[Jim Noble]

BUT I have heard the eminent Dr. Hammesfahr and several other highly respected neurologists say that CT scans are too "fuzzy" to be used for a definitive diagnosis of this condition

This is my last comment until after the funeral.

Suppose that you got what you refer to as a "definitive diagnosis" of encephalomalacia, hydrocephalus ex vacuo, and persistent vegetative state?

I mean, just suppose.

Would you say it was all right for TS to be killed?

If not, what do you care about what scans have been done, or not done?

[shhrubbery!]

If not, what do you care about what scans have been done, or not done?

I'll tell you one reason I care: Because these questionable diagnoses have been used in court, and in the media, to justify killing Terri Schiavo.

There is startling new MRI evidence --presented in the New York Times, no conservative pro-life bastion-- that patients diagnosed to be in PVS DO have "something going on in there."

Please see

New York Times Magazine: What if there IS something going on in there?

The doctors in this study were astonished to find activity taking place in the remnants of these patients' severely damaged brains that was

virtually identical to that of a healthy subject. Some clusters that became active were those known to help process spoken language, others to recall memories.

"...You couldn't tell the difference between these parts of [the PVS patient's] brain and the brain of one of my graduate students," says Hirsch, an expert in brain imaging at Columbia University.

The NYT also published, on February 8, 2005, an article titled "New Signs of Awareness Seen In Some Brain-Injured Patients".

That article has already been archived by the NYT, so the link will take you only to an abstract. However, I can quote from the full article here:

Thousands of brain-damaged people who are treated as if they are almost completely unaware may in fact hear and register what is going on around them but be unable to respond, a new brain-imaging study suggests...

"This study gave me goose bumps, because it shows this possibility of this profound isolation, that these people are there, that they've been there all along, even though we've been treating them as if they're not," said Dr. Joseph Fins, chief of the medical ethics division of New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center. -- The New York Times, Feb 8, 2005

Please read those articles before making more assertions re Terri's condition and prognosis. Your opinions may very well be obsolete.

[AZConcervative]

Is there any PROOF that Terri wanted to be starved to death? I'm not a doctor and I am not going to pretend I know one iota about what you guys are referring to, but the question above remains the crux of this case.

[DannyTN]

If Terry is truly in a PVS with no hope of recovery and no substantial consciousness, then I would say it would be ok for her to be killed. Even though specific authority for a mercy killing is not identified in the Bible and despite the dangerous precedent it makes. However, the problems with this case are the following:

• There is some doubt about Terri's condition, because:
  • she's been denied therapy,
  • the internet video's,
  • her parent's insistence, and
  • the testimony of her prior nurses.
• There is also doubt about the motives of Michael Shiavo, because
  • Michael's statements and actions reported by the nurses,
  • suspicion he may have contributed to her "accident",
  • Michael's refusal to allow her rehabilitation,
  • there may be money involved

  But if you are going to perform a mercy killing, call it what it is, and do it the most merciful and painless way.