Enforcing the "Right to Die":The Case of Terri Schiavo

Life Issues ^ | August 2003 | Nancy Valko

[shhrubbery!]

I wish this young woman had prepared a living will. She could havesaved her husband and parents this heart wrenching pain.

I've heard advisors I trust caution that "living wills" are not necessarily a good thing.

One problem is that a brain-injured person's true prognosis is often very difficult to determine. Some doctor's and "expert's" opinions are biased, negligent, or just plain wrong.

So if you ask most people if they'd like to have a "living will" wherein they ask to be refused all treatment if they're in a "vegetative state," most people will probably say 'yes.'

Yet those who say 'yes' to termination of treatment are often ill-informed. They may not realize that many, many seemingly hopeless cases of brain-injury and coma have turned out for the better, with the injured person recovering well and living many happy years more.

I know personally of a case where doctors pronounced a patient's case hopeless; yet that patient is now a healthy, fully-functioning person 30 years later! What would've happened if he'd had a "living will"? I shudder to think.

[Feiny]

A great summary of events.
I have sent an email to all my friends with the details of this case and links to your interview, the Jane Chastain & Sara Foster articles...and a few others. I asked that it get forwarded around for others to take action....I figured if people can forward jokes....this should be a cinch!

Maybe other freepers should do the same thing....you know how fast those emails get spread....could be a good way to spreadthe word faster.

[TheSpottedOwl]

Thanks for the ping!

[floriduh voter]

It is alleged that Terri said she didn't want to be a burden "like grandma". Well, the Court and husband have strictly interpreted what that means. It's open to interpretation as to the definition of the word "burden."

Of course she's a burden to her husband but she's not a burden to anyone else. They want to take care of her but the family have been treated like they are pests. If a Judge has only that alleged statement to go on and no living will, burden should mean to everyone not solely to the one person who really wants her dead because he's got a live-in, a kid and another on the way.

It doesn't even matter that she's conscious. It's all speculative and if Jeb Bush doesn't intervene with a special session, his political career may not go any further in 2006. Then when Hitlery becomes President, we'll wonder what went wrong.

[INSENSITIVE GUY]

I don't feel that anyone (regardless of condition)has the right to intervene in God's decision.Its tough to see anyone hurting or near death but hard as it may be to believe,MIRACLES DO HAPPEN!I am not God and therefore have no right to decide who lives and who dies.

[TheSpottedOwl]

Unfortunately there are more than a few rotten apples in the Catholic Church. It must have been a slap in the face for the Schiavos to ask their Church for help, then receive a reply like that.

[MarMema]

Originally we did begin by pulling the plug on people who were mostly unresponsive, on ventilators, did not open their eyes. Karen Ann Quinlan types.

But there has been a lot of rapid progression. We went next to killing those who could breathe on their own but were still fairly unresponsive - they jumped at pain, but mostly did not interact with people, visibly. Marcia Gray types. People who probably were in a vegetative state.

After that, we began to kill people who were just brain-damaged though. Nancy Cruzan and Christine Busalacchi types. They spoke words, they could eat solid food quite well but struggled with liquids, they were incontinent, but they also smiled, laughed, frowned, and waved to people. Nancy and Christine were killed because they were unable to care for themselves. Christine in particular, was not PVS ( persistent vegetative state). Hugh Finn's case is questionable here also, I think.

So now we are killing people who can function to some degree but are just too darn expensive, cumbersome, or in the way and keeping that inheritance delayed.
We need to put a brake on it.

And finally if you do some reading about death by dehydration, which is what happens when you remove the feeding tube, I don't think you'll find it to be a choice you would make for yourself. None of us want to live on indefinitely in a coma, but death by starvation/dehydration is cruel, long, and horribly hard on these people. None of us would be free after doing this to a horse, but we can certainly do it to people who are less functional than we are? Not that I think injection should come next, it probably is very close behind all of this, and they will use the cruelties of dehydration to promote the lethal injection for the disabled.

Do look at my FR page for some stories about people we have killed. And these are the ones we know about....

[BlackElk]

I am in absolute agreement with you on this and there is nothing in the article or your posts that suggests Catholic-bashing on this thread. Remember, I represented 1100 of those called (mistakenly in my state) Operation Rescue. They also tried to intervene in Florida in another case years ago very similar to the Schiavo case.

The elitists that be set a standard that says that if anyone seems to remember that the target of death by starvation and dehydration may have ever said he/she did not want to be on tubes, then that is determinative with the seal of judicial approval. Toss another on the assembly line of murder. There are "living will" statutes in most states allowing a person to formally request assisted suicide by dehydration or starvation. We would not let anyone determine the care of their pet goldfish by such sloppy standards as: I think she wanted Uncle Wilbur to take Jaws to his house.

The culture of death marches on. You resist. I resist. I bet that former lib resists. Trust me that many Catholics resist and we resist hose like Bishop Lynch and Father Murphy who sell their souls for secular approval. Maybe St. Petersburg will some day have a truly Catholic bishop and Fr. Murphy can be defrocked for material participation in the homicide of Terry Schindler Schiavo.

Thank you for pinging me and be asured your intervention here is most welcome. As to Nancy Valko, she should only be the start of a Godly element in press and media. God bless her and hers and you and yours.

[kimmie7]

Seriously, let's pray that Michael let's Christ into his heart. I'm serious about that.

That's the best post of the day. It would fix everything. So true.

[AnnaZ]

Please send it to me as I had planned on putting a mass email together tonight also. (I made a plea for help at my church this morning.)

 

If (the collective) we can can do it for a woman in Nigeria, we can do it for a woman right here in the USA.

 

 

God bless and protect Terri.

[kimmie7]

Yet those who say 'yes' to termination of treatment are often ill-informed. They may not realize that many, many seemingly hopeless cases of brain-injury and coma have turned out for the better, with the injured person recovering well and living many happy years more.

I know personally of a case where doctors pronounced a patient's case hopeless; yet that patient is now a healthy, fully-functioning person 30 years later! What would've happened if he'd had a "living will"? I shudder to think.

So true.

[AnnaZ]

BTW, I may have kept it together during the interview... but I lost it this morning in front of a live audience.

 

:=-(

[MarMema]

I bet that former lib resists...

Good idea, FL and fellow Orthodox ping!!! Let me know if you do not want to be included in posts about euthanasia... so I don't pick on you or assume this is an issue you want to keep up on.

What does the Orthodox church say about euthanasia, or starvation/dehydration of *conscious* people? ( see my FR page, newly done!, for some stories about this if you want to know more)

[MarMema]

We would not let anyone determine the care of their pet goldfish by such sloppy standards as: I think she wanted Uncle Wilbur to take Jaws to his house

LOL!! You hereby get my award for post of the week!!
This is outstanding!!!

[Maigrey]

Bump and Ping!

[Darnright]

>It is about Theresa Schiavo's right to make her own decision, independent of her parents and independent of her husband".

IF Terri had a living will, I could go along with this statement. However, from what I have read on Terri, this supposed desire to die comes only from what her husband says. In the absence of this document, there is absolutely *no* proof that Terri does not want to continue living.

I am amazed at this judge's willingness to act on such a matter with only hear-say testimony.

[Restorer]

I think that if the person is really brain-dead, whatever that means, then they should be put to sleep in the same way an injured dog is.

The "denial of nutrition" route is strictly for cowards, who won't face up to what they're doing.

Wouldn't it be interesting if she got hungry enough to wake up?

[MarMema]

She is awake. Go watch the videos of her. She is very much awake and conscious. That's the whole problem - she is awake but brain-damaged, and they still want to kill her.

[nickcarraway]

BUMP