They said on CNN/TV that her husband has told them the tube is out.
Posted by Jay (Member # 5786) on :
They’re saying the judge that ruled to remove the tube could be held in contempt. Cool.
Posted by Myr (Member # 5956) on :
*gasp*
Posted by TheHumanTarget (Member # 7129) on :
Why is it so hard to let this woman die? She has no brain-wave activity, and no hope of ever recovering. What are we accomplishing by stopping this?
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
Neither of your assertions are true.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Wow, I just read about an hour ago that she as going to federal court.
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
I'm making my prediction now, because I believe in the sense of dramatic irony in the universe: barring the tube being replaced, she'll die on Easter Sunday.
Posted by TheHumanTarget (Member # 7129) on :
All of her doctors seem to be all for it, so why are my assertions untrue? I don't mind admitting that I'm wrong, but please substantiate your claims.
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
Did you read the article? Aknowledging family, swallowing on her own, and sensory response does NOT equal no brain activity. Where are you getting your information?
[ March 18, 2005, 04:07 PM: Message edited by: Lady Jane ]
Posted by AntiCool (Member # 7386) on :
quote:Schiavo, who is in a persistent vegetative state, will now likely starve to death within a week or two. No person has ever come out of a persistent vegetative state.
That's as close to "no hope of ever recovering" as you can get.
Posted by scottneb (Member # 676) on :
quote: Wow, I just read about an hour ago that she as going to federal court.
The cool part about it was that that made her a Federal Witness and nobody could touch her. That's why the judge could be thrown away.
Posted by scottneb (Member # 676) on :
Terri's Fight Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
I believe "persistent vegetative state" is not actually medically defined for this case.
AJ
Posted by TheHumanTarget (Member # 7129) on :
I hadn't read that she acknowledged family, but swallowing is an involuntary action. None of these points seem to be central to the husbands claim that she would not want to be alive in this state. If she had written a living will, they would have allowed her to die years ago. Should the court be allowed to intervene in any case, or just those where the person involved has not given written consent?
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
I've posted this stuff before, HumanTarget. EEGs and CAT scans are of limited use in determining what's really going on with people who have severe brain damage. And that's all the testing Terri Schiavo's had, besides limited bedside behavioral assessments, which aren't real reliable either, except as self-fulfilling prophecies.
If you're on the website, check out the "hall of shame" - the associated press erroneously referred to Terri Schiavo as "brain dead" in at least one article, which helps to confuse people even more. AP articles get distributed all over the world and when they contain misinformation, that gets disseminated as well.
Posted by scottneb (Member # 676) on :
quote: Why is it so hard to let this woman die?
Simply because she didn't say she wanted to die in a situation like this. We have probable cause that she wants to live, with life we have no choice but to let her live.
What they are doing is less humane than what we do to stray dogs that have no one to love them. Terri has family that loves her enough to fight the Federal Government to let her live. I'd say that's enough to let her continue to fight.
[ March 18, 2005, 04:19 PM: Message edited by: scottneb ]
Posted by TheHumanTarget (Member # 7129) on :
All of these articles are interesting, and lend themselves to the argument that she may recover someday. What makes this case harder to judge is that she requires nothing but feeding to remain alive. There are no external attachments keeping her alive, and the removal of the feeding tube is starving her to death. Still, if she expressed no desire to live like this, why can't something be done to end her life?
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
She also has family that loves her enough to fight the federal government to let her die as she wished. Maybe.
We don't know her wishes. That's kind of the point. The argument isn't really over what her wishes were, the argument is over who gets to decide in the lack of a signed legal document expressing them.
Note: I have no particular opinion about this, but I suspect that both sides are doing what they are out of love for Ms. Sciavo.
[ March 18, 2005, 04:26 PM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
Consider, HumanTarget, that someone who fails to say they want their organs donated upon death does not have their organs donated. If you don't say what you want, we have to make some assumptions. For respect of the dignity of the dead person, we do not violate their remains.
Failing to have a living will that she should not be kept alive by medical means, it should be assumed she would want to live. The scary question about this case is that we are being asked to change our assumptions about the unstated wishes of those being kept alive by medical necessity.
edited to remove a distractingly funny typo.
[ March 18, 2005, 04:26 PM: Message edited by: jeniwren ]
Posted by Katarain (Member # 6659) on :
Shouldn't it be obvious that providing food and water should be a given?? How can that be artificial?!
Most of the arguments I'm hearing to let her die are arguments for euthanasia--NOT for taking someone off life support. Maybe euthanasia should be legal, maybe it shouldn't be..but that's not really the issue here.
Starvation is a cruel and painful way to die. The fact that her death would have to be by starvation or dehydration is enough to decide this issue for me. If she were on actual life support--then I would be torn over the issue.
-Katarain
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
It should be noted that a lot of the evidence of her responding to stimuli voluntarily was edited from long portions of video. Some would say in order to portray her state in the most advantageous way for their opinion to be supported.
I don't know how to feel about this, but I think some folks here have long accepted this evidence as self-evident, when in court it has been shown to be less than that by experts.
-Bok
Posted by scottneb (Member # 676) on :
quote: still, if she expressed no desire to live like this, why can't something be done to end her life?
I wouldn't want to live if I was eighty and crapping on myself but I would do it none the less. Just because you don't like the way another person lives doesn't mean their life isn't worth living.
[ March 18, 2005, 05:16 PM: Message edited by: scottneb ]
Posted by Altáriël of Dorthonion (Member # 6473) on :
We disscussed this in my Gov't class this morning. My teacher said that Terri might be able to live at least a week and a half more. I guess I wouldn't want to live like she is, but I wouldn't want to be starved either, thats just cruel.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
I'm wondering whether her nurses/family will be allowed to attempt to give her food or liquids the "natural" way. When her feeding tube was removed in 2003 there was also an order that nothing could be placed in her mouth.
Posted by Altáriël of Dorthonion (Member # 6473) on :
How sad.
Posted by Myr (Member # 5956) on :
To me removing the feeding tube is like if someone took away my insulin pump, just because it is only regulating my life, not making anything better.
The point is to wait for a cure! I'm very saddened by this decision, I hope they can do something about it rather than starve her.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
I heard her "vegetative state" compared to the functioning of an eight to eleven month baby today. I don't know. If she were hooked to all sorts of life support, it might be different for me, but this is food. Starving her seems wrong. I have seen video footage of her responding to people around her, and I have worked with mentally retarde children who are wheelchair bound and nonverbal. This just seems wrong to me.
Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
I don't have much to add that hasn't been said, except for my own sorrow.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
It does seem like the husband and his cronies have gone too far here.
As I've made clear before, I am a firm believe in principle in the right to die if you so choose, and also the absence of the right to life in human organisms that are no longer conscious people. It's not at all obvious that Terri Schiavo meets either of these criteria.
This is a point in your favor, sndrake. Perhaps we're not yet advanced enough as a society to handle these issues.
quote:If she were hooked to all sorts of life support, it might be different for me, but this is food. Starving her seems wrong.
To me, this seems beside the point. The question shouldn't be how much elaborate machinery it takes to keep her alive. It should be about whether she still has a human mind.
[ March 18, 2005, 05:49 PM: Message edited by: Destineer ]
Posted by scottneb (Member # 676) on :
I heard from The Glenn Beck Program that the accident that put her in this state was under questionable circumstances.
Given the situation, does this count as public execution?
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
The accident? I thought it was due to a potassium deficiency as a resul of bulimia?
Posted by scottneb (Member # 676) on :
I'm not so sure my source is credible in this regard, but it brings up an interesting point.
Posted by Myr (Member # 5956) on :
quote: The question shouldn't be how much elaborate machinery it takes to keep her alive. It should be about whether she still has a human mind.
Since she's lost the capacity to communicate in a normal human fashion, there is no way to judge this.
Posted by scottneb (Member # 676) on :
:applaud:
Posted by NinjaBirdman (Member # 7114) on :
What exactly was it that they decided in court? That Terri would have wanted to die? That the husband is allowed to choose for her? It seems to me like they decided that she wanted to die... Could anybody clear this up for me?
Posted by dread pirate romany (Member # 6869) on :
**shakes head sadly***
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Since she's lost the capacity to communicate in a normal human fashion, there is no way to judge this.
That doesn't make much sense. A headless corpse has also lost the ability to communicate, but we can still be pretty sure that it has no mind. Likewise (at the very least) for people who meet the clinical definition of brain death.
The problem is that T.S. doesn't meet this criterion.
[ March 18, 2005, 06:16 PM: Message edited by: Destineer ]
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
The legal battle has been, in absence of any living will, or strong evidence of her desire to live or not, does the spouse have authority to disconnect (as has been traditionally the case), or does the family. There are circumstances involved as to motives and timing.
-Bok
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:Likewise (at the very least) for people who meet the clinical definition of brain death.
But she doesn't meet that criteria. And we're not talking about meeting criteria for death - we have someone who has been living for some time in this state, doesn't need artificial respiration, just needs to be fed to stay alive.
I just can't fathom why anybody would think it's okay to starve a person to death, when as already mentioned - we would lock someone up if they did it to an animal.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
Destineer - I posted before your edit - so that's why I look like I'm just repeating you.
quote:The legal battle has been, in absence of any living will, or strong evidence of her desire to live or not, does the spouse have authority to disconnect (as has been traditionally the case), or does the family.
I understand, but what I think should happen is in the absence of a living will - you must assume the person wanted to live. In cases of clnical brain death, then I can understand giving the family the choice of turning off life support or not, but the Schiavo case is especially gut-wrenching because she is not clinically brain dead, she doesn't need machines to breathe for her.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Does anyone have a decent guess as to how long she'll live without food?
Hobbes Posted by Myr (Member # 5956) on :
quote: That doesn't make much sense. A headless corpse has also lost the ability to communicate, but we can still be pretty sure that it has no mind. Likewise (at the very least) for people who meet the clinical definition of brain death.
I'm quite well aware that a dead corpse isn't thinking.
The PROBLEM is if her brain is still producing human thought, she has NO WAY of telling us.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
I think there are two separate issues here:
1) Whether her guardian has the right to make this decision on her behalf -- this is the legal issue.
and
2) Whether or not hers counts as a "human life" -- which is a moral with legal implications only if the answer is in the affirmative.
This case has become important from a legal perspective because it appears to be a great test case of what to do when someone is incapacitated (i.e., can't communicate their wishes) in absence of a legal document. While it would seem that our existing laws deal effectively with this, the fact that a guardian may have a conflict of interest (as Terri's husband certainly does) means that there are at least some legal issues to resolve. Appointing an independent guardian should have resolved these issues.
and...
It has become important from a moral standpoint for at least 3 groups of people:
1) The disability rights community, who see this as a test case in battling the poorly-named "right to die" movement in this country, as well as making several valid points about the loose nature of coming up with a prognosis, figuring out what brain death means, and what a persistent vegetative state really means.
2) The vast majority of people who wish to "affirm life." In this case, usually diverse groups ranging from those who define human life as any collection of cells derived from a human being to those who define it as a functional body capable of (assisted or not) respiration, ingestion, and elimination.
and 3rd
3) the "quality of life" proponents -- another diverse group, usually divided but who see some common ground in this case. The subgroups here include people who want to define a minimal standard for "quality of human life" mainly as a way to reform society, and those who do this from an economic standpoint, pointing out that as medical treatments advance, we set up ethical dilemmas for ourselves in terms of whether or not to keep bodies alive when the "person" is either gone or completely unreachable.
To me, Terri's situation makes a horrible test case for most of the folks who are coming at this from a moral position. The reason is that every single doctor who has examined her in person has come away stating in court (and out) that the person who was Terri has ceased to be. Her body is alive, but there is no evidence that her personality or memory has survived the trauma that destroyed her cerebral cortex.
Granted...this is not an exact science. Granted, they could be wrong. But, realistically, they probably aren't wrong and her prognosis is one of never again being able to do anything for herself, communicate, react or respond in a purposeful manner, or engage in anything like a self-directed action. That's the probability. So...that makes her a terrible test case for many of the moral issues because, ultimately the likeliest outcome is death after never regaining self-awareness. Death will come soon or late, and until then, it will be life her primary care physicians predict.
NOW...having said ALL of that (and I realize that many may disagree with my characterizations, or the "matter of fact" way I've spelled them out), there is an even larger moral issue that we can and should address as a society. That is whether we should err on the side of life or err on the side of something one might call "societal value" for lack of a better term.
Here, Terri is important to every human on the planet. Not because she ever has a real hope of significant recovery, but because we can't be sure. We can't be sure what she would've wanted. She didn't really tell us (and taking the word of her husband is just plain silly given his conflict of interest). We can't be sure what she really thinks or feels. Again, she can't tell us.
Does that mean there's REALLY no-one (no person) there? Is her body truly an empty shell. Is there no personality when the personality can't be expressed? Is there no soul if you can't act and affect the world on purpose?
Truly, the list of things we don't know is endless.
And even if medical and mental/psychobiological science answers 99% of all these questions, there are still important ones that will not and cannot be answered.
Again, we know that whatever rule we set, it will result in some errors.
There's a way to approach this that I find extremely helpful. That is: what kinds of choices align?
In the case of Terri, the following choices align nicely:
1) THe choice that always affirms human life as valuable and worth preserving.
and
2) The choice that says "When conditions are uncertain, if you can choose such that your choices aren't FINAL and irrevocable, that's the better choice."
Since it must be granted that we do not and cannot know what Terri herself wants (or would have wanted), there is really only one non-aligning choice. That is the economic analysis which says that it is possible to calculate the cost of keeping a person alive and compare that to the likely contribution(s) they will, in future, make to society. Even giving every human a huge presumptive "net value" in their favor the cost of a lifetime of treatment for Terri is going to be more than she'll ever directly contribute by her own labors or imagination.
That one choice, which is usually viewed as a repugnant and repellant one (but which, I submit, is often the basis for some incongruant stances on things like capital punishment versus their view on abortion) is the only one in opposition to keeping Terri alive.
