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.

oh and another thing re the 'legal guardian' business - I think I'd RATHER have my DH be my legal guardian than my parents. While I'm close to my parents and they knew my views on lots of things when I was a teenager many of my 'ideals' and 'ideas' have changed since then - and as I LIVE with DH, and therefore spend most time talking to him HE is the one that has more idea about what I "Would" and "Wouldn't" like to happen to me.

Gwenick I was thinking the same.... we do not doubt for a minute that her parents loved her very much, I find it very sad that her mother could not be at her bedside... but I also know from personal experience that parents may feel they are in the right about their child when the spouse knows actually more.
My own mother would have me burried - she is deeply catholic - she WANTS this for me.... I do NOT want to be burried.... just a small example.... god forbid if my DH said no to this !

I'm very uncomfortable about the eagerness of the husband to see his wife die even though it was against her parents wishes - and the fact that he still has legal custody after 14 years of her being in a coma - maybe that is even longer than they spent together before the accident? I would hate that to happen to my son and to be unable to stop it or even be there when he died and it seems plain wrong
pretty barbaric to let someone slowly starve to death too - if you're going to kill them, why not just get on with it? I don't see how providing food and water can really be counted as 'artificial means' of keeping someone alive or as medical care - it's just part of our biological needs. Usually when I think about these kind of very sad cases, I imagine that they withdraw some vital equipment that means the person dies almost immediately or within an hour or so at most. Perhaps this is not normally the case but it is what I imagine and if I were to say that I would rather die than be kept alive in a coma for years, i would not imagine that that would mean starving me to death for over a week to achieve that end - is that really the best we can offer someone?
Frankly, if I were in a coma and had no clue about anything, was in no pain, was not aware, and my parents who brought me into this world and love me more than anyone else ever could (which I only realised when I became a mother myself) drew some kind of comfort from the fact that I was still alive, then I would be happy to let them visit me in hospital for as long as they wanted to and nothing would hurt me more than the thought that they would have to stand by and watch me die that slowly and barbarically when they wanted to save me. So don't let my sneaky dh say anything else 15 years down the line!

Well they were married in 1984 and tried to start a family.
According to the bbc: By the time Terri was 16, attending an all-girl Roman Catholic high school, she was very anxious about her weight. She weighed nearly 18 stones, but went on a diet and rapidly lost about seven stones (...) In reality, though, she had an eating disorder. Doctors believe her suspected bulimia was the primary cause of her collapse when she was 26.

If he really cared about her he would got her O.T. which he didnt. Apparently, therapy could have helped her but she never got any. It was his decision not to try. Not a very caring husband if this is true.

wow didn't realise they'd been married that long. Same lenght of time I've married to my DH - and defintely enough time for her to have expressed her wishes to her DH.........

and lets face it - how many other families have arguments/disagreements about what happens to their loved ones when they're either on their death bed, or dead?? The amount of arguments my vicar has 'overseen' is quite incredible - had the music for one funeral a few years back changed about 5 times as different family members (it was a big complicated family with remarriages all over the place) 'declared' that they wanted this that or the other.

And I found this too:
Both sides agree that they want a full autopsy and say such an examination will vindicate their positions.

At post-mortem it is possible to assess the level of damage that has occurred to the brain. This will make it clear whether there was any realistic possibility of ever regaining consciousness.

In Mrs Schiavo's case oxygen was cut off to her brain when her heart stopped beating temporarily, resulting in what is known as hypoxia.

Doctors will look for evidence of hypoxic damage to particularly vulnerable areas of the upper brain, including areas where major blood vessels meet, and deeper areas in the brain associated with consciousness.

In some cases damage can be detected on brain scans, but a post-mortem provides the opportunity to examine damage at a cellular level

Mrs Schiavo will of course be buried.

However, a dispute between Mrs Schiavo's parents and her husband appears to be developing over the funeral arrangements.

The husband has said he wants a cremation and burial on a Schiavo family plot in Pennsylvania but the parents want their daughter buried in Florida.

"Apperently" - important word there.

Lets wait and see what the autopsy says - what if this autopsy shows that she indeed had absolutely no chance of improving???

There is no proof that therapy would have helped her... I would have tried it I think but medical views on her conditions vary and quite a lot of doctors (including court appointed ones) do not believe that being in a permanant vegetative state can be helped... of course her parents said she wasn't in that state... so hopefully (though it is too late) someone will be vindicated!

From www.rense.com by Anonymous

Damn it all to hell!

For two weeks an innocent woman was allowed to be slowly murdered through the hideous torture of starvation. This woman was not a vegetable, brain dead, or comatose. She was alive, alert, responsive, could vocalize words, recognize loved ones, react to music, swallow, and was only forced to be on a feeding tube because the monster that some have speculated was responsible for her injuries and disabled state would not allow any form of physical or speech therapy. Previous nurses who cared for her have signed affidavits indicating (among other things) that they successfully fed this woman orally, but only stopped when threatened by the monster the courts consider to be her husband.

This woman had a loving and caring set of parents and siblings that would have lovingly cared for and provided her every need for the rest of her life. However, her husband could not allow that and perhaps he wanted to make sure she could never be rehabilitated and tell the world how her physical problems had been caused in the first place... perhaps by a cruel and hateful physical assault.

For almost two weeks the political and religious leaders of the world watched this innocent woman starve and did nothing to save her life. A few pieces of legislation were passed after extreme political bickering, but the vast majority of all religious leaders and politicians just sat by and allowed a murder to occur right in front of them. The so-called "Christian" (but quite often not at all Christ-like) right as a whole allowed her to die and apparently approve of an adulturous husband fathering children with another woman having moral authority over a disabled spouse, and the liberals did not lift a finger to help this woman who, it is alleged, may have been a victim of assault and now murder by an abusive husband trying to coverup his crime, the court system convicted her to death repeatedly without considering her rights as an individual or even looking at the real evidence of her condition and the situation as a whole, and of course the Bush brothers who pretend to be such moral and upright Christian citizens were just too chicken utilize their executive authority to send in the Federal Marshals and SAVE HER LIFE!

The vast majority of the world abanded Terri instead of trying to fight to prevent her murder. 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! They abandoned Terri and by doing so have proven that it is time for us to abandon any hope for moral condition of this nation, this world, our civilization, or humanity.

For goodness sakes, even the majority of LIBERTARIANS were silent! They are usually so big and bold about declaring one's authority over their own body and life, but about this situation nothing was heard from them but silence.

I have just been reading all about the case online, its upset me greatly. I know many parents who children have been starved of oxygen at birth, (mine included, luckily not severely) and are serevely disabled and are tubefed and can't talk and they are a joy!! The parents do everything to help their child and will kill for them. The whole thing is just so sad

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

Sparkly, your guess is as good as mine.

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??

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.

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. "

"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.

Hear hear Beatie !

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.

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......

Velcro: I thought those comments were unbelievable too!

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."

So sad, Earlybird. Very profound thoughts.

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?

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