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."
but since it is still on the books in Florida (the Florida legislature's fault), as much as I hate to say it, this just sucks.....
Time compressing is far worse...Saw a time compressing version of Arsenic and Old Lace once... it destroyed the film, it played like a Three Stooges short
(Arsenic and Old Lace... somewhat ironic to use that film on this thread in a sidebar subject)
LIKE most Freepers I have only expressed outrage at greer, hino and their ilk.
Terri will most likely pass away but she will live on with the Lord. Quite frankly, I THINK SHE WINS.... SHE WILL HAVE ETERNAL LIFE!!
PRAISE GOD FOR IT!!!
I have no patience with those who delight in her death because she is disabled or just because HINO wants her dead.
Your comments on these threads have no value. Go find a rock in Iraq or something.
A camera should be running at all times, in the room of a patient diagnosed as PVS. Especially if the patient has a "serial philanderer" husband as their guardian.
You are absolutely right.... unfortunately.
Very ironic.
and I agree with you 1000%....
There are many many people out there advocating some forms of violence or another, wishing Jeb would have sent in the national guard and start and armed conflict and some have even threatened people connected to the case. Let's not forget the people that were attempting to say Terri was being cruxified and in that, deifying her.
This entire case is a result of greed, a horribly written law, and some judicial arrogance and incompetence to bring it all together. THAT is what we should be focusing on. That does kind of make Terri a martyr.
Screaming through a bullhorn at a hospice is only going to drive people away.
make me
Watch whatever you please,but don't get bent out of joint when someone tells you factual information about movies and the reasons for some things and why the subtlties of B&W are different from films that were made in color.
There actually WAS Technicolor used, though sparsely, in the 1920s. It was NOT used for entire films because 1) the film makers erroneously believed that color would harm the viewers' eyes 2) the believed that certain scenes would make a bigger impact, IF they were in color and I am NOT talking about tinted film, but two thread ( as opposed the the more modern three thread color we are used to )TECHNICOLOR.
You're old enough to remember when a movie in color was a big deal. Now,it's the norm and no big deal at all.
Ted Turner RUINED "classic" films by colorizing them but since you don't want to be " depressed", even when the story is supposed to DEPRESS you, then by all means watch your coloroized version and be happy, happy, HAPPY! It's cheaper and safer than taking PROZAC. LOL
wait a second, I thought all old movies were in black and white because the world was B&W back then and then in the 60's, color was invented :-)
Sorry I just finished reading Calvin and Hobbes :)
Thousands of people were crucified.
Were you trying to be funny, or should I tell you about the 100s of TECHNICOLOR films and partial TECHNICOLOR films from the '20s onward?
sure they were, but in the context that we have been seeing it referred too, she is being compared to Christ.
in no way will I ever agree to that. werent you here just before Easter? The mods had to pull that exact thread several times....
sorry, Calvin and Hobbes was a comic strip.
it was a joke....but you would have only gotten it if you had read the comic strip....
Oh,I see. Sorry, but I've never seen a Calin and Hobbes comic strip.
wow really?
I think the first time I saw it I was 6 or so and my dad would read the Sunday Funnies to me.....
Thats absurd and half the post here are sounding like rants from the DU these days over this situation . Logic and common sense have LONG gone out of this discussion on FR for the most part .
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