I have questions as to whether a person who is unable to take nourishment/water unaided and by their own hand without a stomach tube, or a person who is unable to breath unaided without a ventilator is not realistically being sustained by extraordinary means. The two both seem to logically qualify as extraordinary means in my mind.
We've now graduated from just ventilators to both ventilators and feeding tubes, and I worry what's next. Kidney dialysis machines? I.V.s? Antibiotics?
Terri was not terminally ill. She could've lived another 40 years.
Now that I think of it, performing open heart surgery is pretty extraordinary. I grew up with a girl who had open heart surgery when she was 10. She's still alive. Do you think she should've been allowed to die 25 years ago, because she was kept alive via extraordinary means? Or do you just think that some people are worth all the trouble and other people aren't?
If so, please explain how this sliding scale should work. Who deserves to live and who doesn't? Should we only kill mentally disabled people? Or should we kill people with other disabilities too such as blind folks? If it's OK to kill blind people, should we also kill nearsighted folks? Where do you draw the line?
Bayou
> ..a person who is unable to take nourishment/water unaided
> and by their own hand without a stomach tube, or a person
> who is unable to breath unaided without a ventilator
> ..qualify as extraordinary means in my mind.
So what .. antiobiotics are extraordinary, a healing juice diet is extraordinary.
The debate is first about consciousness .. Terri passed that test with flying colors to all but the merchants of death.
If no apparent consciousness, how about hope of revival.
Not relevant in Terri's case since she was very vibrant and alive, responsive and loving.
If no consciousness,(brain dead and/or coma situations.. true "PVS" is very rare and is largely a diagnosis invented to kill) minimal hope of any revival, lots of life support (terminal is another issue, albeit squirrelly), and nobody and no way to step in the breach, nothing to do, you then have the classic type of "pull the plug" case. A friend's dad is in that situation today and she and sisters gave ok via power of attorney.
REHAB
Could Terri have improved a lot more.. most assuredly, by all sorts of nurse and doctor testimony, and by history and common sense. Everybody improves if you simply take them outside in fresh air and sunlight, much less yet structured range of motion and 100 other things.
However, Joni Erickson Tada makes a good point that this should not be the debate. Even if Terri could not get "better" to some person's standard, that is only a question of what protocol of rehab, and nothing to do with a supposed "debate" about whether she should be tortured by dehydration (ask Kate Adamson) and murdered.
As for feeding tube. They FORCED her on the tube by limiting all nurse activity and therapy, and stopping the oral feeding, which had been rather common.
Think about the techniques of Cranford, Felos, Greer.
a) force tube feeding in, even if unnecessary or marginal
b) force tube out, enforced by police power
c) forbid oral sustenance, even if available
(media whores -- "she might choke")
d) enforce (c) with full police power of the state.
This is the face of nazi dehydration torture murder come to the USA.
Terri's religious leader said that feeding tubes were not considered extraordinary. It carried some force definitely, but was not ex cathedra. Trying to tie up loose ends here.
Wow.
You are condemning thousands of people who walk around living normal lives but have to use a feeding tube for one reason or another.
So you would have starved Christopher Reeves to death?