Posted on 09/21/2003 12:13:53 PM PDT by pc93
Terri's Call to Action Part 1 is over 5000 posts. If you don't want to get caught up to speed at Part 1:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/971896/posts?q=1&&page=5167#5167
Simply visit Terri's official web site at:
http://www.terrisfight.org
There are contact numbers at her web site for her core media team, legislators, media and for press updates.
See flash movies of Terri interacting with her mother, responding to a physician and see for yourself that she's not in PVS "persistant vegetative state").
In addition to access a text file with a lot of information see:
http://bellsouthpwp.net/p/c/pc93/FedCourtDktCaseNo8_03-cv-1860-T-26TGW.txt
If you want to join Terri's fight, it's important for us to CONTACT BUREAUCRATS, THE MEDIA and also your friends and family. It's up to you how you choose to Help Terri.
Pinellas Pasco Judge Greer set October 15, 2003 at 2:00 p.m. for her feeding tube to be removed. There's something wrong with Florida's exit protocols and the way the courts handle new information re: criminality (misrepresentation, attempted murder, etc.) affecting a case. There was no living will, only the assertion of a very suspect, so-called husband, his brother, etc. that Terri would not want to live on life support. Terri is not on life support, she is not comatose or PVS and she is not living "artificially". She does get sustenance from a feeding tube but only because she has been denied rehabilitation by her so-called husband after he won a malpratice lawsuit three years after her collapse (cause unknown but probably due to strangulation or physical abuse, or both) which is why Terri needs an army of supporters to spread her story from coast to coast. Terri has retained rights that are being sidestepped because she is disabled and has been denied rehabilitation! The technologies of rehabilitation have greatly improved exponentially yet Judge Greer has not let Terri have a chance to learn to eat or to be able to learn to speak/communicate again. Also new information bearing on the case which shows criminality on husband's side has not been considered by the 2nd District Court of Appeals who handed down Mandate for termination of Terri's feeding based upon testimony of criminal husband and brother as above stated. Who is next?
Let's make a difference! Thank you for your efforts.
I don't think anyone knows what will happen, but I do think that if this spends any time at the federal level it will become a real landmark case.
I spent last night reading about other cases in the old newspaper articles and there was something about the ADA not applying to those labeled with PVS in one writing. It was the idea that a person with PVS was not aware enough to be considered protected under the ADA, believe it or not.
I did some research after reading your comment, too, about the number of times the federal courts have gotten involved in cases like these. What I found was that they have declined in the past, after Nancy Cruzan, because according to what I read - in that case the US supreme court held up the right to die, but was allowing the decisions to be made individually at state levels. I have this printed out but I left it at work in my locker. If I find anything else historically interesting when I return to work next week, I will send you a summary.
here is a site with legal history on cases about killing people.
It is interesting and hopeful for me to read that in the Cruzan case, it was entirely her past room-mates stating that she would have wanted to die in her situation that finally made them go ahead and let her parents dehydrate her.
"It rejected the argument that her parents were entitled to order the termination of her medical treatment, concluding that no person can assume that choice for an incompetent in the absence of the formalities required by the Living Will statute or clear and convincing evidence of the patient's wishes."
Nancy's former roommates provided the "clear and convincing evidence". Hope they sleep well at night..
Nutrition (food), hydration (water) and air are the most basic necessities for sustaining life. It does not matter whether a patient can feed himself, is spoon-fed by others or receives his meals through a feeding tube, the result of withholding food and fluids is universally the same.
If a person is unable to swallow food and fluids, a tube is often used to deliver nourishment. A nasogastric (NG) tube is inserted through the nose and passed down the esophagus into the stomach. If tube feeding is needed over a long period, a gastrostomy (G) tube is surgically inserted through the abdomen directly into the stomach. After the initial surgery, there is rarely discomfort. The nourishment provided through feeding tubes is real food and water. It is not "artificial nutrition and hydration" as it is called by those who would dupe us into believing that tube-feeding is optional "medical treatment" rather than a patient's meals. Tube feeding may be administered by any trained person, including the patient himself or family members; the cost is minimal.
In recent years, numerous court decisions and Living Will-type laws have authorized the dehydration and starvation to death of disabled (not terminally ill) patients, such as Paul Brophy. Mr. Brophy, a Massachusetts firefighter, lapsed into a coma after surgery for a ruptured brain aneurysm in early 1983. He had permanent brain damage, but was not dying. On 10/3/86, he died Ñ eight days after medical personnel stopped his G-tube feedings with approval from the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. Three of seven justices dissented from that decision.
