Posted on 03/23/2005 5:35:31 PM PST by gentlestrength
It is becoming more and more clear to me that the people who
want Terri dead are the ones whose hearts have stopped.
May they burn in Hell.
=======
Pleeeeeze... can't you find a more despicable place for them to
go? If I wind up in Hell I surely don't want to be surrounded by
those filthy bass turds !!! ;-))
---- Ahem, since when are we supposed to take Peter Jennings as Gospel? ABC is aggressively lobbying for Terri to die.
Here is Thursday's LA Times, which actually quotes the neurologist's report. He's a Mayo Clinic neurologist, no hick. And he says Terry looked him in the eye. And made various noises. -- And lifted eyebrows, even laughed. Read and learn:
March 24, 2005 A SECOND OPINION Doctor Says Examination Changed His Mind A neurologist contends Schiavo could be in a 'minimally conscious state.' But critics cite his conservative Christian background. ....In his affidavit, Cheshire wrote that he came into the case believing that it was "ethically permissible" to withdraw Schiavo's feeding tube. But during his evaluation, he began to notice what he interpreted as faint signs of consciousness. For example, he wrote, "her facial expression brightens and she smiles in response to the voice of familiar persons such as her parents." When piano music is playing, "she lifts her eyebrows, smiles, and even laughs." During Cheshire's visit to her bedside, she turned her head to look directly at his face, then held his gaze for about 30 seconds, he wrote. Schiavo cannot speak, but Cheshire wrote that he discerned differences in her monosyllabic utterances, cooing at some points or making guttural sounds when annoyed. These vocalizations could well be signs of "emotional thought within her brain," he wrote.
Three other judges watched the tapes and read the testimony and looked at the test results. They talk about it in the 2DCA ruling I linked to.
Terri had 4 GALs, not two as suggsted by your both comment. And it's interesting. Last week freepers were lamenting that Terri didn't have representation in court when in fact, of course, she did.
That is a gross mischaracterization of my question (and my doubt of the claim), by omitting the essential qualifier of denial of sustenance and hydration being the primary agent of death in those hundred of patients a day.
I easily believe that hundreds of feeding tubes are removed from patients who are otherwise terminal, that is, they are terminal even with a feeding tube. But I don't believe hundreds of deaths are caused a day by denial of food and water.
The only reasonable reading of your replies to my question will take them as assertions that you do believe hundreds of people are starved to death each day (that starvation is the primary agent of death), and that you don't find ethical or legal issue with that.
I must be missing something.
Massive stroke patients cannot feed themselves. When the feeding tube is removed, they will surely die as they cannot be fed or hydrated any other way.
With a feeding tube, massive stroke victims can often live with years. Not in a good state, obviously, but live.
Forgive me for not getting it, but I truly don't understand your question about this matter.
Okay. That explains quite alot. Thanks.
So what do you think about removing feeding tubes from stroke victims who are not "otherwise terminal"? I answered your previous question, it seems to me, so perhaps you will answer mine.
I know about the T4 program.
Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it, as the old saying goes.
However, we don't even have to look at history. We have a shining example in the Netherlands. If the doctors decide a person's care is too much trouble, they can kill that person, no questions asked, and the families' wishes can be totally ignored. As it stands now, a Dutch parent who takes a retarded child to the doctor risks having the doctor kill their kid.
If they aren't otherwise terminal, I think it is abhorrent and unethical. You may well be correct, that the removal of the feeding tube is the initiating agent of demise in these "hundreds of times a day."
Thanks in part to your open dialoge, I'm starting to see that a substantial fraction of the population has a view of the value of life that is radically different from my view.
Years ago, I said to a colleague that I could never testify in court, because it's clear that the experts on one side of the case are lying. I could never lie to advance a lawyer's case, no matter how much that lawyer paid me.
43“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[h] and hate your enemy.’ 44But I tell you: Love your enemies[i] and pray for those who persecute you, 45that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
When you have an elderly relative who doctors say will never recover from a stroke and you know they didn't want to be hooked up to tubes for the rest of their lives, you honor those wishes. With or without a Living Will.
My freepmail and indeed the open forum is replete with families faced with making what is inarguably the most difficult decision of their lives.
I think to state that people have a radically different view of the value of life is to misunderstand that sometimes, the last thing we can do for a loved one is to honor their wishes.
To discuss instead the use of denial of food and hydration to honor those wishes is another thing. But a feeding tube is often all that is keeping a loved one alive. When people write their Living Wills, they need to be clear on that point. And if you wish to be kept alive on tubes or machinery indefinitely, you need to be clear to your family on that point as well.
Within boundaries. Kevorkian went to jail for "honoring wishes." My wish, if it comes down to a choice between going without food and water, and going without shelter from the freezing cold, is to be left outdoors to freeze to death. It's more humane than starvation.
I think I do understand. It is human nature to rationalize unethical decisions.
I guess I wasn't allowed any food during labor, but that didn't really bother me. I was only in the hospital for 6 hours before giving birth (although labor lasted 36 hours).
I had an accident many years ago. I think the concern was that if I ate, it would complicate treatment. So, for four days, I only got clear liquids. When I asked for food, I got Jello. I was SOOOOO hungry.
My aunt was dying of ovarian cancer. She had tried everything and there was no hope. In the end she was vomiting feces, which I had not know was even humanly possible. It was the worst death I've ever witnessed.
Doctors ultimately inserted a feeding tube. She insisted that it be removed and stopped eating or drinking by mouth, which she was still capable of doing, although with disasterous results. Within a short period of time, she never struggled again or seemed to have any pain and died quickly after that. It was a blessing.
Were there other ways to help her over those final few weeks? Unquestionably. But those other ways are considered unethical.
In previous posts, Peach has indicated that she does not think there is any slippery slope here. Personally, I am very afraid for the severely disabled, because once a line has been drawn, it's a trivial matter to move it to put a few more people on the other side of it. Each time, it becomes easier to rationalize away the worth of these lives, until finally, no one even bothers with rationalization any more.
Read the Wolfson report.
Sounds as though she was clinically terminal. Most patients in that condition voluntarily stop taking nutrients, but do crave hydration.
A sad story, and sorry for your loss. But it is totally irrelevant to the point of causing death, initiating death, with a starvation process.
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