Posted on 03/21/2005 12:05:39 PM PST by Wolfstar
Does Terri Schiavo have any "God-given rights?"
""What you said is garbage. She has been ruled to be in a PVS - that is not disabled.""
I suggest you watch the videos. Terri is not in a Persistant Vegitative state. She does not smile randomnly, but in response to a friend. She follows a balloon with her eyes.
""Conservative (what about state's rights? Marriage rights?)"
Polygomy is illegal. Michael Shiavo has a common law wife with whom he has two children. No insitution has the right to deny anyone food or water.
Dr. William Hammesfahr is quite credible. He was fined for overcharging a patient. That's it.
Also, there is a nurse who recently came out. She has said that she another nurse were able to feed Terri with a bottle, but Michael forbade it. Also, she has strong reason to believe Michael injected Terri with insulin.
The only person who has something to gain by STARVING Terri to death is Michael Shiavo.
You also do not know what it means to be in a PSV - you don't lay in bed like a coma (in fact a PVS is not a coma) your reflex actions are still there - just the cerebral cortex is dead. So someone in a PVS can open eyes, make facial gestures, move a limb, make noises, sleep and wake up. Such actions tend to make loved ones who view such things think there is consciousness behind these acts when they are random reflexive actions.
""Does Terri Schiavo have any "God-given rights?"""
She does but she is being deprieved of them.
Did you read the Declaration of Independence? It really is a gutsey document. It takes a while to read it and understand it, I had to read it a few times. Once you understand it, you have to laugh. Because to think of the effrontery. That there was an absolute ruler, and some man had the nerve to list everything the king of England did wrong and the nerve to tell this king, the head of the church of England, that man derived his rights from God. After you read it I think you will feel more patriotic!
Terri responds to people. It isn't reflex.
Sorry - no credible doctor has found this to be the case. All you hear are claims fromt he snipets of video.
To dismiss her human reactions as "reflexes," is just well, wrong. Please watch the videos. The one that got me the most was the waking smile that came across he face when visited by a friend who greeted her.
That isn't reflex.
And you have a nurse who says that Michael injected Terri with something. That Terri was eating with a bottle.
This case is sketchy. Is it so wrong to just reinsert the feeding tube until these accusations are investigated? If Terri really is a vegitable than why cant she just be lethally injected with something? She should not starve to death.
Doctors explain the 'persistent vegetative state'
Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman whose husband and parents are battling over whether to let her die or keep her alive, exists in the rare and paradoxical "persistent vegetative state," where neurologists can find a patient to be at once unconscious but alert.
With her cerebral cortex apparently destroyed, Schiavo is almost certainly unable to return to a state of awareness -- that is, knowing who she is and where she exists in time and place.
These are traits, like the faculty of speech, governed by the cerebral cortex, which, doctors say, has died in Schiavo's case.
But she is decidedly not brain-dead.
Her brain stem -- a more primitive and hardy core of nerve tissue that controls her breathing and cycles of wakefulness -- is very much alive, as evidenced by her ability to breath without a respirator and her open eyes, which can appear to track a moving object.
Defining the differences in these states of being is the work of neurologists such as Dr. Wade Smith, director of the Neurocritical Care Unit at the UCSF Medical Center. He regularly teaches a course on the subject to young medical students, many of whom are entering a lifetime of counseling families on difficult choices of life and death in the midst of trauma and tragedy.
Without her feeding tube or water, and barring legal intervention, Schiavo probably has less than two weeks to live. But in a vegetative state, does she feel hunger, thirst or pain? "As a neurologist, I would say no," said Smith.
A person who is unconscious will feel no more hunger or pain than a patient who has undergone general anesthesia. The awareness functions of the higher brain are no longer a factor. "It is why anesthesia works," Smith said.
But people in a persistent vegetative state will nonetheless react to a "painful" stimulus in a reflexive manner. Pinch, and they will flinch.
A patient in a persistent vegetative state would never be considered a candidate to donate an organ; hearts, lungs, livers and kidneys can be harvested only from the brain-dead.
