TERRY SCHIAVO, Was her death necessary, or precedent?

[mamadadawahwah]

I am sickened by the american government's failure to act to protect the weak and vulnerable and worry that Terry's death is just a prelude to what is going to happen in the future, despite living wills. Was her death a test case to see how the world reacts to shutting off life support? It was all so cold and something stinks about the whole thing. God Bless Terry and her family!. God knows what they must have gone through.

[Flossam]

Flame Sparrow, I would argue that she had had a long drawn out death for 14 years. 12 days is a small (although not small enough) cost to be allowed to die. Had attempts been made at euthanasia the case would be lost and she would still be existing.

[velcrobott]

No- but Terri's parents fought for 7 years and they lost every decision !

[flamesparrow]

I think that if the person has made the living will - and has told everyone that they have done it, surely it can't be overthrown???

[velcrobott]

Would that stop someone's parents believing that their child meant or thought otherwise - this is a general question... not specific to this case. I think you will always have strong believers who will fight on topics like this.

[flamesparrow]

I just hope that this case has taught as many of us as possible that we should make a living will as well as a dying one. So that our wishes are clear, and no-one is put through this decision

[beatie]

Yes, I think you have to look at the most basic facts.

Terri said that she never wanted to be kept alive for a long time in a vegetative state. Imagine how horrified she'd be to know that, not only were her wishes not respected, but her picture of her in this state has appeared on thousands of newsreports and TV programmes and that she has been debated in countelss courts of law so that someone (be it her parents) could go against her wishes.

Perhaps her parents have some answering to do. I'd hate to think this could happen to me. It's nobody's business but the woman and her husband who was granted the right - legally through marriage - to act upon her wishes.

[lljkk]

I find the amount of misinformation & misunderstanding on this thread very disturbing. God forbid any government ever tramples on my wishes by assuming they ("the government") knows what I would really want.

[velcrobott]

I know what you mean..... would she have been through this if medical "advance" was the way it is.... some decades ago she would have died 15 years ago!

[flamesparrow]

Her death was long and drawn out, and made the family suffer, regardless of whether she could feel the pain. Murderers get enough respect for a quick injection.

[velcrobott]

Flame- there are a lot of people who would dispute the word starvation in HER condition... starvation has an emotional connotation as well.

[flamesparrow]

I have many many views on this, where I have tried to look at it from all the different angles until my head exploded.

The only thing I was certain about was that she should not be starved to death. This is the situation that calls for legalising euthanasia, so that she could have been let go quickly, and peacefully.

12 days of starvation IS barbaric, helping a woman who has no life and no chance of recovery to die in a gentle, fast way would not have been.

[beatie]

MP - The Pope! Ahhh yes - that is a whole other post but I'm willing to bet I'd agree with everything you have to say

[Prettybird]

Andrew Sullivan's Comment , in the Sunday Times, gives a very different persepctive from manoy of the veiws on here.

He points out that the husband had gone to a lot of effort to keep her alive - and that her parents had initially supported him in trying to sort out a new life and new relationships. Not the actions aof a callous man as some had been making out.

I also find particularly sad that the "pro life" attitude of the politicians - for example, Bush ?it is wise to always err on the side of life?, does not seem to extend to the death warrants he signed as governor of Texas, with the most cursory of legal reviews, and - especially sad, - the case where an 8 year old's life support gets switched off because his parents couldn't afford to keep it going

Cynical, moi?

[morningpaper]

So sad, Earlybird. Very profound thoughts.

[Earlybird]

I haven't read the entire thread, so this is a "stand alone" post.

My ex is a journalist in Florida. He sent me an email a few days ago, and I have excerpted his comments about the case below:

"yes, i'm covering the schiavo case. at least i wrote two stories about it. one from the schindlers' position. one from the husband's. i don't think there's anything complicated about the case at all. she's got no cerebral cortex. she doesn't know she exists. the facial movements and grunts are natural for someone in a persistent vegetative state. she feels nothing. it is the humane thing to do ... after seven years of duking it out in the courts. the president, the governor and the congress should be ashamed of themselves for getting involved. tom delay, the majority leader who called the removal of her feeding tube "an act of barbarism," is the biggest hypocrite of them all. turns out he did exactly the same thing to his father in 1988. what a bunch of scumbags. as to the husband, he has turned down $10 million to release terri to the parents. he has not sought publicity and has been trying to pull the plug since 1998. i think she'll die tonight. but the truth is she died in 1990."

[morningpaper]

Velcro: I thought those comments were unbelievable too!

[velcrobott]

Am I the only who thinks this is wrong? '"We promised the Schindler family that we will not let Terri die in vain," Mr DeLay said.

