From the time Terri was 18, she was no longer the legal responsibility of her parents, and equally, her parents no longer had the right to make legal decisions on her behalf.
While I truly empathize with her parents, having to contend with the heartache of seeing their child go before they do, I just have a hard time understanding why some people are able to demonstrate compassion, humanity, selflessness and maturity in making these types of decisions regarding their pets, yet they remain blinded to their actions that run absolutely to the contrary when it comes to their own flesh and blood.
The only thing that separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom is what's going on between our ears.
Terri Schiavo is, for all intents and purposes, dead, and has been for 15 years.
I find it rather revolting, selfish behavior to think there's any quality or value to her life that merits prolonging a shell of one's existence merely to reinforce or propagate one's religious beliefs.
With all due respect, her parents are not doctors, and apparently are in such a deep state of denial, that they refuse to acknowledge the medical fact that Terri's cerebral cortex is gone. It was destroyed by the loss of oxygen she suffered when she had a heart attack 15 years ago. Once gone, the cortex cannot grow back. The space it once occupied in Schiavo's skull is now filled with spinal fluid.
The cortex does all our thinking. Some people argue that it's responsible for personhood. Without a cortex, you can't think, feel, have consciousness.
Schiavo is awake but not aware. Parts of her brain that control reflexes and other basic bodily functions still work. So she can sleep, breathe, blink and make the other moves that fuel the faith of those who seek to save her.
Her lack of consciousness is so complete that Schiavo cannot perceive thirst or hunger. She doesn't have the brain structures necessary for that kind of perception.
What you or I would undeniably experience as torture is not what Terri Schiavo will have to suffer through over the next week or so.
And, over the next several days, should there be an indication from her signaling any discomfort, you can rest assured there would be grounds to re-assess the severity of her condition.
This is common everyday practice in hospices throughout America.
Two of my grandparents were terminally ill; one with cancer, the other with advanced Parkinson's, each in their 80's, and both were humanely allowed to die in hospice care, by discontinuing their nourishment.
It is essential that in circumstances such as this, where there is no living will, that federal guidelines and parameters are established to give someone like Michael Schiavo the right to make this decision without the possibility of legal interference from her parents or other parties.
Hopefully, this will trigger a national awareness campaign to encourage all adults, especially those who are married, to have a living will drafted, to ensure our wishes our respected, even if we can no longer speak. This battle between the husband and her parents was avoidable, and there's a lesson to be learned in that.
Let's hope the nine Supreme Court justices, eight of whom are already over 65, will ensure that, when their time comes in the not-too-distant future, that they don't have to endure an existence devoid of any quality of life.
They will be hearing the Oregon physician-assisted suicide case in the court's next term, which begins in October.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/02/22/s...ted.suicide.ap/
If, God forbid, Terri Schiavo is really 'alive' and has been 'in there' all this time for the past 15 years, she would be suffering an unfathomable, vacuous, grueling, interminable, torturous living hell I would never wish upon my worst enemy.
The humane thing is to let her die.
With all due respect, her doctors (HINO picked doctors) are not God
While I truly empathize with her parents, having to contend with the heartache of seeing their child go before they do, I just have a hard time understanding why some people are able to demonstrate compassion, humanity, selflessness and maturity in making these types of decisions regarding their pets, yet they remain blinded to their actions that run absolutely to the contrary when it comes to their own flesh and blood.
>>>>>
Erm, maybe cause God gave us dominion over the animals....
Im able to be a kind of God to my pets and thoughtfully decide when theyre in too much pain to go on.
But I can't do that with my friends and family.
Capiche ?
.....The humane thing is to let her die.
.......
So, we are to be humane and deny weak individuals their constitutional rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
Why are we not to deny your rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Some might think the humane thing would be for you to die. Do you want them having that control over your life?