Posted on 03/21/2005 3:45:29 PM PST by Lorianne
bump.. excellent article.
I had a friend who was brain dead after an aneurysm at 16. He had absolutely no brain function and only was breathing through artificial means (for the few days for his one brother to make it home to say goodbye). We went to see him in the hospital before he was removed from life support. He was dead before they pulled the plug. Terry Schiavo is alive and she is being murdered.
bump
I spent 2 months working on Neurosurgery wards when I was in school. I had daily contact with patients diagnosed with PVS. (One was a guy who went out drinking with his mother. After his mother drove them home, she discovered he was no longer in the car. Ouch.)
From what I have seen and read about Terri's abilities, she seems to have way more awareness than PVS patients I've seen. For one thing she can talk and at one time could walk with bars. That's not PVS by any stretch.
That's what I would think, but we are regularly trotted out these experts who tell us that her reactions are all misleading, that patients in "PVS" can often have the reactions that she does.
Which just tells me that the condition "PVS", whatever it is, is so misleadingly-labeled as to be unscientific. If a "permanent vegetable" can talk, and react, and make noises, and laugh... then I don't care how brain damaged that person (undoubtedly) is, why the hell are we calling the person a "vegetable"?
As far as I can tell, it's only so that we can kill them with a clear conscience.
I'm just waiting for the day where other, newer "States" are discovered and defined by doctors that make people kill-able. Imagine hearing that someone is PIS, in a "Permanent Inferiority State", which has such-and-such a definition and such-and-such criteria. The person "will never come out of it", say the doctors.
Now, you look at the person and see that he seems completely healthy. Talks, walks, eats, drives a car, goes to work, plays basketball, everything. But then you are introduced to an "expert" who says "That's misleading. It's a cruel joke of nature, but patients in PIS can often have what appear to be normal lives. Don't be misled by this however. Whatever your eyes see, and your ears hear, and your heart feels, the scientific fact remains that this person is PIS."
And so, the subtext is, we can kill that person.
Now imagine that the definition of "PIS" is, oh, for example, "Jewish".
Er...assured, when she can't communicate?
"Stalker" - a successful change in the lexicon about 25 years ago by the NOW gang and other men haters that is used to vilify men in general. Pursue thy love interest is NOW always called stalking.
"Assault Weapon" - a rifle that has a automatic fire selector switch. New meaning: any rifle written about in the liberal press. Ewww an 'Assault Weapon' it sounds sooo bad!
"Hate Group" - any conservative organization or institution. ie. FreeRepublic.com . . . .
Can we add one more?
"Permanent Vegetable State" (PVS) - any 'useless eater' who should be dead or have a right to die.
There are instances of patients with severe, intractable epilepsy having one hemisphere of the brain removed--and functioning normally.
Er...assured, when she can't communicate?
Unless you count her looking directly at the person who is speaking to her, and reacting with facial expressions and even laughter (when her father made a dopey comment to her a few days ago), no she can't communicate at all.
The diagnosis PVS (permanent vegetative state) is pretty clear in the medical community. The problem we have now is that the media community is now applying it and using it for their agenda. We've seen how they change definitions to provoke emotional responses sympathetic to their goals.
Did you know that one of the doctors MS is using that declared Terri a veg is also an advocate for starving Alzheimer patient?!?The left is sicker and more insidious than I thought
I guess when she says "help me", "yes", and "no" doesn't count.
Of course not. We've all seen vegetables do that.
Mrs don-o calls it junk science, and she is looking for documented anecdotes of folks who have confounded the experts.
Sure it is, but at the same time it's also arbitrary. When a patient meets such-and-such criteria, and has for 4 weeks, they are called "persistent vegetative state". If it lasts for 1+ year, they are called "permanent vegetative state". (Of course, the media seems to use these terms interchangeably, it's all just "PVS".)
That's all fine and dandy unless this (human-defined) condition "PVS" is used to draw conclusions about whether a person can be killed.
My point is, so what if someone is "PVS"? If someone is "PVS" that just means that their disability meets the criteria that someone thought up and christened "PVS". The problem is that because the term is so biased (think about it: permanent! vegetative!), laypeople get the idea that it is, somehow, a Scientific pronouncement that the person is a Permanent Vegetable.
Which is nonsense.
Did you know that one of the doctors MS is using that declared Terri a veg is also an advocate for starving Alzheimer patient?!?The left is sicker and more insidious than I thought
And that's my point, this scientist-worship allows anyone with an agenda to define any term they like and then use it to push the envelope. As far as I can tell, if Alzheimer's were called "Permanent Tree-Stump Syndrome" (PTSS), some idiotic fraction of Americans would be pretty easily convinced that once someone is diagnosed PTSS, they can be killed. After all, who could weep for a Permanent Tree-Stump?
The term "PVS" is simply damn unscientific and prejudicial as hell. Whoever thought it up either is a moron, was not thinking clearly, or had an agenda. Terri is, there's no denying, in a severely debilitating and brain-damaged state. But if this state were merely called something neutral such as "Lizma's Syndrome" or "Condition 42A", ignorant bystanders would not be so easily fooled into thinking it's just fine and dandy to starve her to death because of it.
It's pretty easy, apparently, for ignorant observers to say "Well hey if Scientists say she's a Vegetable anyway, why not let her go?" But it doesn't roll off the tongue so easily to say "If she's in Condition 42A, let's kill her."
The term "PVS" is what needs to be put to death, the sooner the better. No scientist worth his salt should stand by the use of that term.
BTW, can she actually pronounce those words, or just come close?
Sad lol. Your right. It's unscientific and prejudicial. In defense of the medical community, I don't think it was originally used to slam or lessen these peoples existence, it was just an easy way for many decades to describe their condition. In view of how our language has changed, I think you might be right.
The bottom line is science is clueless when it comes to how much are these people are aware of their surroundings and most that have come out of their "coma" state they were very attuned to what was going on. That's more than enough to have me believing there is a major chance this is nothing more than murder.
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