The only one. And stated starkly like that, it is repugnant.
No-one who says they are defending her right to die is truly defending HER choice. They are defending her surviving spouse's right to automatically choose for her. And, they are doing so because they believe what he says "that she wouldn't want to live this way." But, realistically, they must be doing the mental calculus that says "I wouldn't want to live that way, so I believe it of her." And that's not what the question is.
There is no way that her husband is a credible and unbiased actor in this. His statements should've been discounted long ago.
If that'd happened, there would be no question that Terri would be treated as needed unti she died.
And that's what we should decide to do now.
Posted by scottneb (Member # 676) on :
I need some cookies for reading that, Bob.
But, very nicely put.
[ March 18, 2005, 06:48 PM: Message edited by: scottneb ]
Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :
I haven't really followed the case, I must admit -- can someone (maybe Bob, since he's the one I'm quoting) give me a brief synopsis of the reasoning that "There is no way that her husband is a credible and unbiased actor in this. His statements should've been discounted long ago." Is there an about-to-expire fifty million dollar term life policy on her or something? Surely as her husband he's biased, but what is it that makes him non-credible?
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Pops...
Even if he has Terri's best interests at heart, and she truly told him that she'd never want to live "like that" -- whatever "like that" means -- he has some serious conflict of interest issues:
1) a new life partner with whom he has children.
2) He has apparently spent a huge amount of the money originally intended for Terri's medical treatment on legal fees fighting for the right to decide her fate.
I don't necessarily see him as the evil being that many do. He's even been praised by earlier judges for his devotion to his wife (must've been before he started having children with someone else, of course). But he has a financial interest in her death that, to me, disqualifies him as the kind of unbiased actor we'd want in a guardian.
the other aspect of his behavior that bugs me is his entrenchment. I think this has taken on aspects of a blood fued with his wife's parents. Ultimately, the same could be said of them in reverse. But they aren't acting as guardians and probably won't ever act as guardians for Terri.
The links that sndrake has been posting have more details.
I found some legal synopses that gave both a chronology and some of the financial stuff.
Frankly, I don't see him as evil. But that doesn't mean he's unbiased.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:does the spouse have authority to disconnect (as has been traditionally the case)
This has not traditionally been the case. At most, you can say that traditionally the spouse's word has been given great weight.
quote:In making this difficult decision, a surrogate decisionmaker should err on the side of life. . . . In cases of doubt, we must assume that a patient would choose to defend life in exercising his or her right of privacy. Schindler v. Schiavo (In re Schiavo), 780 So. 2d 176 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App., 2001), quoting In re Guardianship of Browning, 543 So. 2d at 273.
In re Guardianship of Browning is elucidated the standard for making these decisions:
quote:In this state, the surrogate decisionmaker makes the decision under the doctrine of "substituted judgment." Bludworth, 452 So.2d at 926; In re Barry, 445 So.2d at 370. We emphasize that this HN17Go to the description of this Headnote.doctrine does not allow the guardian to truly substitute the guardian's judgment for that of the patient. [**43] The guardian makes the decision which the evidence establishes the patient would have made under these circumstances. The guardian makes the decision which the patient would have made even if that decision is different than the [*273] decision which the guardian would make for himself or herself.
quote:This state has already determined that HN18Go to the description of this Headnote.the surrogate decisionmaker can decide to forego life-sustaining treatment only on the basis of clear and convincing evidence. In re Barry, 445 So.2d at 372. Although we permit the guardian to make this decision in an informal forum, we emphasize that the decision must still be made upon clear and convincing evidence.
HN19Go to the description of this Headnote. Clear and convincing evidence requires that the evidence must be found to be credible; the facts to which the witnesses testify must be distinctly remembered; the testimony must be precise and explicit and the witnesses must be lacking in confusion as to the facts in issue. The evidence must be of such weight that it produces in the mind of the trier of fact a firm belief or conviction, without hesitancy, as to the truth of the allegations sought to be established.
Slomowitz v. Walker, 429 So.2d 797, 800 (Fla. 4th DCA 1983). It is possible for the evidence in such a case to be clear and convincing, even though some evidence may be inconsistent. Likewise, it is possible for the evidence to be uncontroverted, and yet not be clear and convincing. [**46] In re Jobes, 529 A.2d at 441.
HN20Go to the description of this Headnote.In making this difficult decision, a surrogate decisionmaker should err on the side of life. In this state, all natural persons not only possess a right of privacy, they also possess "the right to enjoy and defend life and liberty, to pursue happiness . . . ." Art. I, § 2, Fla. Const. In cases of doubt, we must assume that a patient would choose to defend life in exercising his or her right of privacy.
Dagonee
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
quote:Frankly, I don't see him as evil. But that doesn't mean he's unbiased.
Yeah. I get asked sometimes what his Michael Schiavo's motivations are. The fact is, I can't get in his head. At one time, it looked like it might have been about money, since he would have been able to keep hundreds of thousands of dollars in a malpractice award that was originally meant to be used for her care.
But that is not a factor any more, because he used up almost all of that money in legal fees in the fight to end her life.
There's also that nasty coincidence that he didn't start arguing for ending her life until winning the malpractice award. It's reasonable to assume the award would have been much less if he'd said then Terri would be dead soon because she wouldn't want to live that way.
Michael even made a video for the trial - it's a post-injury Terri in make-up, sitting in her wheelchair, being a part of family gatherings, and looking like she's reacting to a lot of what is going on around her.
Admittedly, she isn't as responsive now. But for the past few years, she's been pretty much confined to her room and her bed, without much stimulation. It's not surprising that a person with severe brain damage becomes less responsive when given that kind of treatment.
Horrible irony here - if he divorced Terri, he wouldn't be able to marry in the Catholic Church. He probably will be able to do so once Terri dies as a result of his order to remove the feeding tube.
Posted by OlavMah (Member # 756) on :
Spending money meant for her care on legal fees does not give him a monetary interest in the outcome. If he wanted the money, he would have kept it, not spent it.
But the legal issue at the heart of all this is who has the right to decide your fate when there is a difficult medical decision to be made and you are incapacitated, and the law is clear, spouses first, then adult children, then parents. Michael has the right to decide; he had it 16 years ago and he has it today. My opinion about what he decides is irrelevant because it is an issue personal to her and he is her next of kin. When you marry, you entrust your spouse with some of the greatest legal freedoms over your person possible, and their having another partner and kids outside the marriage 16 years after you become incapacitated will not negate this - bear this in mind when you marry, and get a living will, because even 16 years, another partner, and a few kids later, Michael is more closely related to his wife than her parents, the Florida Legislature, or the U.S. Congress are.
Incidentally, this http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/state/11148869.htm happened in Texas today. Any of you who are against Ms. Schiavo's death even notice this, or was flipping past the front page not a worthwhile investment in your crusades in the realm of bioethics? (Yeah, I'm being snide.) A baby was taking off life support *against the parent's wishes*, people! It happened on the same day as this, and *this* is the case you worry about???
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:But the legal issue at the heart of all this is who has the right to decide your fate when there is a difficult medical decision to be made and you are incapacitated, and the law is clear, spouses first, then adult children, then parents. Michael has the right to decide;
Please cite a source for this.
SPOUSES DO NOT DECIDE. Spouses have the default guardianship to IMPLEMENT THE PATIENT'S WISHES. See long post on previous page (which doesn't prove the default guardianship, but does outline the duties of guardians, or "surrogate decision makers."
Dagonee
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
OlavMah, I do not agree with you on th Schiavo case, but I do regarding that poor baby.
It is horrible, and it is murder, and I want to know why it is not being covered by every paper in the country?
Posted by OlavMah (Member # 756) on :
Yes, technically Michael must put himself in his wife's shoes and make what decision he believes she would make. I'm an attorney who specializes in estate planning, among other things. I write living wills, for goodness sake.
And to answer Rivka, it's because no one's been outraged by it. No one's even noticed, and it's not the media's job to notice for you.
[ March 18, 2005, 07:41 PM: Message edited by: OlavMah ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
That op-ed piece does not answer the standards in outlined in the two cited Florida cases. It's incomplete at best, self-servingly inaccurate at best.
Dagonee
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote: it's not the media's job to notice for you.
Really. Tell me, what is the media's job, if not to note a landmark legal event with huge moral and legal consequences?
Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :
Hi, Emily. Missed you.
How are we to be outraged about it when we'd never heard about it?
As to your claims versus Dag's, I agree with you that the spouse should have the right to make such decisions in the event that the person cannot make or express those wishes herself. And I don't look forward to a lawyer-war between you two over whether or not he does.
Yes, the thing in Texas (I didn't read the article, as it requires registration, but based on your synopsis of events) is ridiculously tragic and deplorable, and at least as worthy if not moreso of national outcry than the Schiavo case.
--Pop
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
bugmenot has passwords for both the sources linked to.
Posted by OlavMah (Member # 756) on :
The media did report on the infant's death. The case has been out there for months. Did anyone remark on it? Try and stop it? No. That's why it hasn't been reported on at greater length. The media didn't hide it from you; maybe next time this happens you might think to look into it? See if you could do some activism, alert a local group that might have an interest. The media didn't make Ms. Schiavo's case famous, the actions of the people fighting against it did. The media covered it because it was obvious that people cared to know about it.
And I realize the op-ed article is not legal precedent, Dagonee, but neither is the dicta in the cases you've been citing. Cherry picking dicta may work in a memo or a brief when your back's to the wall, but citing the holding is better.
Okay, I don't want to be over-snide. Let me try and soften that. By quoting out of the cases, you're showing that these arguments were indeed brought up in her cases. You're showing what are probably the best possible arguments that could have been made in the cases, and yet the courts have decided that Michael's decision stands.
[ March 18, 2005, 07:57 PM: Message edited by: OlavMah ]
Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :
I've heard bugmenot referenced a number of times -- I don't know what it is. I presume it provides fake e-mails/passwords for news sites such as these, yes? While I think it's classless to require registration for the sites, I'm not sure I agree with that as a solution, either. It just feels wrong to me. (Please note, this is not any type of accusation toward anyone who uses it -- I realize that this is a completely subjective and irrational concern of mine, and I don't have a good reason for it myself, much less one for others.)
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Not fake so much as shared, Pop.
That is, all their passwords have been created by someone (with real info? I don't know, and neither do I care) who is willing to share them with hoi polloi.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:And I realize the op-ed article is not legal precedent, Dagonee, but neither is the dicta in the cases you've been citing. Cherry picking dicta may work in a memo or a brief when your back's to the wall, but citing the holding is better.
I was very careful NOT to cherry pick. If nothing else is clear, it's that there are possible fact patterns that would allow the Schindler's to succeed. So it's clear that the spouse is NOT the one who makes the final decision.
Second, the "substituted judgment" standard is based on a holding, not mere dicta. It's the standard to be used.
I am not claiming that the previous quotes mandate a decision against Michael in this case. I am saying it is far more complicated than "The spouse decides."
Dagonee
Posted by vwiggin (Member # 926) on :
If you feel uncomfortable with bugmenot, you can bypass a lot of registrations by searching for the url in google and clicking on google's url link.
Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :
The media I view doesn't necessarily include the media who reported this. Since I get most of my news here, this is the first I've heard of it.
And I'll readily admit that if I had heard about it, there's little I would have done beyond holding an opinion. I'm pretty politically apathetic, and that's partly from general laziness and partly from despair of anything positive resulting from my efforts. Facing that directly in myself might show a bit of hypocrisy, and I'm not sure I'm ready to face that, or to change anything about myself if I did. Not yet, anyway.
--Pop
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
He has turned down offers of millions of dollars to back away from his claim to be her guardian. It's really not about money.
It's about something else...control, not letting her parents win, or, perhaps, a real belief that Terri would've preferred death. In any event, he's not a reliable spokesperson because of the conflicts of interest.
Posted by OlavMah (Member # 756) on :
I think everyone agrees it's complicated, Dag. You won't hear me complain about the number of cases that have arisen from this fact pattern, but boiling it down into simple terms is a lot more practical when you're dealing with clients who need to understand how to look out for their rights. Sure, I can rattle off to them all the case law and say that the substituted judgment standard applies, but what does that mean practically? It means that it's going to be your spouse's call, and yes, they are supposed to decide what you would decide in the situation, but it'll be hard to challenge them. In short, it's your spouse's call.
[ March 18, 2005, 08:38 PM: Message edited by: OlavMah ]
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Bob, perhaps it's about not being "the bad guy" in his own mind? If he backs down, he admits he has been wrong. If he lets himself be bought off, he admits he is after money.
If he stubbornly sticks to his guns, then at least to himself, he is the good guy.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
rivka, I totally agree. I think he's entrenched and can't back down and one powerful motivator is his own self-image. He has a lot invested in this now.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: It's about something else...control, not letting her parents win, or, perhaps, a real belief that Terri would've preferred death. In any event, he's not a reliable spokesperson because of the conflicts of interest.
I don't follow you, Bob. What conflicts of interest exist that would not exist for any spouse in a similar situation?
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
His current live in girlfriend and their two children? And his wish to marry her without having to think of himself as a guy who would divorce/abandon his injured wife?
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Here's a CNN link to the story about the baby taken off of life support:
I'd like more information than what's presented here. By what rationale did the doctors decide there was no hope? If the baby was alive on a respirator, was that only possible for a short amount of time? As the child grew, would it be impossible for the too-small lungs to supply enough oxygen to support the new tissue? Would the child die painfully of asphyxiation if they didn't um...asphyxiate it now?
This just seems really bizarre to me. But I'm not familiar at all with this condition or even neonatal development and why it'd be better to have the child die now versus give it more time and see what happened.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Tom...what dkw said. (see she's answering for me already!)
I think Michael has created some factors in his life that make it reasonable to question his ability to think clearly, rationally, and with Terri's true wishes at the fore-front of his decision-making.
I will NOT call him a liar or evil. But I do think that he has issues that are self-created and provide powerful incentives to end Terri's life.
