Author Topic: Its not bad being a minority (Read 3693 times)

Maverick · « **Reply #150 on:** March 27, 2005, 08:10:27 PM »

I read about a chicken that survived for several months after it's head was cut off. I wouldn't really call that living.

Mere existance of a body without any cognitive functions,or ability to do anything other than lay there and breath is not anything I would want to experiance. Certainly not for 17 months much less years.

TweetyBird · « **Reply #151 on:** March 27, 2005, 08:11:41 PM »

And you confuse compassion with not having the courtesy to run a functional imaging test on someone before you allow them to die of thirst? Compassion? Where? When you don't have empathy for parents watching a child die of thirst?

I'll give you this. Schiavo may have the law on his side, but I think compassion is a stranger in this scenario.

TweetyBird · « **Reply #152 on:** March 27, 2005, 08:13:06 PM »

>>I read about a chicken that survived for several months after it's head was cut off. I wouldn't really call that living.
<<

Oh please post a link. This is the idiocy that accounts for the poll results.

Raider179 · « **Reply #153 on:** March 27, 2005, 08:19:06 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by TweetyBird
And you confuse compassion with not having the courtesy to run a functional imaging test on someone before you allow them to die of thirst? Compassion? Where? When you don't have empathy for parents watching a child die of thirst?

I'll give you this. Schiavo may have the law on his side, but I think compassion is a stranger in this scenario.

You are so off track on this now I might have to let you go.

This is about HER right to NOT be kept alive by tubes. SHE said she didnt want to. A functioning image test tells us nothing. SHE Choose to not be kept alive artificially. She said it, deal with it. Those tests could read off the scale for brain activity and it wouldn't mean jack. She didnt want to live like that. I don't understand what you don't see about this being HER choice. Not her parents, not her husbands and least of all the friggin governements. I for one would rather die of thirst in 2 weeks than be like she is for 50 years.

I have empathy for them, but I also feel they are selfish for not respecting their daughter's wishes. I have seen several people say that she did not want to be hooked up to tubes what's her parents counter to that? Oh yeah, her religion wouldnt have allowed for it so she must not have said it. Give me a break.

Maverick · « **Reply #154 on:** March 27, 2005, 08:20:46 PM »

Here it is. It took all of 10 seconds of google. Now this is just the first link, you look it over if you want.
http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org

TweetyBird · « **Reply #155 on:** March 27, 2005, 08:21:53 PM »

Now I'm really confused. Why emphaticaly state there is no brain activity in the cerebral cortex and then decline an objective test that would show if there was activity in the cerebral cortex?

TweetyBird · « **Reply #156 on:** March 27, 2005, 08:23:42 PM »

>>Here it is. It took all of 10 seconds of google. Now this is just the first link, you look it over if you want.
http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org

<<

Put it on my "favorites" list

Raider179 · « **Reply #157 on:** March 27, 2005, 08:26:18 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by TweetyBird
Now I'm really confused. Why emphaticaly state there is no brain activity in the cerebral cortex and then decline an objective test that would show if there was activity in the cerebral cortex?

cough cough Brain Stem, Like I said earlier nothing to test...but we go around again and you just avoid the whole its her choice argument. Shows what really matters to you. Not her choice but what you want. really sad.

" In Schiavo's condition, only the most primitive part of the brain survives. That region, known as the brain stem, merely sustains the vital functions of breathing, heart rate, sleep-wake cycles and primitive reflexes such as coughing and blinking. "

Maverick · « **Reply #158 on:** March 27, 2005, 08:26:25 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by TweetyBird
And you confuse compassion with not having the courtesy to run a functional imaging test on someone before you allow them to die of thirst? Compassion? Where? When you don't have empathy for parents watching a child die of thirst?

I'll give you this. Schiavo may have the law on his side, but I think compassion is a stranger in this scenario.

I don't confuse anything about this. You are on the crusade on this subject.

It has been litigated all the way up to the Supreme Court. If this was her wish then forcing her to continue to exist to make her parents happy is the height of selfishness on their part. I know I sure as h*ll wouldn't want to exist like that. Anyone FORCING me to live like that is hardly compassionate as far as I am concerned.

If you want to exist like that then more power to ya. At least have the sense not to speak for anyone else.

TweetyBird · « **Reply #159 on:** March 27, 2005, 08:30:22 PM »

Yea Raider, you're absolutely right, what was I thinking?

Airhead · « **Reply #160 on:** March 27, 2005, 08:31:44 PM »

"I'm not going to begin to argue that if at some point we can keep a body whose head has been entirely severed "alive" that we must do so. Such an existence could not meet even the vaguest definition of "a life."

However it is clearly God's revealed will that we protect the defenseless and weakest members of our society. The clear witness of scripture is that we must feed and care for the handicapped, retarded, and brain damaged to the best of our ability. This includes feeding them and taking care of their medical needs. In doing so, no matter how inconvenient it is to us, we are serving God and obeying his will. Contrary to the belief of the Nazis the Imago Dei is present even in the retarded and brain damaged and we are just as obligated to them as we are to newborns.