Neurologists are armed with a long list of descriptors for the varying states of mental being. At one end is brain death, and at the other is consciousness. But in between, the medical meanings can sow confusion:
Because Schiavo's eyes can open, she is, by definition, alert.
With eyes that open and close in accord with cycles of sleep, it even could be argued that a person in a persistent vegetative state can be simultaneously unconscious and awake. A brain scan, however, would show no activity that we normally associate with wakefulness.
A person in a vegetative state is defined as one who is arousable -- which means merely a reflexive response to a stimulus -- but unaware. It is not necessary to wake up to be aroused. If a vegetative state exists for six weeks to three months, it is deemed a "persistent" vegetative state.
A person in a persistent vegetative state is not in a coma. A person in a coma is unconscious, and unable to be aroused.
There is a similar distinction defining stupor. A person in a stupor shows some response to stimulation but will easily slip back into a state where he or she cannot be aroused.
Sleep, strictly defined, is a state of unconsciousness from which a person can be aroused. But there is another halfway state -- somnolence -- where a person can wake up enough to carry a brief conversation before falling back into sleep.
The strange limbo of people in vegetative states poses a dilemma to those who must make life-and-death decisions in the state of full awareness.
"If two physicians sit down and examine a person like Terri Schiavo, there can be a disagreement," said Smith.
In the medical literature, there are no cases of someone recovering from what is defined as clinical brain death, but there are five published cases of "recovery of some sentient function" among patients who were diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state.
Typically, the decisions that are made about the future of people in vegetative states are made by family members.
"Most of these discussions never leave the intensive care unit," Smith said. "That's the way it should be."
The court found the claims of the parents' experts as not being credible.
Several appeal courts including it going twice to the federal courts and the Supreme court upheld this medical finding and in fact every ruling of this court case made by the judge - a ruling that follows Florida State law on this matter.
To explain away this the Schindler parents supporters have come up with complex conspiracy theories saying the court appointed doctor was biased as was the judge.
Your opinion and mine should not matter in this private affair.
This isn't a private matter. This is a public matter.
1- The family of Terri decided to make it public.
2- We pay taxes to the court system
3- It was in a public hospital
4- This is a crime against Terri
5- Accusations that Michael Shiavo commited a crime
by injecting his wife with something
6- Beliefs that Michael Shiavo is acting is SELF INTEREST and not in the interests of Terri by halting reabilitation.
So, does a husband have the right to kill his wife? No, he doesn't.
As President Bush said "It is better to Err on the side of life"
This is your view?
""Now let's say you're wrong (unknowingly). but you get your way and the tube is pulled out. BUT Terri is really semi conscience and can be somewhat rehabilitated. And Terri all along is feeling this tremendous pang of starvation. And she dies a painful death. We can't undo death."" from my post.
Who cares what the Constitution says about this? When did whatever was in the Constitution stop the Democrats from pushing their agenda down out throats. Perhaps turnabout is fair play here.
She has no cerebral cortex - she feels no pain or understanding of pain. As for allegations that the husband beat her, etc. Multiple Courts has not upheld that view.
The court records show that CAT scans show that her cerebral cortex has atrophied and has been replaced by spinal fluid.
""The court records show that CAT scans show that her cerebral cortex has atrophied and has been replaced by spinal fluid.""
How deteriorated is her cerebral cortex. The brain is still an unchartered territory in the medical and science community. It used to be thought that brain damage was permanent, and only a few years ago Science learned that the brain can rewire itself.
Are you a doctor? Perhaps, you have a photo of that catscan and you can show it to me. Or you could read this article.
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/10/28/news_pf/Tampabay/Understanding_Terri_S.shtml
Again - not about me or you being medical experts the court had medical experts and those were the findings. You want to shop around till you find a doctor to agree with your pre held opinion? Why are laymen debating medical issues?
One may not convince the person who is specifically replied to but others may read the exchange and take something away from it.
So when you reply to someone remember that many other eyes will read it too.
By the way, this might interest you.
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