Free Republic

In the 1980’s, 12-year-old Martin Pistorious became seriously ill with what doctor’s believed was Cryptococci Meningitis. His health started deteriorating and Martin lost his ability to move, make eye contact and even speak to others. His doctors told his parents, Rodney and Joan Pistorious, to bring him home and let him die. They told them he was as good as a vegetable.However, he didn’t die. Joan said, “Martin just kept going, just kept going.” According to NPR news, his father would get up at 5 o’clock in the morning, get him dressed, load him in the car, take him to...

Tony Nicklinson is 58 and paralysed from the neck down after suffering a stroke in 2005. He is seeking legal permission for a doctor actively to end his life. A Channel 4 Dispatches programme this week, ‘Let our dad die’, put Tony’s case with powerful emotion but it did not tell us that most people with locked-in syndrome do not actually think like this man. No one can help but be sympathetic to Tony Nicklinson, but cases like his are extremely rare and hard cases make bad law. The overwhelming majority of people with severe disability - even with ‘locked-in...

As scientists have the first 'conversation' with a patient in a vegetative state, one man's awe-inspiring story'One cannot even begin to imagine the despair, frustration and fear that was Martin Pistorius's life for more than a decade. After contracting meningitis at the age of 12, he found himself locked inside his body and spent 14 years with no form of communication and completely unable to control his body. His parents were told that their only option was to allow him to die and that he had the brain function of a three-month-old baby. That, however, was not the case. While...