"We will look at an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at Congress and the president.""

Thumbed their nose at congress and the president...... PLEEEAAAASSSEEEEE......

[morningpaper]

beatie: good posts.

I find the posts on here slagging off her husband really upsetting - it is well known that there is no evidence against the poor man and he fought to keep her alive for the first few years, just as her parents did. Her parents have tried to paint him as a monster because they have a strong (religious) interest in proceedings, and lots of parents would do anything to keep their child 'alive.'

I think it raises interesting questions about how much we SHOULD intervene and how many times we should resuscitate people (how many times should we resuscitate the Pope?! Ah different thread!). Science could keep most of us alive in a comatose state after we had 'died' - would we want it to? And how early should we keep alive miscarried/premature babies? 24 weeks? 20 weeks? There comes a point when we have difficult decisions to make.

Personally, I would not want to be in a coma in a vegetative state, at a massive cost that could save thousands of lives in other countries.

RE his new relationship: I would not expect my DH to celibately remain by my bedside for 15 years!!! He's young, and deserves a chance of a family.

[velcrobott]

Hear hear Beatie !

[beatie]

"The now obviously corrupt leaders of the Christian right, the liberal left, the religious leaders of this nation, the court system, and even the radical feminists have now declared by their inaction that the murder of an innocent woman is acceptable!"

The only body who had a right to intervene and make a decision about this case was the legal system. 25 times they came out in favour of the husband. That is not a failure of the legal system. That is consistency.

[beatie]

It is very sad that it had to come to this and neither side can be perceived as having 'won'.

I think a lot of people are making presumptions about her estranged husband. The man was committed to ensuring Terri's wishes were carried out. It's not his fault the parents contested this and it took many years and many legal battles for this to actually happen.

FIFTEEN YEARS he has been grieving. For FIFTEEN YEARS he has been in limbo. There are accounts of how devoted and loyal and loving a husband he has been to her over the years, how he dressed her and put her makeup on, and how at some point he and her doctors realized that recovery was not going to happen. Only then did he decide to allow her to die, which he believed was in accordance with her own wishes and this was corroberated by multiple witnesses. I hope that if, God forbid, anything like this would happen to me, that my DH would love me enough to let me go. I would not expect him to go for years and years without falling in love again. Actually, I would hope that he would. It could be a very lonely and empty life otherwise.

As for saying she died an undignified death - this is also a presumption many people are making.

A American friend told me about an interesting article in the paper about the starvation issue and had this to say about it. "

First there is the fact that the media has picked up on the word "starvation" as opposed to other ways of describing what is happening. That is interesting because of the emotional reaction that most people have to that word, and the mental images it conjures for most of us. Most of us associate "starvation" with the famished feeling we have when we haven't eaten for an entire day, or when we have fasted for a long period of time (like a religious 24-hour or longer fast).

There is a lot of reason to believe that this is not what patients who have feeding tubes removed experience. There is a body of research regarding patients who are cognitively intact and who choose to stop eating and to die that way, and these people report a feeling of relief and euphoria. Contrary to what we might expect, forced medical feeding is actually worse for them to experience than going without it. If a cognitively intact patient experiences that, can't we assume that somebody who has severe brain damage, and probably no ability to perceive pain or pleasure, would not experience much of anything when a feeding tube is removed? The article made the point that dying due to lack of nutrition is very, very common in nature, even sofar as to call it the "norm" in nature, and that our bodies are prepared for that, and protect us from suffering in that instance. "

[colinsmommy]

Wow, mamadada. . what an interesting view you've been presenting. Nothing like what's been going on in the media here for weeks. You can't turn on a news program without having the Terri Schaivo case on for a long time here. There have been many religious leaders speaking out and many protesters plastered all over the news for much longer than the past 13 days.

She did have her family to "take care" of her, but the money was running down to the last few thousand dollars, and to continue her life, she would have had to go on welfare, because the cost of prolonging her life would have been more than anyone could provide. Hospice care isn't free here, it takes thousands upon thousands of dollars every month to provide for the needs of the patient.

Not that I'm trying to get into a debate about the ethics of the case, or saying that Terri didn't have a right to live, but having read through all of this thread, I just have to say, much of how you say this whole case has been presented just isn't really how its been portrayed here at all.

[sparklymieow]

Just makes you think what will happen to all the premature babies that are starved of oxygen at birth or have grade III bleeds? Will they all be straved to death? How can that be humane??

[mamadadawahwah]

Sparkly, your guess is as good as mine.

[sparklymieow]

why didn't he want Tery to have therapy???