Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Terri Schiavo

Sorry if there is a thread about this else where. I was just wondering what people think about this. This is the brain damaged lady who has had her food and water tubes removed.

Personnaly I know I wouldn't want to live like that and I really dont see the point of perpetualy keeping her alive in a vegative state. However by just removing her food and water tubes and letting her die of dehydration is a nasty way to let somebody die. I think the best thing to do would be to give her a painless injection. I realise most people wont agree with this but Im intrested how others feel.

I'm with you there Polar - leaving her to die over the course of a number of days is a bastard of a way to go. And sooooooo undignified.

I think we'd all like to die with a certain amount of dignity.

It's Terri Schiavo, and yes, it's a very unfortunate case all around. Tragic that someone so young suffered such a terrible injury. Tragic that her parents can't let go and realize their daughter effectively died 15 years ago. Unfortunate that, if indeed she had stated she would not want to live thus, Terri didn't put her wishes in a living will. Truly unfortunate that the current administration seems to have chosen this as a platform and is senselessly attacking our civil liberties to push their faith-based agenda.

Bush and the Republicans have far exceeded their station here, and I'm thankful that the judicial system thus far has repelled their efforts. From the ruling by the 11th circuit Court of Appeals, in response to the parents' 2nd appeal:

"There is no denying the absolute tragedy that has befallen Mrs. Schiavo. We all have our own family, our own loved ones, and our own children. However, we are called upon to make a collective, objective decision concerning a question of law."

Euthanasia is still a sticky subject; I support it. If my MS ever debilitated me to the point where I couldn't enjoy my life, or any other unforeseen illness, I want the option to end it on my terms. But I can see the potential for abuse. John Doe is 82, on life support and out of $$, so Dr. "X" decides it's "in the patient's best interests" not to prolong his life.

I truly feel for Terri and her family, but has she made any real, quantifiable improvement since her illness? The parents seem to feel she could improve with therapy; has that been tried at all in teh last FIFTEEN years? I think their (undrstandable) love for their daughter has clouded their judgment and assessment of her prognosis.

Wow. Gotta say,POV, that you and i are from far, far, far different sides here.

I believe in the right to choose your own death, as long as you are mentally capable of making that decision on your own. The problem here is that you are confusing politics with murder. Thats right, i said murder. And i do not say it lightly.

Terry Shiavo has done nothing that would cause a court to sentence her to death. Yet that is what those cowardly, murderous judges are doing. And before you say what do i know about it...here is what i know.

I know that there are just as many "experts" that say that she can regain a certain quality of life as there are that say she cannot. One of whom is a nobel prize nominee. There are affidavits by nurses and doctors that testify that she is not "persistently vegatative", that she has responses. I also know that there are affidavits that say the "husband", if you can call that murderous bastard that, has repeated said "is the bitch dead yet", and 'can we do anything to speed it up". I know that he has started a family with another woman while married to the woman he promised to love, honor, and cherish in sickness and in health, so he is a proven liar. I know that no one else ever remembered her having told others that she wouldn't want to live like that, and yet when he gets a nice big fat settlement, suddenly he remembers that she wouldn't want to live that way.

I know that there are even more questions as to the manner in which she came to be in this predicament in the first place. And the murderous bastard trying to have the people of florida murder this poor woman is the prime suspect.

As to the civil liberties of this particular case and their ramification, let me say this...

My sister is mentally retarded thanks to an incompetent doctor at her birth. She doesn't have a "quality of life" like you and I. So, what is to stop some judge somewhere if something happened to me and the rest of my family from ordering that she not be fed, housed, or cared for?

Not one goddamn thing. Thats what.

And that is why, even though i don't see this as political, but as fools helping a murderer, i wouldn't piss on a liberal or democrat that would go along with this, or a republican or conservative that did either.

But if you really want to get into the political side, lets look at who stands for what. Libs are pro-abortion, the murder of a fetus, pro-starvation, the horrible murder of an otherwise living human being, and yes, even though i agree with it in controled circumstances, pro-euthansia.

Pro death, pro death, pro death.

That doesn't really say much for those that profess to be the party of the little people, that profess to love and care for them like no other party.

Oh, and no, no therapy has been allowed by the murderous husband in the last fifteen years, not even therapy to help her relearn to eat, which the doctors and nurses all say she could accomplish.

NO therapy, at all, in any way, shape or form.

I hate to say this, but it is going to come down to someone killing Michael Shiavo and returning custody to the family for her to live. And if that was the case and i was on the jury, the person that killed him wouldn't serve one more single day than the term they spent waiting for the conclusion of the trial.

You've heard of cop assisted suicide? This is court assisted murder, plain and simple.

Getting away from the legal aspects... What IS the husband's dealie here? He's apparently got a longtime girlfriend, with kids. And it's obvious the parents would take over Terri's care. Why hasn't he just divorced her and gone on with his life?

Not going to start a flame war but I have to point out one thing.