I would actually much prefer a disinterested 3rd party be charged with this decision on her behalf. That's sort of what the court is supposed to be. I honestly think Judge Greer has done an admirable job under very tough circumstances and the people who are castigating him (and even threatening him) worry me. He has a duty to uphold the law. His decisions have be upheld upon appeal. He's doing everything the law allows him to do. Sure, there's room for interpretation by a judge, but he's also got to do things that aren't going to be undone later, if he can.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: I would actually much prefer a disinterested 3rd party be charged with this decision on her behalf. That's sort of what the court is supposed to be.
That's sort of what the court was. But when the court came up with the "wrong" answer -- for a given value of "wrong" -- it gave the federal government yet another thing to second-guess.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
quote:That's sort of what the court was. But when the court came up with the "wrong" answer -- for a given value of "wrong" -- it gave the federal government yet another thing to second-guess.
I personally don't think Judge Greer did the wrong thing. My concern is whether we need to change our laws and societal standards, not this Judge or his decision.
But I understand that it is human nature to work from specific cases and strike in the heat of passion, not take time and make a considered choice.
But then, I also believe that all of this will matter very little to Terri Schiavo. If I really thought she was "there," I'd be very concerned about doing something RIGHT NOW too.
As it is, I just think she's being used by everyone to make a point about some bigger issues that we still don't seem ready to address in any sensible or sensitive fashion.
And that means that we'll have more of these "cases."
I'm getting myself depressed.
Posted by Heffaji (Member # 3669) on :
The issue is about to be decided, or prolonged depending on the outcome rather soon and I felt this topic should be on the front page.
[ March 20, 2005, 10:22 PM: Message edited by: Heffaji ]
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Yes, soon we'll see just how ridiculous the Congress can be.
As if we haven't already seen evidence of that in the last couple years.
Edit: Law has been passed, off the case goes to federal court.
[ March 21, 2005, 12:47 AM: Message edited by: Lyrhawn ]
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
So that means she is a "witness" now, right? And they can put the tube back in?
Man, I am really reeling in confusion over how I feel about this now. I do not want her to starve to death, but I do not like the idea of Congress deciding if she lives or dies.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I personally don't think Judge Greer did the wrong thing.
I do, precisely because the only way the evidence can be presented is "clear and convincing" is for him to have a preconceived notion of the value of her life in its current condition. The three witnesses who only heard casual conversation from her, the potential conflict of interest of the husband, and the lack of evidence that she even meant nutrition support when she made her remarks all combine to make the evidence less than convincing unless one starts from the notion that "no one would want to live like this."
Dagonee
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Out of interest, can the court require someone to keep someone else on medical care even after that care becomes unaffordable?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
In most states, yes. For example, the futile care law in Texas (which I find reprehensible) does not allow cost considerations or ability to pay to be taken into account by the court. Of course, I'm sure cost considerations and ability to pay are involved in the decision to seek to remove support.
Dagonee
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I do not want her to starve to death, but I do not like the idea of Congress deciding if she lives or dies.
Actually, Congress is not deciding if she lives or dies, but merely granting another level of judicial review.
Dagonee
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"Actually, Congress is not deciding if she lives or dies, but merely granting another level of judicial review."
*nod* On the grounds, I can only assume, that state judges are stupid.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Or on the grounds that they didn't properly examine federal constitutional and statutory protections. Which wouldn't make them stupid.
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
I don't have a lot of time today, but one of the Senators putting his weight behind this bill and also wanting to look at the bigger picture is Tom Harkin, who has always been on the forefront of disability rights issues. He appeared with Martinez and Santorum at a press conference on Saturday and his remarks there went mostly unnoticed by the press.
“I have long been an advocate for the rights of people with disabilities. Many in that community are keenly aware of the risk of incapacitation. In such cases, I believe that every precaution should be taken to learn and respect their desires regarding the removal of life supports.
“Over the last week, I have been working hard, and in good faith with Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL), Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), and others to come up with legislation that would allow federal review of the Terri Schiavo case. Yesterday afternoon, we came up with bipartisan measure that did just that and many of my Senate Republican and Democratic colleagues deserve praise for their hard and swift work.
“Unfortunately, the House Republican Leadership refused to take up the bill before sending members home for a two week vacation. There is no excuse for stalling a matter of such an urgent and life threatening nature. They are solely responsible for the consequences Ms. Schiavo and her family now face, as well as for today’s unfortunate events. Congressional action is this area should be based on respect for the wishes and dignity of those who are incapacitated.
“It is my belief that people with disabilities and those who are incapacitated deserve the utmost dignity and respect. I plan to continue to work with my Senate colleagues on both sides of the aisle to give cases like this an opportunity for further review in federal courts.”
--30--
Here's an excerpt from statements he made at the press conference (sorry, no URL, a friend transcribed them after taping CSPAN)
quote: Harkin: "I said on the floor the other day, 'While I want to make sure this specific case is reviewed de novo, there is a broader question here.' This case has gotten a lot of publicity obviously; but there are a lot of people in the shadows, all over this country, who are incapacitated because of a disability, and many times there is no one to speak for them, and it is hard to determine what their wishes really are or were. So I think there ought to be a broader type of a proceeding that would apply to people in similar circumstances who are incapacitated. Where there is a genuine dispute as to what the desires of the incapacitated person really are, then there ought to be at the end some review by a federal court outside of state jurisdiction. You might say, 'Why a federal court?' State courts vary in their evidentiary proceedings and in their process -- fifty different ones. Iowa differes from Florida or Missouri. So sometimes a person might get caught in a certain evidentiary proceeding, in a state court, that does not really tell the whole story. Every review of that, up through the state courts, is basically on the procedure, not upon the first facts. In a case like this, where someone is incapacitated and their life support can be taken away, it seems to me that it is appropriate -- where there is a dispute, as there is in this case -- that a federal court come in, like we do in habeas corpus situations, and review it and make another determination. And so I’m hopefull that we will come back in this Congress and we will develop some legislation that will address this issue.
"In all my work over the last 25 years in disability, I had not thought about this -- I mean, it just hadn’t come up. But the more I looked at the Schiavo case, the more I thought, 'Wait a minute. There are a lot of people in similar situations -- maybe not in her specific situation -- but because of a disability cannot express themselves or cannot in any way make their desires known. So it seems to me like this would be an appropriate area for us to take a look at."
And, of course, there's more in the way of press releases, links to articles, etc., at the NDY website.
[ March 21, 2005, 10:17 AM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Did not the federal courts refuse to hear the case before?
Yes, but I think (based on sketchy press accounts) the refusals were largely on procedural grounds.
Habeas proceedings will carry a new fact-finding phase as welll as the ability to bring up a variety of federal issues in a collateral attack on the state court decision.
Dagonee
[ March 21, 2005, 10:19 AM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:State courts vary in their evidentiary proceedings and in their process -- fifty different ones. Iowa differes from Florida or Missouri. So sometimes a person might get caught in a certain evidentiary proceeding, in a state court, that does not really tell the whole story.
So one standard evidentiary procedure is better for any matter of real importance? Wow. You'd almost think that state courts shouldn't even bother.
His entire rationale is that state courts do things differently in each state. This prompts, from me, a loud "duh."
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
Thought I'd toss this in the mix, from a columnist here at our paper:
It takes a look at the perceived hypocrisy at some of the politicians in this case, and it's (to me) interesting reading.
"Some of Schiavo's care is paid for by the Medicaid system. Yet cutting state Medicaid spending and shifting the program and its decision-making into private managed-care companies are the hallmarks of Gov. Jeb Bush's plans for Medicaid reform. And the same week the U.S. House voted for Schiavo legislation, it also voted for a budget with $20 billion in "savings" from Medicaid.
"You might need to declare bankruptcy to free up money for such care, but the Senate recently voted to make to make that harder to do as well.
"Even as we see politicians jump to the microphone on the "Save Terri" sound truck, they are making it less likely that any patient in the future will be able to pay for the care they say Schiavo and others must have even over the objections of family."
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
I think the important question here is, can we vote to have Michael Jackson's feeding tube removed?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
From what I read, the Federal judge wasn't too impressed with Terri's parents' arguments. He heard their arguments today but didn't tell them when he might be ready to render a verdict.
Posted by ChaosTheory (Member # 7069) on :
I personally think that the plug should be pulled. I don't think that she should be starved to death but, if your braindead, unconscious and have no chance of recovery that the plug should be pulled.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
What plug? I was under the impression that she could breathe on her own.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
You can't have it both ways. She's not ON life support (hence no "plug"). She's being fed via a feeding tube.
So yes, they are talking about starving her (more likely, dehydrating her) to death.
In any case, she is not brain dead.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Steve, I've followed your comments on this case for sometime but I am still not clear on one thing. When a critical medical decision must be made for a disabled individual who is incapacitated and unable to communicate their desires, who do you think should make that decision? The doctors, the government, medicare, HMOs, the community, the family? Who?
If you are maintaining that severly disabled individuals should be given every available form of medical care unless they have left a living will then you are suggesting a standard that is not available to any one in our society. If I am ill, I only have access to the medical care that my insurance will approve or I can pay for myself. My disabled sister in-law, who is mentally competent to make decisions for herself, only has access to the medical care approved by medicaid, which at times seems woefully inadequate.
A line must be drawn somewhere for every individual. Who should decide where the line is to be drawn?
I know that I would far rather have my husband making the decision about my medical care that an accountant at an HMO, a politician, a lawyer or even a doctor. I know who would have more respect for me than all others
Posted by jack (Member # 2083) on :
What I can't wrap my brain around is the about face Repubs have done on state's rights.
And Bush. I mean, he signed that bill in Texas where hospitals could remove life support of indigent patients even if the families protest. They just did it to some kid this month, didn't they?
I know that Bush is not who I'd like in the White House, but what I can't understand is how the people who do want him there can live with this hypocrisy.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
As opposed to the hypocrisy we were presented with in Kerry?
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Honestly, I'd rather have a somewhat-hypocritical-on-a-complex-and-sensitive-issue President who wasn't nearly as deft politically (and particularly not as efficient at exploiting and manipulating the system) over the current one. I notice you've stayed out of, for instance, the thread where it turns out the Bush administration intentionally mislead people about NK's sales of nuclear material.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Oh, and then we'd have the far superior situation of a split between executive and legislative branches.
Posted by ssywak (Member # 807) on :
I think I'll sneak up on Tom DeLay while he's sleeping, and stick a high-pressure feeding tube up his...
Oh, wait, is that my "outside voice"?
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
How does it fit with family values to decide that the federal government rather than families should make such decisions?
How does the "defense of marriage" fit with eliminating a husband's status as next of kin?
How does it fit the "small government" ideal, if the government is allowed to make these decisions for individuals?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I notice you've stayed out of, for instance, the thread where it turns out the Bush administration intentionally mislead people about NK's sales of nuclear material.
Fugu, I stay out of a lot of threads. That's really not fair.
quote:How does it fit with family values to decide that the federal government rather than families should make such decisions?
The government has a review role in most matters of life and death.
quote:How does the "defense of marriage" fit with eliminating a husband's status as next of kin?
The husband does not have the right to decide for Teri. He is the default surrogate decision maker whose responsibility is to determine what Teri would have chosen. He is required, even in an informal setting, to have clear and concincing evidence that a decision for death would be made, and his determination is subject to review. This is under current Florida law. Next of kin status does not give anyone the right to decide to starve someone to death.
quote:How does it fit the "small government" ideal, if the government is allowed to make these decisions for individuals?
In many ways, requiring explicit written instructions with a default of life in their absense is a "smaller government" choice, because it makes a clear rule and does not involve the court in attempting to decide what someone would have wanted.
Dagonee
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Next of kin status does not give anyone the right to decide to starve someone to death.
A bit biased way to state this. Tube feeding is artificial life support just as respirator is artificial life support. Deciding to turn of the respirator for a comatose patient, isn't equivalent to deciding to sufficate them -- although that is the outcome.
Terri Shiavo can't eat. She is alive solely because of medical technology that is able to deliver nutrition. Choosing to stop that medical care should not be compared to those who choose to starve a child or disabled person any more than turning off a respirator should be compared to putting a pillow over someones face until they sufficate.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
If she had made it clear that she would want to starve to death then would that fix all this?
I don't know, but I have a feeling there would still be an outcry against it. Doctor assisted suicide is against the law, pulling the plug isn't. But somewhere in the middle is where Terri Shaivo is. Letting her starve to death is immoral, but ending her suffering faster is also immoral. Yet prolonging her suffering by keeping the feeding tube in is not immoral.
I don't get how people come to these conclusions.
Edit to add: Good point Rabbit. I agree.
[ March 21, 2005, 10:23 PM: Message edited by: Lyrhawn ]
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
IMO, turning off a respirator is EXACTLY the same as suffocating them with a pillow. (However, not putting them on the respirator in the first place would be different.)
As far as whether Terri would be able to eat without the tube, I believe there is evidence before that she might be able to learn how (there is evidence of swallowing, etc.) but her husband has refused to allow it.
Posted by jack (Member # 2083) on :
quote:If she had made it clear that she would want to starve to death then would that fix all this?
Isn't that how she got into this situation in the first place?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
True enough.
I don't think it really makes a difference if you pull the plug on a respirator after it has been activated, versus never putting them on it to begin with, in which case they will suffocate anyway. Does the moral line really differentiate between suffocating now or later?
Between starving now or later?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:A bit biased way to state this. Tube feeding is artificial life support just as respirator is artificial life support. Deciding to turn of the respirator for a comatose patient, isn't equivalent to deciding to sufficate them -- although that is the outcome.
Terri Shiavo can't eat. She is alive solely because of medical technology that is able to deliver nutrition. Choosing to stop that medical care should not be compared to those who choose to starve a child or disabled person any more than turning off a respirator should be compared to putting a pillow over someones face until they sufficate.
The original order prevented any attempts to feed her by hand.
There is a means to deliver food to her. They are going to prevent that means from being used. The result of this is that she will starve to death. Seems pretty accurate to me.
quote:Yet prolonging her suffering by keeping the feeding tube in is not immoral.