In his dissent, Justice Lynch described "the [likely] various effects from the lack of hydration and nutrition" as follows:
Brophy's mouth would dry out and become caked or coated with thick material. His lips would become parched and cracked. His tongue would swell, and might crack. His eyes would recede back into their orbits and his cheeks would become hollow. The lining of his nose might crack and cause his nose to bleed. His skin would hang loose on his body and become dry and scaly. His urine would become highly concentrated, leading to burning of the bladder. The lining of his stomach would dry out and he would experience dry heaves and vomiting. His body temperature would become very high. His brain cells would dry out, and the thick secretions that would result could plug his lungs and cause death. At some point within five days to three weeks his major organs, including his lungs, heart, and brain, would give out and he would die." (Brophy v. New England Sinai Hospital, No. 85E0009-G1, 10/21/85: 28-29)
The Court said Mr. Brophy's G-tube could be removed or clamped, yet neither was done. The tube remained in place, but food was withheld. When he began having seizures, anticonvulsant medication was administered via the tube, as were antacids to prevent hemorrhaging and laxatives to make him more "comfortable" as he died.
Apparently the feeding tube itself was not considered burdensome or invasive. Were food and fluids burdensome "medicine" for Paul Brophy? That is a ridiculous notion since real medicines - anticonvulsants, antacids and laxatives-were administered through the G-tube in order to treat problems that would not have afflicted this man had tube feeding simply been continued. The obvious reason Mr. Brophy was made to die was that he was considered the "burden."
Is history repeating itself?
The Nazis called patients targeted for death by starvation "useless eaters." The Brophy decision cracked open the doors of American nursing homes and hospitals to permit what was once denounced as a "crime against humanity" - deliberate starvation and dehydration of a person. Nazi doctors were sentenced to death for this crime.
New England Sinai hospital, where Brophy was a patient, refused to stop his feedings. Dr. Lajos Koncz, the staff physician responsible for the hospital's decision, refuted the idea that approval should be granted to remove the feeding tube since it was "artificial." Koncz grew up in Germany after the war and recalled seeing concentration camp survivors. He stated, "I don't think it [a G-tube] is any more artificial than a fork. Will there come a day when we take away the spoons?" (Am. Medical News, 2/14/86)
Some proponents of imposed death suggest that, because death by dehydration and starvation is painful to suffer, ugly to watch and takes so long, it would be more "merciful" to reach the same deliberate end via lethal injection. They speciously frame the debate in terms of choosing the lesser of two evils: dehydration or lethal injection (in essence, death or death-some choice!)
In fact, the issue is whether we will choose the evil of killing or the good of caring.
Dr. Leo Alexander
Psychiatrist and Chief American Counsel at the Nuremberg Tribunal
"Medical Science Under Dictatorship,"
New England Journal of Medicine, July 4, 1949
We've all been given a LURKER ALERT about who's visiting Terri threads. I'm not about to aid Terri's opponents.
When you stop your intake of water, it leads to electrolyte imbalances and especially to something called hypernatremia - An elevated sodium level in the blood.
Here are some of the symptoms of hypernatremia.
"Anorexia, restlessness, nausea, and vomiting occur early. These symptoms are followed by altered mental status, lethargy or irritability, and, eventually, stupor or coma. Musculoskeletal symptoms also often occur with twitching, hyperreflexia, ataxia, or tremor. Neurological symptoms are generally nonfocal (eg, mental status changes, ataxia, seizure), but focal deficits such as hemiparesis have been reported."
Now why people would choose this as a way to die is completely beyond me. But to choose it on behalf of a family member is nothing short of sadism. I can see it in no other way. Don't choose it for yourself.
Ironically, turtles' eggs, tender prairie grasses and tiny snail darters protected by earlier courts are legally more secure than human babies in their mothers' wombs. Now, those who are born but are medically vulnerable are threatened by infanticide and euthanasia - and some have been killed already.
In Connecticut, a man was sentenced to one year in prison and $2,300 in fines for starving four horses to death. When a 4,200-pound whale beached itself near Clearwater, Florida, it was trucked to Sea World where it was fed by a feeding tube. At the same time, American courts have ordered withholding food and water from non-dying humans for the explicit purpose of causing their deaths.
An Oakland County, Michigan court sentenced a man to up to four years in jail for the crime of killing a cat by grabbing its legs and banging it over a wooden porch railing. Oakland County is home base for Jack Kevorkian who freely continues to kill vulnerable people.
