Terri Schiavo Update

The difference is that she was never diagnosed as in a "presistent vegetative state." These are two entirely different types of injuries.

The fact that she could respond to yes or no questions was enough to prove that she was not in a vegetative state.

 

BLD, have your ever tried having a conversation without getting nasty or insulting? It can be very stimulating.

Still waiting for those quotes from doctors who say Terri can recover. Please use nuerologist, those two speech therapists were obviously in it for the money and weren't qualified anyway.

 

Here is one taken from Hannity/Colmes transcript:

DR. WILLIAM HAMMESFAHR, NEUROLOGIST: I saw her (Terry) last about a year ago for the court. I want to just jump in here for a second. I'm a neurologist and not a neurosurgeon.

HANNITY: I'm sorry.

HAMMESFAHR: I saw her last about a year ago and as part of the court ordered evaluations.

HANNITY: Yes, but you basically said that she could be rehabilitated, that she showed...

HAMMESFAHR: Absolutely. She is not in a coma. She did not have a heart attack. She is not in a coma presently. She absolutely can be rehabilitated. There's no question about that.


Also, regarding Sarah, her initial evaluation numerous years ago included PVS -- "Scantlin, 18 at the time of her accident, was injured so badly that doctors first believed she would live the rest of her life in a persistent vegetative state."

 

How about this ---

"Ronald Hayes, director of the enter for Traumatic Brain Injury Studies at the McKnight Brain Institute at the University of Florida in Gainesville. “By the time you’re in one for 13 years, our experience teaches us that recovery becomes extremely remote,”

Notice what he doesn't say --- He does not say recovery is impossible. This is type of cryptic language that everyone associated with this case uses.

I did a search and the only guy I can find connected with the case who says it is an absolute certainty Terry will not recover is a witness for her husband!

The real problem here is nobody knows what Terry's wishes are, she did not make them known (we have two second-hand accounts). Given a choice I would think we would want to err on the side of life.

If one side is proven to be wrong we can always kill her, we haven't quite figured out how to resurrect anyone yet.

 

Miami Herald

This is from the Miami Herald:

cut...

Patients like Schiavo whose brains have been starved of oxygen do worse than patients who suffer head trauma, neurologists say.

"Thirteen years is plenty long enough to tell," said Bernat, who said he had not examined Schiavo or seen any videotapes.

"Assuming she is in a vegetative state, I can say with medical certainty that there is no realistic hope that she'll recover."

Bernat was part of a large medical panel that in 1994 assessed thousands of patients' records and found that up to 35,000 Americans were in persistent vegetative states.

Bernat said his 1994 panel looked into more than 70 "alleged late recoverers" and found that "there wasn't a single one that was verified, so I'm very skeptical."

Dr. Ron Cranford, a Minneapolis neurologist who was Bernat's predecessor on the academy ethics committee, examined Schiavo as part of the original trial and testified in favor of her husband's request to discontinue feeding.

He was adamant that she would never get better, and he says he is furious about the popular videotape.

"She's vegetative, she's flat-out vegetative, there's never been a shred of doubt that she's vegetative, and nothing's going to change that," Cranford said in a telephone interview.

"This has been a massive propaganda campaign, which has been very successful because it deludes the public into thinking she's really there."

Her eyes do not steadily track objects, he said, and when she appears to look at her mother or a camera for a moment, it is merely rapid eye movement.

More important, he said, "the CAT scans indicate a massive shrinkage of her brain, with its higher centers completely destroyed, which indicates irreversibility."

The Schiavo case is the kind of ugly family fight that doctors treating brain-damaged patients say they dread.

"In a case like this, you're between a rock and a hard place, that's for sure," said McQuillen of the University of Rochester.

 

As we can see from the last three posts, we are in the same situation as the courts. The courts had two decisions to make - one based on the arguments of the doctors and, ultimately, the question "what would Terri want"? The problem is that the doctors don't agree and no one can say for sure what Terri said. Currently, the courts have decided, based on testimony from the doctors on her condition and on her husband's answers, that she wouldn't want to live that way.

Personally, I hope if I have a DNR order, it will be honored. If not I want the decision to be made by my husband.

 

Sure am glad I don't have to decide this. But for the record, If it happens to me. "Off" me and shoot me out of a cannon ala Hunter Thompson.

/Boom

 

Yes, Deb. I do it all the time. I haven't said anything nasty or insulting in this thread. If you are so sensitive that you took my post that way, perhaps you shouldn't be posting on the politics forum.