All we keep hearing is that she isn't aware, can't feel pain, and that starvation and dehydration will be peaceful because of her lack of awareness. How, then, is her suffering being prolonged?
Dagonee
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote: All we keep hearing is that she isn't aware, can't feel pain, and that starvation and dehydration will be peaceful because of her lack of awareness. How, then, is her suffering being prolonged?
If that is the case, why bother to keep her "alive" at all? The whole thing has me confused when it comes to her actual state. If she isn't aware then it doesn't really make a difference one way or the other, just get it over with. If she is aware, then her wishes apparently were to end artificial support, get it over with.
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
I tried to avoid this story... partly because it's the business of the family and I don't know all the facts.
But now that I've been practically forced to find out more about this unfortunate situation I'm getting more and more mad at the Republicans/Bush/Religious Right. There are thousands of similar deaths every day and the CONGRESS is getting involved in this ONE case?? And what about that Republican memo they found talking about the political benefits of making a huge deal of this. Ugh. Horrible.
Bush making the oh so convenient trip back to the capital to sign the bill. The BBC was talking about the possible success of saving her…but of course the goal is not to save her. They don’t care about her. It’s all about making a good show for the religious right base and damaging the Democrats.
The fact that Congress got involved at all changes the way power is used and how the government can use it against the general public.
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
I don't understand. When I read about this case in Le Monde yesterday, they said that Terri was in a permanent vegetative coma. Is it true or not ? I always figured that a person in that condition would be lying on a bed, not able to initiate a move or to watch or hear something, but this description doesn't fit what I hear from you today. If she is in the state I described, then I guess I would be in favour of letting her die. If it's not the case, I don't know. But it must be heart-wrenching for her husband. If I was to live such a horrible thing... Well, I'm not even sure I would survive without Vinnie, what would I do if his body was alive but his soul no more ? I would become mad.
[ March 22, 2005, 05:58 AM: Message edited by: Anna ]
Posted by Johivin (Member # 6746) on :
From what I've heard, she has no upper brain activity. All areas that regulate consciousness such as pain, emotion, and I believe all of the cortex is destroyed beyond repair.
If her soul is still attached to her body, it no longer has any feeling at all. If she has passed on, her body is still continuing its bodily functions thinking that its still alive. This is a very touchy subject as there are arguments on both sides.
Because of her body's reactions some would believe that she was still there. Yet as far as science goes, only the basic brain funtions are exhibited, meaning that thinking is essentially moot.
This entire situation is representative of our society and our values. We protect those who can't protect themselves, and yet those who have their own ideas we ignore. It used to be that we took care of our family and that people looked out for those they knew. Now we lock elderly people in nursing homes and ignore our own children.
Personally I would never want to be stuck in limbo as T.S. is.
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
Who is paying for all her medical bills? After 15 years it must be up to a million. How can anyone afford this? I think I read somewhere that the husband won some medical lawsuit years ago and that's what has been funding her care.
I would never want to remain alive like this...and I would hope my family would never bankrupt themselves over my corpse. But that's not the point... the point is that our mighty government is using her and her family for their own ends to keep power.
I say if the husband does not want to care for her anymore, then let her parents foot the bill. Case solved.
If only Bush and the Repulicans would put this much effort to something real... like getting health care to all the millions who have none.
[ March 22, 2005, 07:19 AM: Message edited by: Telperion the Silver ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Oh, and Rabbit, if you're going to talk about biased terminology, then "eliminating a husband's status as next of kin" is right up there.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Except according to Catholic law, he can't move on with his life, so to speak. Catholics don't do divorce. Hence (IMO) his stance of removing her feeding tube and letting her body pass on.
According to Catholic teachings, removing the feeding tube is wrong. According to Catholic teachings, his adultery is wrong.
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
That's why I can't understand people who rely entirely on the teaching of a church. In her heart and soul his wife is dead, and his living with someone else is like a widow marrying again. I can't be against it, and I can't see why people think like "but you haven't had the church benediction so it is so so wrong and God will punish you, nyah nyah nyah."
[ March 22, 2005, 09:14 AM: Message edited by: Anna ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:but you haven't had the church benediction so it is so so wrong and God will punish you, nyah nyah nyah
you can't see why people think like this because very few people actually do. It's easy to be shocked at how people think a certain way when you make up how they think.
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
Dag, I didn't mean you or anyone here. But in France, there are actually a certain number of people who think that way. Like, since I am not baptized, I go directly burning in hell no matter how I behave. I'm not making that up, I promise. It may be a minority, but it's still more than annoying.
[ March 22, 2005, 09:32 AM: Message edited by: Anna ]
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
quote:Personally I would never want to be stuck in limbo as T.S. is.
Johivin --- do you have that written down somewhere legally so that if you ever got in this condition (car accident, etc.) you family would actually KNOW your wishes???
Do any of you who are arguing in favor of pulling the plug on T.S. have this written down for you? I mean - none of this argument for/against Schiavo would even be an issue if she had actually left some kind of directive...
just seems hypocritical to me that some of you say you would hate to live that way, you haven't made allowances for it in your own lives..
Farmgirl
Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
Did anyone ever answer the question as to who is paying for her care? What if this happened to me? Would my family have to fit the bill once insurance ran out?
My opinion is that she should be fed and cared for as long as she is alive. The brain is an amazing and poorly understood organ. I strongly suspect that when an "expert" says "She's in a persistent vegetative state from which she will never recover" what I think they mean is "We've never ever seen anyone recover from this and due to the damage in her brain, we'd be floored if she was ever to show signs of higher brain functions again, in fact we'd be willing to bet money this will never happen." Granted, I'm no expert, but if it were left up to me to make the decision I'd say keep her fed. If she's truely beyond feeling or knowing, then why not err on the side of caution?
That said, I think the husband should be able to walk away. I think he should be able to go on with his life as if widowed, and should not be held responsible for T.S.'s further care. She should become a ward of the state.
If this happened to me, I'd want every possible chance to live. Nevertheless, I'd expect Chris to hold on to hope for a short time at least, then move on.
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
BookWyrm, I think you told exactly what I would ave told if I had known how. Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Interesting that the Bush administration falls on the side of keeping her alive, given that they'd also like to cut the funding that makes this possible, both in terms of Medicare/Medicaid and in terms of capping benefits in suits of the sort that provided Schaivo's husband with cash to provide for her care.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
That is the main thing that bothers me about their involvment...
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:According to Catholic teachings, removing the feeding tube is wrong.
I don't think this is correct. My Catholic MIL recently died. During the course of her death, her Priest confirmed that refusal of life extending medical care is not condemned by the Catholic church. Under catholic teaching, the refusal of medical care is not equivolent to either suicide or murder. For over a year before her death, MIL was on a feeding tube. Two weeks before her death, when it became clear that her death was imminent and that the feeding tube was simply prolonging her suffering, she opted to stop the tube feedings. This was not condemned by the Catholic church. She was able to make the decision her self, but from my limited understanding it still would have been fine with the Catholic church if she had been mentally incompetent and the decision had been made by the family.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Hmmm. The last time I took a class in it, we were taught that medical care could be refused, but that provision of food and water did not qualify as medical care. I'll have to do some reading.
The key factor is whether or not the feeding tube is medical care - Catholics can refuse medical care in a wide variety of situations. I know the pope has recently espoused the view that feeding tubes are a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act, although this wasn't an official pronouncement.
Did they attempt to feed her once the tube was removed? That may have some bearing on it.
Dagonee
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Did they attempt to feed her once the tube was removed?
Its not really a relevant question since she was at home so there is no "they" who might have attempted to feed her. She was able to make such choices for herself. The instructions we received from Hospice were that if she requested anything to eat or drink, we should give it to her but that we should not try to persuade her to eat or drink. During the last 2.5 weeks she drank about 1 L of ginger ale and ate one egg roll and one small bowl of raspberries and cream. Those details are however irrelevant to the question.
MIL was the head dietician incharge of enteral nutrition at a local hospital for many years. She was involved with removing feeding tubes from terminal patients frequently. Although food and water administered by normal means are not considered "medical care", enteral feeding (tube feeding) is defined as medical care. I have been through this situation with two family member now. I have looked into many of the details. Tube feeding and IVs are commonly removed from terminally ill patients when the patient or the patients family have requested that no heroic means be used to extended the patients life. This is not a gray area, it is routine in every hospital. To the best of my knowledge, all major religions consider tube feeding (under most circumstances) to be life prolonging medical care and do not consider it a sin for terminally ill patients to refuse such care.
There are two aspects that make the Shiavo case controversial. First, she is not terminally ill. As I understand it, her body could continue to function for many years. This in and of itself, would not have generated ther controversy seeing that law has allowed patients and their families to stop respirators, tube feeding and other medical treatment in similar cases. The second aspect is the one that has this case in the news. Terri's family is not in agreement that care should be ended. If Terri's parents had agreed with her husband that it was time to stop the tube feeding and allow her to die, this would have never made the news. It would have been just one among hundreds of cases. Because her parents object to stopping the tube feeding and won the ear of prominent politicians -- it is suddenly a controversy.
That's not quite fair. What I should say is that the controversy is now in the headlines because her parents have so vociferously opposed allowing her to die. The controversy behind this case has real merit. It is the question of who should be given the right to make life and death decisions for an incapacitated individual. The decision that we provide full care to all individuals unless they have a written living will that specifically requests otherwise, is to general to be useful. I could give you specific examples where an overwhelming majority of people would disagree with such a blanket law. What's more, this decision would require dramatic changes in our entire medical system since we as a society do not provide unqualified access to medical care to anyone now.
[ March 22, 2005, 02:18 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posted by Jay (Member # 5786) on :
I can remember when there were only three television networks: ABC, CBS, and NBC and their local affiliates. Reception was so bad in our area that we had a tough time pulling in the NBC signal at night. This meant that I never saw an episode of Bonanza or Star Trek until I went off to college. But during the day, the NBC signal (channel 11 in Pittsburgh) came in as clearly as the other two. Since most daytime television was filled with women’s stories, there wasn’t much to watch. A few times I came across the sappy “Queen for a Day” when I was home from school because of some faked illness. The image of a teary-eyed woman being crowned “Queen for a Day” will never leave me.
Four women were chosen each day from the studio audience. They appeared on stage one at a time where each woman told about the great tragedies and misfortunes in her life. At the end of each program, studio audience applause that was displayed on the “Applause-O-Meter” determined who was the biggest loser and would be declared “Queen for a Day.” To add a little regal style to the celebration, each day’s queen was given a jeweled crown, a bouquet of roses, and gifts fit for a queen. To top off the event, she was draped in a sable-trimmed red velvet robe. There were only two things lacking: She had no regal authority, and she went back to her mundane and messed up life the next day.
The Terri Schiavo case got me thinking. What if I could be King Solomon for a day and have what the television queens did not have—full kingly authority, a “let it be written, let it be done” authority. How would I rule?
The first issue relates to guardianship. Who is Terri’s guardian? Her husband maintains that he is. But he’s deserted her in spite of the vows he reiterated when he testified in the medical malpractice suit he filed:
“I believe in the vows I took with my wife: through sickness and health, for richer or poor. I married my wife because I love her and I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I’m going to do that.”
He is now living with another woman and has two children by her. By this action, he has given up guardianship. Civil governments no longer seem to be able to define marriage. Judges are claiming that men can marry men, and women can marry women, but a man who deserts his wife and moves in with another woman is somehow still married to the woman he deserted. Terri is in legal limbo, but she does not have to be. For example, when parents die in an accident, children are often given to the next of kin. Terri has her loving parents who want to care of her. I do not understand why a judge would not turn guardianship over to them. This seems to be the easiest and most logical decision since there is no living will. Michael Schiavo gets his freedom, Terri’s parents get their daughter, and she might have a chance for some rehabilitation.
King Solomon faced a similar dilemma as two harlots claimed to be the mother of a child (1 Kings 3:16–28). Since there was no way to check DNA, Solomon extracted the motive of true love from the women. He recommended cutting the child in two and giving each woman a half. The true mother, not wanting to see her child destroyed, gave up her parental rights to see her child live. Through this selfless act, Solomon had found the child’s true guardian. You don’t have to be as wise as Solomon to figure out who cares for Terri Schiavo. Apparently there aren’t many wise judges in this case. The parents are the true caregivers —everyone knows it—and judges want to cut this poor woman in half rather than put her in the hands of those who love her!
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
At one point, I wondered whether at least some of Kings stories in the Bible were intended as anti-monarchical in keeping with earlier parts. The Solomon story is one of the best examples of this. You can read it as making a metaphorical point and it's ok. You can read it as absurdist satire, and it works even better. But reading it as something that actually happened is just silly. Solomon's "wisdom" is predicated on the one woman being perfectly happy with getting half a baby.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
It's s'posed to be a metaphor for the partitioning of one of the "state"s which Solomon ruled over as a solution to resolve bickering between two competing factions.
If the situation had been literal rather than political metaphor: Solomon backed himself into an untenable position. If neither woman had given up her claim, then in order to keep his word credible, he would have had to kill the baby. Can't rule over a buncha "mafia families" -- which is essentially what political factions were -- if they feel that ya won't enforce the tough decisions.
Hopefully he woulda figured out a more modern solution, then retconned the meaning of his judgement ala "Joint custody is what I meant by splitting the baby in half."
[ March 22, 2005, 09:44 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
And if those ancients were so danged smart, why didn't they use genetic testing???
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Because the “true mother” is the one that wants what’s best for the child no matter what the genetic testing would have revealed?
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
That or the politically-aware false mother was brighter than the true mother in figuring out Solomon's legal strategy. And the non-politically-aware true mother just assumed that no one in their right mind -- ie assumed that society wouldn't accept a nutcase as judge&ruler -- would actually kill a baby solely to prove a point.
If the ancients were anywhere near as wise as some folks wanna believe, Solomon woulda invented genetic testing.
