Terri Schiavo couldn't swallow! She was fed through tubes.
If the boy had gotten in the room and poured water down her throat she might have choked to death! Imagine how the boy would feel if he actually killed her. The people whipping up hysteria bear some responsibility when well-intentioned but misinformed people get riled up and perform misguided acts. (there were others who tried to feed Terri, people who allegedly planned to kill Michael Schiavo, people who hounded his neighbors with hate mail, etc.)
Also, (AFAIK) the Catholic Church did not have one official statement or position on Terri Schiavo, Yes, the future Pope Benedict expressed his wish and belief that she be fed. On the other hand, the Schiavos' own archbishop did not condemn Michael or the final decision. This has been a 'gray area' for the church in the past with feeding tubes at times considered an extraordinary means of prolonging life. If Terri was alert and aware it would be clear cut, but I believe the autopsy proved that she was truly a vegetable, her brain had largely liquefied. Some of you people should visit hospitals - people in far better shape than Terri Schiavo are allowed to die every day and nobody sees a problem - the families and doctors just never put the feeding tubes in, so there's no need to remove them.
Did she drool?
Terri COULD swallow. The feeding tube was just an excuse to murder her. When Terri's sibblings tried to have her fed in a previous dehydration starvation attempt, Judge Greer said that he did not want anyone feeding that girl. The rule of the case is that she should DIE!! That's what Greer said - he wanted Terri to die.
The Catholic Church is very clear that nourishment is not extraordinary means; it is ORDINARY means. John Paul II made a strong statement to let Terri LIVE! It is NOT a gray area. It is very black and white.
No, the autopsy did NOT prove that Terri was PVS.
Excerpts from Terri Schiavo Autopsy Report
Dr. Stephen Nelson, Neuropathologist, in a report contained within the autopsy report: "The persistent vegetative state and minimally conscious state are clinical diagnoses, not pathologic ones. ..."
"Neurophysiologic examination alone of the decedent's brain - or any brain for that matter - cannot prove or disprove a diagnosis of persistent vegetative state or minimally conscious state".
Terri was severely brain damaged, but NOT PVS.
AN IRRESPONSIBLE DIAGNOSIS?
The most misleading memes surrounded Terri's diagnosis and medical condition. Readers and viewers of the mainstream media were barraged with reports that Terri was in a PVS, frequently without even the mention that this diagnosis had been challenged and was doubted by responsible doctors. I frequently encountered statements such as “all the doctors” who had examined Terri concluded that she was PVS, or a cleverer version that gave at least a nod to reality: “all the reputable doctors who examined Terri found that she was PVS.”
But such assertions ignore a disturbing set of facts which I discovered in the course of my research for the National Review Online article mentioned above. In my discussion with a number of board-certified neurologists, some of whom are professors of neurology at major medical schools, I learned that the diagnoses of the neurologists who appeared in court for Michael Schiavo, and the one appointed by Judge Greer, were arrived at in a manner inconsistent with sound neurological practice-a manner which did not live up to the guidelines established by the American Academy of Neurology.
First, although the doctors who examined Terri on behalf of the Schindlers asked for Terri to be given an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scan, Judge Greer refused it, as the “star” medical witness for Michael Schiavo, Dr. Ronald Cranford, said that an MRI was unnecessary. Lower-quality CT (computer-aided tomography) scans were done instead. And who made the decision regarding which medical tests Terri was to have? Judge Greer did. According to Patricia Anderson, the attorney for Bob and Mary Schindler, until the fall of 2004, Judge Greer went down the list of tests requested by the doctors and himself “checked off” which ones Terri would receive. Judge Greer's method led Anderson to comment that the judge “practiced quite a bit of medicine in this case.”
As the facts about Terri's diagnosis came out in the weeks before and after the removal of her feeding tube, many neurologists expressed dismay with the lack of advanced imaging procedures. Indeed, nearly 50 neurologists-all of them board-certified and many of them leaders in the discipline-came forward and either offered, or expressed a willingness to offer, affidavits calling on the court to allow new neurological exams of Terri, including advanced imaging tests such as MRI.
The neurologists I have interviewed all acknowledge that the diagnosis of PVS is primarily “clinical”-that is, arrived at mainly on the basis of examination rather than from tests. However, many also asserted that they would themselves order an MRI in a case like Terri's, when life and death are at stake. As one of them, Dr. Peter Morin, explained, an MRI is very useful in “determining the extent of brain injury,” and in assessing the likelihood of the patient's improvement or recovery. Dr. Kalarickal Oomen, a professor of neurology at Oklahoma University Medical School, added that “MRI in many cases gives much better anatomic detail than CT, and is far superior” to the CT scans which were done on Terri in 2002. The value of MRI in assessing brain-injured patients such as Terri led several neurologists to go so far as to characterize a decision deliberately to forego one (as was done with Terri) as “not responsible.”
The guidelines laid down by the American Academy of Neurology for diagnosing patients suspected of being vegetative remark that the diagnosis of PVS can require months to establish. These guidelines also call for careful, repeated examinations of the patient. Neurologists explained that these repeated visits need to be conducted at varying times and under different circumstances. Thus Dr. William Bell, a professor of neurology at Wake Forest University Medical School, explained that brain-injured patients have severely disrupted sleep/wake cycles, and that a doctor can examine such a patient on one day and find him seemingly unresponsive, but return at a different time the next day and find the patient quite alert and aware of his environment. A 1996 article published in the British Medical Journal, which reported a 43 percent error rate in diagnoses of PVS, also cautioned that a “bedside assessment” alone was “inadequate” to make a diagnosis of PVS.
But the exams conducted by the three doctors retained by Michael Schiavo and the court were in fact nothing but the kind of “bedside assessments” deemed “inadequate” in the British Medical Journal study. Each doctor examined Terri for no more than 45 minutes, on only one occasion. Neurologists I interviewed did not object to the length of the exams, saying that a neurological exam could be conducted in 30 to 45 minutes. However, all of them expressed dismay at the lack of repeat exams. Dr. Mouhammed Kabbani, of the University of Missouri Medical School, said: “A single exam for 45 minutes is not enough. There should be continuous observation over a few days to make sure there is, or there is not, meaningful and reproducible response.”
The claims regarding the reliability of Terri's diagnosis of PVS turn out, on further examination, to be as groundless or exaggerated as the many other memes propagated by the media. Dr. Bernardine Healy, former director of the National Institutes of Health and medical columnist for US News and World Report, lamented that the medical procedures followed in Terri's case were simply “not good enough” for a situation “when life-and death-are on the line.” While some reporters and commentators, such as Dr. Healy, attempted to stem the tide of misinformation, they appear to have been drowned out. This lack of diligence by the press, and, in many cases, seemingly willing cooperation with the pro-death agenda, led Nat Hentoff, the acknowledged leftist and avowed atheist writer for The Village Voice, to describe the coverage of Terri's case as “disgracefully ignorant.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1416995/posts?q=1&&page=751, Post #799
Sometimes nursing homes put patients on feeding tubes for convenience's sake.
Judge Greer exterminated her because he was "bored" with her case (and the kickbacks likely had slowed down to a crawl since 2000).
The diocese visits FR to defend Bishop Lynch. He's god awful.
Does believing that she could not swallow allow you to pamper your guilt?
Her monster of a husband WOULD NOT ALLOW her to have any swallowing tests once he decided she had to die.
Note little jedweber...TERRI WAS NOT ON A SALIVA ASPIRATOR.......OH YEAH.........SHE SUCCESSFULLY SWALLOWED TWO QUARTS of SALIVA EACH AND EVERY DAY.
Just like you and I do.