[robertpaulsen]

"Greer drew a conclusion. He could have concluded that the title of the Petition was the meaning of the petition. He did not."

Ah, so now you're a judge, also? Maybe he should have totally ignored what was written and ruled on what was said? Or, even better, ruled on what was implied by what was said?

Give me a break. If the judge had refused nutrition because of the title of the Petition, you'd be screaming that a judge should never go by the title but by the actual wording of the document.

You are a piece of work.

"I know that Terri did not choke on her own saliva or nasal/sinus secretions. She did not require suctioning. She did not have repeated episodes of aspiration pneumonia secondary to her salivary and sinus secretions. I know that she could swallow small amounts of thin liquids."

Did not, did not, did not. I don't care what she "did not". What did she do? According to you, "she could swallow small amounts of thin liquids". Yeah. Involuntarily. So?

Are you suggesting that Terri was capable of voluntarily swallowing? Are you suggesting that Terri was capable of voluntarily swallowing enough nutrition to keep her alive? Isn't that the issue?

"This was euthanasia - the intentional killing of a patient by another agent, rather than by the patient's disease."

Baloney! Terri had the constitutional right to refuse treatment. She expressed this wish to at least three people. An impartial and disinterested judge heard the testimony and had "clear and convincing" evidence as to her wishes.

Look elsewhere for your euthanasia case to proselytize. It ain't here, no matter how much you want to be.

[hocndoc]

If you can correct the science and the ethics, do so.

The swallowing test reports which I have read online showed inconsistancy. Sometimes she swallowed, sometimes the fluid "pooled," and sometimes it ran out of her mouth. Not a concern in the last weeks of life.

Neither is it relevant that swallowing is "involuntary."

In no way could oral hydration be called "treatment."

What is your take on the medical intervention to remove the tube and the insertion of an IV for a morphine drip?

In my experience, people who are truly at the end of life find the oral secretions uncomfortable, causing nausea and choking. We treat with a scopolamine patch.

The pertinent ethical (and, I believe, legal) point is whether the death was due to natural causes and secondary to the disease process or whether it was due to actions that were intended to and which led to her immediate death.

Theresa Schiavo did not die of her disease. Her disease was chronic and stable for over 10 years.

She died because of deliberate acts to deny nutrition by a feeding tube that was not causing her distress and, simultaneously (and in contravention of what I understand Florida law to be) Greer forbade "Natural Means."

That last act, at least, is clear-cut euthanasia, which is illegal in all States except Oregon. The reason it is illegal is because it is murder. Greer murdered Theresa Schiavo and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

[lentulusgracchus]

The maxim lawyers swear by is "hard cases make bad law". The case you are arguing about is one of them. Speaking just for myself, I've resolutely resisted coming to any final conclusion about that case, and likewise resisted listening to anyone I thought was arguing a cause not the case -- and I honestly don't know what to think about it. It's entirely possible for business interests (insurance companies, hospitals, "health-care" conglomerates) to combine with a benighted judiciary to secure a non-judicial "solution" to impediments to their interest. They did it in the 19th century when an activist Supreme Court associate justice, agitating from the bench, helped the railroads make their wishes into law, even to the point of granting artificial persons -- corporations -- all the rights of citizens, irregularly, through a side door.

And our country isn't the only one where this has happened; the jurisprudence of Europe is littered with examples; Roman law was rotten with it, and the Carthaginians likewise cut their own throats by tampering with their supreme court, in a case of constitutional failure cited by Polybius.

But I don't know what to make of this case, except that it has a lot of good people at one another's throats. If, as Ex Navy Chick suggested above, we can't all get along, maybe some of us can agree to disagree, without any penalty to sexual performance, self-image, or social stature.