Terri Schiavo

[channonc 466]

What do you think?

[Jenny AU-92 0]

What do I think?

1. If she had left a living will, this would all be a moot point and we would have never heard of Terri Schiavo. She would have been gone 15 years ago.

2. COURT APPOINTED doctors have determined that she is gone in all but body. I think her parents are deluding themselves. She is NOT going to get better - she has been like this for 15 years. They could not show the judge ONE SHRED of a response from her - he sat and watched them and their doctor interact with Teri and said in his ruling that there was NOTHING THERE. I think they hate her husband so much that they have blinded themselves to the tragic truth.

3. I actually sympathize with the husband in this one - I do not fault him for going on with his life - it's been 15 years for pete's sake. Why shouldn't he get the money from her malpractice lawsuit? He would have gotten the money if she had died outright - he is the one that has been deprived of her companionship all this time. Yes, if she had a chance at a meaningful life, the money should have gone to her care now, but if she is NEVER going to get any better, isn't that a waste?

4. Okay, so she's Catholic. Why would her parents think that would make any difference to her regarding whether or not she would want the tube disconnected? Aren't Catholics allowed to choose not to have their lives artificially prolonged? Her husband says she would not want this - wouldn't he be the one to know? Carl is calling the shots for me if I am in that position. I wouldn't want to put him and my family thru a long drawn out affair - they should grieve and get on with life. I also wouldn't want to wind up looking like her, lying there all helpless for the world to gawk at. I saw a picture of her Pre-incident, and she was a pretty attractive young woman. Now she looks horrible. Would she want that too?

[AuNuma1 1]

What Jenny said...if she had a living will, we would've never heard of this person.

[DKW 86 7,440]

I agree with the two above. If it was her wish, then let her go.

Better check about living wills in your state. I had a lawyer friend tell me a while back that Living Wills mean nothing in Alabama.

[Jenny AU-92 0]

Better check about living wills in your state. I had a lawyer friend tell me a while back that Living Wills mean nothing in Alabama.

152165[/snapback]

David, check out this Link - this is a big issue for me so I started a new thread.

[tiger88 934]

Much of the bastage press is giving the husband a very unfair and bad wrap on this one. Now we have a bunch of politicians rushing in for photo op.'s to show they are "for life" .

[Jenny AU-92 0]

Much of the bastage press is giving the husband a very unfair and bad wrap on this one. Now we have a bunch of politicians rushing in for photo op.'s to show they are "for life"        .

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What they don't get is that with a few notable exceptions, we are ALL for life - but in this case - is there actually any life to be had, and if so, by the narrow definition of her condition that doctors have given us, is that life a quality one?

[channonc 466]

There are two things here that bother me:

1. The doctor's that have testified for the family, none of them have actually SEEN Teri. All are just going by "maybes" they can gather from medical records.

2. Its not like this has been months or even a couple of years since she has been in a coma, its been 15 years. Her chances of coming out are almost zero at this point.

[Tigermike 3,050]

Between Travesty and Tragedy

By Charles Krauthammer

Wednesday, March 23, 2005; Page A15

If I were in Terri Schiavo's condition, I would not want a feeding tube. But Schiavo does not have the means to make her intentions known. We do not know what she would have wanted. We have nothing to go on. No living will, no advance directives, no durable power of attorney.

What do you do when you have nothing to go on? You try to intuit her will, using loved ones as surrogates.

In this case, the loved ones disagree. The husband wants Terri to die; the parents do not. The Florida court gave the surrogacy to her husband, under the generally useful rule that your spouse is the most reliable diviner of your wishes: You pick your spouse and not your parents, and you have spent most of your recent years with your spouse and not your parents.

The problem is that although your spouse probably knows you best, there is no guarantee that he will not confuse his wishes with yours. Terri's spouse presents complications. He has a girlfriend, and has two kids with her. He clearly wants to marry again. And a living Terri stands in the way.

Now, all of this may be irrelevant in his mind. He may actually be acting entirely based on his understanding of his wife's wishes. And as she left nothing behind, the courts have been forced to conclude, on the basis of his testimony, that she would prefer to be dead.