You cannot claim to be a Nobel prize nominee. Nobel Prize nominees are not publicly announced and they are not supposed to be told that they were ever considered for the prize. The records are sealed for 50 years. Dr. William Hammesfahr claims to have been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology in 1999. Unless I pulled a Rip Van Winkle that was only six years ago. The claims he uses to support his nomination come from individuals and organizations who don't even have the ability to nominate someone. He's just playing to the ignorant masses.

From everything i have heard, he is, LL. That said, no i haven't seen the list. So leave that out. You still have many, many many doctors just as reputable as the ones the murderous husband uses to say she is in a persistent vegetative state. Just looking at the video we have been shown, it clearly shows that she is NOT in that state.

And other than for food and water, she is not on life support. As far as i know, people still have to feed and water infants to keep them alive. I don't see this as being any different.

Some people seem only to happy to murder this woman, but if you do the same thing to a horse or a dog, you get arrested, tried, and if found guilty, convicted and possibly serve time. A real, live, human being just doesn't seem to matter as much to these people.

Sorry, folks. I stand by every thing i have said here, but the cussing was inexcusable, especially since i don't use any diety's name in vain, ever. But this is one time that i wont delete it. If an mod chooses too, i won't object.

I just can't go along with the willful murder of a helpless innocent. This woman never killed anyone. She is the ultimate case of punish the victim.

But if she indeed did not wish to live like this, hasn't she been punished unjustly for the last FIFTEEN YEARS?!

Pov, no one knows. The murderous husband is a proven liar. No one else ever heard her say that she wouldn't want to live like that. Her friends have signed affidavits saying that they never did. Her family never heard it.

Your arguement is for the murder of someone that has no way to let people know if that was her express wish. LIFE is not punnishment. But the slow, horrible, agonizing death by dehydration is a monumental deprivation, torture in the extreme.

There are signed affidavits saying she said words like "mom" and "dad" and help. There is an affadivit that her murderous husband left her room after 20 minutes once, a nurse noticed that she was white, shaking and sweating, and that she had no noticable sugar in her bloodstream after testing her for it. There was also an empty vial of insulin in the trash hidden underneath some other waste.

Insulin is a sugar blocker and to those that do not need it, a horrible poison that can easily kill. My dad is a diabetic, i know about this.

If nothing else, Jeb Bush should take her into protective custody until a full investigation of her murderous husband can be done. Where is the money from the settlement for her rehab that the "husband" has never allowed? What if we the courts are turning an attempted murder into murder outright? LIFE is more important than precedent and judicial worship of their new religion called LAW!

And yes, Pov, if it came to that, and you couldn't do the deed for yourself, but were of sound mind and made the decision to end your life, i would support you, and if necessary, aid you. But this poor woman, a human, is not being given a chance to recover any.

Corrected the thread name to proper spelling

Matt

mur·der ( P ) Pronunciation Key (mûrdr)
n.
The unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice.

Slang. Something else else that is very uncomfortable, difficult, or hazardous: The rush hour traffic is murder.

A flock of crows.
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It isn't what you're saying Rik, it's how you're saying it. The over abundance of emotionally intense perjoratives is what's bothering me here. This is the sort of topic that requires careful consideration and tactful debate not the careless labelling of "the enemy" as "pro-death".

That's exactly the sort of thing that's turning Americans against this administration and it's illegal actions around the world. "With us or against us" is just as stupid as "Bring 'em on." You're not going to convince people to support your side when you habitually refer to them as felons.

You lost me rick everytime you wrote "murderous husband."

All you have is what you have read and heard. And I am sorry, but whatever you read and hear can be inherantly bias by the source or motivation.

If everything has been done to help the person and it has been proven pointless, then I have to say let her die. But if you what you say is true, then she deserves the benefit of any help she can get.

The probelm here is that this has been the flashpoint in the debate and all focus is on this dilema. All sides and motivations are being so scrutinzed, emotions are running so high that I don't think anyone can really have a fair shake.
Not to oversimplfy things, but in the end it is who you believe. The husband who says that his wife never wished to live like this or the parents fighting for thier daughter.
And if you don't believe, in this case the husband, you can always find something and spin it to your advantage or to cast doubt on the person.

But let me say this in the end, yes if she is being deined care or never given treatment, then yes reinstate the feeding tube and start the treament process.


On a sidenote, it's interesting that converstatives always seems to want to regulate our morals and values and how we should live. Happy Easter everyone.

When a politician or bureaucrat thus stomps on the Bill of Rights -- the Ninth and Tenth Amendments -- to intervene in YOUR private decision about YOUR spouse or close relative, will you be this calm? Will you so blithely smear everyone who sees the ethical issues differently from you as supporting "murder"?

And did you notice I said "when," not "if"?

Nobody notices, with this putrescent circus of grand-standing surrounding this forlorn piece of protoplasm -- she has no working cerebral cortex, she is not in any conceivable sense (literally) a human being any longer -- that the controversy has pushed any discussion of the Iraq slaughter, and the funding just approved to continue it, off the front pages.

That's what those in power want. All this fervent screaming about such a case, gutting the rule of law, and nobody gives two farts in hell about innocent human beings with full cognition being destroyed, on both sides. We're truly becoming barbaric.

