULL of people who are just lying there, unable to take care of themselves in any way, and totally unable to provid
Re:She's dead already (Score:3, Insightful)
Before my Great-Grandmother finally died of it, she forgot how to feed herself, and a nurse had to spoon feed her like a baby.
I recently saw a program where a man who was also in a permanent vegetative state partially woke up after 19 years. He thought his 19 year old daughter was his wife, and was (and is) bewildered a bit, and likely brain damaged, but very much alive.
I don't know if Terri Schiavo will eve
Re:She's dead already (Score:2)
Re:She's dead already (Score:2)
How much is she costing me, either as a taxpayer or as a user of medical insurance? something greater than zero
So - I guess her husband and I have something in common if you buy into that theory. A millionare offered him a million to walk away, and he didn't. That says something to me like he is honoring her wishes.
Re:She's dead already (Score:2)
not to mention the sheer amount of money he has probably spent on legal fees, medical consultations etc. This poor guy is clearly not in it for the money, and perhaps his life is the true tragedy here (its going to be ruined forever, both by th initial emotional trauma and then the subsequent 15 years, not to mention the slander et al)
Re:She's dead already (Score:1)
Good question. Since you and people like you are the ones that are gunning for the laws and personal rights governing this issue to be circumvented by the federal government's meddling in the name of this one case, why don't you answer? Michael Schiavo is the person who is to rightfully make medical decisions concerning his wife because we recognize that individuals who are incapacitated need to have their private matt
Re:She's dead already (Score:2)
Re:She's dead already (Score:2)
Just because her heart continues to beat, doesn't mean she's alive. If that was the case, I could keep myself alive eternally with enough batteries.
Re:She's dead already (Score:2)
Re:She's dead already (Score:2)
The truth is, the Doctors have diagnosed her, there have been second and third opinions, and the parents don't want to believe that thier little girl is dead.
Her parents are not neurologists. She is not waking up. No amount of hand wrenching will convince me otherwise.
Re:She's dead already (Score:1)
Fact: The state courts that have heard this case have not decided against that, and have, in fact, sided with this opinion.
I will take the opinion of medical professionals over the opinion of a layperson's website - especially when the maintainers of that site are currently embroiled in a national political feeding frenzy and have a great many reasons to provide partially accurate, untested,
Re:She's dead already (Score:2)
Re:She's dead already (Score:2)
I don't know about you- but the woman I saw in the video tape on the news most certainly was NOT PVS. For one, she had mobility of her arms, though limited, her eyes move (PVS patients don't), and she attempts to communicate. PVS patients can't.
Only ONE thing argues for removal of her feeding system- money, profit to society. Decisions based on profit are not morally valid.
Re:She's dead already (Score:1)
Not only that, one of the earliest signs of a possible recovery of a PVS patient is eyes following a moving object in the environment. Terri Schiavo can do this to a limited extent, but has been in PVS for so long t
Re:She's dead already (Score:2)
True enough- but this patient actually DOES react to stimulus. Therefore- can't be Vegitative, because Vegitative patients do NOT respond to stimulus.
Not only that, one of the earliest signs of a possible recove
Re:She's dead already (Score:1)
Therefore- can't be Vegitative, because Vegitative patients do NOT respond to stimulus.
Yes, they do. This is well documented. The brain stem is undamaged so control of involuntary reactions is present. This is evidenced perfectly by the fact that she breathes and beats her heart on her own. If you don't believe this, go smack your wife in the knee with a rubber hammer. She'll kick. Just like Terri will. Go pick up a hot coal, you'll (at least attempt to) drop it. Just like Terri w
Re:She's dead already (Score:2)
Re:She's dead already (Score:1)
That's a rather fascinating claim considering that the parents themselves once tried to get a stay in order to perform swallow tests to see if she actually could swallow.... and then bitched and moaned and whined because they weren't allowed to try and give her swallow therapy. Question: if she can already swallow, why did they ask for swallow tests and therapy?
Who needs a neurologist to see that the english words used in the diagnosis are inaccurate? Do you always check with a neurologis
Re:She's dead already (Score:2)
If you'll note- they weren't allowed to conduct those tests and give her that therapy merely because Michael wouldn't allow it and he's the guardi
it's all about feeling good about ourselves (Score:1)
But it probably does go a long way towards evidently the more important purpose, for those who don't like to think too much about these kinds of things, of assuaging guilt and helping them tell themselves that they actually aren't killing someone. There would be much more cognitive dissonance, and the risk of unpleasant and undesired feelings, if she were put down like a dog. We can't let anything interfere with h
Re:it's all about feeling good about ourselves (Score:1)
Ah, she'll just be comfortably float
Her case, in summary (Score:1)
Re:Her case, in summary (Score:1)
How about this: NORMAL, INTELLIGENT people think that it's more important for next of kin and loved ones to decide a person's fate than the federal government.
