I know I'll get flamed for saying this, but Terri Schiavo was not "killed" or "murdered" or "euthanized". Terri Schiavo was not really living - she was being kept alive by a feeding tube because she could not eat the normal way. I watched my father die 22 years ago after being taken off a respirator that helped him breathe because he could not do so on his own following a massive stroke. He was not "living", in the usual term, but still had to "die". We did not murder him, we did not "euthanize" him, we let Nature or God take her/his course. In my opinion, Terri Schiavo was helped - which should have been done years ago - the same way we helped my father not suffer further. I think Americans who believe Terri Schiavo was done an injustice are wrong. It's hard to understand until you've been there and done it. Just like combat service.
I think you should change your screen name to "disgusting"!. It's people like you who make me fear for my own future safety. Surely you wouldn't want to live like me, either. My legs are paralyzed, which means I can't ambulate the same way you do... but you can certainly solve my problem by simply pulling my wheelchair plug. Right???
Terri Schiavo died only because she was denied food and water, as anyone would. In my view that does not qualify as "life support." Unlike elderly people on respirators after their third heart attack, she was not at the end of her life. She had lived for 15 years, she might have lived another fifteen.
My one year old would die if I don't feed her everyday.
Nobody is going to flame you. You took responsibility for a very difficult decision and it was the right one. But your father's condition was similar to Terri's only very superficially.
Terry was handicapped, not terminal. She was healthy. She did not rely on any mechanical means of life support. Nobody was allowed to test to see if she could swallow. There was so much left out of this equation that this case will always be clouded in doubts and suspicions. Too many questions never to be answered.
Remember Terri was tortured to death, where a criminal when given lethal injection is just put to sleep. Terri was purly TORTURED for 12 days. Shame on America!
Her situation was quite different from YOUR father's.
She was STARVED and DEHYDRATED to death. There is no digity or kindness in such a death. ASTOUNDING that you cannot see it or discern the difference between her circumstances and your father's.
"The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. And ever since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality, is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your face and eyes."
John Adams - letter to John Taylor
I disagree with your position, to say the least.
BTW, quote "God take her/his course" .. Her?? Confusion abounds.
Huh?
God the Father is not a woman and gets highly ticked off if people use that terminology. Check out the Book of Jeremiah, for starters. Tough language in there on this kind of Bravo Sierra.
I'm sorry to hear about your dad. You only have one set of parents ( a dad and a mom) and neither one can be replaced.
Your dad was on a respirator, which kept him going, until you all decided that there was no hope for him. I am sorry for your loss. If you truly believe that withdrawing someone's food and water is the same thing, then there is nothing more to be said. Terri only needed the feeding tube. She was not comatose. She was not end-stage or terminally ill. She wasn't a veg as the media portrayed her. If you think what happened to her is okay, then the 10s of thousands of others who are disabled or just plain old had better start hiding under their beds.
Lots of people cannot eat the normal way: stroke patients, cancer patients, disabled patients of every stripe. I feel sorry for you that you consider the inability to do something in the "normal" way as a reason to off someone.
Hey, since I pity you for your beliefs, does that mean I should have the right to off you now? Of course not, and it's just as ridiculous that it was mercy to remove Terri's feeding tube without her written informed consent.
You've also shown your complete ignorance of the simplicity of a feeding tube.
Obvious you never did any research.
Anyone who would cause the death of someone as aware as this woman on the grounds that they were already dead is guilty of murder. http://www.hospicepatients.org/terri%20big%20eyes.rm.ram . Look at her. Don't look away. That would be cowardly. Look. Really look. Look deep into her eyes. What do you see? If you don't see a living human being, you're not really looking. It is not possible to look into her eyes without being haunted by her murder.
Of course you'll get flamed. You'll get flamed because you haven't got the sense to understand the difference between removing a dying man from a respirator and starving a disabled woman to death.