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Terri Schiavo

Denise said:
Thank you Renata.
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No problem :) The difficulty is of course that real world is much more difficult than a discussion in a class, or on a board. Part of the reason I no longer believe all I did then is because about 3 weeks after I submitted my euthanasia paper, a neighbor I grew up next door to had a stroke. He was in a coma for a few weeks, on a ventillator, with no hope of recovery, and the family disconnected him, he died immediately, not like in this case. But when I found out, I was in shock, I remembered him well, and my arrogance about euthanasia and mind states and consciousness levels and all other philosophy stuff I was talking about at the time...just evaporated in a pang of sadness over him, and fear that his family disconnected him too soon.

In other words, I really hope none of us are never in a situation of that woman's family, when we have to make that choice- her husband's or her parent's.
 
Denise said:
What does dignified mean? And if she is not aware how does it matter?
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Don't play ignorant. And because people just deserve to die with dignity of it's at all possible. Not for any other reason than they're human. Keeping her Davros like until she dies of old age or gangrene from bed sores is not dignified.
 
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Little Big Man: Do you hate them? Do you hate the White man now?

Old Lodge Skins: Do you see this fine thing? Do you admire the humanity of it? Because the human beings, my son, they believe everything is alive. Not only man and animals. But also water, earth, stone. And also the things from them... like that hair. The man from whom this hair came, he's bald on the other side, because I now own his scalp! That is the way things are. But the white man, they believe EVERYTHING is dead. Stone, earth, animals. And people! Even their own people! If things keep trying to live, white man will rub them out. That is the difference.
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renata said:
In other words, I really hope none of us are never in a situation of that woman's family, when we have to make that choice- her husband's or her parent's.
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Well, I came very late, as usual, to this interesting topic. Though I haven't read the full thread, I think I have an overview of what it is all about.

The story touches me very closely.

Let me speak about a personal related matter. My father was no doubt, for good or bad, the person who influenced my life for the most part. We had a very close relationship, I was his favorite son, we shared many moments together, just the two of us, be it working at his carpenter workshop, washing the family car, fishing at a lake, etc.

As he got older, his concerns about death considerably grew. He had an overwhelming fear to death, and understandibly enough he began to seriously consider the possibility of life after death.

We used to have long conversations about the matter of death. He repeatedly said that, in a case of a devastating illness, he'd be better dead than in a vegetative state.

In Sept 1995, at the age 68, being in perfect physical and mental shape, he suffered a devastating brain stroke. The doctor prononcement after 2 days: "we are at the edge of the cliff, there is an important brain damage"

There was a decision to make. The doctor said to me and my mother: "we have to connect him to a mechanical breathing machine to preserve his life, the decision is up to you". "But if we do this, we will be faced to another problem: for how long will we stand this situation, and who will eventually make the decision to disconnect him from the machine?"

You may say I'm insensitive, but I'm not. I reasoned along these lines: this is not my father, and he won't be any longer. It is just his body, but not him.

I made the decision of not connecting him to the machine, and surprisingly enough, my mom totally agreed with me. It would have been his own decision after all. We had talked about this possibility before, many times.

So our stand was: if he is able to survive on his own, so be it. It turned out that he wasn't. He died after 15 painful days at the hospital.

Thanks for reading this.

[...*fighting back tears*...]
 
Patricio Elicer said:
Well, I came very late, as usual, to this interesting topic. Though I haven't read the full thread, I think I have an overview of what it is all about.

The story touches me very closely.
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It sounds like you had a wonderful life with your Dad. :) I almost hate to say anything contrary after such a touching story.

I have an anectdote that argues on the side of let her live.

No one knows what Terry Shiavo wants now. People can only guess. The only person who claims to know her wishes before this happened has motivation to say she wants to die.
 
Patricio Elicer said:
Well, I came very late, as usual, to this interesting topic. Though I haven't read the full thread, I think I have an overview of what it is all about.

The story touches me very closely.

I made the decision of not connecting him to the machine, and surprisingly enough, my mom totally agreed with me. It would have been his own decision after all. We had talked about this possibility before, many times.

So our stand was: if he is able to survive on his own, so be it. It turned out that he wasn't. He died after 15 painful days at the hospital.

Thanks for reading this.

[...*fighting back tears*...]
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Thanks for sharing such an intimate part of your life Patricio.

I have been an advocate of the right to die for a long time. No one should, fully concious or in PVS be forced to live because of religious beliefs or the inability of family members to "let go." When my dad finally entered Hospice, I knew it was time. He chose to get a traecheostomy and feeding tube to prolong his life for a few more months. My mother, in a conversation just two days ago, told me she didn't want treatment if she develops cancer because of what my dad went through.

Just as no one should have their lives taken from them, no one should have their life prolonged due to the wishes of others.
 
Thank you for sharing your story with us Patricio. It certainly helps us think about these things in a less abstract fashion...
 
Patricio
I am deeply touched by your story and thank you for your courage in sharing it. As I hope you know, you made the right decision for your situation. Your father would have been proud that you and your mom showed the courage you did.
 
Thanks for your story, Patricio. I echo what the others said- you had a wonderful life with your father, and your honored him to the end. He was lucky to have such a son.
 
