Has the Schiavo case Become a Political Football?

Quote:

LASH WROTE
I'm glad you're so sure she can't feel her splitting, dried lips, or the rupturing of soft tissue in her nose and eyes. I'm pretty sure she can, and it bothers me. Starving is bad enough, but losing the fluid in your body is much worse. It is torture. Which is why it is illegal to do it to animals.

I'm not sure.
I don't need to be sure.
YOU don't need to be sure.

A doctor needs to be sure.
The legal next of kin needs to be sure.
The judges need to be sure.
The judges who judge those judges decisions need to sure.
All of these people ARE SURE OR THEY WOULD NOT BE DOING IT.

If every doctor's decision and every judge's ruling had to be approved by me (or you, or the "religious right") then there would be a point in me (and you, and the "religious right") having an opinion.

What is the point of electing people to make these decisions and then trying to overturn them when you think you know better?

What is the point in spending years studying medicine if people on the street have a better understanding of medical conditions??

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Lash wrote:

No. You can't accurately deny the fact.

It may not have any relevance for you--and that's fine.

I'm glad you're so sure she can't feel her splitting, dried lips, or the rupturing of soft tissue in her nose and eyes. I'm pretty sure she can, and it bothers me. Starving is bad enough, but losing the fluid in your body is much worse. It is torture. Which is why it is illegal to do it to animals.

On what basis do you feel "pretty sure" she can? And how do you know so many details of her condition? Been reading the local pro-life propaganda line, have ya?

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We're not going to agree.

You don't agree with every decision handed down by a court, and neither do I.

For every doctor you find to say she's brain-dead, I can find one who says she's not.

Doctors go to the highest bidder in many cases.

I think an injustice has been done. You don't. You are free to take their word for it, and I am free not to. Another day on an opinion board.

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No we are not going to agree, but we can stop using arguments about animal cruelty that have no relevance.

It's deliberatley misleading, meant to make an already highly emotional situation even more so by drawing inappropriate metaphors.

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If you think an injustice has been done, then perhaps it should be looked at by a higher court. Oh, they did that already....is there a higher one? oh they did that too?

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Lola wrote:

Lash wrote:
No. You can't accurately deny the fact.

It may not have any relevance for you--and that's fine.

I'm glad you're so sure she can't feel her splitting, dried lips, or the rupturing of soft tissue in her nose and eyes. I'm pretty sure she can, and it bothers me. Starving is bad enough, but losing the fluid in your body is much worse. It is torture. Which is why it is illegal to do it to animals.

On what basis do you feel "pretty sure" she can? And how do you know so many details of her condition? Been reading the local pro-life propaganda line, have ya?

What makes you so sure she can't feel pain? Don't you know what happens to a body robbed of fluid?

The bottom line is--if I am wrong--she continues to live. I've seen pictures of her, footage. Are you telling me if someone slapped her, she wouldn't react? She feels no pain? Or just not the pain of starvation? Does she feel the pain of her kidneys shutting down? How do you know? How do they know?

In this scenario, I'm not the one who has to be 100% sure.

They are.

But, some people really don't give a **** about her. It's just another political argument.
---------------
Eorl--

Attempting to hide from a fact is a rather pathetic way lead an argument. I won't oblige you. I am, however, incredibly disinterested in this exchange, and since it is unlikely anyone else will force you to consider that starving animals is illegal, and immoral-- it is possible you may resume your illusion.

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Lash, With your expert knowledge in medicine and law, you should go to president Bush and tell him he needs to take Terri by force with the US Army, and start to replace her feeding and liquid tube. Everybody else are ignorant SOBs.

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Lash, persistent vegetative state means she has no cognition or awareness. That includes no awareness of pain.

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sozobe, It's not use; that's been repeated ad nauseum!

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I know.

People keep joining the discussion at different points, though -- several didn't know and then learned. (Bella, at least, I think some others.)

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Lash wrote:

Eorl--Attempting to hide from a fact is a rather pathetic way lead an argument. I won't oblige you. I am, however, incredibly disinterested in this exchange, and since it is unlikely anyone else will force you to consider that starving animals is illegal, and immoral-- it is possible you may resume your illusion.

Lash, I suspect you are bordering on a personal attack here...but I'll let it pass, it's an emotional issue.

First of all, I consider that starving animals is illegal and immoral. I have NEVER denied otherwise.

I have not attempted to HIDE from any fact. I have simply demonstrated that THE FACT YOU ARE PRESENTING IS NOT RELEVANT.

To starve an animal IN TERRI SCHIAVO's CONDITION is perfectly legal and moral. Animals in conditions like hers are euthanased every day. To amputate a limb of an animal that has no nervous system would not be cruel because there in no pain involved. But you are suggesting it would be just as cruel as if I pulled out a knife and started hacking legs from dogs!!!!

