Schiavo Videotape Misleading, Experts Say

Reuters ^ | 3.23.05

[Bellflower]

Does anyone else remember seeing video footage of Michael Schiavo wheeling Terri around in a wheel chair fully made up with hair nicely done and sitting up in the wheel chair with a strap around her keeping her in the chair? It was on Fox News many months ago. I believe it was before the large sum of money awarded Terri. Help! Am I remembering this right? She looked like a handicapped disabled lady. NOT comatose nor brain dead.

[Recovering_Democrat]

[EggsAckley]

Bioethecists are really scary people. Read what novelist Dean Koontz wrote about these people, back in 2001. It's a stunning passage.

"Great universities like Harvard and Yale, like Princeton, once citadels of knowledge where truth might be pursued, had become well-oiled machines of death, instructing medical students that killing should be viewed as a form of healing, that only selected people who meet a series of criteria have a right to exist, that there is no right or wrong, that death is life We are all Darwinians now, are we not? The strong survive longer, the weak die sooner, and since this is the plan of Nature, shouldn’t we help the old green gal in her work? Accept your expensive diploma, toss your mortarboard in the air to celebrate, and then go kill a weakling for Mother Nature.

Somewhere Hitler smiles. They say that he killed the disabled and the sick (not to mention the Jews) for all the wrong reasons, but if in fact there is no wrong or right, no objective truth, then all that really matters is that he did kill them, which by the standards of contemporary ethics, makes him a visionary."

Dean Koontz, “One Door Away From Heaven” December 2001

[Rudder]

whatever. she stays alive when fed, and that about settles it.

Exactly. I work with patients like her everyday (in a DD hospital that hold about 100 patients like Terri.) Her brain is seriously damaged and she will likely never improve, just like the experts in this article assert. Nevertheless, she should not be killed, but rather treated humanely and sustained.

[speedy]

We can always count on Reuters to give a balanced account of every issue. After all, they were so objective in their coverage of the Presidential election. Impossible to detect who they wanted to win.

[Conspiracy Guy]

Who

Who speaks for Terri ?
Michael loves another.
Who cares for Terri ?
They won’t let her mother.
Who’s feeding Terri ?
Greer says, no food at all.
Who will save Terri ?
We watch our nation fall.

CG 3/23/2005

[B Knotts]

Dr. Ronald Cranford

Oh, please...and they expect us to take this seriously?

From Fr. Rob Johansen's National Review piece:

In cases where other doctors don't see it, Dr. Cranford seems to have a knack for finding PVS. Cranford also diagnosed Robert Wendland as PVS. He did so in spite of the fact that Wendland could pick up specifically colored pegs or blocks and hand them to a therapy assistant on request. He did so in spite of the fact that Wendland could operate and maneuver an ordinary wheelchair with his left hand and foot, and an electric wheelchair with a joystick, of the kind that many disabled persons (most famously Dr. Stephen Hawking) use. Dr. Cranford dismissed these abilities as meaningless. Fortunately for Wendland, the California supreme court was not persuaded by Cranford's assessment.

[Future Useless Eater]

LITTLE KNOWN FACT....

---

Most or ALL of that video was played to GREER with the AUDIO TURNED OFF!!!

Terri can be made to look spaced out, without her glasses, and without AUDIO of the DOCTOR exclaiming GOOD JOB! GOOD JOB YOUNG LADY!!!!

[Trust but Verify]

What does it matter? Anyone who says she has no chance of recovery will be called a 'Death Cultist' or worse. I wouldn't touch this with a ten foot pole if I were an expert in neurological function.

Our 'experts' right here on FR have spoken. Their truth is the only possible truth.

[Ignatius J Reilly]

"I saw a video where someone asked her to open her eyes and she opened them really wide. It wasn't a reflex."

I have heard that that 4 minute video was edited down from about 40 hours filming, all apparent 'reactions' just coincidental. Anyone eles hear anything about this?

[Petronski]

I believe this article as much as I believe Der Sturmer, the official Nazi Party news publication.

Those in the Kill Terri crowd have been making an extraordinary display of National Socialist ardor, haven't they?

[whershey]

http://www.health24.com/news/Ageing/1-888,24630.asp

...

Miraculous recoveries considered In six cases, patients who were disconnected from life support ended up surviving and leaving the intensive care unit.

Those miraculous recoveries don't undermine the general policy of taking patients off life support when further treatment is futile, says Dr Lawrence Schneiderman, an expert in medical ethics at the University of California, USA. We can sometimes be wrong; sometimes the unexpected happens. Trying to avoid the rare error by keeping everyone on ventilators would subject the vast majority to unnecessary, and perhaps cruel, procedures, he says.

Many ethical dilemmas However, the intensive care unit is thick with ethical dilemmas. Doctors believe they know what patients want in terms of life support, and that family members can fill in blanks. But Schneiderman says his own research suggests that what physicians think critically ill people want is in fact nearer to what they would choose for themselves. Family members, too, aren't especially reliable translators of their loved one's wishes.

We're always relying on surrogate decision makers or physicians, Schneiderman says. But there's plenty of evidence that it doesn't correlate too well with what patients truly desire. - (HealthDayNews)

I wonder if the good doctor asked those patients who recovered what they think of his feelings on the subject.

[Wallace T.]

Not one of these esteemed "experts" has probably been within a thousand miles of the hospice where Terri Schiavo is dying. For all we know, the propagandist,...uh..., reporter who wrote this article pulled their names from a list of physicians known to be friendly to euthanasia.

Der Sturmer indeed!

[k2blader]

WOW.

Thank you, B Knotts.

The truth is there.

[Trust but Verify]

So are some of the people on this board.

[Serenissima Venezia]

"What about the video showing her purposefully following the balloon moving from side to side, moving not just her eyes but her whole head?? It seems like a conscious act to me."

Good point! And the video of her moving her head to get away from what I assume was a cotton swab with something nasty-tasting on it. She was aware of discomfort and trying to get away from it. That is also a conscious act!

[dfwgator]

Their truth is the only possible truth.

Actually it's precisely because we don't know what the truth is that we say let's err on the side of life. If there was a living will, then I wouldn't have a problem with it. Now, maybe there is nothing that can be done given current laws to save Terri, but I sure hope that the current laws can be reviewed, and people now know to get living wills so this need not happen again.

[ndkos]

It's from Reuters - they are not to be trusted!!

[Serenissima Venezia]

"At 3PM Eastern he indicated the abuse investigation had developed to the point where they legal could, and would take her into protective custody."

I didn't realize anyone was pursuing this avenue - thank goodness they did! Keep us posted...

[deadhead]