Three clarifications. The last was addressed to Rickshaw. What formerly was Mrs. Schiavo has no capacity to feel pain any longer, let alone react to it. And the above is calm deliberation compared to how I really feel.

Those were my thoughts exactly, Polar Boy. It's a difficult case. I hate to see someone suffer - either by living in a persistent vegetative state or by being allowed to die of starvation and dehydration.

What this does say to me, is to get off my ass and draft a directive confirming my own personal wishes about not prolonging my life in certain circumstances. I urge all of you to do the same, and make sure your personal wishes, are written down and notarized, whether those wishes be that no extraordinary measures be taken, or that you be kept alive under all circumstances. Check the laws of your state, province or country to make sure you do it properly so that it will be valid if the unthinkable happens.

The Schiavo case should be a lesson to all of us - not to put ourselves or our families through something like this.

Because no one else heard her say it, it proves he is a liar?

Tenz

...and currently "liar" is an iffy tag to be throwing at people. I don't want to start an argument about "Bushie" tactics but just remember who it is that's supposed to "cast the first stone".

"Thou shall not bear false witness" is NOT a partisan tactic. I find it to be truly sad when the Bible is ignored in favor of political opportunism by the very people that advertise their faith as the foundation for all their work.

On both sides of the aisle! There are as many hypocrits on the left as on the right using their religious/moral foundations for political reasons, we just seem to ignore our own and focus on those of the opposition.

Indeed there are, that's why I was trying to make clear how I feel about those who tout their religion as their basis for their philosophy then turn around and ignore the rules and break commandmaents as they please. The Democrats haven't made Biblical philosophy the basis for their party's platform but the Republicans have. So far they're doing a damned poor job of setting an example of living up to the words of Jesus.
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Now to play Devil's Advocate on myself and try to get back on topic, I also see the medical profession as playimg the role of Pontius Pilot and washing their hands of the matter. As long as they can get away with letting somebody else make the decision their conciences are clear. It's not necessary to kill her, if you simply follow the dictates of the court and let her die then nobody but the politicians are at fault.

Some thoughts to add to the mix [edited later to reflect corrections based on further research]:

1. The video that most of us have seen is a very small excerpt from a much longer (5-10 minutes) tape. The bits we've seen are the only moments in all that time that Terri appears to react, and then only because her mother gets right in her face.
[actually, according to the websites I've linked in a later post, the tapes are many hours long]

2. The doctors who have pronounced her in a persistent vegetative state did so after weeks of observation and testing. They were court-appointed, not in the employ of her husband Michael. The doctors who have announced that she could improve are saying so based on the few seconds of video that we have all seen and not on in-depth examination.
[not quite accurate: in the trial that determined that Terri is in a persistent vegetative state, five doctors examined her. Two were chosen by her husband, two by her parents, and one by the court. The doctors chosen by her husband and the court agreed that Terri had no hope of recovering any cognitive function; the doctors chosen by her parents were proponents of an experimental therapy that has undergone no independent review or clinical trials and therefore presented no credible evidence of possible improvement. Still, many people who have said she could improve have based that opinion on those few seconds of highly misleading video tape.]

3. This decision was not based on a single judge's, well, judgement. The case has been in the courts for some time now, through the normal appeals process and the courts did their job: they interpreted the law as it applied to the case. For Congress to get involved is a clear violation of the separation of powers and is, honestly, really frightening.

4. To say that Terri is no longer a human being is a bit much, but I would agree with anyone who said that she's no longer Terri. Her higher brain function died long ago. Keeping her body alive serves no purpose. Terri's dead; her body just hasn't figured it out yet.

5. Saying that dehydration would be a terrible way for Terri to die makes two erroneous assumptions: that Terri can still feel pain (which doctors have confirmed she can't) and that she would, in any event, be conscious for the final hours. In the course of reading about the case, I've read statements from doctors and nurses that, under conditions like those in which Terri "lives," dehydration is actually a reasonably peaceful way to go.

Overall, I find myself slightly appalled that the entire country has been involved in a case that is really a private matter between Michael Schiavo and his wife's family. Ultimately, the whole thing really isn't any of our damn business.

Ok I have had only limited access to the facts but if all that has been said about the husband is true then he sounds well dodgy.
Still the court presumably had access to all the facts so I just you have to take their judgment.
But I do think the statment about the value of a human life being less then that of a cat or dog being a bit silly. Outside of surgury I have never heard of an animal being kept on life support.

The other shame of this whole thing is Florida's laws on life support removal, which basically say that she has to starve/dehydrate.

Also, it might sound abhorrant to some of you, but I think that they (husband & family) should be allowed to donate her organs to someone in need of a transplant. If her mind is gone (which I believe it is), then maybe someone (or some people) could live through her death.

If your state has a living will law, I suggest you go and write one so that this doesn't happen to you and your true wishes are fulfilled.

That's the thing. People who don't want the feeding tube removed have tried to find things to put the husband in a bad light. They are trying to actively paint him as being a monster. And from what Director Lad said above, what people are seeing are snippets of a whole. It's too hard to try to find out what the real truth is b/c everyone feels so strongly about this topic.