Shiavo case

[TweetyBird]

>>Nuke, the way I see it, two weeks of starvation will end fifteen years of hell.<<

This way of thinking concerns me also. If she is, in fact, in "fifteen years of hell." that implies awareness. One cant be in hell if there is no awareness. So if you imply she is aware, you are making an abitrary value judgement of her enjoyment of her life. You are, with absolutely no objective evidence, saying she feels no joy with the sound of her parent's voice or that she feels more pain (or "hell") than joy. You can't know this. Now if in fact there is no awareness, she couldn't possibly be feeling pain or "hell ."

That tells me the only possible hell you could be talking about is not HER hell, but hubby's hell. He doesn't want to be burdened with her being alive anymore. Is that a reason to kill her?

If she is in "hell" she is aware and you better bring objective evidence that she is in constant pain and not some blissful state or a state with up and downs (like most people) before you kill her. If they are killing her because of the husband's "hell", well thats plain murder.

[Nash]

I just saw a pic of a cat scan of Sciavo's brain. Where most of us have brain matter, hers is gone. It is 2/3 filled up with spinal fluid which has eaten away that which was once brain matter. It is like a lake inside there. It resembles a coconut.

Through 10 years of litigation that this case has already undergone, every single judge has agreed. And there have been dozens and dozens of them who have heard reams and reams of testimony by dozens and dozens of experts who also all agree.

But Congress doesn't... based on....?

So it'll go back to the courts, where yet more judges and more experts will agree about the same thing they've been agreeing on for the last decade.

What will Congress do then?

[Kirin]

Pulling the feeding tubes on that woman is not like letting one of us more or less healthy persons starve in the desert. Years of experience in palliative care have shown that dying by dehydration is not horrific as most people think. Terminal hydration (e.g. by infusions) have not proven to give any benefit. If she had higher brain functions they would "turn off" in terminal dehydration. Nature works quite well here. And we speaking about days, not weeks.

[Eagler]

WTG Bush!!!

Again!!

[Shuckins]

Nash, don't you get it...they're not really arguing about what's right for her.  They're demonstrating the classic human psychological trait of refusing to concede their point.  I guess we're all doing it to some extent.

Yet, at some stage, we have to say to 'ell with our own beliefs and with what her husband and parents want and decide what's best for her.   Refusing to concede the issue will only cause her to linger on endlessly in a mindless purgatory, which would be a position that gives the lie to our protestations of compassion.

A couple of decades ago, a young man and his father stopped their car in a small patch of woods on some property they were thinking about buying.  Unwittingly, they stepped from their vehicle into a pool of unseen gas that was leaking from a pipeline nearby.

Something set it off.  In the ensuing conflagration, the father burned to death and the son suffered third degree burns over his entire body.

An ambulance eventually arrived and took what had once been a normal human being to the hospital.  The hideously burned victim still possessed a fully functioning mind and was able to communicate with his family and doctors.  He pleaded with them to let him die.

The physicians and burn specialists refused to listen to his pleas.  With fingers melted together, no hair remaining on his body, vestigial ears, and suffering unbelievable torment, he begged to be allowed the relief of death...and he was refused.

Years later, after extensive treatment and plastic surgery, he was released to try to rebuild his life.  In an interview on Nightline (Hope my memory hasn't failed me) his physicians acted as if there was nothing else that they could do...as if forcing him to live was somehow more humane and compassionate than simply allowing, or assisting him to die.

The young man has attempted to rebuild his life, but he did it not for himself but for those around him.  He has a job, but with horrible burn scars over his entire body, he will probably never be married and is unable to have children.

Asked about the doctor's decisions to move heaven and earth in order to save him, in light of events that happened later, the young man told the interviewer, "They should have let me die."



So you see, I find the reasoning behind some of the arguments against allowing this girl to die to be more about one's own need to dig in and defend a nebulous "principle" than about what's right for her.

[Toad]

Even if they starve her, I think the hubby's "instant cremation "idea should be shelved. I think it is common sense that an autopsy be performed to see if she'd been beaten into that coma.

If so, a criminal investigation.

