Posted on 04/01/2005 11:52:28 PM PST by FairOpinion
My apologies for misunderstanding.
I was only pointing out that people who have experience with abusers "know 'em when they see 'em."
They shouldn't be accused of feeling superior, for having that insight. They've learned an important lesson from a life experience they really would rather not have undergone.
When used honestly, before it became a death sentence, the term "persistent vegetative state" meant nothing more nor less than that no demonstrable cognitive response had been discovered. It did not mean that none exists--merely that if any such response did exist it had not yet been discovered and identified. In that sense, the term was similar to "UFO".
One of the difficulties with establishing the meaningfulness of a PVS diagnosis is that someone who isn't looking very hard for signs of cognition isn't apt to find them. Given that some people drift in and out of states where they are largely unconcious, the notion that a single 45-minute exam could suffice to show that there are no signs of congition at all is ludicrious.
To use a Greerlogic analogy, suppose five police officers search a vehicle for drugs. Three of them, two of whom are open advocates of drug legalization, find nothing. The other two find drugs. Should the fact that the majority of the cops found nothing be taken as clear and compelling evidence that there weren't any drugs in the vehicle?
Not to mention, at least one person who was capable of operating a motorized wheelchair in Dr. Cranford's presence.
Giant BUMP
Before the law was changed so that PVS was a death sentence, why should the parents have cared what the doctors called Terri's condition? Given that the term PVS had historically been used to apply to people for whom signs of cognition had not been confirmed even though they might exist, why should the parents have objected to such a diagnosis?
How many people did he diagnose, correctly or incorrectly, as not being PVS?
Any "test" which has some false positives and zero true negatives is absolutely and 100% worthless.
I recall reading that someone requested and received a copy of the original application and the word "Insurance" was spelled correctly there. It may be that the mistake was an accidental typo, or the result of a bribed clerical worker, or that the person who claimed to have examined a copy of the original document was lying. I don't know. But something to keep in mind.
Good points about the mis-spelling of insurance.
GrimGreer also sealed Florida's Department of Children & Families records which contain near 90 allegations of abuse by Mikey Schiavo against Terri.
If there is a purpose for doing so...i.e., if doctor is goign to take action based on the tests. What was to occur here? If tests showed she was in persistant vegetative state, do you really think the Schindlers would drop their case. They admitted in court that she was in pvs but that didnt stop them.
The Mayo Clinic guy came way too late and with way too little. The time to have presented his findings was in the original trial, not after he had ruled.
He met with Terri for an hour and a half, admits that she wasnt at all responsive to anything he did but then says but I still have a feeling that I am in the presence of a person. Sounds to me like his subjective mind was overuling his brain and medical training. He didnt say she wasnt in pvs. She said he thought there was a small chance that she might be minimally conscious.
Thanks for your advice
And, when the law is changed, it may NOT comport with YOUR personal ideas.
Perhaps you should move.
Don't you know how to read? Three off the top of my head. That doesn't mean three only. Or maybe to you it does.
Hey, I have an idea. Why don't you go try to find out how many times Cranford has testified that someone was NOT in a PVS? Go dig up his records yourself.
Well, it's for certain that Clearwater is crawling with the Scientologist crowd, wearing their uniforms, and lapping up HubbardCultJibberish like kitties do with milk.
No KoolAid, yet...
I dont live in Florida. I live where the Cruzan case was decided.
Perhaps the courts really do deal with what's given to them. But pulling life-sustenance is wrong, "courts" or no courts.
Those laws which contradict natural moral laws are void, and that's the substance of the Congressional action.
Not that GrimGreer cared; he was bound and determined to be the poster boy for the Krytocracy, and he's gotten there.
Now it's a matter of what the reaction from the public will be, and I don't think Grim's going to like it--nor the moron Fed in Tampa, nor the 11th Circus clowns.
But it will be well-earned.
Actually, since the founding of Israel, about 500 BC. The Jews were the ONLY Mediterranean culture which did not kill off their unwanted children and adults--a fact remarked upon by contemporaneous historians. For a while, the USA operated under those principles, too.
Neither you nor anyone else can produce a written document that Terri "wished" this.
Only Mikey said so, and only after it became necessary for his purposes. That wasn't the case, however, when Mikey was testifying to gain $1+MM in insurance settlements.
THEN Mikey just did not recall such a statement from Terri.
"If you read the paper which created the category of PVS in 1972 (Jennett B, Plum F. Persistent vegetative state after brain damage: a syndrome in search of a name. Lancet. 1972;1:734-737.), you would realize that this "finding" should never be used to make the decision to kill someone, because of its imprecision and uncertain prognosis. It doesn't matter how many experts agree on the diagnosis, the concept is wrong."
I agree, and now I've learned about "mimimally conscious state" and "locked-in syndrome." PVS is a label to declare people no longer human so evil people and off them.
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