Posted on 10/16/2003 4:51:52 PM PDT by MarMema
PINELLAS PARK - Even if Terri Schiavo does experience hunger, medical protocol calls for pain medication to keep her comfortable during her last days, experts said Wednesday.
As with every other issue surrounding the more than 5- year-old legal fight over the 39- year-old woman's fate, the two sides disagree on what will happen now that her feeding tube has been removed.
Bob and Mary Schindler contend their daughter is in for a protracted and agonizing death. Their attorney, Pat Anderson, has repeatedly referred to it as starvation, execution and state-sanctioned murder in court arguments.
Schiavo's husband, Michael, contends his wife has felt no sensation since January 1990, when sudden and still-unexplained heart failure cut off blood flow to her brain.
A majority of doctors who have examined Schiavo have concluded that most of her brain has died, leaving her in what is known as a persistent vegetative state. She feels, sees and hears nothing and what appear to be responsive facial expressions and vocalizations are reflexive behavior and not communication, most doctors say.
Peggy Guin, a nursing instructor at Shands Hospital at the University of Florida, said her experience with patients taken off feeding tubes shows that even those who can feel pain do not, because of preventive medication.
Studies have shown that as people get closer to death, they lose any sense of hunger, Guin said. Still, she said, the one- to two-week process can be tough on loved ones.
Family members get very disturbed when their dying relatives do not want to eat,'' she said.
Because it is impossible to be sure a dying patient does not feel hunger pangs, pain medicine is provided to people who have been taken off feeding tubes, Guin said.
Removal of feeding tubes is a common practice that became accepted after thorough debate by medical ethicists, said Kenneth Goodman, director of bioethics at the University of Miami School of Medicine and a co-director of the Florida Bioethics Network.
Soon after nourishment is denied to the brain, it begins producing chemicals that act as a natural anesthetic, the professor said.
She is not going to feel a thing,'' Goodman said. The artificial pain medication that Schiavo will receive ``is to make sure that if there is [pain] it is adequately handled,'' he said.
There is nothing unusual about terminating hydration and nutrition,'' Goodman said. ``The reason why Florida law allows it, and the other 49 states allow it, is obviously that this can be done in a way that is pain-free and dignified. That is why it is legal.''
Guin said Schiavo's caregivers have an obligation to take steps to keep her comfortable as she is dying.
At first, Schiavo will display a decrease in activities such as yawning or swallowing, Guin said. Then, her kidneys will gradually shut down and her breathing and heartbeat may become irregular.
She will likely lose weight and her lips and mouth will become dry while her skin becomes taut, Guin said.
To counter that, caregivers should coat Schiavo's lips with balm and change her position frequently to prevent bedsores, Guin said.
Someone also explain to me what the hoopla is about. It's easy enough with EEG's to determine if someone is brain dead or not. Personally, I have a legal document to disconnect me if I'm brain dead. What's the purpose of keeping souless cells alive and the cost and pain of others?
"Dear David,
"Family members get very disturbed when their dying relatives do not want to eat"
How about when their non-dying relatives do want to eat or drink and are denied the opportunity? Do you think this would be disturbing to family members? Apparently not as often, since those who did ask to be fed or for a drink, such as Ella Bathurst and Marjorie Nighbert, were denied the right to make this decision on their own, being in the midst of being killed by their own family at the time. It is so inconvenient to have a disabled family member keep living on and on, after all. Particularly if there is money waiting to be inherited.
"There is nothing unusual about terminating hydration and nutrition"
Yes, that does seem to be true. In this country currently, it is becoming more and more routine to dehydrate people. The funny thing about it that keeps coming to my mind are the specific populations targeted for this incredibly "humane" process, like the elderly, the disabled, and imperfect children and infants. There is something in common among all of these populations. Do you think you can figure out what it is? After that, do you think you can figure out which country and when previously headed down this same path? (hint - recall a term previously used to describe them, "useless eaters").
