Terri Schiavo

[Liquid Blue]

The woman was dead and had been dead for 15 years, her body has just been hanging on- and that's thanks to science, nothing more. She's been gone, the parents just didn't want to accept that and move on.

[Squeezer]

I think it is still cruel to starve someone to death regardless whether they are brain die or not. We can't be sure that she didn't go through any agony before she die.

Isn't it a bit retarded to keep someone in vegetation state for 15 years, then starve her to death at the end anyways?

It's sad for a loss of life, but on the other hand, we don't have endless supply of resource, it would be so much better if we anesthetized her 10 years ago and use those money to save the kids in 3rd world countries.

Who knows, maybe that amount could have saved 10 kids whose brains aren't dead.

BTW news people are pathetic, general public should be able to vote which news they want to see and which they don't want to see on the news paper.

[Tone]

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Death by Dehydration = Torture
Michael Schiavo insists that dehydration is "the most natural way to die." It's more like torture.

Weekly Standard | April 1, 2005
by Wesley J. Smith
MANY WHO SUPPORT Terri Schiavo's threatened dehydration assert that removing a feeding tube from a profoundly cognitively disabled person results in a painless and gentle ending. But is this really true? After all, it would be agonizing if you or I were locked in a room for two weeks and deprived of all food and water.

So, why should we believe that cognitively disabled patients experience the deprivation differently simply because they receive nourishment through a feeding tube instead of by mouth?

An accurate discussion of this sensitive issue requires the making of proper and nuanced distinctions about the consequences of removing nourishment from incapacitated patients. This generally becomes an issue in one of the following two diametrically differing circumstances:

(1) Depriving food and water from profoundly cognitively disabled persons like Terri who are not otherwise dying, a process that causes death by dehydration over a period of 10-14 days. As I will illustrate below, this may cause great suffering.

(2) Not forcing food and water upon patients who have stopped eating and drinking as part of the natural dying process. This typically occurs, for example, at the end stages of cancer when patients often refuse nourishment because the disease has distorted their senses of hunger and thirst. In these situations, being deprived of unwanted food and water when the body is already shutting down does not cause a painful death.

Advocates who argue that it is appropriate to dehydrate cognitively disabled people often sow confusion about the suffering such patients may experience by inadvertently,

or perhaps intentionally, blurring the difference between these two distinct situations. For example, when Michael Schiavo, Terri's husband, and his attorney, George Felos, appeared on the October 27, 2003 edition of "Larry King Live" the following exchange occurred:

KING: When a feeding tube is removed, as it was planned [for Terri], is that a terrible death?

SCHIAVO: No. It's painless and probably the most natural way to die.

FELOS: When someone's terminally ill, let's say a cancer patient, they lose interest in eating. And literally, they--by choice--they stop eating.

SCHIAVO: Cancer patients, they stop eating for two to three weeks. Do we force them to eat? No, we don't. That's their choice.

Later in the interview, Schiavo reiterated the assertion in a response to a telephoned question:

CALLER: Does it bother you that the death is so slow?

SCHIAVO: Removing somebody's feeding tube is very painless. It is a very easy way to die. Probably the second best way to die, the first being an aneurysm.

Yes, it is true that when people are actively dying from terminal disease, they often refuse food and water. The disease makes the food and water repulsive to them. In such circumstances, it is medically inappropriate to force food and water into a person who is actively rejecting it. Indeed, doing so could cause suffering.

But this isn't what is happening to Terri. She isn't dying of cancer. Her body isn't shutting down as part of the natural dying process. Indeed, she is not dying at all--unless her food and water is taken away.

[Cleve-YB]

I hate the media. I feel bad for her state and let her RIP, but she did do it to her self because she was so concerned with vanities that she fucked her self over. But still nobody deserves to be in that kind of condition. It all comes down to if she would want the plug pulled or not so I never have a position in these kinds of problems.

[K2Grey]

There's a major difference between being "cognitively disabled" and between missing most of your brain. And the issue in the Schiavo case is not whether it is right to kill off people who are missing parts of their brains, but whether Terri Schiavo would have wanted to be on life support or not.

[Subjugation]

What's the point of that stupid article, Tone?

Dude is a journalist, not a doctor. He said he would explain how the it is indeed painful, he didn't.

[Tone]

There's a major difference between being "cognitively disabled" and between missing most of your brain. And the issue in the Schiavo case is not whether it is right to kill off people who are missing parts of their brains, but whether Terri Schiavo would have wanted to be on life support or not.

im not taking a view on live or die. im just concerned about if its die, would thursting to death cause suffering, even in her condition. now we know pretty much for certain that she would be incapible of psychological suffering, but something as physical and basic as thurst? that doesnt have to be frontal cortex, thats a mid-brain thing, a survival thing, and a physical thing.

there isn't an actual "pain" involved, more like mental anguish.

is she totally completely mentally gone? no, she is psychologically and intellectually gone, yes. thurst is so basic i think you would have to be in a coma to not suffer from thurst. she could even breath on her own couldnt she? even rats suffer from thursting to death, or lab rats from drug-withdrawal. thurst is not 100% physical pain but its 0% intellectual

[Benno]

It took an inordinate amount of re-reads to realize you weren't talking about being "thrusted" to death. I was thinking there was some sick para-sex going on.

[K2Grey]

What Terri Schiavo was in definitely counts as a coma.

The reason why she could still breathe is because her medulla is intact. That handles only the _very_ most basic of functions, such as breathing and the beating of the heart, whereas thirst and pain, which are cognitively appraised, go through other parts of the brain, IIRC (but note that I'm not a doctor so I shouldn't speculate).

Having said this she should have been given a lethal injection but bleh, some people have strange views.