Replies

Here are the first four paragraphs of the article:

"Daniel Rios is 24 years old, with wavy black hair, a thick mustache and a glassy stare that seems to look both at you and through you. One day almost four years ago, while he was taking a shower, a blood vessel ruptured in his brain, and he collapsed on the bathroom floor. After emergency surgery, he lay in a coma for three weeks. When he finally opened his eyes, he could not speak or move his body; his head simply lolled. In the months that followed, the doctors monitoring him at the Center for Head Injuries at the J.F.K. Johnson Rehabilitation Institute in Edison, N.J., saw few signs that he had any meaningful mental life. Sometimes he looked as if he were crying. Other times his eyes would follow a mirror passed before his face. On his best days he was able to close his eyes on command. But those days were rare. For the most part he lay unresponsive, adrift in a neurological twilight."

"One morning just over a year after his accident, Rios was taken to the Sloan Kettering Institute on Manhattan's East Side. There, in a dim room, a group of researchers placed a mask over his eyes, fixed headphones over his ears and guided his head into the bore of an M.R.I. machine. A 40-second loop of a recording made by Rios's sister Maria played through the headphones: she told him that she was there with him, that she loved him. As the sound entered his ears, the M.R.I. machine scanned his brain, mapping changes in activity. Several hours afterward, two researchers, Nicholas D. Schiff and Joy Hirsch, took a look at the images from the scan. They hadn't been sure what to expect -- Rios was among the first people in his condition to have his brain activity measured in this way -- but they certainly weren't expecting what they saw. ''We just stared at these images,'' recalls Schiff, an expert in consciousness disorders at Weill Medical College of Cornell University. ''There didn't seem to be anything missing.''"

"As the tape of his sister's voice played, several distinct clusters of neurons in Rios's brain had fired in a manner virtually identical to that of a healthy subject. Some clusters that became active were those known to help process spoken language, others to recall memories. Was Rios recognizing his sister's voice, remembering her? ''You couldn't tell the difference between these parts of his brain and the brain of one of my graduate students,'' says Hirsch, an expert in brain imaging at Columbia University. Even the visual centers of Rios's brain had come alive, despite the fact that his eyes were covered. It was as if his sister's words awakened his mind's eye."

"To the medical world, Rios and the hundreds of thousands of other Americans who suffer from impaired consciousness present a mystery. Traditionally, there have essentially been only two ways to classify them: as comatose (eyes closed and responses limited to basic reflexes) or vegetative (eyes opening and closing in a cycle of sleeping and waking but without any sign of awareness). In either case, it has been assumed that they have no high-level thought. But Schiff, Hirsch and a small group of like-minded researchers are studying people like Rios and finding that the truth is far more complicated. Their evidence suggests that even after an injury that leaves a brain badly damaged, even after months or years with little sign of consciousness, people may still be capable of complex mental activity. ''If I say, 'Touch your nose,' and you touch your nose, and then I say 'Touch your nose' six more times, and you don't do it, how do we account for the one time you did?'' asks Joseph T. Giacino, a neuropsychologist who collaborates with Schiff and Hirsch."

What do you guys think?

Know what else I think? I think there needs to be a class-action suit against doctors, nursing homes, hospices, lawyers, judges, legislators, etc. who are responsible for murdering these people against their will. What the heck do all these ignoramus lawyers and judges think this nation was founded on?????

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that ALL men are created EQUAL. That THEY ARE ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN INALIENABLE RIGHTS. AMONG THEM ARE LIFE, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. THAT TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS GOVERNMENTS ARE INSTITUTED among men. We - solemly publish and declare, that these colonies are and of right ought to be free and independant states - and for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of devine providence, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honour. - Declaration of Independence

It would seem to me, that the first 'rule of law' declares these euthanasia judges and lawyers and politicians OUT OF ORDER!

Sue 'em!! Sue 'em hard. Impoverish them. Unjust enrichment at the expense of the most vulnerable in our society should be punished. It's the only thing they would understand. See http://www.hospicepatients.org/atty-resource.html