Terri Schiavo Before dehydration
Posted on 03/30/2005 9:07:57 PM PST by syriacus
It's astounding how many people want Terri Schiavo dead and aren't afraid to say so.
I got clobbered by readers who reacted to Tuesday's column about how the "culture of death" has placed its compassionate arms around Terri, the brain-damaged Florida woman who is being starved to death.
E-mail and phone calls (more than 150 at last count) are running 2-1 against me.
"It's nuts, this 'life at all costs' mentality," a caller said.
There was general agreement: Terri should die and starvation ain't so bad.
"Her parents are being very selfish by keeping her alive. Your reference to her starving like the prisoners [at] Dachau and Bergen-Belsen? Oh, come on. She will not be in any pain. She will go gently to sleep. I'm a nurse."
So let's starve death row inmates instead of killing them with lethal injections. I mean, if starvation is so gentle and painless. Ignore the faint-hearted who gripe this is "cruel and unusual" punishment.
"Her brain is mush. There has never been a case of a person being in a [persistent vegetative] state this long and having any kind of recovery. There's not gonna be a recovery. She's 40-some years old. Who's gonna take care of her? Her parents? They're going to die soon themselves."
A 1984 car crash left Terry Wallis of Mountain View, Ark., a quadriplegic. He lay silently in a "persistent vegetative state" for 19 years. Suddenly, in summer 2003, he began talking. He asked for his mother - and for a Pepsi. I spoke with his parents.
Terry Wallis' wife, after swearing she would care for him forever, left him for another man and had kids with the guy. (Sound familiar?)
Custody was given to his parents, who were often depressed. They prayed a lot.
Today, Terry Wallis is determined to walk. His daughter, Amber, 6 weeks old in 1984, is 21 and cares for him.
The most frequent gripe readers have is that I am not a doctor and so should not comment on Terri Schiavo's medical condition.
"Interesting that you put yourself above trained doctors. As a doctor myself, I find this low mentality repugnant. You and Bush spread this dribble for your own good and care nothing about Terri, her wishes or her husband. Have you, Bush and the Republicans gone brain dead? If this is the case I hope someone pulls your plug." - Bill Helton
I received many comments like that. Reading them gave me a headache - oops, I'm not a doctor. I'm not qualified to make that diagnosis. Sorry.
A neurologist from New Jersey sent me this:
"I fear that our culture will push the line further as to who should live and who should die. I fear for the old, the young, the sick and the helpless. I fear becoming one of the helpless. - Maria Choy, M.D.
Me, too. After Terri Schiavo, who will the culture-of-death vultures circle? A hint. Dr. Ronald Cranford, a neurologist whose medical opinion was key to a Florida judge ordering Terri Schiavo's feeding tube removed, was on TV this week candidly admitting he doesn't believe Alzheimer's patients have constitutional rights.
So first it's people like Terri, then the Alzheimer's sufferers, then perhaps end-stage cancer victims, and so forth.
Why not? Who would want to live like that? Are they not burdens?
Charles Dickens captured it when he had Scrooge confront the do-gooders who wanted to save the helpless, deemed worthless to Victorian England.
"If they had rather die they had better do it and decrease the surplus population."
Who gave this bottomfeeder television time?
That's in "A CHRISTMAS CAROL", if that helps any, but has NOTHING whatsoever to do with what's happening in Florida now.
I'm glad you were spared. I'm glad you got away.
Your daughter sounds like a well-educated and empathetic young person.
Terri's death is waking the rest of us up to the fact that killing the non-terminally ill is the law of the land. Unlike the judicially legislated killing of the unborn, the killing of the non-terminally ill has been made the law of the land by our elected officials.
Florida is not the only state with laws that allow the killing of the non-terminally ill by starvation and dehydration. California also has such laws, and I'm sure other states do as well.
Yes it is. My husband read that to our children every year. And I've seen the Alastair Sim version of "Scrooge," on and off, for over 40 years. (We've got it in B&W as well as the glorious colorized version)
Well, to answer the question, "Who's next?", I'd have to point out that the Pontiff has a feeding tube stuck down his throat, and that he can't talk. And I'm sure that his reflexes aren't what they used to be.
So it looks like all that's needed is a less-than-reliable witness to step forward and testify that "he really never wanted to live that way" . . .
Lucky for the Pope, he doesn't live in America, I guess.
I hope people get curious about the laws of their states.
Yes. Good news all around. The pope can be helped nutritionally and he can stay away from the USA.
Thank you for telling us your story. I'm glad you are all right.
And perhaps some rich older folks with greedy relatives had better put their wishes for hydration and nutrition on paper.
Some were murmuring about how long it took to make that video and I say thank God someone had the patiences to work at it......and if she was able to practiced everyday it would continue to talke less time and get better!
I was reminded of learning how to play an instrament or when one who had a stork or is paralized how many tried like hundreds to find the path again, even our blood vessle forum new veins when the can't move in that area......the brain cells even uses other parts of the brain when it needs to our body are a marvelous machine!
They are putting Terri to death by starving!
a video of terri opening her eyes in case you missed it!
http://web.Tampabay.rr.com/ccb/videos/Terri_Big_Eyes.rm
I read "A CHRISTMAS CAROL" to my daughter, every single Christmas, from toddler hood on.
Thank you!
Thank you!
Hi, MarMema.
Cranford was speaking with Hannity about a week ago when he made the comment about PVS patients having no constitutional rights.
He was on Scarborough the other night and was sarcastically nasty to the young woman who was interviewing him. Scarborough took over the interview with a very weirdly behaving Cranford.
My husband didn't like the idea of a colorized version, but he came around to preferring the colorized version like I do.
the Sims one ( which is NOT called " SCROLOGE" !!!!!!!!!!!!)
Beg to differ
The colorization, of B&W films, ruins them, Do you know WHY Ted Turner went the colorization route ? He did so, because he felt that younger Americans were too stupid to be able to appreciate old B&W films. "nough said. :-)
I'm glad I'm divorced, because he would pull the plug on me.
Did you report your husband to the police? I didn't through all those years. I never heard of anyone calling the police on their husband. I thought about it a couple of times, but knew when he got out of jail, he would try to hurt me again maybe worse.
I had a flashback memory the other day. When he left me (I ended up cheating on him and tried to kill myself), he said shortly after when he came to the house about something, "I've got a feeling someday I'm going to wake up and it's going to be too late."
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