It sounds like you were at the courthouse in downtown Clearwater. How'd you get in?
I have cared for patients like Terri Schindler, and it is true they somtimes when they are are alone as if someone is in the room. This is because they go in and out of consiousness. But they also give DEFINITE, not random reponses to stimuli and to loved ones and such responses are NO coincidence.
Nurses working with Terri have said she responded to pain and other stimuli. And unfortunately Terri's physical condition deteriorated when rehabilitative therapy stopped.
Regardless, even were Terri in a coma (which she wasn't), it would be grossly immoral to end their lives prematurely. Such patients should receive the best of care, food and water and let nature take it's course. Studies have consistently shown, comatose patients are far more aware of their surroundings than they appear to be.
Quentin, I urge you to take the summary of the video with a grain of salt, knowing the bias favoring their interests. If you have had direct experience with someone like Terri you would realize again and again that while some reactions may be random, some are very real indeed.
The observations you heard are at diametric odds with those of a highly respected priest who visited her each day, described her smiles personally to us and reactions, just minutes after visiting with her. He told us of her courageous demeanor and attempts to react right up to near the end.
Who are you going to believe?
"Also, someone asked about the rest of the 4 hours of video. I have not seen it myself, but have read summary descriptions by the judge, a reporter who viewed them, and someone from the area, whom I respect and trust, who has seen them."-- Quentin version 2
Post #963 was for you as much as for me. I could not -- and still do not -- credit your point in #908 that disability rights activists suffer "palpable fear" and "do not trust the people in their lives who are closest to them." Nor, being handicapped myself, do I look down on people with disabilities as "poor folks."
I went back and read every link posted at that site in regard to Terri Schiavo. Nobody even mentioned such fear or mistrust! What they were all concerned about, rather, was discrimination and social attitudes that seemed to them threatening. What they fear is the very real possibility that they will be cut off from medical care or even treated as "useless eaters" and forcibly "euthanized" for being disabled. As the euthanasia movement gathers force, these questions loom larger and larger.
It is revealing that they fear being treated like Terri Schiavo. They know she was treated cruelly!
Terri was, in fact, a supreme example of an individual being deprived of her rights and denied any say in her care. If we are to defend our own rights to decide our fate, we must defend hers.
Welcome back. I was wondering where you had disappeared to so suddenly. I hope you're mistaken about it being a relapse, and you really just had a bad couple days. I'll keep you in my thoughts and prayers.