[ March 22, 2005, 02:17 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by Olivetta (Member # 6456) on :
Recently, my mother was taken off a respirator. She'd had shortness of breath and abdominal pain, which they thought might be evidence of infection in her abdominal cavity. She'd just had some emergency surger a month or so before, and had not been home from the hospital yet.
It was to the point that either they put in more permanent life support measures (trachiostomy for the ventillator, etc.) with no forseeable hope of meaning ful recovery. Nine years of anti-rejection meds had simply turned her entrails into cheesecloth.
Mom was very clear about her wishes. She had a living will, though those can be overridden by family in our state. The doctors met with us. They gave us a day or so to get everyone together. We knew what we had to do, we knew what was coming.
Though I wanted nothing more than for my mother to open her eyes and speak to me again, it fell to me to speak for the family. She lived for almost a week with little medical intervention (IV fluids and pain medication).
I knew what she wanted. I knew she was ready to go. She had been trying to prepare us for some time, because she knew it wouldn't be long.
But... I still wonder sometimes if I'd insisted that we fight a little harder, if maybe she would have lived. Should I have ignored her living will? Fought the whole family, or tried to rally them behind a questionable hope?
I don't know.
I do know that I'm very, very glad that the government kept it's nose out of what was hugely painful for everyone, and I'm very glad that we all agreed.
If everyone would make their wishes known, the government wouldn't have the chance to stick it's nose in. So do it, people. Don't make the people you love destroy each other trying to decide what's right.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Has anyone else heard the audio clips that have been played of testimony from a lady that was Schiavo's nurse around 1996, 1997? In that testimony, she says that Terri, when she cared for her, could say small, simple words like "pa" to indicate pain (usually during menses cycle) and "mama" and she would smile and laugh briefly. She could indicate when she needed something.
That is a much different picture than we are hearing from the rest of the media, and I was very surprised to hear it.
I have often wondered why Mr. Schaivo has still been refusing TV cameras to go in and video her lately. THe only video we see is one shot by her family (parents) a few years back.
Farmgirl
(guess I'm behind the time with this. I see from the testimony here that this information has been around awhile.)
[ March 22, 2005, 02:26 PM: Message edited by: Farmgirl ]
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
I am a bit confused by the court order that she not be fed by hand. I would like to see the ruling and understand the reasoning. It is possible that this also is a medical issue. If Shiavo does not able to swallow properly, hand feeding could easily result in her choking or asperating food into her lungs. If this is the case, hand feeding her would be the equivalent of holding a pillow over her face. If this is the case, I can support the courts position. If its not, then I have a hard time seeing any justification for preventing hand feeding her.
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
Sorry I haven't been involved. The days are getting very long and the phone and emails just don't seem to stop. (couldn't even eat a peanut butter sandwich without getting interrupted by the phone today.) And it started early.
I was on democracynow radio this morning. I was told that I would be debating a bioethicist, but that was only part of it. They pulled in Barney Frank - and I think the exchange between Rep. Frank and I was the most interesting part of the show. (I haven't had the heart to listen to it - early morning is when my voice is shakiest, so I know I sounded more emotional than I wanted to at points.)
You can access it at the following URL, using a variety of media formats:
Changed to reflect what day it actually is - something I seem to have trouble remembering right now.
[ March 22, 2005, 03:11 PM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I hate answering the phone when I'm eating peanut butter.
Keep fighting the good fight. Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
Yeah, the whole "herro, pls wt whl my pnut bter sndwch clers my mouf" part of the conversation was a little awkward.
*sigh*
Back to the phone.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Which brings up a point, Olivetta. Why is there a presumption that Terry Schiavo didn't draw up a living will (before ever meeting her future husband) requesting termination in case of severe brain injury? and left it with her parents? who decided they didn't want to follow the instructions?
I believe it was ?ClaudiaTherese? who mentioned that her mother died. And her uncle, who was executor of the estate, claimed that no will could be found, and split the estate amongst his own half of the family. Cutting ?ClaudiaTherese? out of her inheritance entirely: even though she was the caregiver to her mother; even though she is fairly certain that a will was drawn; even though she thinks her mother would have left a cabin with some land to her.
Edit: Changed "Rabbit" back to "?ClaudiaTherese?" due to a correction on the next page.
[ March 22, 2005, 09:45 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Which brings up a point: why is there an assumption that Terry Schiavo didn't draw up a living will requesting termination in case of severe brain injury? and left it with her parents? who decided they didn't want to follow the instructions?
There's no evidence of this. Under Florida law, the presumption favors continued life.
We also don't know if she left a living will with Michael specifically prohibiting removal of nutrition support.
Dagonee
Posted by Olivetta (Member # 6456) on :
Aspectre, I'm just really lucky for two reasons:
1. My family is great, very loving, pull-together, salt of the earth kind of people
and
2. My mother was a talker. A communicater of extraordinary prowess. Anybody who stood in line with her at the grocery store for more than a minute knew her life story, or close. Everyone knew her wishes, in no uncertain terms.
Which made it easy when the living will she had on file with the hospital could not be found. Without the document, everyone still knew what she'd want. Plus, at this point they could not have saved her life, in all probability, even with extreme measures. AAMOF, it would have been a clear-cut no-brainer had it not been MY mother I was talking about. Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Sndrake, Were you on the monday or Tuesday DemocracyNow. I listened to Monday but never found you.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
True, Dagonee. All I'm saying is that the presumptions previously mentioned on this forum should not be automaticly conceded as the only possibilities.
Solomon would have been a lot wiser if he had appointed his medical advisors to examine both women and the baby, as well as assigned investigators to question witnesses such as friends/neighbors/relatives/midwives, before pronouncing a pre/judgment which could have left him in a nasty political position.
[ March 22, 2005, 03:13 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
Arrggh. So sorry about the link. I am really fried and making stupid mistakes like this are getting all too easy.
Here'a a link to the page about today's (March 22) show:
I double apologize for the confusion now, since I realize the confusion originated with me literally not remembering what day it is.
[ March 22, 2005, 03:12 PM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
Posted by Beren One Hand (Member # 3403) on :
I enjoyed the Monday show though. The neo con vs. big oil piece was very interesting. Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
But thank you for letting me know I wasn't responsible for wasting an hour of your life you'll never get back.
::shuffles off to corner, hanging head in shame::
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
I also find it a bit strange that certain "I am a religious person"s seem to presume that TerrySchiavo would prefer her present state over Heaven.
[ March 22, 2005, 03:59 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by Johivin (Member # 6746) on :
Farmgirl,
My family has a pact amongst ourselves that we will not live under such conditions. Yes, it is written down and was signed the day I turned 18. No one in my family wants to live if we cannot feed or breathe for ourselves.
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
quote:All we keep hearing is that she isn't aware, can't feel pain, and that starvation and dehydration will be peaceful because of her lack of awareness. How, then, is her suffering being prolonged?
This is the perception he has fostered in her wishes to be allowed to pass on.
Except this isn't just him. It's usually the truth. Now that I'm working in a nursing home I get to see this alot. When your body breaks down there are changes in the blood and basically you loose the ability to feel hunger/thirst. This happens with really sick cancer patients and very old folks. I have an 80 yr old dude right now starving himself to death... and he doesn't feel a thing. And the hospital won't do anything because he has a right to refuse medical treatment. Feeding being part of that.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
"when the living will she had on file with the hospital could not be found"
I find myself wondering if it weren't deliberately removed by someone with a religio-political agenda.
Posted by TheHumanTarget (Member # 7129) on :
Aspectre, I think that's a bit absurd, don't you?
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
quote: Except this isn't just him. It's usually the truth.
Telp - did you go to the site that was linked to further up this thread http://www.terrisfight.net/ where her family has posted video and testimony that indicates she CAN and DOES respond to pain?
Farmgirl
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:I believe it was Rabbit who mentioned that her mother died.
Not me. Both my parents are still in excellent health and I have a copy of the family trust in my filing cabinet.
My MIL recently died and I was present when she set up her will/trust. Her estate hasn't been settled yet but I don't anticipate any shinanigans in that regard.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
"...a lady that was Schiavo's nurse around 1996, 1997...says that Terri...could say small, simple words like "pa" to indicate pain...and "mama" and she would smile and laugh briefly."
Let's see...at minimum, there were five nurses and one doctor who attended TerriSchiavo during any given year. Add non-attending doctors/interns/nurses/orderlies/janitors/etc who regularly saw her. Multiply that by staff turnover over the many years...
...and the natural conclusion that one should reach is that the hospital workers who didn't report such behaviour are evil people who think patients should be terminated regardless of their condition. Seems like a good way of becoming unemployed. And we all know how wonderful being on unemployment, on welfare, then on the streets is. Of course, the not-too-bright might think that that one particular nurse (who saw a very small degree of behavior which might be interpreted as indicating a non-vegetative state) had an erm...unusual perception of reality.
"I have often wondered why Mr.Schaivo has still been refusing TV cameras to go in and video her lately."
Cuz making it into an even greater media circus for the purpose of entertainment wouldn't change Terri's medical condition. Whoops... I forgot that her husband is an evil person. A stupid one at that: he should know enough to get an agent to negotiate a few million bucks for broadcasting rights.
[ March 22, 2005, 11:32 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Thanks Rabbit, I changed my guess back over to "?ClaudiaTherese?"
"I think that's a bit absurd, don't you?"
Not nearly as absurd as a mysterious someone losing a living will entrusted to a hospital so that the medical staff would know ones own preferences inregard to ones own medical treatment. I doubt that the hospital makes a habit of losing authorization to perform a medical procedure, or to bill the patient('s insurance company/etc). While far far far from being worthy as evidence of malice, such a what-should-be-unusual event occuring under such circumstances should be treated as a curiosity pointing toward a possible problem in either the filing system or staffing. Curiosities should be investigated. In this case, presumably one wouldn't want such an accidental loss or "loss" to occur again.
[ March 22, 2005, 05:44 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
quote:Telp - did you go to the site that was linked to further up this thread http://www.terrisfight.net/ where her family has posted video and testimony that indicates she CAN and DOES respond to pain?
Farmgirl
Except that pain from a cut or breaking an arm is different from the situation I'm talking about. In this situation the ability to feel the effects of starvation are almost nill.
[ March 22, 2005, 05:45 PM: Message edited by: Telperion the Silver ]
Posted by Beren One Hand (Member # 3403) on :
I think you did great Stephen. I especially liked your response to Ken's assertions that your organization is some kind of puppet of religious wackos.
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
And what about all the hoopla over marriage lately? That marriage is holy and all that and not for gay folk. So now Terri and her husband's marriage is not so holy?
Not really news, but apparently we as people drop things we used to fight over whenever they become inconvenient.
There is so much hypocrisy in this whole circus it makes me crazy.
So her husband loves her, took care of her for 16 years, stayed with her for 16 years, and stayed quiet because he's a private man.
And now people are demonizing him. Why not demonize her parents? I don't think they are acting very well at all. And as for him starting a new family...well that's what he SHOULD do... why put your life on hold for a corpse? And yet he stayed with it...when he could have gone away at ANY time. He could have signed away his rights to her parents if he wanted to. But no. Because he thinks he knows what she would have wanted. And he loves her enough that he did not abandon the cause to allow her body to die.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Beren's right - you did great, Stephen.
Goodman's condescension is almost chilling.
Telp, Michael Schiavo has two children with another woman and lives with her in what's essentially (though not legally) a common law marriage.
Dagonee
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
I know. And as I said, he should move on with his life... he should not put his life on hold for a brain-dead human, ie a corpse.
And I'll say again... I really don't care what happens. Either option is fine. Her personality is dead, but hey if her husband wants to give over rights and her parents want to spend the money... go for it. Or let her die, since Terri is dead anyway.
What really infuriates me is the way the government is using this fiasco for their own ends...when in reality they don't care about her at all.
[ March 22, 2005, 06:12 PM: Message edited by: Telperion the Silver ]
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Adultery is viewed as a lesser sin than eg missing Mass on Sunday, Dagonee: ie not an automatic mortal sin needing the expiation of Confession lest one be consigned to Hell upon death; nor a sin which leads to excommunication, such as divorce&remarriage.
And you should also know that a pope's opinion is not automaticly RomanCatholic Doctrine.
[ March 22, 2005, 06:26 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
I think the real battle going on is actually a contest between two noble causes (if not more). Noble ideals that should never have had to come into battle.
Thus the 7 year battle between them... and now the Governemnt getting involved.
A)The noble cause of a husband and wife and their sacred bond and rights.
B)The noble cause of parents’ love for their children...no matter who they are (even a brain-dead shell).
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:You well know adultery is viewed as a lesser sin than eg missing Mass on Sunday, Dagonee: ie not an automatic mortal sin needing the expiation of Confession lest one be consigned to Hell upon death; nor a sin (such as divorce) which leads to excommunication.
quote: For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: "Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent."131
1858 Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man: "Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and your mother."132 The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger.
quote:And you should also know that a pope's opinion is not automaticly RomanCatholic Doctrine.
Which is why made a point of saying, "although this wasn't an official pronouncement."
Dagonee
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
quote: he should not put his life on hold for a brain-dead human, ie a corpse.
Telp,
No medical person - including the ones testifying *for* Michael Schiavo - have ever claimed Terri Schiavo is "brain dead." That doesn't mean the term hasn't shown up in the press, but using it is inaccurate and just gets people more comfortable with the idea of equating her with a corpse. Completely different set of clinical criteria for brain death.
(As for "brain death" - when I debated Peter Singer, he referred to the term as a "story" that bioethicists sold to the public.)
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
True sndrake, me being melodramatic I suppose. But still, the Terri that used to exist is gone. Her personality is dead.
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
Telp,
calling her a "corpse" is more than melodramatic.
And whether or not she has any personality or intellectual functioning is questionable.
Not the same person =/= not a person at all
I don't know what to make of all the conflicting reports about her degree of awareness. I do know there's enough uncertainty about the "PVS" label itself to be cause for concern.
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
I say corpse because of my own personal horror at loosing my personality/intelligence/memory/language/understanding... that seems like death to me. Thus my use of the word corpse.
