[ChemistCat]

I think a man who goes raging in for days on end asking the nurses if that "b****" has died yet, and cursing them when they said no, has problems beyond any that come of wanting the best for his ward and wife. He's gone on to make another family. He should not be her guardian.

When she was told that she will be starved to death, she became very distressed and tried to get out of the chair.

She's not in the persistant vegetative state that you and I both agree would be intolerable; she responds to people, and likely could have been restored to substantial function if she'd been given therapy. She has not even been given assisted communication devices that may have made it possible for her to express her desires on that point and many others. And she was denied the exercise of religion.

Jim I agree with YOU when the case is as you say--a persistant vegetative state and when the person left a clear, explicit living will stating that food and water ought to be withheld in certain circumstances. Terri's case simply does not fall into any of those categories. I approached this from your point of view, but I have come to believe that there is no evidence to support that Terri herself would wish to die now, and huge evidence that her husband is using the state, the doctors, and the police to get away with murder.

Her parents want to take her home and care for her at their expense--and now they cannot even see her, even though she lights up and responds to them when they do. They violated a judge's order and videotaped her being responsive. Why would a judge be so determined to prevent the truth from getting out? It's something to think about.

Mr. Schiavo could divorce her then and get on with his life. Instead he wants her to die, and ASAP--and there is a lot of testimony out there that suggests criminal intent...testimony the judges have ignored.

To me the clincher is the demand for immediate cremation without autopsy. One side has done everything to conceal the facts, and one side has had to break the law to expose the facts. This really troubles me and it should trouble everyone.

The test being used is the ability to get a spoon to one's own mouth: if she could do that, she could live. I am on the slow road to that condition myself, and just about anybody could wake up one morning or have a crash or a stroke and be there. Every baby starts there. It is a test that has only a little bit to do with quality of life--a test neither Christopher Reeves nor Stephen Hawking could pass.

[Pegita]

Please continue to highlight the vigil hours today ... 1 p.m. at Woodside Hospice and 3 p.m. in front of the White House ... Please let us know if you are attending ...

[Georgia_JimD]

My opinions on this come from watching my father die of liver cancer. He was and Ex-Marine and a Korean war veteran. He raised 5 children, financed and saw us all though college. He was a loving Dad to us all. My mother is a registered nurse and was with him the minute he passed, along with me and one of my sisters. The last month he was alive was a lesson in dignity and humility to us all. But he most of all, his facial looks to me the last few weeks of his life said it all ....

[sweetliberty]

"I think a man who goes raging in for days on end asking the nurses if that "b****" has died yet, and cursing them when they said no, has problems beyond any that come of wanting the best for his ward and wife."

My God! I had not heard this! He actually said that??

Ping! Read what I replied to to.

[Marie Antoinette]

It did my heart a lot of good to read your post today.

I know it is hard to sift through the bias and the conjecture. There is a lot that just doesn't pass the "smell test".

Welcome aboard the fight for Terri, fellow seeker of Truth! :-)

[supercat]

The test being used is the ability to get a spoon to one's own mouth: if she could do that, she could live.

Actually, it isn't. The test is whether she can march herslf down the cafeteria and get herself some food.

Judge Greer has forbidden that she be forbidden oral food or hydration, on the basis of a doctor's testimony that attempting to feed her orally could cause pneumonia. Given that (per an affidavit) a nurse earlier once tried, with some success, to feed her jello and was at least successful until she was discovered, the Schiavo Triumvirate don't want to take any chances of her surviving on oral sustenance.