[ambrose]

Terri Ping

(don't be offended if I left you out, I don't keep ping lists)

[T'wit]

Better a damaged brain than this writer's dead soul.

[onyx]

Thos looks to be the moost comprehensive compilation of facts posted thus far.

BTTT for reading after my nap.

[ChemistCat]

Thanks for the ping.

My mother and I are bitterly divided over this. :-( I know her heart is in the right place. She sees this as a "right to die" hill to die on.

I see it as right-to-kill. I cannot get her to see the evidence. For her it is a one-way issue and anything that contradicts her position must be false.

I can see both sides. If Terri had a living will that said what Michael claims she said, I would fight for her right to die just as hard as I've fought for her to receive food and drink. I just do not believe a Catholic girl would want it, and I think Michael shouldn't be her guardian because he's moved on to make another family, and has misused money he swore to a jury he'd spend on her rehab. There are assistive communicative technologies that have never been tried--because he has refused to allow her to even TRY them. And I think everybody has a human right to clean teeth!

My mom is afraid that my support for Terri's parents means that I will ignore her own living will, which explicitly says she doesn't want food or water if she's in a similar state.

Well, I wouldn't let my mom go without pain meds or cleaned teeth. No way, no how, and I'd do everything in my power to let her communicate any change of mind.

This is very painful, and we are just not discussing it anymore.

[MarMema]

Cranford only has one opinion in any case he sees. It is always 100% predictable. Therefore he is wrong on occasion, but it is rarely reported. This is from a link on my FR page.

"Dr. Ronald Cranford, the euthanasia advocate who hopes to help Pete Busalacchi take care of Christine when she is brought to Minnesota, had a similar case in 1979. Sgt. David Mack was shot in the line of duty as a policeman, and Cranford diagnosed him as "definitely...in a persistent vegetative state...never [to] regain cognitive, sapient functioning...never [to] be aware of his condition." Twenty months after the shooting Mack woke up, and eventually regained nearly all his mental ability. When asked by a reporter how he felt, he spelled out on his letterboard, "Speechless!"