And you know, I bet those kids in the ICU at Boston Childrens will be labeled the same way, when they take them for organ harvesting prior to death. Since many of them are brain damaged as well, why bother with anesthesia, even? Think of the savings!
Good luck to you and yours! May you never be faced with an imperfection that inhibits death enough to irritate your inheriting family members.
Laurie
3-14 days. Some have lived the entire 14 days.
Apparently you haven't read any of the articles that prove that she is alert, responds to visitors, laughs, cries, smiles, and attempts to speak. When a therapist told her, over the phone, that if she didn't get out of her chair, they would kill her, she sat bolt upright and tried to stand up, with terror in her eyes.
Call THAT soul-less.
To deliberately torture/punish a disabled woman like Terri in order to get back at her family is as good as cutting up kittens for enjoyment, in terms of spiritual maturity and decency.
We now know beyond a doubt what the driving force behind these killers is and where it comes from.
You can see videos at www.terrisfight.org for yourself.
In the past we have killed in this manner people even more functional. See my FR page for more stories.
Well I AM a medical expert, and I can assure you these people and the media propagandists that touts them are complete bald-faced liars!
| 2280 Everyone is responsible for his life before God who has given it to him. It is God who remains the sovereign Master of life. We are obliged to accept life gratefully and preserve it for his honor and the salvation of our souls. We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of. |
| 2270 Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.
|
| 336 From its beginning until death, human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession. "Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life." Already here on earth the Christian life shares by faith in the blessed company of angels and men united in God. |
| 2367 Called to give life, spouses share in the creative power and fatherhood of God. "Married couples should regard it as their proper mission to transmit human life and to educate their children; they should realize that they are thereby cooperating with the love of God the Creator and are, in a certain sense, its interpreters. They will fulfill this duty with a sense of human and Christian responsibility." |
| 1524 In addition to the Anointing of the Sick, the Church offers those who are about to leave this life the Eucharist as viaticum. Communion in the body and blood of Christ, received at this moment of "passing over" to the Father, has a particular significance and importance. It is the seed of eternal life and the power of resurrection, according to the words of the Lord: "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." The sacrament of Christ once dead and now risen, the Eucharist is here the sacrament of passing over from death to life, from this world to the Father. |
| 2273 The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation: "The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority. These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being's right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death." "The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined. . . . As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child's rights." |
| 2288 Life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God. We must take reasonable care of them, taking into account the needs of others and the common good. Concern for the health of its citizens requires that society help in the attainment of living-conditions that allow them to grow and reach maturity: food and clothing, housing, health care, basic education, employment, and social assistance. |
| 1007 Death is the end of earthly life. Our lives are measured by time, in the course of which we change, grow old and, as with all living beings on earth, death seems like the normal end of life. That aspect of death lends urgency to our lives: remembering our mortality helps us realize that we have only a limited time in which to bring our lives to fulfillment:
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| 1641 "By reason of their state in life and of their order, [Christian spouses] have their own special gifts in the People of God." This grace proper to the sacrament of Matrimony is intended to perfect the couple's love and to strengthen their indissoluble unity. By this grace they "help one another to attain holiness in their married life and in welcoming and educating their children." |
"First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out --
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists
and I did not speak out --
because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out --
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me --
and there was no one left to speak out for me."
~~Pastor Martin Niemoller
(victim of the Nazis)
Is there anything we can learn from this?
When they came for the Catholics?
When they came for the Baptists?
When they came for the fundamentalists?
When they came for the agnostics?
When they came for the physically disabled?
When they came for the mentally disabled?
Just something for all of us to think about -- is this picture larger than we currently see it?
What an excellent phrase/question! Thank you for sharing it. We need to fight back with our own language/descriptions, and this fits the bill well.
IIRC Nancy Cruzan died 11 days after her feeding tube was removed.
Nancy Cruzan's father committed suicide a few years later. He had campaigned for her legalized execution.
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