Schiavos speak up about life after Terri (Barf Alert!)

SP Times ^ | March 28, 2006 | ANITA KUMAR

[Joe 6-pack]

"It seems to me that for that scumbag,"life without Terri" began about a month after she first became ill."

By Fuhrman's account it started shortly after they were married....

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Therefore, she was a living, breathing, person who needed only food water and basic medical care to survive.

Prior to the invention of artificial feeding tubes, she would have naturally expired many years before. She could not eat or drink anything. She was simply a body hooked up to machines, like in bad science fiction stories.

None of your examples address one of the most common use of respirators, which is in people with things like congestive heart failure. The person can continue to live for some time with respirators and draining of the lungs. But we feel it morally permissible to turn off their respirator and let them drown in their own fluids, which is anything but a pleasant way to die.

Also consider this. A person who has no brain function will die without the ability to breath within minutes, not hours. For those who have basic but impaired brain function, lack of oxygen will kill within hours. She spent two weeks dying from dehydration. I see a huge difference in that, don't you?

No more a difference than that of slowly draining someone of their blood and cutting open their throat and letting it quickly gush forth. One's slow, one's fast, both end up with a dead person by deliberate intent.

[Stone Mountain]

Human beings never turn into 'vegetables' no matter their disability or human condition.

It is a verbal shorthand for someone who has entered a persistant vegetative state.

[GraceCoolidge]

When I think about Michael Schiavo's wedding to his new wife in a Catholic ceremony, words just fail me. How could the bishop allow that? Doesn't that make a mockery of the church? Do you know if there was any public outcry from parishioners or other Catholic organizations?

[yellowdoghunter]

What is a lie? Was he saying all along that she wanted to be starved to death? If that was the case, why did he sue?

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Why couldn't he just divorce her and let the Schindler's take care of her???

Because divorce is a sin, while Michael had apparently justified in his mind that she was already dead, so therefore he was not murdering her, and that the only reason he could not already remarry his new lover was because he lacked a death certificate, not because he still had a living wife. I don't see how else you can explain his actions.

Her long-term friends (before Michael) testified that she was very Catholic in her beliefs and wouldn't want to die.

What rubbish. She did not regulary assist at Mass as an adult, and clearly used birth control prior to her massive weight loss which ended her normal fertility cycles. Her parents are big liars and a total disgrace to the side of good in this fiasco, who expressed theological nonsense such as allowing her to die would "lead to the damnation of her soul". Nor were they devout Catholics. "Today, the Schindlers say they don't attend church as regularly as they once did." (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:0lABcnrB2rwJ:www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/7104920.htm+%22Bob+and+Mary+Schindler%22+%22attend+Church%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=4) There is no devotion at all from those who think Mass is merely an option.

[pnz1]

Michael and Jodi.

[originalbuckeye]

Sorry, don't drink Kool-aid myself. I just look at the facts and state them as they are. He sued for malpractice money saying she would want to live. After he received the money he decided she really, really wanted to die. SHE never said it or had it written. People who support this scumbag simply looked at her and decided THEY wouldn't want to live that way. It was never about her wishes for any of those who supported him. Obviously people like you have no response to the truth.

[Brytani]

Have you ever known a person who relies on a feeding tube to survive? I have, two people that I'm very close too.

One is the son of one of my best friends. Brian was born with a severe case of cerebral palsy. He does not have the ability to swallow and relies on a feeding tube for sustenance.

A large syringe apparatus is filled 6 times a day with liquid supplements and is pushed into a tube inserted into his stomach. His body than metabolizes the food.

Brian does not have the ability to talk, walk, or control his arms or legs. He does however cry in pain and make noises. He is profoundly brain damaged from birth but yet is a very loved child who is a joy to his parents.

In your opinion, he's nothing but a bad science fiction story that should be removed from this "artificial" means of food and left to die.

The second is another friend of mine who was diagnosed with stomach cancer years ago.

Between surgery to remove the tumor and cancer treatments she was left with virtually no viable stomach. She has a feeding tube inserted into her small intestine and throughout the day she receives nutrition through this tube. She is a walking, talking, breathing, working, human being who volunteers at my church to help seat handicapped members with seating or other needs they may have. Is she a bad science fiction experiment?

My very own mother-in-law has CHF along with end stage renal disease and lived with us for 7 months after hurricane Rita did a good amount of damage in her hometown of Texas. She relies on oxygen along with dialysis to live. Not once were we ever given the option to remove her oxygen or dialysis and let her "drown in her own fluids" and we live in Florida. The state that allowed Terri Schiavo to be put to death. It was not even suggested. Yet, without those treatments she would be dead within days, if not hours. Your example is far from reality.

In cases where heart/lung bypass machines or ventilators are turned off, the patient is brain dead. Without the ability then or in the future to sustain breathing or even the basic bodily functions of life. That was not the case with Terri Schiavo and her autopsy report proves that.