Who cares if my body lives after my mind is gone.. without my mind I am nothing... thus I am dead.
[ March 22, 2005, 06:57 PM: Message edited by: Telperion the Silver ]
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
I'm really not happy with Congress' action on this case. Not because I don't want the outcome to be one of Terri's parents getting to have a chance to do whatever can be done for her...a living human, but because I think Congress is not the appropriate place for these one-off decisions to be made.
I think the reality is that when the hoopla is over and whichever side "wins" this current battle, Terri Schiavo will make the news one more time either in a few weeks or in a few years. When she dies having remained unaware of all of it for the duration.
In the meantime, the nation, our leaders, and Congress, especially, will forget what this was really all about:
- medical diagnosis and prognosis interacting with the minefield of surviving relative's emotions.
- who gets to speak for an individual when that individual can no longer speak for him/herself. And what the legal limits to that are.
- a clear bias in our society to view disability as worse than death, and (in this case) how that can color our perceptions of another person's plight and lead us to make decisions that are not necessarily supported by the data.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
I just read these two articles on the Shiavo case. Both have excellent points although they represent divergent views on the case.
quote:No; it's not about Terri Schiavo. And it hasn't been for quite awhile.
It's about us.
It's about each of us who thinks "I wouldn't want to live if I were a vegetable." It's about each one of us who thinks, as one blogger wrote, that Michael Schiavo has been "chained to a drooling shitbag for 15 years."
But it's also about those of us who are those vegetables, those drooling shitbags. Those of us who want to live but know we're a burden to our families. Those of us who fear "do not resuscitate" orders. Those of us who use ventilators, and who use feeding tubes. And those of us who can communicate with clarity only through artificial means.
How can the two groups of us -- those of us who live with severe disabilities, and those of us who fear such a fate more than death -- come to some common ground?
. . .
The disability rights movement I cover is made up of individuals who themselves are living lives that they may not have been able to previously imagine. Individuals who can communicate only via technology -- who, without today's computers, might very well be thought to have little or no cognitive ability.
Summary of key points from the lawyers review
quote: * [The Guardian concludes] that all of the appropriate and proper elements of the law have been followed and met. The law has done its job well. The courts [which supported the decision to suspend feeding] have carefully and diligently adhered to the prescribed civil processes and evidentiary guidelines, and have painfully and diligently applied the required tests in a reasonable, conscientious and professional manner.
* Highly competent, scientifically based physicians using recognized measures and standards have deduced, within a high degree of medical certainty, that Theresa is in a persistent vegetative state. This evidence is compelling.
* Theresa's neurological tests and CT scans indicate objective measures of the persistent vegetative state.
* Individuals have come forward indicating that there are therapies and treatments and interventions that can literally re-grow Theresa's functional, cerebral cortex brain tissue [which has shrunken], restoring part of all of her functions. There is no scientifically valid, medically recognized evidence that this has been done or is possible, even in rats, according to the president of the American Society for Neuro-Transplantation.
* [The Guardian] concludes from the medical records and consultations with medical experts that the scope and weight of the medical information within the file concerning Theresa Schiavo consists of competent well-document information that she is in a persistent vegetative state with no likelihood of improvement.
In this report Wolfson also notes he spent much time with Schiavo and "was not able to independently determine that there were consistent, repetitive, intentional, reproducible interactive and aware activities." [url= http://www.miami.edu/ethics/schiavo/wolfson%27s%20report.pdf]]http://www.miami.edu/ethics/schiavo/wolfson%27s%20report.pdf]Jay Wolfson[/url]
[ March 22, 2005, 07:54 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posted by Ela (Member # 1365) on :
According to Jay Wolfson, who was appointed to be Schiavo's guardian ad litem for a time, Terri Schiavo is not responsive at all.
quote:after spending long hours at Schiavo's bedside for 20 days out of his 30-day appointment, and after pouring over 30,000 pages of legal documents, Wolfson came to the conclusion that medical evidence behind Schiavo's diagnosis was credible, and that she indeed was in a permanent vegetative state.
quote:Wolfson was dismayed to learn Friday that Barbara Weller, an attorney for the Schindlers, claimed that Schiavo tried to speak. ''Terri does not speak,'' he said. ``To claim otherwise reduces her to a fiction.''
One thing Wolfson never doubted was that for all their intense, mutual antagonism, both Michael Schiavo and Terri's parents loved and adored her.
Posted by Olivetta (Member # 6456) on :
quote: I find myself wondering if it weren't deliberately removed by someone with a religio-political agenda.
I really doubt it. Her "chart" at the hospital consisted of nine six-inch-thick folders. Three of the ICU nurses paged through it twice looking for it, because they knew it would help us feel less responsible. But the truth is that mom knew she didn't have long. Nine years on a donated organ with ZERO rejection is impressive, but the anti-rejection meds, taken over that period of time caused massive damage (though very , very gradual).
She was an RN, and all of the RNs that we spoke with were very considerate of our feelings, and chatted with us a bit. They ALL had living wills themselves. Every single fripping one of 'em. You don't generally know what they know and NOT have one.
But in the end they told us it didn't make a difference. Even if the LW was found, we could have overridden it just by saying "No, try to save her."
She knew that, too, and threatened us all with 'haunting' if we didn't follow her wishes. Truth is, I find myself wishing she would haunt me, sometimes.
Also, her home had gonethrough some serious throwing-out-of old-papers-and -stuff in the last year, so it's possible that that is what happened to her copy of it, which we couldn't find either. Papa thought it was with her pre-arranged funeral papers, but it wasn't.
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
She died very quickly so we didn't have to do anything, but Mom made it really clear what she wanted us to do would she need to be put under respirator or this kind of machines. She threatened with haunting, too Her Mom - my grandmother - suffered horribly at the end because my grandfather didn't want to let her go. She told us she prayed Jesus to come and take her... It was heart-wrenching. I made it clear with my family, too, as well as my will to donate my organs if they can be useful to someone.
Posted by Olivetta (Member # 6456) on :
That's lovely, Anna. I can tell you that those nine years (which she wouldn't have otherwise had) made a huge difference to all of us, especially for me. I was her youngest child, and she got sick shortly after I married. She never would have lived to know my sons, or for them to know her.
Her best friend, who gave her the kidney, is still in touch with us, and treats the boys like her own grandchildren. I can't even put into words how wonderful it was to have my mother there at the births of my children.
Posted by ssywak (Member # 807) on :
I just want to make sure that the George W Bush that signed the bill into law that allowed the Federal Courts to intervene and "save" Terri Schiavo's life is the same George W Bush that, as Governor of Texas, signed a bill into law that allowed the hospital to decide to terminate a patient's life support if that person was 1) no longer able to pay for such life support, and 2) had no hope of long-term recovery.
Also, wanted to make sure that this is the same "culture of life" guy who laughs at criminal executions.
[checking]
Yup! Same guy!
[ March 23, 2005, 12:49 PM: Message edited by: ssywak ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I just want to check and make sure that the ssywak who posted that realizes this has nothing whatsoever to do with the merits of the bill.
Posted by TheHumanTarget (Member # 7129) on :
Dagonee, it may have no relation to the merits of this bill, but it does raise questions about what is motivating Bush to support what appear to be very differing bills.
FYI, here's an interesting question and answer session with Jay Wolfson. He covers many of the questions and concerns that have been voiced in this post. Jay Wolfson Q&A Posted by FIJC (Member # 5505) on :
quote:"Dagonee, it may have no relation to the merits of this bill, but it does raise questions about what is motivating Bush to support what appear to be very differing bills."
I think that President Bush is genuinely moved and concerned about Terri Schiavo's condition. Did you see the footage of him coming back to the White House from the ranch? From the moment he stepped off of Air Force One, the look in his eyes was to me, unmistakable. This situation is very troubling to him.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Dagonee, can you explain how it doesn't have anything to do with the merits of the bill?
Posted by FIJC (Member # 5505) on :
For anyone here who hasn't, I highly recommend reading the text of the bill (keep in mind there are 2 versions of the same bill):
I need a translation, please, Dag.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Dagonee, can you explain how it doesn't have anything to do with the merits of the bill?
This bill should be examined on its merits. There are several things good about it (additional review before making life and death decisions, reassertion of the supposed presumption for life, etc.) and several things bad about it (passed in haste in response to one case, weakens the federal/state divide, etc.).
There are lots of ways to balance these concerns and come down for or against the bill.
President's Bush's failure to live up to some of the ideals that support the bill in approving earlier legislation is not relevant to whether this bill is good or bad. It is relevant to whether Bush is a hypocrite or intellectually inconsistent. Possibly, some of the arguments in favor of the Texas bill might also be valid arguments against this bill. IMO, arguments for this bill are valid arguments against the Texas bill.
Dagonee
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I need a translation, please, Dag.
Basically, it grants Schiavo's parents (specifically, by name) the right to sue in federal court to obtain de novo review (basically, the court will look at the case from scratch).
The suit allows for a review the order to withhold medical treatment for violation of Schiavo's rights, and specifically does not change those rights.
It also allows the court to issue a stay of the Florida court ruling (temporarily put the tube back in until the federal courts decide).
Dagonee
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
OK, now I need a translation of that! ha ha. Thanks. Your point is good about the merits of the bill, but I think the point ssywak was making was about the merit of Bush's character. And I agree with that as well.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"From the moment he stepped off of Air Force One, the look in his eyes was to me, unmistakable."
I recognized it as "Concerned Expression #3." What did you think it was?
Posted by fil (Member # 5079) on :
quote: Basically, it grants Schiavo's parents (specifically, by name) the right to sue in federal court to obtain de novo review (basically, the court will look at the case from scratch).
Does it say why this is needed? Does it make a case for why the Florida Courts, which have been reviewing this thoroughly, if the news can be believed, are overturned on this?
How will the Congress and President react when a Federal court looks at this and comes up with the same decision? Will those judges become "activist judges" and thus their decisions reduced to gut level activism and not good judicial process? What if the judges find in favor of the family? Will his marriage and guardianship be "cancelled" since both are obviously meaningless? What has the Catholic Church to say on this specific situation? Have they? I am curious how they would respond. Essentially as long as she is alive, he can not get remarried or move on with his life without being condemned as an adulterer and soon-to-be resident of hell, even though he worked hard to save her and make her life better while there was still hope (which as of now there is not).
Can a person who is in a vegetative state be legally married? I know people with guardians can get married (known some folks like this) but in those cases, the ward was able to speak for themselves in most ways and thus it was deemed okay. ON the other hand, people with guardians cannot enter into contracts (which a marriage is). Does this mean they can't be beholden to a contract, either? If Bob is fine and signs a contract to fix the roof. He falls off and is brain damaged and is vegetative for the rest of his life and a guardian is assigned by the courts. Can I sue Bob for breach of contract? Can I win? Or is he no longer held responsible for contracts he signed?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Does it say why this is needed? Does it make a case for why the Florida Courts, which have been reviewing this thoroughly, if the news can be believed, are overturned on this?
There's a long tradition of federal courts reviewing state courts, even when the state courts have reviewed the matter thoroughly.
Miranda, Mapp, and Gidean v. Wainwright are good examples of this.
Dagonee
Posted by FIJC (Member # 5505) on :
quote:"I recognized it as "Concerned Expression #3." What did you think it was?"
Ha, ha, Tom. You can disagree with President Bush's politics, but still find it somewhat incredible that you don't seem to find him at least well-meaning and genuine. I don't think you've ever given him a chance.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Rest assured that I'm just as baffled by your belief that he is well-meaning and genuine. Every single ounce of the man's body language screams "self-interested, smug, completely insincere jerkwad" to me, and I honestly have no idea how people watching him could ever get another impression.
Posted by FIJC (Member # 5505) on :
I wish you could meet him.
Posted by Beren One Hand (Member # 3403) on :
I think Bush is genuinely concerned. Regardless of political affiliation, any decent human being would be touched by this tragic set of circumstances.
Having said that, Bush is probably also concerned about how to use this opportunity to appease his religious right constituents. Nothing wrong with that either. They help get him elected.
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
I agree. I think that Bush is sincere in his beliefs regarding the sanctity of life. I also think he is ready to cut through any state or federal laws to preserve that life because he believes the cause is good.
He's always, always operated on an "ends justify the means" basis. Why should this be any different?
I doubt he's at all bothered by the fact that in so doing he can attract more voters, but I don't think it's driving him.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I have a hard time believing when Bush is and isn't truly emotionally committed to something.
After his first four years in office, I grew to greatly distrust him, and I found him smug and arrogant, not to mention I don't think he really cares about anything but his own point of view. But I guess that also allows for him to truly care about things, just not to care about people who oppose him.
He's irresponsible and wreckless, but I suppose in there somewhere is a real person with real concerns for the sanctity of human life.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"I wish you could meet him."
Why? Does the smirk look more fetching in person? I mean, seriously, I shouldn't have to meet the guy to buy into his cult of personality.
"I think that Bush is sincere in his beliefs regarding the sanctity of life."
I would believe that, except for the fact that nothing else he does implies this is genuine. I believe he thinks life should be sanctified when it occurs to him to think about it.
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
That's because the sanctity of life doesn't apply to whatever we label as terrorists, or people in the low tax brackets. But for the rest of them, he's entirely sincere.
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
The more of this I read, the more annoyed I am at just about everybody.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote: That's because the sanctity of life doesn't apply to whatever we label as terrorists, or people in the low tax brackets. But for the rest of them, he's entirely sincere.
Well, I think the lower tax bracket thing is just because he is ignorant. He has lived a life of privilege and knows nothing or little of what it means to be poor and have to live on less than several hundred thousand dollars a year. He'd care if he realized there was something to care about, but he's sheltered, and none of his rich buddies know any better enough to educate him.
I think his concern for Terri Schaivo however comes from a combination of 1 part genuine compassion and 2 parts the religious radical right clamoring for action.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
How did this come to be about GW Bush?