That is why this is a terrible case. The general rule of spousal supremacy leads you here to a thoroughly repulsive conclusion. Repulsive because in a case where there is no consensus among the loved ones, one's natural human sympathies suggest giving custody to the party committed to her staying alive and pledging to carry the burden themselves.

Let's be clear about her condition. She is not dead. If she were brain-dead, we would be talking about harvesting her organs. She is a living, breathing human being. Some people have called her a vegetable. Apart from the term being disgusting, how do they know? How can we be sure of the complete absence of any consciousness, any awareness, any anything "inside" this person?

The crucial issue in deciding whether one would want to intervene to keep her alive is whether there is, as one bioethicist put it to me, "anyone home." Her parents, who see her often, believe that there is. The husband maintains that there is no one home. (But then again he has another home, making his judgment somewhat suspect.) The husband has not allowed a lot of medical testing in the past few years. I have tried to find out what her neurological condition actually is. But the evidence is sketchy, old and conflicting. The Florida court found that most of her cerebral cortex is gone. But "most" does not mean all. There may be some cortex functioning. The severely retarded or brain-damaged can have some consciousness. And we do not go around euthanizing the minimally conscious in the back wards of mental hospitals on the grounds that their lives are not worth living.

Given our lack of certainty, given that there are loved ones prepared to keep her alive and care for her, how can you allow the husband to end her life on his say-so? Because following the sensible rules of Florida custody laws, conducted with due diligence and great care over many years in this case, this is where the law led.

For Congress and the president to then step in and try to override that by shifting the venue to a federal court was a legal travesty, a flagrant violation of federalism and the separation of powers. The federal judge who refused to reverse the Florida court was certainly true to the law. But the law, while scrupulous, has been merciless, and its conclusion very troubling morally. We ended up having to choose between a legal travesty on the one hand and human tragedy on the other.

There is no good outcome to this case. Except perhaps if Florida and the other states were to amend their laws and resolve conflicts among loved ones differently -- by granting authority not necessarily to the spouse but to whatever first-degree relative (even if in the minority) chooses life and is committed to support it. Call it Terri's law. It would help prevent our having to choose in the future between travesty and tragedy.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2005Mar22.html

[tiger88 934]

Much of the bastage press is giving the husband a very unfair and bad wrap on this one. Now we have a bunch of politicians rushing in for photo op.'s to show they are "for life"        .

152223[/snapback]

What they don't get is that with a few notable exceptions, we are ALL for life - but in this case - is there actually any life to be had, and if so, by the narrow definition of her condition that doctors have given us, is that life a quality one?

152280[/snapback]

There are just no easy answers on this one. If it were me I'd want them to quit the artificial means of life support. I just wouldn't want to live like that. I do see both sides of the argument clearly.

I do not understand why some religious groups get so bent out of shape on this kind of stuff.

[vatz22au 142]

The family is trying to win people over by exploiting "her dying by hunger and thirst"....when in fact...a human in a vegetable state has NO COMPREHENSION of pain, hunger, thirst, or any sense for that matter. They need to get this over with, its a shame what her family is doing. Its just a body being kept alive by machines, I would never want any daughter of mine to be kept alive like that for 15 years.

[Tigermike 3,050]

Its just a body being kept alive by machines, I would never want any daughter of mine to be kept alive like that for 15 years.

152548[/snapback]

Actually I have heard she has never been hooked up to a ventilator. There has never been a machine hooked up to her, only a feeding tube.

[CCTAU 3,341]

Its just a body being kept alive by machines, I would never want any daughter of mine to be kept alive like that for 15 years.

152548[/snapback]

Actually I have heard she has never been hooked up to a ventilator. There has never been a machine hooked up to her, only a feeding tube.

152550[/snapback]

Same difference. Can she eat if you put it in her mouth? Can she tel lyou when she's hungry? Can she tell you anything? If there is anyhting in there, she IS TRAPPED. Can you imagine being trapped for 15 years. A prisoner in your ownn mind.

Let me go! My wife, who is extremely clausterphobic, says that that would be the ultimate form of torture for her. I tend to agree.