Woman's Sustaining Care Resumed- But Experts Say No Hope Exists For Her Recovery

The Washington Post ^ | October 23, 2003 | Rob Stein

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Life support for Terri Schiavo was resumed yesterday in a Florida hospital room, but many experts said there is virtually no hope that she will ever recover, despite her parents' desperate hopes.

"If it's over a year, she's not ever going to get up," said Fred Plum, a professor emeritus at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. "You just don't see it. It just doesn't happen."

Schiavo, 39, has been in a persistent vegetative state since her heart stopped for unknown reasons in 1990. A feeding tube in her stomach was removed Oct. 15 after her husband, Michael, who said his wife had told him she would not want to be kept alive under such circumstances, won a long series of court battles to have life-sustaining nourishment withdrawn so she could die.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

"There has never been a documented case of someone recovering after having been in a persistent vegetative state for more than three months," said Ronald Cranford, a neurologist at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minnesota who testified on behalf of Schiavo's husband. "Every three to five years, there's a case reported of a person who supposedly recovered, but it never turns out to be true."

Does anyone have a list of those who testified for both Schiavo and the Schindlers, so a comparison can be done of their testimony?

[Salvation]

"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?

[Pan_Yans Wife]

BUMP

[Samwise]

Well, I guess if they recover, the vegetative state wasn't "persistent."

[Tax-chick]

Let the "experts" go starve themselves, already, if they're so into death. No respect for people who just want OTHER people to die.

[HELLRAISER II]

I know i'll get ripped for saying this, but hey it's ok. I am glad that there was a reprieve for Terri, but not for the same reasons that most of you are. It's a shame that she did not get the kind of care that she should've received from day 1 because of her sorry @ss husband. I'm 100% against starving this poor woman to death, but i'm not sure she wouldn't be better off if she was released from the imprisoned body that she is trapped in. I hope that they give custodial rights to someone other than her husband or her parents so that they can make a rational yet fair decision to her fate. God willing, she'll recover. But i'm not that optomistic about her chances.

[GO65]

Just something for all of us to think about -- is this picture larger than we currently see it?

i have extremely mixed feelings about this subject, and frankly I don't know all the details so I probably ought not comment - but if there is truly no hope of her recovery, then what service are we doing to her soul by preventing her from entering the next phase of her journey?

[Littlejon]

I wonder what these "experts" would have said about Lazarus' situation when Christ arrived on the scene.

I find it surprising that, despite instances of medical "miracles" today, these doctors still insist that something can't be done or won't happen. Now, if you go to the hospital with a problem they will talk to you in general terms, careful to never say anything definitive, so as to not be nailed to the wall if they are wrong in a diagnosis, yet this guy, who has likely never laid eyes personally on Terri, can make a definitive judgement on her condidtion.

Just an observation from a right-wing, religious, idiot Republican.

[netmilsmom]

>>God willing, she'll recover. But i'm not that optomistic about her chances.<<

It depends on what you define as "recover". She seems happy when she is with her parents, they are happy to be with her. Terri may never be a perfect human, but she can be more than she is now.
Lord please, never let anyone else choose to take one of my babies from me.

This is not a flame but a mom's point of view.

[HELLRAISER II]

I agree, the only problem I had with it was the husband waiting 10 years before he mentioned that she wouldn't want to live like this and then starving her to death which I think is inhumane.

[PleaseNoMore]

"If it's over a year, she's not ever going to get up," said Fred Plum, a professor emeritus at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. "You just don't see it. It just doesn't happen."

That is a damned lie from the pits of hell and I have a nephew to PROVE it is.

[pollywog]

As long as there is life, there is hope.

[HELLRAISER II]

A point of view which as a parent of 2, I fully understand and agree with. Let's hope that you or I never have to make a decision like this, it would probably destroy me as well.

[PleaseNoMore]

Amen pollywog. She has breath. God is still God. There is hope.

[PleaseNoMore]

And these experts know this to be a fact because they have examined her personally, correct? What a bunch of friggin self serving pompous asses.

[PeyersPatches]

Michael made darn sure she would never have a chance to recover from day one. However she isn't a vegetable and I would like to know how that so-called "expert" on CBS said she wasn't capable of feeling pain.

We all saw those videos of her - and as we're watching her react, smile, laugh, respond to her mother, as her nurses tell of her talking, eating, swallowing, enjoying flavored jello and showing her dislike for the taste of cotton swabs, etc., they look right in those tv cameras and say just the oppposite of the truth. I truly believe this is demonic in many ways. The same as those people on that video who clapped happily after viewing a baby being born and murdered at the same time. The souls of those people are absolutely devoured with the same evil that devoured the souls of Nazis and others.

[netmilsmom]

>>Let's hope that you or I never have to make a decision like this<<

Amen, my FRiend!

[NewChief]

Amen, to that. I to am amazed at all the people who have only seen a video, yet believe they know beyond a shadow of doubt what is best for this poor woman. Frankly, I do not trust the parents, husband or people with an "agenda to promote" determining what is best for her.

[sc2_ct]

I heard on the Glen Beck show this morning during a news break that they had brought her back to that death-house of a hospice again today. Has anyone else heard anything about this?

[NYFriend]

Quite frankly, if I was in Terri's state, I wouldn't want to be kept alive, and I've said so in my Health Care Proxy and Living Will. We have a cultural fear of death that is so strong that we have people who are terminally ill and either suffering or total unable to respond to or interact with the outside world, and were keep them alive for a few days, weeks or years just so their heart keeps beating. We don't do it for them. Don't kid yourself, we do it for the living, for their families who don't want to realize that their loved ones are already gone. Starving her to death would be terrible for everyone involved, and they should have been able to overdose her on morphine or some other drug.

I also want to say that the Florida Legislature was just plain wrong in giving Gov. Bush the power to review this case. It's terrible public policy to legislate for one special case. Special cases are for the courts. If we can change the law in a day, on a whim, then we don't have rule of law. Rule of law made America great and it was the backbone of everyone of our freedoms. We try and establish rule of law in other countries, because it's vital for economic growth and personal liberty. More and more, we've moved away from the rule of law, and it's dangerous. You can't have a society where the rules that you live by can change any day, and can change retroactively.