[libertarianben]

Um, no. Brain death is absence of consciousness and higher-level brain activity. Brain dead people still have autonomic nervous system and other basic life functions, like breathing, excreting and heartbeat. They just subsist on the most basic level of life, and that's it. Brains don't regenerate.

THAT'S the fact.

Go back to school, and let the grown-ups talk some more.

[UCANSEE2]

You go ahead with your belief that Terri is brain-dead. No one will stop you. You have said even if you are wrong, you think you are right. I wish to thank you because you have saved me any time I would have spent posting to you, trying to discuss the issues of this case, or thread.

Your mind is totally made up, so if you are not here to discuss, debate, keep an open-mind, learn something new, then you must be here to dictate your opinion.

So, go ahead. And Thanks.

[texasbluebell]

Sorry, sonny, you need to pay more attention in school, actually.

As a matter of fact, it only takes basic googling to figure out what brain death is:

"A brain dead individual has no electrical activity and no clinical evidence of brain function on neurologic examination (no response to pain, no cranial nerve reflexes (pupillary response (fixed pupils), oculocephalic reflex, corneal reflexes), **and no spontaneous respirations)**."
http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/brain_death

"The current definition is that of a 1981 U.S. presidential commission, which recommended that death be defined as “irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem,” the brain stem being that part of the brain that controls breathing and other basic body functions."
http://www.answers.com/topic/death

In case you didn't notice, Terri Schindler has been breathing on her own for the entire time since her "collapse".

[texasbluebell]

Oh, one other thing. I realize you probably do know more than the Mayo clinic neurologist Dr. William Cheshire who examined Terri 3 weeks ago, but on the off chance that you hadn't caught up yet, take a gander:

http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=20441

Cheshire writes, “To enter the room of Terri Schiavo is nothing like entering the room of a patient who is comatose or brain-dead or in some neurological sense no longer there. … As I looked at Terri, and she gazed directly back at me, I asked myself whether, if I were her attending physician, I could in good conscience withdraw her feeding and hydration. No, I could not. I could not withdraw life support if I were asked. I could not withhold life-sustaining nutrition and hydration from this beautiful lady whose face brightens in the presence of others.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

But what does he know...?