That is what we are talking about at root with Terri, we had a moral obligation to feed her and provide for her medical needs. She did not require a machine to breathe for her, or pump her blood, her body simply needed sustenance, and she could have been taught to eat (several nurses fed her orally without aspiration until Michael forbade it) and perhaps to perform other basic functions. Instead all steps have been aimed from the get-go at causing her to die out of "quality of life" concerns. Her parents have throughout been willing to care for her but have been legally prevented from doing so. This is an involuntary Euthanasia case, pure and simple, but we have reached the point societally where we have left the concerns of the Geneva code behind us and seem ready to resume the practice of "Therapeutic Killing."

If we are indeed just grown up Germs ourselves, and the philosophy of Nietzche is true, then there is no reason not to embrace the practice of state authorized therapeutic killing as the Dutch and Scandanavians already have. Of course, you'd better hope you are and continue to be one of the fit and healthy Ubermensch and not some subhuman unworthy of life."

- SEAGOON

Seagoon, you're making me think, at least. I'm glad you're posting here and I read what you post. Thanks for doing so.

Raider179 · « **Reply #161 on:** March 27, 2005, 08:34:00 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by TweetyBird
Yea Raider, you're absolutely right, what was I thinking?

You were confusing the cerebral cortex which is mush, with her brain stem.

Raider179 · « **Reply #162 on:** March 27, 2005, 08:39:08 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Airhead
"I'm not going to begin to argue that if at some point we can keep a body whose head has been entirely severed "alive" that we must do so. Such an existence could not meet even the vaguest definition of "a life."

However it is clearly God's revealed will that we protect the defenseless and weakest members of our society. The clear witness of scripture is that we must feed and care for the handicapped, retarded, and brain damaged to the best of our ability. This includes feeding them and taking care of their medical needs. In doing so, no matter how inconvenient it is to us, we are serving God and obeying his will. Contrary to the belief of the Nazis the Imago Dei is present even in the retarded and brain damaged and we are just as obligated to them as we are to newborns.

That is what we are talking about at root with Terri, we had a moral obligation to feed her and provide for her medical needs. She did not require a machine to breathe for her, or pump her blood, her body simply needed sustenance, and she could have been taught to eat (several nurses fed her orally without aspiration until Michael forbade it) and perhaps to perform other basic functions. Instead all steps have been aimed from the get-go at causing her to die out of "quality of life" concerns. Her parents have throughout been willing to care for her but have been legally prevented from doing so. This is an involuntary Euthanasia case, pure and simple, but we have reached the point societally where we have left the concerns of the Geneva code behind us and seem ready to resume the practice of "Therapeutic Killing."

If we are indeed just grown up Germs ourselves, and the philosophy of Nietzche is true, then there is no reason not to embrace the practice of state authorized therapeutic killing as the Dutch and Scandanavians already have. Of course, you'd better hope you are and continue to be one of the fit and healthy Ubermensch and not some subhuman unworthy of life."

- SEAGOON

Seagoon, you're making me think, at least. I'm glad you're posting here and I read what you post. Thanks for doing so.

So we have moral obligation to disregard Terri's choice to not live as she does? Not in my book. See this is what it is really all about. Religion. Organized Religion has no respect for an individual's choice. Someone wants to checkout of their life, who the hell are we to tell them no?

TweetyBird · « **Reply #163 on:** March 27, 2005, 08:44:09 PM »

>>Seagoon, you're making me think, at least. I'm glad you're posting here and I read what you post. Thanks for doing so.
<<

Same here. I'd take a Sunday dinner at regular people's house over a banquet full of sophisticated great thinkers, anyday.
There's no sustenance in rhetoric.

Airhead · « **Reply #164 on:** March 27, 2005, 08:59:58 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Raider179
So we have moral obligation to disregard Terri's choice to not live as she does? Not in my book. See this is what it is really all about. Religion. Organized Religion has no respect for an individual's choice. Someone wants to checkout of their life, who the hell are we to tell them no?

Ah...You believe in the right to assisted suicide too I bet.

I don't know Raider, I feel funny about deliberately starving someone to death who only needs to be fed, regardless of what her long term prognosis is.

I had a cousin born blind and severely mentally retarded and there was never a question that he'd be taken care of- it was never an issue. He ended up institunionalized and, ultimately, kept alive by a feeding tube, until he died in his mid 40s of natural causes. We all knew he'd never get "better," but we all knew he deserved our love and campassion and, most of all, our help to eat.

I don't feel comfortable having state sanctioned euthenasia, especially when that euthenasia involves starving someone to death. I'm not sure I want my Government rubberstamping that, regardless of the wishes of anyone- I'd prefer my Government err on the sanctity of life rather than the finality of death.