What this is really all about is whether our laws need to change. Bush is signing a law crafted in haste to give a chance to one woman's parents to start the case over in Federal court.
It looks like that is going to go nowhere.
And, in the meantime, we'll be arguing the merits/demerits of their case instead of trying to tackle the real issues.
Given that every time the President boards AirForce One, it is estimated that the cost to taxpayers is roughly $1Million, his dramatic flight back to DC in order to sign the bill cost more than the money that's been available for Terri Schiavo's care from the malpractice settlement.
If we factor in the cost of Congress' little circus, we've spent more on this apparently failing attempt to shift the case to the Federal Courts than has been spent on her medical care and treatment all along.
But it's not about money.
and it's not about sense.
It's about making someone into a test case and an unwitting poster child for about 1/2 dozen viewpoints that are colliding in this country.
We've had opportunities to deal with this kind of issue before (Karen Quinlan's case being the most famous, but there have been so many others...) and we still haven't tackled it.
I think we're behaving very stupidly. Wastefully.
And, the effect of all this hoopla will be exactly NOTHING where it really matters. In our laws.
Posted by fil (Member # 5079) on :
sndrake, I heard your show (most of it) today! That link worked well. Downloaded it, burned to CD in a few seconds and had good listening in the car today. I should do more shows that way...won't miss stuff when Iam in and out of the car.
I wish I could have taken notes as both sndrake and the two other guests made some interesting points, though I actually didn't agree with sndrake's stuff as much as I usually do.
Some of the points that come to mind:
1) How did this get linked to the disability movement? I can see the obvious connections but it really seems more of a pro-life/anti-abortion movement connection.
2) One guest made a good point...many people presumes to think we should preserve the woman's life at all costs yet no one can seem to find anyone who would answer the question, "Would you like to be kept alive at all costs if non-responsive for 15 years and must live by mechanical means only" with a resounding "Yes!" In fact, is there anyone on here that would want to exist like that? Just curious who would have advanced directives of that sort.
3) They played a long speech by a Congressman named Terry Frank (I think that was him) who told this giant long story filled with complete misstatements about this case and then a non-related story about a woman waking up from a coma. TS is not in a coma but who cares!? Apparently the majority of Congress believes that TS is in a coma and could wake up, even though where brain material was located is now filled with spinal fluid.
4) Two of the guests made the same point quite a bit...why does the government feel the need to overturn 10 judges and scores of doctors, a husband and guardian who have spent the last 7 years reviewing this information when none of the people getting involved have any stake in it professionally (maybe one or two might be doctors...I know of only one medical doctor in Congress and he is the guy who...and this is a hoot...still thinks you can get HIV from a dirty toilet seat. Now we know why he left medicine to do politics.) or personally. It has only political implications for them and that is a horrid reason to invade the private lives to make a stump speech.
5) I did agree with sndrake's big point in that just because one is a guardian doesn't mean that a person's life is completely at their disposal. Citing accurate and horrid accounts of euthanasia used on children with disabilities he makes the point that guardians alone can't be completely responsible for end of life issues for a person. I agree with this but in the case of TS, the guardian alone hasn't made a decision. If he just walked in, made the decision and that was it I would agree but even prior to the opportunistic handwringing by the Congress and President this was a big issue in Florida among courts, doctors and family. It was a decision not made lightly. More people are going off medical supports daily without so much input.
6) Another good question brought up there (and here, I think) is why Congress went through all this trouble but included in this bill that it "can't be used as precedence?" Why make a single case bill vs. a bill that says "no one can be taken off of mechanical means of sustaining life if anyone disagrees with that choice?" Why make a big deal out of this case when probably dozens of people went off life support in the amount of time it took me to type this note. Why do those people have to die without the President shedding a tear?
7) The cost was brought up. I don't think cost should ever be an issue when determining if someone should get medical treatment. That said, TS isn't being treated. She is merely being sustained with no life to speak of. Yet it still costs money. The very program that Bush and his Congress are cutting (Medicaid) or ignoring (Medicare) will be paying for this to some level. The Hospice that TS is at will pay for the rest, using up a bed and funding that could be used for end-of-life care for people who genuinely need Hospice service (having been a part of such a care program with my father near his end of life, I can't express enough how important their services are). Will TS stay at the Hospice place, even though their mandate is to really be there for a minimal time when the end is near? What will this thinking do to Hospice care across the country? Will they just become another nursing home funded entirely on dwinding Medicare/Medicaid dollars? What happens when that runs out?
Lots of good points on that show, though and sndrake did very well and made really good points in the discussion. I really recommend the short download.
[ March 23, 2005, 06:45 PM: Message edited by: fil ]
Posted by fil (Member # 5079) on :
quote:How did this come to be about GW Bush?
When he flew from TX to make it about him? I can see him being privately concerned, praying, etc. That is normal. Maybe a quietly released statement saying he hopes for the best for all involved. But they played a bit of him doing a speech before tons of people and using TS and her story to garner applause. It is a stump speech for him, nothing more. I totally agree with you, Bob, it is very disheartening.
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
quote:"From the moment he stepped off of Air Force One, the look in his eyes was to me, unmistakable."
I recognized it as "Concerned Expression #3." What did you think it was?
awesome Tom!
As I've said before, in my opinion Bush and Karl Rove could care less about Terri. This is all just a media blitz. And I find it a little worrying that this all blew up around the same time we found out that Bush and his people lied to us and all our Allies about the sale of nuclear material from N.Korea to Pakistan.
Posted by fil (Member # 5079) on :
Supreme Court refuses to hear the Shiavo case (again).
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
quote: 1) How did this get linked to the disability movement? I can see the obvious connections but it really seems more of a pro-life/anti-abortion movement connection.
fil et al,
I don't have a lot of time right now for long detailed, specific Q & A right now. But for the first question there - *anything* involving guardianship is by nature a disability issue. Guardianship issues are complex - and they've been pretty much hijacked by the bioethicists and "end of life care" communities.
Another thing, fil, is those examples I gave about infanticide were group decisions - the starvation and dehydration of the infant with Down syndrome was agreed upon by parents and a medical team. It was sanctioned by two different judges. And all defended as a "private" family matter.
Except for a lower number of judges, the dynamics look all pretty familiar, including the public assuming it's just a "pro-life" issue.
Right now, I have a pile of "to do" with deadlines that - realistically - won't all get done. It doesn't help that I more or less lost a lot of the day yesterday. After weeks of going on short sleep, I finally hit a neurological "wall" and found myself pretty much incapable of doing anything except repeating well-rehearsed soundbites.
Today's better - it's probably the first time in a couple weeks I've managed 7 hours of sleep. Still tired, but at least I'm functioning beyond the robot level.
I'll try to jump back in when I can.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Take care of yourself. We'll be here when you feel up to coming here.
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
It's not the feeling "up to it" Noemon.
It's having time, right now.
I'm getting calls from local activists, from some media, from people just wanting "to talk" - (I cut those as short as politely possible).
I even had to answer the phone in the middle of typing this.
What I want more than anything right now is to take a nap for a day or two, waking up now and then to read my unopened copy of SOTG for awhile, and go back to sleep again.
Such is the point my fantasy life has fallen to. Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Well, if I were in your shoes right now I think it'd be an "up to it" for me, in addition to being a time thing.
In any case, do take care of yourself.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
"Medical experts are witnessing an emerging and alarming increase in a disorder known as TBI or Traumatic Brain Injury. In other words, the Iraq war could produce a generation of brain-damaged ex-soldiers."
"The emergence of this latest "signature wound" comes just one month after President Bush announced in his 2006 budget that he would eliminate a $9 million program for the treatment of people with Traumatic Brain Injury."
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:• Ms. Schiavo is not terminally ill. She has lived in her current condition for 15 years. This is not about end-of-life decision making. The question is whether she should be killed by denying her food and fluids.
...
• There is a dispute as to Ms. Schiavo's awareness and consciousness. But if we assume that those who would authorize her death are correct, she is completely unaware of her situation and therefore incapable of suffering physically or emotionally. Her death thus can't be justified as relieving her suffering.
• There is a genuine dispute as to what Ms. Schiavo believed and expressed about life with severe disability before she herself became incapacitated; certainly, she never stated her preferences in an advance directive such as a living will. If we assume that she is aware and conscious, it is possible that, like most people who have lived with a severe disability for as long as she has, she has abandoned her preconceived fears of the life she is now living. We have no idea whether she wishes to be bound by things she might have said when she was living a very different life. If we assume she is unaware and unconscious, we can't justify her death as her preference. She has no preference.
• Ms. Schiavo, like all people, incapacitated or not, has a federal constitutional right not to be deprived of her life without due process of law.
• In addition to the rights all people enjoy, Ms. Schiavo has a statutory right under the Americans With Disabilities Act not to be treated differently because of her disability. Obviously, Florida law would not allow a husband to kill a non-disabled wife by denying her nourishment. It is Ms. Schiavo's disability that makes her killing different in the eyes of the Florida courts. Because the state is overtly drawing lines based on disability, it has the burden under the ADA of justifying those lines.
...
• The whole society has a stake in making sure state courts are not tainted by prejudices, myths and unfounded fears -- like the unthinking horror in mainstream society that transforms feeding tubes into fetish objects, emblematic of broader, deeper fears of disability that sometimes slide from fear to disgust and from disgust to hatred. While we should not assume that disability prejudice tainted the Florida courts, we cannot reasonably assume that it did not.
The rest of it has some interesting takes on the congressional actions allowing federal apeal and some other issues, but nothing we haven't covered here already. This part was the clearest description of the disability aspect I've come across in national media.
Dagonee
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
For those of you (aspectre and others) who disagree with those of us who want Terri to continue living, and think we are being unreasonable to want her to continue in her present state -- please realize this isn't just about Terri. Yes, I personally believe the state after death is much better than what we have in this life. So it isn't that I want her to suffer by making her "continue" like this, as some people have implied.
What we are fighting is the overall precedence this sets. I worked in a nursing home a number of years, and was very fond of the residents there. Some of them were hand-fed only or tube-fed. Many were incoherent, etc. But I can't imagine a family member coming in and just telling me to stop feeding them! To let them pass away on their own due to their deteriorating health is one thing -- for me to cause it by withdrawing their food or water would be much different.
I'm worried that if this is allowed with Terri, there are many other families who will choose to take the "just let them die of dehydration" route rather than bear the burden of care or costs. This has huge ramifications.
In Kansas yesterday, in a preventative measure brought about by the publicity around the Schiavo case, our state legislature passed measures that says guardians of those incapcitated in our state must got to court before they can gain permission to withhold food or water from the person in their care.
Farmgirl
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I read the Cruzan case - thanks for posting it. I've been very familiar with the case for several years.
One thing I think that gets overlooked is that the Cruzan decision did not say that "clear and convincing" was the highest possible standard of review; rather, it upheld the "clear and convincing" standard as not being too high. Technically, this leaves room for a reasonable doubt standard.
The dissents boggled me then and boggled me now. Frankly, the only way they are at all understandable to me is that every fact was examined through the lense of the "prejudices, myths and unfounded fears" mentioned in the op-ed I just posted. Especially Stevens's: the discussion of "best interest of the patient" practically screamed it at me.
Dagonee
[ March 25, 2005, 09:06 AM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
To reiterate what Farmgirl is saying, I've seen many, many people commenting on this case say things very close to "of course they should pull the plug, what kind of life is that?"
That's what chills my heart about this case, much much more so than people who think her wishes have been clearly proven but still think it should rest on her wishes.
Dagonee
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
In Kansas yesterday, in a preventative measure brought about by the publicity around the Schiavo case, our state legislature passed measures that says guardians of those incapcitated in our state must got to court before they can gain permission to withhold food or water from the person in their care.
From what I understand, Michael Schiavo did just that, back in 2000.
Posted by Bean Counter (Member # 6001) on :
[Edited to get rid of the "betting-pool" reference, which what the entirety of the post.] BC
[ April 01, 2005, 10:35 AM: Message edited by: KathrynHJanitor ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Then how do you rectify the discrepency of Dubbyas signing the 1999 Texas bill that allows the removal of 'life support' from those doctors deem unrecoverable or cannot afford to pay for the long term care of those such as Terri?
First of all, I'm not defending that bill - I think it's pretty bad. But let's talk about the actual bill.
First, it doesn't say they can remove life support from those who "cannot afford to pay." The people saying it says that are either relying on non-primary sources or are lying. I know that claim has been flashed around the blogs and press and assume you are relying on those accounts. The only criteria is if the treating physician and medical ethic committee agree that the life-sustaining treatment is "inappropriate" for the patient. Cost considerations didn't come into it.
Second, the procedure for this is the one favored by the AMA - it's not an insurer or profit-oriented policy. It's based on the preference of bioethicists.
Which in my mind demonstrates something missing from bioethics.
quote:Dubbya says we should err on the side of life, butapparently he sure didn't feel that way in '99. He had the choice to veto that bill if he didn't like it. But he didn't.
I agree this is problematic. But let's please stop recasting this bill as a "someone who can't afford to pay is ineligible for medical treatment."
Dagonee
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
quote: From what I understand, Michael Schiavo did just that, back in 2000.
Well, sndrake might have to update me on this -- because I thought he had decided to have it removed, and it only went to court when the parents fought that decision. So that basically he had to DEFEND this choice in court, but didn't have to go to court first.
But like I said, I wasn't following it way back then, so maybe Stephen knows.
Farmgirl
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Nope, he submitted it to the court. There's two procedures that can be followed. Either the surrogate decision maker can make the decision and have it followed, or he can submit the decision to the court. He chose the latter.
Dagonee
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Okay - thanks Dag.
Then I don't see how what Kansas passed is ever going to help in any similar cases here.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Maybe Kansas has a better grasp on "clear and convincing."
Posted by Mabus (Member # 6320) on :
Stephen...when you get a chance...
Is NDY's membership limited to people in a specific area, and is there a requirement that members be disabled? I went to your organizational website but did not find this information. I have been seriously considering becoming involved in disabled-rights activism.
