I have cared for hundreds of PVS and brain damaged folks and let me tell you Terri's PVS diagnosis was borderline at best.
In any case she was alive by any definition and if she appear healthy and happy she was not brain dead. Spend a little more time with a CP child and mother and you will find that there is a value to that child that is not measured by brain functioning.
Please stop graying the line between brain damaged and brain dead. If you truly are a medical professional you know full well what brain dead means. It is a lie to say that Terri was brain dead even if you determine she did not have enough mental functioning to suit your definition of being alive.
By your definition you are equating a human being to a machine that has lost it memory and is sent to the dumpster.
What about the soul?
Does my computer have a soul because it has a memory? We as humans are not just a working set of neurons.
Terri was not in an acute state or in terminal condition when she died, therefore she was murdered, legally mind you, but murdered all the same.
This debate will rage on for decades within the Medical community and those who have spent their lives caring for the brain damaged community will win because we have seen life in the strangest places.
Very well said.
Sure got quiet around here. Heh...
May I ask in what capacity you care for these people?
When I was a child, my mother worked in a state hospital for the retarded, and I recall that some of the retarded were not even as aware as Terri. It is beyond me how anyone can say that because a person doesn't meet some arbitrary standard of functionality, it's okay (even desirable) to kill them.
Earthdweller might be right about the front line
medical staff being too assimilated to the culture of
death. Assuming any of N.Z.s claims of experience
are true, I shudder at the thought on him making any
triage decisions whatsoever.