Those who support epivalothanasia (imposed death) routinely argue that we euthanize sick animals to end their suffering ("We shoot horses, don't we?"). To those who don't believe there are important distinctions between horses, cats or whales and humans, this argument may have appeal - but this belief is the antithesis of our Judeo-Christian ethic.
It is a tragic irony that, in pre-World War II Germany (1933), strong animal protection laws were passed. Fifteen years later, at the Nuremberg Tribunal which declared the Nazi euthanasia program a "crime against humanity," U.S. Brigadier General Taylor, chief of counsel, concluded, "If the principles announced in this law had been followed for human beings as well, this indictment would never have been filed. It is perhaps the deepest shame of the defendants that it probably never occurred to them that human beings should be treated with at least equal humanity."1
Of course we are called to respect and revere all of creation. Providing for environmental needs, caring for injured and sick animals, and protecting the endangered teaches us compassion and responsibility. But there is something dreadfully wrong with a society which treats animals like brothers and human beings like animals.
Or, in some cases, worse.
A wink of the eye saved S. W. Winogrond just as a surgeon was preparing to remove his kidneys and eyes. (Kansas City Times, 2/13/75)
A twitch of the foot saved Philip Cockerham just as his liver was going to be removed. (Memphis Commercial Appeal, 2/8/84) A twitching foot also saved a 22-year-old North Carolina man as doctors were about to remove his organs. (Orlando Sentinel, 8/29/90)
Family of a 14-year-old girl were told she was "essentially brain dead" and were asked to donate her organs. Two months later she was off life-support, learning to walk and teasing her sisters (Isanti County (MN) News, 1/7/88).
A man who was declared dead after a traffic accident spent two days in a metal box in a mortuary. Eventually he became alert enough to scream for help. (Star Tribune, 3/22/93:2B)
Jackie Cole, 44, was diagnosed in a "persistent vegetative state (PVS)" with chances for recovery as low as "one in a million." A judge ruled that life support could be discontinued. When a friend came to pay his last respects, Jackie opened her eyes and smiled. She continues to give interviews. (People magazine, 10/86:43-44; Hippocrates, 3/97:75-81)
Faced with terminal illnesses or a chronic health condition, including immobility, extreme dependency, or pain, a majority of older adults, ages 60-100, said they would choose to live.
Contrary to the myth that terminally ill patients are begging to die but doctors keep on treating them, 90% of dying patients in one study agreed with the care they received. In another study, researchers found that seriously ill patients are willing to grasp at any hope for prolonged life.
The National Institute on Aging interviewed survivors of 1,227 deceased people age 65 and older. They found that 80% had "no difficulty with orientation or recognizing family as late as one month before death" and this was still true for the majority the day before death. Almost one-fourth were in "good or excellent" health a month before death and nearly one-third were "freely mobile."
Disability rates among the elderly are decreasing. Common-place surgical techniques, such as cataract removal, hip and knee replacement, and coronary bypass, etc., allow previously disabled or sick older people to resume normal activities of daily life comparatively quickly. In addition, older people now generally have better education, which is associated with better nutrition and health care.
When patients about to start kidney dialysis were asked to rate what they thought their quality of life would be on dialysis, their expectations were low. Months later, those same patients, now on dialysis, rated their quality of life at about the same level as the general population.
A physician and instructor of medical ethics at the Cornell Univ. Medical college tells of patients with AIDS who say, "ÔWhen I get symptomatic, I'm checking out.' Then they develop symptoms, and they say, 'Well, this is all right, but I don't want to be hospitalized.' Then they are hospitalized and they find out that's not as terrible as they expected either. They progressively push the boundaries forward at each stage, tolerating more and more...they want to continue living."
Sudden quadriplegia (loss of use of arms and legs) is among the most catastrophic and feared of medical events. Nevertheless, most people with quadriplegia opt to live. The variables associated with suicide for people with quadriplegia are similar to those identified for the general population (i.e., depression, alcohol abuse, guilt, anger, etc.). People with disabilities are often victims of built-in misconceptions, biases and discrimination. With life-affirming counseling and alternatives, it is likely that the suicide rate could decrease to equal or less than that of the general population.
Tragedy and suffering often reveal a tenacious spirit, a new determination to make one's life meaningful. A healthy, able-bodied person who declares "I wouldn't want to live like that!" when actually faced with severe illness or disability may rise to the challenge - given the time to do so.
Time is a precious gift treasured most by those facing the reality of their own mortality.
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