Order to feed comatose woman illegal, say experts

CLEARWATER, Fla. (AP) — Legal scholars predicted today that Gov. Jeb Bush's intervention in a bitter right-to-die case involving a brain-damaged woman would be ruled unconstitutional, and the husband's lawyer angrily complained the woman was "abducted from her deathbed."

"It was just an absolute trampling of her personal rights and her dignity," George Felos, the lawyer for Michael Schiavo, said on NBC's Today. "We believe that a court sooner or later, we hope sooner, will find this law to be unconstitutional."

Legal scholars also decried the move as an extraordinary end run around the courts. "In my view the bill is plainly unconstitutional," said University of Florida law professor Joseph Little.

[...]

Legal experts widely agreed that the governor and the legislature went too far.

"This particular administration has not yet understood why we have separation of powers," said former Florida Supreme Court justice Gerald Kogan. "They seem to believe that the governor and the legislature can do whatever they want and the courts should not interfere and that's not right."

Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe said: "I've never seen a case in which the state legislature treats someone's life as a political football in quite the way this is being done."
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renata, I just wanted to address your comments about "letting this one go". While it would have been possible to easily do this at a much earlier stage of the legal battle, doing so now is not quite so simple as the Guardianship Court made an independent ruling that sufficient evidence existed of Terri Schiavo's wishes in respect of life-maintaining measures that they should be withdrawn. Even Michael Schiavo - as her guardian - would have to present extraordinary evidence to the court in order to challenge that ruling, and it is likely that the only evidence on which the court would reverse its judgement would be new evidence of the potential for recover. The Schindlers have already appealed the ruling of the Guardianship Court on precisely that basis and the appellate court rejected their assertion that there is sufficient new evidence of the potential for Terri Schiavo's recovery that the Guardianship Court's ruling should be overturned.
 
Have you ever met anyone whos said they would want to live as a veg or on life support? Who says that???

I had a similar situation wh my granma. She was dying and they had her on a resperator. Her condition kept getting worse, she was pretty out of it and couldnt communicate. Finally we had the breathing tube removed and she died a couple hrs after.

My only regret was that I didnt do it sooner. The reason I waited so long was because of my own selfishness. I had this silly belief that she was going to pull out of it even though it was obvious that it was only a matter of time.

I get so pissed at these people who attack the husband even though theyve never known the guy or the people. As if it could ever be easy for anyone to pull the plug on a family member.
 
I'm thinking that "vegetable" isn't an approprate analogy for describing her brain activity. Do you guys think "oyster" or "scallop" would be more appropriate?
 
I think the husband is mart for not tossing all this money down the bottomless pit called "rehab". HA! rehab what? Liek shed be doing cartwheels right now if they got herthe right help.

Those hospitals and meds would suck that money dry wh/o a 2nd thought. THen theyd start milking the govt as soon as hubby was driven to bankruptcy.
 
This thread is not remotely what I expected.

First, I was amazed that Denise would side with the parents. When I heard about the case I thought the parents were ghouls and didn't expect really much disagreement on that point.

Secondly, I expected the thread to be dominated by folks bashing the fundamentalist Republicans and their injection of Religion into secular lives of others. Hardly a peep in this vein.

I guess what I got out of this thread is that the case is more complicated than I realized and there is room here for reasonable minds to disagree.

Still for me there are only three possibilities
1. She has some concious thought but will not recover any other function. This is the most grotesgue idea of all to me. She is sitting there concious but completely unable to sense or affect the world. I can't imagine that anybody would want to live like that. Euthanasia, passive or otherwise seems pretty reasonable to me.

2. She has no concious thought and will not recover. This seems like a slam dunk decision to me. Keeping somebody alive like this serves no purpose that I can imagine.

3. She will recover. Well, at some point, even somebody skeptical of the medical world like myself has to accept that doctors are right a lot of times and here they've had thirteen years to get it right so it seems wildly unlikely that they are wrong.
 
A lot of people seem to think that when Terri dies, her husband gets some large amount of money. According to this article, at any rate, the money is long gone.

It certainly paints the husband in a far more positive light. Actually, there are a number of things that make him look better detailed in that article.

Frankly, I don't know what to think. It's a bad situation all around.
 
dissonance said:
A lot of people seem to think that when Terri dies, her husband gets some large amount of money. According to this article, at any rate, the money is long gone.

It certainly paints the husband in a far more positive light. Actually, there are a number of things that make him look better detailed in that article.

Frankly, I don't know what to think. It's a bad situation all around.
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I am not all that concerned about the husband's money. I am surprised at people arguing that it costs the taxpayers too much money to keep this woman alive and give her a fair chance at rehabilitation. I am appalled at the idea of calling her names and ridiculing the parents for not being able to let go.

I want all those who are using the argument that her life will cost too much in taxpayer money to take a look at our country's budget and tell me with a straight face that the costs of fulfilling Terry Shiavo's parents' selfish wishes is more than a drop in the bucket.

I keep saying her name, because she is a person. Terry Shaivo is not a scallop or any of the other names she has been called.

If the costs of keeping people alive in such cases becomes a problem, there should be a requirement to make those wishes known; maybe when you get a driver's license or State ID.
 
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