Playing God [Robert Schindler Yanks Plug on Own Mother]

Guardian Unlimited (The Guardian Online) ^ | Tuesday November 4, 2003 | Suzanne Goldenberg

[GeekDejure]

Some people can't spell FreeRepublic.com

*sigh*

[niteowl77]

My wife has been an RN specializing in geriatric care for almost two decades, and she lost her father to renal cancer. Even a bystander like myself has soaked up enough knowledge during those years to be able to say that any comparison between the two cases in this piece is wilfully misleading at best, and maliciously false at worst.

[Gondring]

Yes, agreed. Tom DeLay is, too.

Now...black and white...
Either you're on the side of a person's right to self-determination, or you're on the side of tyrrany. I take the former.

[B Knotts]

Exactly. Some of the pro-deathers think this is some kind of political game, so they resort to their age-old hardball tactics.

But this isn't about any one individual, really, except Terri Schindler Schiavo, and her right to life.

Yes, there is a political aspect to this, but mainly it is an ethical and moral issue. That it has become a political issue is perhaps an indictment of the failure of our system of government to protect the rights of innocents.

[Godebert]

Signed up today, eh? I'm guessing you won't be here tommorrow.

[mcg1969]

Respiration is autonomic.
Eating is not.
To me that's a fundamentally important difference.

[Gondring]

[...]any comparison between the two cases in this piece is wilfully misleading at best, and maliciously false at worst.

Good point. I see no evidence in the article to say that Mr. Schindler did this with his mother's consent, unlike the Schiavo case.

[mtbopfuyn]

So much wrong in this article. Where to start. Apples and oranges. Not that the author would ever see this or admit he's wrong.

[Gimme]

so Mr. Schindler is a hypocrite


Oh BS, total crock of shit!!

[cyborg]

Get lost.

[mcg1969]

How typically hypocritical

Hardly. There is a big difference between a feeding tube and a respirator. There isn't a single healthy person on this planet who requires help to breathe. But all of us at one point have required help to eat, even though we were 100% healthy.

Or to put it in a more technical frame, respiration is autonomic, feeding is not. (Digestion is---feeding is not).

So it's actually quite reasonable and straightforward to distinguish between his mother's and his daughter's cases.

[ValerieUSA]

His mother was DYING, his daughter was not.

[B Knotts]

So, only the law matters, eh? Morality and ethics are out the window.

Hint: the law is wrong. Food and water are not medicine. I agree with the pope on this. In an extraordinary circumstance, they may be withheld, if they are doing more harm than good. The nutritional maintenance of an otherwise healthy disabled woman in MCS or PVS is not such a circumstance.

[sittnick]

And you are on the side of the post-6th Century Church, while I'm on the side of the early Christians. I'm on the side of those with respect for people, and you're on the side of people who want "life at all costs".

Perhaps post-6th century B.C. when even the smart pagans had no problem with exposing "defective" infants. Care to tell me which Fathers of the Church support withholding food and water from a person who is sick and not dying? (Hint: you won't find it in the New Testament, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Ignatius of Antioch, the Didache, Shepherd of Hermas or any other extant Christian writings. You MIGHT find it in Gnostic faux-Christian writings, and you will certainly find it among the 12th century Albigensians.) Don't pull out the calumny against early Christians without at least pretending to have a reference to something somewhere. A lot of us got snookered by that approach in the '60's and we won't be taken in twice by it. I am on the side of the Church and Christ is the same today, yesterday and before the sixth century.

By the way, I simply mentioned Western Civilization, why is it often the enemies of Terri Schiavo, who want to kill her, who insist on bringing religion into it? I can, and will if my religion is attacked, but I do not have to in order to defend her.

[Gondring]

Now that is a rational point. Thank you.

Mind explaining how that is relevant, though, to denying a woman's right to refuse nutrition/hydration? To me, it simply highlights that a person who wanted not to respire couldn't do so willingly...however, hunger strikes are possible, and there's no way to know whether Mrs. Schiavo would eat or not...except via a legal mechanism called the courts. Who's to say that force-feeding her is not a terrible denial of her rights?

[New Orleans Slim]

"No rational poster here would attempt to compare Robert Schindler's decisions concerning the future quality and quantity of life available to his 41 year mentally incapacitated daughter with that of his 79 year old mother in terminal renal failure"

Oh, I would. It just goes to show that Mr. Schindler is full of it. It's time to pull the feeding tube out of this media circus.

[RightWhale]

An overstatement. No two cases are the same.

[unbalanced but fair]

This is nothing new. These laws in many states date back to the Quinlan and Cruzan cases.

[Servant of the 9]

Either you are on the side of life or you are on the side of death. There is no gray middle ground.

Then put me down on the side of death, because the eventual aims of the right to lifers are just flat evil.

SO9

[Servant of the 9]

So it's actually quite reasonable and straightforward to distinguish between his mother's and his daughter's cases.

Then why did he testify under oath that he would cut Terri's arms and legs off and put her on a respirator if necessary to keep her going?

So9