(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
When my father, my aunt, my grandmother, my mother in law, died, they were terminal. They were elderly. They were allowed to die only when the doctors AND the immediate family ALL AGREED that it was the end, there was no hope. None of them opened their eyes or made a sound. Terry opens here eyes, she tries to speak. She is NOT in a coma. My beloved family members were in a coma, as if in a permanent sleep, eyes CLOSED.
I watched my Dad die slowly from Alzhiemers/Dementia, and there was no way I was going to smother him with a pillow/slip him a toxic cocktail/shoot him to make him die earlier just because he wasn't going to get better.
At the worst, we would have sedated him to die painless from whatever was killing him at the moment. He was on a DNR from the day he went in anyways, we knew he was never going to get better, so, letting him die from whatever was killing him was bad enough.
But to actually create some situation where we would be the source and control of what would eventually kill him, that would be murder.
He was not some flame thrower victim in combat who would not survive the trip to sick bay because of 100% burns, he was not injured with all limbs broken and bleeding profusely 100 miles from civilization and putting him out of his misery, he was in a nursing home/hospital.
So is Terry Schiavo.
Taking out the feeding tube is murder, and her husband plans to profit from it. I am privately convinced he has movie deals, book deals already in the works detailing "his" pain and suffering.
And that is all this is. HIS suffering he is worried about. I know it personnaly, I was relieved my father died last August because it meant I would not have to go see him like that and it meant my Mother would not have to go and see him die every day she went and did his laundry and feed him and bathe him like she did. It took away her pain of seeing him suffer. And that means more to me than my Dad's suffering because he was going to die, she is quite well and alive and has to carry on without him. I pitied her and was thankful he died so she didn't have to suffer watching him die.
JEB Bush needs to declare a state emergency, activate the National Guard and go inside that hospice and take her out and give her to her parents.
If she dies later, naturally, it would still be the right thing to do.
ping
People who say starvation is 'natural' and a 'kind' death are full of it! A lady in the nursing home my grandmother was in basically starved to death. She was pretty much in a sleep state most of the time. She hadn't had anything to eat since around Thanksgiving and she went about 3 weeks without something of substance to drink. By january she was down to 80# in weight and when she died around the first part of Feb, she weighed around 65# I think I heard. It doesn't take much to keep someone going who is doing nothing but lying in bed. She moaned and cried out all the time. Her daughter told her it was time to go, but she hung on and hung on! It was loooong, drawn out and sad!!
Little by little, the clinical criteria used to determine whether organ donors are "brain dead" will change to include other levels of brain damage now considered off limits.
After my mother had her stroke, I had to make so many tough decisions. I was the only decision-maker. I believe if you pray to the Heavenly Father for guidance, the right thing will be done. It's a heavy responsibility, to watch over the end of someone's life but, IMO, not the right of any human being to hasten another human being's end in a case such as this where life support is not in effect. I feel somewhat better that I chose for life, but it is still tough to reflect on.
BTW, when my mother was pregnant with me (a LONG time ago), since my father left her, it was suggested she abort. But here I am. So I like to think now we did the same favor for each other. Fern B., rest in peace.
This is a standard line used by Libs calling into Rush's show. Heard it all the time during the campaign, especially that ending, "and let me tell you why".
Ping.
This will be the Roe v.Wade of the 21st century if this woman is allowed to starve to death without a full examination of her capacity and chance for some recovery.
How many of us would say that if paralyzed like Christopher Reeve that we would rather be dead.Yet after a tragedy like that occurs to someone they still have the resolve to live and make the most of their lives.
Dangerous ground that is being walked on here.
I think there are plenty of people out there who claim they want to do what's in the best interest of their family member, but the TRUTH is that they do not want the burden of taking care of this person or seeing their loved one in a different state of life.
It's really a question of our VANITY. We are so vain that to have a family member in this state is bad and we justify terminating life because they wouldn't want to live "that way". There is no that way, it live or die.
I have a son who is autistic. He doesn't talk to me, he doesn't do all of the things that a normal little boy would do. If we are able to terminate life because we don't think they would want to live that way, what is to stop some bad parents from terminating their autistic son.
IT IS NOT THE RIGHT OF ANY LIVING BEING TO TAKE THE LIFE OF ANOTHER HUMAN BEING. WITHHOLDING WATER AND FOOD FROM TERRI IS THE SAME AS WITHHOLDING FOOD AND WATER TO A BABY. Neither one of them can do it themselves. I am ashamed that anyone in this country thinks it's okay to let someone starve to death. They could at least have the cojones to kill her immediately with some drug rather than let her wither away.
ping for Rush's personal story.
Rush is absolutely right on every aspect of the situation. We have in America from the beginning of the pro-abortion era a spirit of death hanging over us. It is a spirit that has been aloud to prosper and it will not stop until we see it for what it is.
Sometimes I think Rush just runs his mouth, and I turn him off. But I caught this part of the program today, and I thought it was truly awesome, especially since much of the audience evidently disagrees with him. When he said, "The culture of death is seductive," I thought he really nailed it. It's easy to see why he is the king of talk radio.
But there is nothing "heroic" about food and water. Forgo some surgery, and the sickness takes them. Stop food and water, and you have killed them, and there is no point telling yourself otherwise.
I don't know how many patients are actually killed already on the basis that they don't know what's going on, it's better for them, we need the bed, insurance isn't going to cover this, blah, blah, all these decisions.
I know of a similar case. I have no doubt that there are doctors and hospital administrators who will take the case in hand if they think you aren't going to make the right decision. It is too easy to reassign a machine that was keeping a patient alive, or fail to order a procedure that would have kept the patient alive, and few will notice or realize what you did. If they do, and they complain, just act compassionate and assure them that you did all you could.
Read it again. Rush thinks that they killed her. For the bed. Or insurance wouldn't cover it. One or the other.
bump
Once again Rush nails it BUMP!!
"You love life and we love death." al-Qaeda tape released on March 14, 2004
Folks, that's exactly why Terri is being starved to death. The people who have power over her have no emotions whatsoever. They have completely divorced themselves of her but, continue to rule over her as if she were just a fixture of inconvenience.
He is right about this, big time right, and it crosses religious, political, economic lines. I think the energy is an energy of rationalization and justification. He's right, those who have 'let their folk go' have without doubt done so while considering inconveience and expense, it has not been done for the old folks good, it's been done for their own personal good, in many cases, IMO.
But if you point this out, people become enraged. Just like bigots and anti-semites do when you point out that you understand what motivates them.