Terri Schiavo - A moral conundrum for you. [Vanity]

Neutrino | 03/31/2005 | Neutrino

[neutrino]

The courts ordered all water and nourishment to be withheld from Terri Schiavo. This was more that removal of the feeding tube - no one was permitted to give her a drink of water or a crumb of bread.

As we know, she survived for 13 days. Presumably, it was known that she was in pain, since she was given morphine.

The question is coming. First, a small disclaimer - I don't think Terri Schiavo should have been killed.

Question: since the court's order was, in essence, an order to kill her, would it not have been kinder to have ordered her execution by lethal injection, hanging, or in the electric chair? She would have had a quick death instead of a slow death by dehydration and starvation.

Bonus question: Is being disabled now a capital crime?

[A CA Guy]

Terri was a murder, and Cuba, Iran, China and others will rub our face with it in the UN and elsewhere.

[AntiGuv]

Lethal injection would definitely have been much kinder; hanging and electrocution would not. It's not just the swiftness that matters, and the last two are quite unpleasant.

Is being disabled now a capital crime?

Don't be silly.

[Aussie Dasher]

Execution by starvation and dehydration is most certainly a cruel and unusual death.

Perhaps we could talk to some of our older friends about methods Germany very effectively used in the '30s and '40s to kill the sick and disabled. Judge Greer (or Birch) could perhaps head up an inquiry and make the appropriate recommendations.

[Diogenesis]

Compared to the Vicious Evil Murdering Judiciary of Florida, the PRC executes its undesirables relatively mercifully.

The Judiciary of Florida tortures the innocent MORE than the PRC. Want proof:

China: Execution of Tibetan Women and Girls -last month!!!!!! (photos, warning: gruesome)

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Compared to the Vicious Murdering Judiciary of Florida, Saddam executed its undesirables relatively mercifully.

The Judiciary of Florida tortured the innocent JUST LIKE Saddam. Want proof:

FLASHBACK -- This Iraqi man is receiving members of his family cut into pieces and placed in six cotton bags. .

The actual tools used in Saddam's torturing chambers.

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Compared to the Evil Murdering Judiciary of Florida, the Canadian seal hunt is merciful.

The Judiciary of Florida tortures the innocent MORE than the Canadians. Want proof:

[thoughtomator]

Until we correct this we have no standing to berate any other country about their human rights records.

[MHGinTN]

You've posed what you call a moral conundrum, but in fact it is nothing of the sort; you've mixed apples and Hemlock.

[GeekDejure]

Congress declared: "Trial de novo"!

The courts responded: "Trial de NO" !!!

[Diogenesis]

" 9. Between September 1939 and April 1945 the defendants Karl Brandt, Blome, Brack, and Hoven unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly committed war crimes, as defined by Article II of Control Council Law No. 10, in that they were principals in, accessories to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and were connected with plans and enterprises involving the execution of the so-called "euthanasia" program of the German Reich in the course of which the defendants herein murdered hundreds of thousands of human beings, including nationals of German-occupied countries. This program involved the systematic and secret execution of the aged, insane, incurably ill, of deformed children, and other persons, by gas, lethal injections, and diverse other means in nursing homes, hospitals, and asylums. Such persons were regarded as "useless eaters" and a burden to the German war machine. The relatives of these victims were informed that they died from natural causes, such as heart failure. German doctors involved in the "euthanasia" program were also sent to Eastern occupied countries to assist in the mass extermination of Jews."

[ Count 2, section 9, of the indictment in "the Doctor's Trial" at the Nuremberg war crimes trial;
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ]

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HEALTHFUL DRINKS WITH WARM MEALS EATEN SINCE THE ORDER-TO-MURDER-AN-INVALID BY JUDGE GREER
BEFORE HIS GREER'S and THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM'S Latest VICTIM WAS MURDERED
Scumbag Torturer and Murderer-At-Will, The Imperial Pinellas County Judgenfuhrer Greer ..... 60
............................................................................................ Terri Shiavo 0
............................................................................................ Lee Malvo 55
...................................................................................... Scott Peterson 54

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[Racehorse]

This thread is probably premature.

I'd wait a few weeks for the release of the Medical Examiner's report. As it stands, whatever position a person takes, the ME's report will provide a better frame of reference to understand what happened.

For now, positions are drawn first from principle (right or wrong of causing the death of someone unable to care for themselves), or from beliefs about unverified facts.

[Emmett McCarthy]

The pro-death demons will be lining up soon to tell anybody who's stupid enough to listen to them that Terri Schiavo's suffering for 13 days was OUR fault. If not for our "silly and outmoded morality", they would have been free to just kill her outright. This is definitely what is coming. Be ready.

[Norman Bates]

What they did to Terri was very wrong. Starvation and dehydration over a period of 14 days is not dying with dignity.

[Bruceski]

How do you all stand on the death penalty?

[Norman Bates]

Did you hear Dick Morris on O'Reilly tonight basically saying that the pro-life/right-to-life movement in America has no future because it is considered fringe? And that the President has just been giving lip service all along. Sobering, and I hope not true.

I hope Delay is able to have some workable action on these courts. What they did was an outrage.

[TXBubba]

Wait. Felos said in his press conference that "Everyone knows that you do not starve due to the removal of hydration and nutrients." And no, I'm not making this up. He said it. Will they report it?

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Question: since the court's order was, in essence, an order to kill her, would it not have been kinder to have ordered her execution by lethal injection, hanging, or in the electric chair?

The Germans, under Nazi rule, began using starvation as a euthanasia technique for deformed and disabled children. Eventually they moved toward more "humane" methods, such as gassing and injections of phenol directly into the heart. It's only inevitable that at some point it will be considered more humane to provide a quick death by lethal injection when (so the logic will go) the victim is "going to die anyway."

[Norman Bates]

I am against the death penalty for disabled, minimally conscious, PVS, or other vulnerable adults not convicted of a capital or otherwise infamous crime.

[Twinkie]

Ah, never you fear. Lethal injection will probably be the next step taken in Felos' argument in his "right to die" crusade. Logical, very logical. Make them squirm while a helpless one is slowly and heartlessly starved to death by removing her feeding tube, don't allow even the communion offered to her (she might swallow it and show the world she could have swallowed all along). Next time around, the public will be clamoring to send their inconvenient "loved ones" to Felos' Compassionate Injectatorium By The Sea for this revolutionary quick and final solution.

[La Enchiladita]

Starvation and dehydration over a period of 14 days is not dying with dignity.

And it is not "death with dignity" to have armed police officers inside and outside your room and hospice while you are agonizingly dying this way.

Death with dignity would have been to leave her to the care of her parents, with the feeding tube in place. One day, she would begin to reject the nutrition, would start throwing up, then body systems would decline and the last breath would come in it own time, with her loving family and her priest around her bedside. No police, no strangers. That would have been "death with dignity."

But bigamist ghoul Michael saw to it that was denied her.

[Norman Bates]

Well technically she probably died of organ failure brought on by severe dehydration, but no sane person can argue that it's perfectly normal or O.K. to go without food for 14 days.

The classification of her death: Homicide.