Posted on 06/21/2005 3:34:06 PM PDT by summer
Excerpted from today's NYT Letters to the Editor section:
Jeb Bush's Move in the Schiavo Case (6 Letters)
To the Editor:
Re your June 18 editorial about the Schiavo case:
We did not need an autopsy to know that Terri Schiavo had hopeless brain damage, or to know that many of her body's systems were normal.
Her family loved what was left of her and asked only to be permitted to care for her at their own expense.
My question is, Who or what was better served by her passive execution by water deprivation rather than by the first alternative?
Carl d'Angio, M.D.
Mount Vernon, N.Y., June 18, 2005
To the Editor:
Terri Schiavo's autopsy report claimed that she was probably blind. Supporters of the decision to starve her to death have hailed this finding as bolstering their argument that withdrawal of her feeding tube was ethical.
Their reasoning is hard to follow.
If Ms. Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state, blindness is a meaningless diagnosis. Only sentient people can see, and only sentient people can be blind. And if she were blind, then she was sentient, and the diagnosis of persistent vegetative state was a genuinely fatal mistake.
The lapses in logic aside, it's chilling to assert that it's more ethical to starve a handicapped person if that person is blind. This is what passes for ethics among advocates for euthanasia.
Michael Egnor, M.D.
Stony Brook, N.Y., June 18, 2005
The writer is vice chairman of the department of neurological surgery, SUNY, Stony Brook
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
FYI.
Two good doctors. I especially liked the devastating comments by the neurosurgeon on Terri's murder.
Those are both great letters, and I love the logic of the second letter.
Bless those doctors.
God bless them both. They are both spot on.
FYI!
Bump. Thanks for posting. It's good to hear from these doctors.
FYI.
Good for the docs.
Any minute now the happy death crowd will be in here telling us that these aren't real doctors, don't know what they're talking about, blah, blah, blah....
-Michael Egnor, M.D. Stony Brook, N.Y., June 18, 2005 The writer is vice chairman of the department of neurological surgery, SUNY, Stony Brook.
Hurray for Dr. Egnor! But why didn't we hear more earlier against euthanasia from very respected physicians?
wonder if Dr. Egnor will keep his position as head of neurology at Stony Brook for very long? This is not a politically correct position for him to have taken.
I saw a headline that read, "Florida woman blind, without hope" as if her blindness made her even more without hope. The kill-Terri-first crowd doesn't even make sense. LOL! Thank you for posting these two letters from MD's. Made my day.
Re your post #14 - I was wondering the same.
You're welcome.
Just curious - do you have a specific reason for cutting me out of the large herd here and pinging me to this thread?
Yes, your screenname was on the other thread about the doctor said was a quack. And, so were the other two screennames I pinged with you. I would have pinged everyone, but, your names were the easiest to pick up and ping in the time I have at this moment! Sorry it was not something more than the easy spelling of your screenname. :)
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