The fact is you are in a position that is hard to defend -- the choice to kill another human being. When backed into a corner you choose to accuse the other side of unfair tactics. It just shows the weakness of your own position. If you can sleep at night knowing that you are for the murder of an innocent human being that will be on your conscience, not mine.

BLD

 

Same here. I've had this discussion with my fiancee. He wants me to pull the plug on him if it ever happens, and I'd have him do the same for me. This reminds us to get it down in a living will! I don't want to weigh in on this particular case, I just trust our decisions will be legally respected if it ever comes to that.

 

You have compared people to Hitler, Nazis, and murders. I consider that pretty insulting and nasty. You called me a houseplant (okay, mildly insulting) and have ranted without, until now, posting anything to support that maybe this lady wouldn't want to live (if you can call it living) like she is.

I have not resorted to comparing you to anything nasty or calling you names. I did say you are very reactionary. Perhaps we can agree on passionate?

Now, however, you are suggesting that I don't post simply because I like calmer, less insulting conversation, which makes you rude as well as nasty. Okay, you got me there - I did just call you rude.

In the above post you call me a murderer and hope I can sleep at night. I have stated that my personal opinion is I agree with the doctors that the lady is in a state with no recovery possible, that from opinions expressed to others she would not want to live that way and her wishes should be granted. I don't consider that murder. Obviously, you do. Obviously, as with other things like the death penalty, we are not going to agree.

I will continue to post in the political column if I feel so moved. And may even make more comments on this thread. I hope when I do I will not feel the need to be insulting and rude to other posters.

 

Deb,
Obviously you are free to post wherever and whenever you want to. But don't expect me to just accept your pro-extermination of the innocent views as if they were not morally reprehensible.

BLD

 

As I said, we are obviously never going to agree on this. You say morally wrong, I say granting compassionate self-determination.

What I suggested is that insults be avoided as it will help everyone feel easier about posting and discussing divergent views.

 

The one good thing to come of this whole sad mess is that more people might get living wills and do not resistate orders. (DNR)Remember, you need both.

 

I would like to apologize for the houseplant remark - it was very insensitive of me to make a comparision like that.

 

Deb, you're a class act. Your apology shows that you give a rip about the reputation of this board. I am appalled by the comparisons to Hitler made by someone with whom I happen to agree on this case and parallel issues. The "meeting Jesus" crack by someone on the other side of the debate was crass, but calling people Nazis--unless they are--is evil and malicious. I condemned this when an antireligious bigot did it some while back. I condemn it now.

 

I concur. I started to voice my opnion, and thus far I have been vilified by BLD as being vile, an etremely cruel person, and have been compared to a nazi, and Adolf Hitler himself. I don't see how name calling supports his arguments, but if that's what BLD wants to do, and it makes him feel better about himself, then so be it.

Thank you Deb, Kahn, qvlanta, Janko and kansasbatist for debating without insulting remarks.

 

Deb,

You can't really call Terry's position self-determination.

That is the core of this debate. Nobody knows what Terry wants. We have two compelling stories - one from her husband and one from her parents.

My position is that in the absence of knowing for sure what she wants, shouldn't we err on the side of life? especially when there is someone willing to care for her?

 

Really, though, this is a non trivial legal and moral question: In light of the ability of modern medicine to support, well, respiration, how do we DEFINE death?

Is a person with no measurable cortical activity (and we GUESS therefore no consciousness) and no medical chance of regeneration actually ALREADY dead? Or do we define death as the absence of a heartbeat?

Assume that if any part of me is respiring and I am therefore still alive, does that mean that oncologists who keep cancer tumors alive long after their owners have passed on are somehow keeping those owners alive?

Absent medical intervention, the corpus would have long decayed. But how much intervention is "heroic" or "unreasonable"?

Ancillary to this, when does a person's property become his estate? Must he decay first? Or does title to real estate remain in suspended animation because the body is still warm?

Folks, we can all have strong ideas about these things but WE aren't (I hope for all who post here) making the decision in this case. Just keep that in mind.

 

Excellent points and issues to consider. And yes, none of us are making the dcisions here.

 

It seems to me that doctors have conflicting views regarding the possibility of recovery. It also appears as if there is no hard evidence establishing that Terry would choose to die under these circumstances. Therefore, I would argue that all doubts must be resolved in favor of keeping Terry alive.

Terry is a living and breathing human being, not a vegetable or potted plant. Just the other day, a television report showed her smiling at relatives. When I looked at her, I saw life. How anyone could argue in favor of starving this woman to death is beyond me.