[1redrum]

ya know i lost my father to enphasema 2 years ago{stop smoking now!!!!cigaretts kill} anyway he could still be with us to this day but he signed a DNR cause he didnt want a machine to breathe for him ,that was HIS choice .

how dose anyone know what a husband and wife tell each other in pivate,i know my wife and i have had the "what if "talk ,and neither of us want to be left in a state where we would have no "life"what is happening here is another case of big brother telling us , is it always right to extend life just cause medical scince can

[Eagler]

Originally posted by 1redrum
ya know i lost my father to enphasema 2 years ago{stop smoking now!!!!cigaretts kill} anyway he could still be with us to this day but he signed a DNR cause he didnt want a machine to breathe for him ,that was HIS choice .

how dose anyone know what a husband and wife tell each other in pivate,i know my wife and i have had the "what if "talk ,and neither of us want to be left in a state where we would have no "life"what is happening here is another case of big brother telling us , is it always right to extend life just cause medical scince can

then you better get it in writing

[Raider179]

Originally posted by genozaur
Wait, Raider. She died after another ten years, so you can't call her regaining the ability to breath on her own the improvement ? Strange logic.
And BTW, what was the actual cause of her death ? Do you know it ? It could be anything, not necessarily connected to her comatose state, an infection, for instance. But in any case a temporary improvement that lasted for ten years can be called improvement because we compare her state with her previous total dependence on the machine.

And your opinion about pregnancy as just an unconcious bodily function does not seem right to me. But here we only have your opinion against mine, and both of us are the too distant medical stars, I guess.
Anyway, it's strange to me that such interesting problems are not discussed widely enough so that we, common folks, do get at least some information on female reproductive function. Is it really just like sneazing or the girl has to have some brains for that ?

Sorry but to me if you are in a coma you did not improve. Even if you can breathe on your own. Laying in a bed for 10 years before I die would be pure hell. I don't know how you can say anything different about the pregnancy thing being an unconcious function. She was in a coma right? that means she was unconcious. But I will admit it does bring up another interesting point on the subject.

[Raider179]

Originally posted by genozaur
OK, Raider. Here it comes.
If I were a comatose woman in my reproductive years [ ] and my husband [ ] wanted to have a heir to the Atamanship of Don Cossack Republic, I wouln't mind.

That is no answer to the question. Would you want to be like Terri for 17 years or would you rather starve in 2 weeks? That is the question. No pregnancy stuff, no horses, no dogs. Simple yes or no will work for an answer.

[Raider179]

Originally posted by Toad
Even if they starve her, I think the hubby's "instant cremation "idea should be shelved. I think it is common sense that an autopsy be performed to see if she'd been beaten into that coma.

If so, a criminal investigation.

I agree with this toad just because of the earlier info you brought out.

[Raider179]

Originally posted by TweetyBird


That tells me the only possible hell you could be talking about is not HER hell, but hubby's hell. He doesn't want to be burdened with her being alive anymore. Is that a reason to kill her?

If she is in "hell" she is aware and you better bring objective evidence that she is in constant pain and not some blissful state or a state with up and downs (like most people) before you kill her. If they are killing her because of the husband's "hell", well thats plain murder.

Tweety I don't think you get it that some people would rather die than live like she is.  Know what "hell" he is talking about? It doesnt neccesarily have to be physical pain, Not being able to talk to people, not being able to feed yourself, not being able to clean yourself, not being able to walk, not being able to read, the list for her goes on and on.  And That my friend is truly a living hell.

[JB73]

all you proponents of letting her die, answer me this question.

if she was so set on NOT being kept alive, as her husband claims, why did he let her last even 1 month back when this happened?

he let this go on for many years... for what?

[genozaur]

Originally posted by Nash
I just saw a pic of a cat scan of Sciavo's brain. Where most of us have brain matter, hers is gone. It is 2/3 filled up with spinal fluid which has eaten away that which was once brain matter. It is like a lake inside there. It resembles a coconut.

Through 10 years of litigation that this case has already undergone, every single judge has agreed. And there have been dozens and dozens of them who have heard reams and reams of testimony by dozens and dozens of experts who also all agree.

But Congress doesn't... based on....?

So it'll go back to the courts, where yet more judges and more experts will agree about the same thing they've been agreeing on for the last decade.

What will Congress do then?

Nash, there is no streightforwardly direct correlation between the size of the brain and mental abilities.
Effectively what you are saying is that the elephants are wiser than the humans.

[genozaur]

Originally posted by Raider179
That is no answer to the question. Would you want to be like Terri for 17 years or would you rather starve in 2 weeks? That is the question. No pregnancy stuff, no horses, no dogs. Simple yes or no will work for an answer.

Sorry, Raider, but the world around you is not a black-and-white picture.
I am glad that you are still in your youthful dualistic state of mind (good - bad, blondes - brunettes, yes - no).
But the world is much more complicated than that - not only different shades of gray matter, but there are also totally different colours that matter in various environments and under the changing curcumstances.