I don't CARE if Michael Schiavo wants his wife to die. It's not my problem if they didn't have a strong, healthy relationship. It's not Congress's problem, it's not Bush's problem, and it's not the federal court's problem. What are you going to ask for next, that because all this happened Congress draft laws requiring that all
Re:Her case, in summary (Score:1)
On this matter, Brent, you are dead wrong. You do not know the history of this case. That much is obvious. You do not understand that there is nothing special about this case except the stink over it. That much is obvious. You have never been in the situation of watching a terminally ill person suffer to their dying breath. That much is obvious.
No, Brent. You are so wrong on this i
Re:Her case, in summary (Score:1)
Go through everything at TerrisFight.net [terrisfight.net] and tell us this again. There are ample pieces of evidence to support the idea that she could improve some through therapy that she has not been allowed to have. There is enough information there to make me wonder if Terri's condition was a result of physical abuse on the part of Michael Schiavo. There's enough there that some doctors are on the record stating that she is not in a "
Re:Her case, in summary (Score:1)
No. They have a vested interest in using misleading or falsified information. In the last several deays, I've read through several of the relevant sections of the court decisions, numerous doctors' medical opinions on the matter, and relevant legal findings relating to Michael Schiavo's clearcut right to decide on his wife's medical treatment. If you have other sources of information, provide them.
There is enough information there to make me wonder if Terri's c
Re:Her case, in summary (Score:1)
She isn't being kept alive through artificial means.
IF that waste of human flesh that is her husband would allow the therapists to work with Terri, she COULD learn to eat again. She hasn't been without a feeding tube for fifteen years. She WILL NOT take to solid food immediately. It
Re:Her case, in summary (Score:1)
What is your profession and/or educational background, Timex? Because I'm guessing it has nothing to do with anything that would make you even remotely qualified to make that statement. So please excuse me if I take my opinion on her medical status from, you know, her medical professionals, rather than you.
If you really believe that a feeding tube is an artificial means of life su
Re:Her case, in summary (Score:1)
What would it matter to YOU? I can read just as well as anyone. There are doctors that have disagreed with the doctors that Michael Schiavo has chosen for this case. As far as I know, the courts refuse to take their opinions seriously because their opinions were not requested by Terri's "guardian".
What are YOUR qualifications? Are you a medical expert? A lawyer, perhaps? If you're neither, then you are in the same position I am. All I've
Re:Her case, in summary (Score:1)
Hardly. Unlike you, I'm working from the facts: the accepted legal and medical opinions that have been exhaustively reviewed repeatedly, all to the same conclusion: Theresa Schaivo is in a PVS and it is her husband's right to refuse additional medical "care" on her behalf.
Can you, or can you not, overturn the opinions of those professionals? It's quite simple. If you can,
Re:Her case, in summary (Score:1)
You know, you make a LOT of noise for someone that doesn't care if she lives or dies.
Has it ever occured to you that Schiavo and/or his chosen doctors might actually be wrong? Everything I have seen about this case seems like Terri is being railroaded. No, I don't know why, and I am not going to argue on that point. It's just an observation.
And it's cute that you've foed me just because you can't make your point. Most people foe me because I'm mean and
Re:Her case, in summary (Score:1)
THEN PROVE IT. What the hell is so complicated that you're not getting it? You can sit here and tell me that you think Osama Bin Laden isn't a terrorist but I'm not going to believe it because all the evidence says otherwise.
You don't HAVE a position. You don't have anything except your bizarre insistence that this woman's recognized rights should taken away because YOU don't think that people should be taken off li
Re:Her case, in summary (Score:1)
The PROBLEM here is that nobody has that kind of time (Terri Schiavo will be dead within two weeks, if her husband has his way). The website I told you about THAT YOU REFUSE TO FSCKING GO TO has all kinds of stuff from people that ALREADY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT, sign
Re:Her case, in summary (Score:1)
- Prove Michael Schiavo is unfit to be Theresa's legal guardian
- Prove that there is sufficient doubt as to Theresa's wish to be removed from life support
- Prove that there is anything short of extreme measures (actually, there are no measures) that could restore this woman's previous condition in some part or co
Re:Her case, in summary (Score:1)
Re:Her case, in summary (Score:2)
Again.
Re:Her case, in summary (Score:1)
Well, we have a dilemma here. On the one hand, we have a weasel who is (if you will pardon the expression) a piss-poor excuse for a husband who wants Terri to die because he says that was what she wanted. There is no other evidence whatsoever to support that position. Nothing from other family members, nothing from friends. On the other hand,
Re:Her case, in summary (Score:1)
Again: it is the right of any individual to refuse excessive medical treatment (ANY medical treatment, actually). When an individual becomes incompetent, the next of kin bears the responsibility for exercising that person's rights by-proxy. Michael Schiavo petitioned the courts to decide, based on all the evidence everyone had, how Theresa would have wanted that done. The c
Re:Her case, in summary (Score:1)
Re:Her case, in summary (Score:1)
There is nothing that allows the guardian of a disabled person to refuse any serious attempts at therapy, in normal circumstances such as this, short of will and/or money, and when you can point me at one example I will print this page off and eat it. You're just making things up now. In fact, quite the contrary, th