As for slowly draining a person of blood or cutting their throats to invoke death, that is murder in either case, quick or not. No medical treatment involved draining the blood of a human to bring upon death. Now that really is science fiction.

[Brytani]

I am a practicing Catholic and at least in my parish there has been a very vocal outcry. Our own Father has indicated he would not have married Michael to his new bride in our church. As of yet I have not heard any condemnation from the Vatican of this wedding, though I may have missed it.

As for the Bishop, I believe he gave his blessing. Luckily, though I'm in Florida, I am not under the Bishop who allowed this wedding.

Someone who runs the large Catholic ping lists may be able to provide more information on the churches response to this marriage.

[originalbuckeye]

Divorce is a sin but not adultery??? Not to mention fathering children out of wedlock??? This guy could not have cared less what was a sin or wasn't. Rationalization is easy. He got the money and then went on with his life.

The Schindler's are not without fault, but perhaps their moving away from the Catholic church may have been caused by the way the Catholic church has allowed Michael to flaunt their principles. I'm not a Catholic so I don't know about all their tenets....but if you ask me, letting Michael Schaivo marry in the Catholic church has probably soured many on their church.

[anonymoussierra]

Thank you

---

"This is Michael Schiavo's new life. Life after Terri."

---

"“Eto fore what have you accomplished? There is old polish writing; kick me once I kick you twice.

Uno: will I judge you, infore eto no—His Majesty Majesty Majesty of Israel infore judge will your soul. Due: you know one of one, eto what is evil, evil which consume you; incordinuum a heart of evil man is dead.

His Majesty has mercy of your heart, indeed I pray for you; eto fore tre: His Majesty of Holy of Holy Throne will judge you. Infore eto it will come as day and night, can you infore hide?

You have time, eto know sin against Holy of Holy will never be forgiven. Man of your own trial is a man of his demise.

Eto quarto:watch and learn of wisdom. Justice is and will be. You are in sad state of life, infore eto life you have chosen will be giving of you.

His Majesty Majesty of Majesty sword is sharp."
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
thank you all

[Kitty Mittens]

His Majesty Majesty of Majesty sword is sharp."

Amen to your Entire Post, Dear Sara! Thank you for your Pings!

[getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL]

I do not. I have no idea. I'd love to know, as well, though.

[Boxsford]

I'm aware of that.

[cyn]

"It wasn't like we were talking about someone in a wheel chair."

That is only because Michael refused to have the wheelchair she used to use fixed.

There are photos posted on other threads that show Terri up in her wheelchair. In fact, there was a film loop shown on news stations of Michael pushing Terri in her wheelchair in a park, pointing something out to her. In another, we see her in an outing to a mall where she'd gone to have her hair fixed.

All this changed after the malpractice trials, after he'd remembered that she "wouldn't want to live that way." At that point, he would get upset with nursing home staff for getting her up in the wheelchair and bringing her out into the halls -- though that is ordinary care that is done for any nursing home patient in that condition.

Not in a coma. Not asleep. Not on life support -- at least, not until the FL legislature (Jim King's legacy) changed FL law in 98 - 99 to make food and water to "extraordinary measures".

[Ohioan from Florida]

Where's all that extra money coming from?

I bet you can figure it out on the very first guess. ;-)

Oh, and he's been living in that dandy house (gated community) for several years now, well before his last pay raise to $68,500. I saw it's appraisal a few years back, and back then it was worth ~$300K. Man, he must have won the lottery or stolen it from a bank or *something* to be able to live in that house with that paycheck!

[Ohioan from Florida]

The woman had been in a coma for more than a decade. She had a zero percent chance of ever waking up (regardless of what some delusional and easily duped posters believe).

My, my! Showing our ignorance of reality are we?

For your information, Terri came out from her coma approximately five weeks after her *collapse*. She already woke up! Maybe you just believed the earlier misnomers by the MSM that called her comatose. Just because they don't seem to understand the difference isn't any excuse for you. And you called other posters delusional and easily duped! Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!!

[Ohioan from Florida]

She was brain-dead.

Oh, here we go again. You can't seem to make it past a few posts without re-informing us of your complete ignorance of Terri's medical condition. Terri was not brain-dead until a year ago, on March 31,2005. That's the point that hooking up a heart machine or a ventilator would've been doing the work for her brain. She didn't need either of those machines within a few weeks of her initial hospitalization.

I do hope you'll educate yourself on some of these terms. It could come in handy some day.

[Ohioan from Florida]

Please, I know that you're on the same side as I am, but Terri was never brain-dead. This is a complete lie that the media kept repeating. Brain death is completely different from what was wrong with Terri, whether it was PVS or MCS. In a brain-dead person, the rest of the body HAS to be kept alive via machines. The heart won't beat, and the lungs won't move without machines and plugs. Terri had been off a heart machine and respirator just weeks after her initial hospitalization. The media has completely misled people about these terms. Whether it was intentional or not is another argument.