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This husband will not even allow nurses to try to feed his wife, and in fact has removed visitation priviledges from the woman's siblings, when they tried one day to feed her a bit of pudding.

Feeding her anything without a physician's recommendation would be an incredibly stupid thing to do. Isn't one of the problems that she cannot swallow?

"Feeding her anything without a physician's recommendation would be an incredibly stupid thing to do. Isn't one of the problems that she cannot swallow?"

She CAN swallow - proved by the fact that she does not drool.

They are witholding any test to see if she can be fed without the feeding tube.

We treat dogs better than this!!

If she were not able to swallow, she would drool. That is inevitable. She does not drool. This is more than enough of a basis to believe that (perhaps requiring some rehab, but not necessarily all that much) she could be fed without a tube. There is no reason to believe that is the limit to which she could be rehabbed either. Fact is, NO ONE KNOWS.

The fact that the husband stands to keep a great deal of money over this, on top of the fact that he and the judge have specifically denied any attempt to rehabilitate her in any way, should trouble anyone. What conceivable legitimate reason would there be for her husband to deny permission to allow her parents and their doctors to help her eat on her own, given the fact that she doesn't even drool? Many people who get rehab -do- drool and rehab doctors are still often able to teach them to eat on their own. There have been worse cases than her that have been successfully rehabbed.

There is so much potential conflict of interest floating around that the only sane decision would be to TRY and rehab Terri and see if it works. If it doesn't work, alright. But the fact that they would kill her before trying, even once, is inexcusable to me, given the evidence that she -is- minimally cognitive, able to swallow, and able to recognize her parents.

It stinks way too much. I've never heard of a case that stunk of something criminal as much as this. Even Clinton didn't stink quite this bad. That's not an emotional response. That's an objective analysis of the situation.

Qwinn

Feeding her anything without a physician's recommendation would be an incredibly stupid thing to do. Isn't one of the problems that she cannot swallow?

Terri can swallow. Nurses and therapists have testified to this; and, the fact that she doesn't drool is further proof.

The question is, could Terri swallow food? Therapists have said yes, she almost certainly could with training.

I wouldn't put too much stock in Schiavo's "physician's recommendations," particularly when some "physicians" seem quite keen on having their patients die ASAP.