While I don't agree on your position regarding this specific incident, it has increased my awareness of the problem.
Posted by Tstorm (Member # 1871) on :
quote: Maybe Kansas has a better grasp on "clear and convincing."
I live in Kansas. I seriously doubt this. Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
NPR quoted someone from NDY this morning.
It wasn't Stephen or Diane.
Good points were made though. I think it was from a letter to the "editor" kind of thing correcting a prior story by NPR. But they talked about what Not Dead Yet is and what their position is on the Terri Schiavo case.
Cool.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Wll, terri was given last rites and communion. Why would her husband deny that?(communion, not last rites) That just seems the ultimate in cruelty to me. Are his heels dug in so far, and he has to show his control even to the bitter end? Or are the parents just trying for one last ditch effort to show him up?
This whole thing is so terribly sad.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote: I'm not one to advocate pulling the plug because of the 'what kind of life is that'. From what I've been able to glean from the information available, and admittedly from personal preferences, I know of no one that WOULD want to live like that. To carry on as a shell such as that would be abhorrent for me. It only prolongs the agony of the family. Can anyone here honestly say they would like to exist like that? I say exist because that ISN'T living. There is NO quality of life here. (emphasis mine)
If the other choice is death, then yes. Absolutely, no question.
Life is sacred. Does that mean that everyone should be put on artificial life support? No. But once on, there should never be any withdrawing of support ("pulling the plug"), and food and water -- by whatever means -- should NEVER be withheld.
The fact that we as a country do not see both those things as incredibly and absolutely abhorrent disturbs me greatly.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
I'm probably being cynical. I do not think they should have removed her feeding tube.
But, on the "Big Picture" do you think the endless appeals and increasing venom from either side in this case actually helped raise awareness about it? Or did it hurt the cause. Having so many people say "of course she'd want to die" was not the desired result for the activists.
And do you think that the courts would judge differently if it hadn't been kicked around them for so long? At the end I don't blame the supreme court for declining to hear it. They don't want to set Supreme Court precedent on this case. I mean even moving it to the Federal level to get a "clean" slate probably didn't because everyone was already aware of the case. And you ended up with the exact opposite of the desired precedent.
It would be like trying to get a fair jury for OJ Simpson or Michael Jackson, where even though they were notorious scumbags they deserved an unbiased jury. Terri really hasn't gotten that, because there is no way to actually put this in front of a jury is there?
I understand that one shouldn't put a value on human life, because it is priceless. But, as far as the "greater good" for the rest of the people that are dealing with similar issues and getting them to a place where they'd say "yes, so and so should be kept alive", did this do more harm than letting her slip away quietly would?
I don't know. I think I'm glad there was outrage because we should be outraged. But at the same time, if it calluses us as a nation rather than softening us, was it actually worth the hoopla?
AJ
Posted by Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged (Member # 7476) on :
I tried to stay out of this but I just came across this news article. DeLay Said Agreed Not to Extend Dad's Life
quote:LOS ANGELES - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who has helped lead a congressional effort to keep Terri Schiavo alive, joined members of his own family nearly 17 years ago in allowing doctors not to take extraordinary measures to extend his father's life, a newspaper reported Sunday.
DeLay had just been re-elected to his third term in Congress in 1988 when his father, Charles DeLay, was severely injured in an accident. As the elder DeLay's vital organs began failing, the family chose not to connect him to a dialysis machine or take other measures to prolong his life, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday, citing court documents, medical records and interviews with family members.
"There was no point to even really talking about it," Maxine DeLay, the congressman's 81-year-old mother, told the Times. "Tom knew, we all knew, his father wouldn't have wanted to live that way."
DeLay helped push through Congress a special law allowing Terri Schiavo's parents to ask federal courts to order their brain-damaged daughter's feeding tube reinserted after state courts allowed it to be removed. However, after hearing their pleas, federal judges refused to intervene.
The Texas Republican also accused Schiavo's husband and the courts of "an act of barbarism" against Schiavo, who doctors say is in a persistent vegetative state.
The congressman declined to be interviewed about his father's case, but a press aide said it was "entirely different than Terri Schiavo's."
"The only thing keeping her alive is the food and water we all need to survive. His father was on a ventilator and other machines to sustain him," said DeLay spokesman Dan Allen.
Charles DeLay, 65, and his brother and their wives were trying out a tram the brothers had built to carry their families up and down a slope from their Texas home to the shore of a lake when the tram jumped the tracks on Nov. 17, 1988.
Charles DeLay was pitched headfirst into a tree. Hospital admission records showed he suffered multiple injuries, including a brain hemorrhage.
Doctors advised that he would "basically be a vegetable," said the congressman's aunt, JoAnne DeLay, who suffered broken bones in the crash.
Like Schiavo, Charles DeLay had no living will, but he had reportedly expressed to others his wish not to be kept alive by artificial means.
He died on Dec. 14, 1988. He hadn't shown any signs of being conscious, except that his pulse rate would rise slightly when younger son Randall entered the room, Maxine DeLay said.
"There was no chance he was ever coming back," she said of her husband.
news report Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
quote:Only one link on your site worked for me. I got either "no permission to access" or "page cannot be found". The only links that worked was the last one on the page and the first one about ADEPT. Just a heads up.
BookWyrm,
I don't know what the problem is. We haven't gotten any reports about this from anyone else and when I checked the site, all the links worked for me. Could have been a connection problem that developed and when you went back to the NDY page, you were hitting the cached copy of it.
Dunno. Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
quote: NPR quoted someone from NDY this morning.
It wasn't Stephen or Diane.
No reason to be mad, Bob.
I'm honestly thrilled when other disability activists get quoted. The more of us there are getting out there, doing our variations on our main themes, the better.
More later...
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
Wowbagger, I don't see where the situation with Delay's father has any bearing on this case.
As was quoted in the article:
quote:The congressman declined to be interviewed about his father's case, but a press aide said it was "entirely different than Terri Schiavo's."
"The only thing keeping her alive is the food and water we all need to survive. His father was on a ventilator and other machines to sustain him," said DeLay spokesman Dan Allen.
To me, there is a huge difference between being aritificially kept alive, and only needing food and water to live. I personally don't have a living will yet, but intend to have one. I don't want to be kept alive artificially on a respirator. However, I don't consider giving someone food and drink to be keeping them alive artificially. There is a significant difference between a respirator and a feeding tube.
Posted by Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged (Member # 7476) on :
The part that I don't get is the last few lines.
quote:Doctors advised that he would "basically be a vegetable," said the congressman's aunt, JoAnne DeLay, who suffered broken bones in the crash.
Like Schiavo, Charles DeLay had no living will, but he had reportedly expressed to others his wish not to be kept alive by artificial means.
He died on Dec. 14, 1988. He hadn't shown any signs of being conscious, except that his pulse rate would rise slightly when younger son Randall entered the room, Maxine DeLay said.
"There was no chance he was ever coming back," she said of her husband
They made this decision after a month. Terri has been like this for 15 years. His father didn't have a living will but because he told people he didn't want to live that way they let him pass. Terri told people she didn't want to to live under simular condition and Delay steps to try to stop it. I just find something wrong with that.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Belle, the only problem I have with your distinction between dialysis and nutrition (which I think is important, if not determinative, in this case) is that DeLay did not make that distinction in his public remarks about Schiavo - in fact, his choice of words seemed to deliberately avoid that distinction.
That said, Wowbager, DeLay stepped in to provide federal judicial review. I'm sure his preference would have been that the review result in her not being starved to death, but he didn't stop it. He provided for more review.
Further, there are significant differences between the two cases. If no family member had protested Michael's decision, Terri would have been dead in '97. I think DeLay's actions are actually consistent; his rhetoric has not been.
Dagonee
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:To me, there is a huge difference between being aritificially kept alive, and only needing food and water to live.
Terri Shiavo was not simply being given food and water. She is unable to swallow. As a result, food and water must be pumped into her digestive tract using a tube that goes through her abdominal wall. This is a very close equivalent to a respirator, which provides the air we all need to live by pumping it into the lungs of a person who is unable to breath on their own.
Tom Delay might just as easily have said
"The only thing keeping her alive is the food and water and air we all need to survive."
If you believe that providing food and water through a PEG line is fundamentally different from providing air through a ventalator, please explain why because I do not see the difference.
To me the important question in this case is who, if anyone, should be allowed to make the decision to take any person off of life support and under what circumstance it should be legal to withhold life preserving medical care.
Posted by Narnia (Member # 1071) on :
Supreme court denied again. Is this 0 for 5 now? And 13 days without food? How must she be feeling right now? It must be agonizing after 13 days without food and water, and no matter how much of a 'vegetable' she is, she's still feeling the effects of this. Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
I didn't think you could survive more than three days wthout water.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:It must be agonizing after 13 days without food and water, and no matter how much of a 'vegetable' she is, she's still feeling the effects of this.
Not really. Even if you are fully conscious, after the first 2-3 days of a fast you stop feeling hungry because your body shifts into ketosis. Ask anyone who has done an extended fast. After 13 days, she probably feels better if she is able to feel at all she probably feels much better than she did after the first few hours. A similar thing happens with dehydration, after the first few hours, dehydration of the organs acts as a natural anesthetic.
Posted by Narnia (Member # 1071) on :
[to Elizabeth] I know!! But word has it that she's even still saveable!
[to Rabbit] Hm. Didn't know that. Well I'm glad for her sake that she's not suffering.
[ March 30, 2005, 09:47 PM: Message edited by: Narnia ]
Posted by Danzig (Member # 4704) on :
She probably feels fine if she feels at all. They put her on morphine.
Posted by LadyDove (Member # 3000) on :
My Aunt and I were discussing this case and her problem with removing the feeding tube was it seemed to her that criminals were given more consideration than Terri with regards to what is considered cruel and inhuman treatment.
She said that if Terri has no hope of surviving, why not give her a lethal injection. The question isn't who gets to decide her fate, the question is whether or not we decide to act humanely as a society. If we would find it deplorable to starve to death a person on death row, how can we allow an innocent woman to be starved to death?
I am so torn on this case that I didn't have a response. If starvation/dehydration is so painless, why don't we use it on those who are going to be put to death anyway
Posted by fil (Member # 5079) on :
quote: If we would find it deplorable to starve to death a person on death row, how can we allow an innocent woman to be starved to death?
So Tom Delay's father was poisoned to death because they didn't put him on dialysis to clean out his blood? Or was he suffocated to death because they refused him a respirator? I am just curious. Or is there a distinction?
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
quote: If starvation/dehydration is so painless, why don't we use it on those who are going to be put to death anyway.
I totally agree that if society is going to kill her, they should have just given her the most swift, pain free death possible.
One of the right to die people on "Hardball", I think it was, said that the reason Terri was being starved to death was that when the law was being haggled out [I'm paraphrasing here], the right to life people wouldn't let people, non-criminals, die except through 'natural' means. I do not know if this is true.
Posted by Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged (Member # 7476) on :
I also fail to see the difference between suffocation and starvation. {edited for spelling}
[ March 31, 2005, 01:05 AM: Message edited by: Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged ]
Posted by LadyDove (Member # 3000) on :
quote:So Tom Delay's father was poisoned to death because they didn't put him on dialysis to clean out his blood? Or was he suffocated to death because they refused him a respirator? I am just curious. Or is there a distinction?
I don't know the case, and I purposely avoid the articles because they lead me down a road I'm not ready to travel yet. On one hand, I believe that allowing these imminently terminal patients to suffer extreme pain in order to have a "natural" death is cruel and inhumane. On the other hand, I have a real problem with someone other than God deciding when a life has run it's course.
The only thing that I am sure of is that saying that we are being merciful by slowly starving, slowly suffocating or painfully poisoning a person is a load of self-excusing BS.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:So Tom Delay's father was poisoned to death because they didn't put him on dialysis to clean out his blood? Or was he suffocated to death because they refused him a respirator? I am just curious. Or is there a distinction?
As far as I can tell, LadyDove hasn't expressed undying support for Tom DeLay. Why bring him up? It seems to me that, at least on the message boards, far more people have been defining this issue as a two-party one to attack those who oppose or even express discomfort at the idea of removing the tube than the other way around. As if every person who opposed the tube removal agrees with the Texas Advance Directive Law (which implements an AMA-drafted futile care provision), or Tom DeLay's family's decision about his father, or even gay marriage.
Dagonee
[ April 01, 2005, 08:33 AM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
LD, one of the questions in this situation is did Terri feel anything we'd consider pain? I don't think you can assume either way. Even if she was thrashing about, it could be an involuntary reaction to her condition, but pain, as far as we understand and feel it as an emotion, could have been impossible for Terri to feel.
On the other hand, maybe she did feel pain. I just don't like either side making authoritative statements about something they can't know.
-Bok
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
So the report is in on Terri Shaivo.
Her brain was measured as being 50% of the weight they expected it to be, proving without a doubt that she was in fact in a persistant vegitative state.
Bill Frist got on television and said that he said she was in a PVS all along. Regardless of the C-SPAN recordings showing him on the senate floor saying the exact opposite. Neither here nor there, but still funny.
Posted by pink (Member # 8048) on :
From my limited medical knowledge, (I'm currently enrolled in school for my Nursing Practitioner) the part of the brain that can decipher the messages sent from nerves, had been severely damaged. With the brain atrophy that she had suffered, it's [highly] unlikely that she felt what we call pain.
Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
Wow, Pink, an NP 2B! It is my career goal to get back to school and get my MSN and be an NP.
<dreaming of the day that I have prescriptive privileges>
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
what I don't understand -- if her brain was that deteriorated and that much smaller than normal -- why did they not already know that via MRI -- which would have settled some of the debate?
how much of the brain shrinkage, as well, was caused by the end of life dehydration? I mean, I realize it didn't cause the atrophy, and that she had serious damage, but was some of the shrinkage due to the dehydration?
![[Mad]](mad.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Wall Bash]](graemlins/wallbash.gif)
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Dont Know]](graemlins/dontknow.gif)