Why are YOU hiding from the MEDICAL FACTS of this case and instead relying on your GUT INSTINCT which tells you it seems wrong?

WHAT IS YOUR AUTHORITY?

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Sigh

There is no 'her' anymore. When your frontal lobe has turned into spinal fluid, the special being that is 'you' is gone forever. You should check out some of her brain scans and see for yourself.

There is no 'Terri Schiavo' left to feel the pain.

Cycloptichorn

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But Cyclo, starving animals is immoral and illegal !

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I think the saddest part of this entire story is that people who claim to be on the parents side have encouraged thier understandably desperate clinging to their daugther for all these years when perhaps they should have been allowed to mourn her death many years ago.

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soz-- If she has no awareness, why does her face change when she sees her mother? She responds to light. Her eyes follow objects. That involves some brain activity. Its no great feat, but it represents some cognition, if only on a minute scale.

Have you seen the attendants who have cared for her? Heard their reports about her history--

Have you also heard reports that she was designated for physical therapy years ago, and her husband wouldn't allow it? A doctor believed she could make improvements, and ordered physical therapy. Would a doctor do that for someone in a PVS?

This case fell to whether or not the judges believed that Micheal Shiavo was telling the truth.

If all the doctors agreed on Shiavo's state, I'd be more convinced--but, you can always find a doctor to say what you like in court hearings. If you watch court cases with any frequency, you see that each side has a doctor supporting their claims in cases like this.

I've watched footage of her. I know I have a very strict view of PVS and brain-dead, and "no cognition". When I see what she's doing, I know she has cognition. Very basic, yes. Probably like that of an infant.

She might have never improved. She might actually have preferred death to this kind of life--but it bothers me that in order to achieve that goal, people are blurring the lines of what contitutes "no cognition". She's not going to do Algebra, I know they have said her mind is soup--but the brain runs the body. There are obviously parts of her body she is controlling.

Not trying o convince you--just letting you know I understand PVS--I've read the definition. Just going by what I've seen myself, I don't believe there's nothing there.

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Thank you Lash,

That is a much better (relevant) argument.

I worry that you may be correct. Of course, I hope that you are wrong (as you probably do too).

I know you don't care what I think, but I am a very compassionate person, and I just don't like seeing the problem trivialised to make cheap emotional points.

I apologise if I seem arrogant (I probably am).

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I couldn't agree more, Lash! I also go by what I see and I am far from convinced that she has no brain activity. I know I'm not seeing things and I will always believe that this is a very cruel way to take someones life.
I am totally and completely beside myself with this whole situation!!!

This really sucks! I don't think I've ever felt so helpless in my life.

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sozobe wrote:

Lash, persistent vegetative state means she has no cognition or awareness. That includes no awareness of pain.

According to a brain physiologist I heard interviewed in Deutschlandfunk last week, it doesn't include that. Pain is not cognition; it is not a function of the cerebrum, which is what's gone in patients like Terry Schiavo; it's a function of the cerebellum, which is intact. Therefore, she doesn't have the awareness to feel outrage, sorrow, or relief about it, but she does feel the pain that comes with dying of thirst and hunger. This brain physiologist did make me very, very unsure about where I stand on this case. He also made me drop back into observer mode on this thread.

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Hmmm, it's outside our experience to imagine pain that is felt but not understood...I assume it would not "hurt" because that require cognition of the pain and also fear which she must also lack. Thomas, what was the physiologists feelings about the matter? Did he have a personal view?

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Eorl wrote:

If you think an injustice has been done, then perhaps it should be looked at by a higher court. Oh, they did that already....is there a higher one? oh they did that too?

What on Earth does that prove about justice? In the history of the US Supreme Court:

Quote:

Plessy v. Ferguson
163 U.S. 537 (1896)
Docket Number: 210

Argued: April 13, 1896

Decided: May 18, 1896

Facts of the Case
The state of Louisiana enacted a law that required separate railway cars for blacks and whites. In 1892, Homer Adolph Plessy--who was seven-eighths Caucasian--took a seat in a "whites only" car of a Louisiana train. He refused to move to the car reserved for blacks and was arrested.

Question Presented
Is Louisiana's law mandating racial segregation on its trains an unconstitutional infringement on both the privileges and immunities and the equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment?

Conclusion
No, the state law is within constitutional boundaries. The majority upheld state-imposed racial segregation. The justices based their decision on the separate-but-equal doctrine, that separate facilities for blacks and whites satisfied the Fourteenth Amendment so long as they were equal. (The phrase, "separate but equal" was not part of the opinion.) Brown conceded that the 14th amendment intended to establish absolute equality for the races before the law. But Brown noted that "in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races unsatisfactory to either." In short, segregation does not in itself constitute unlawful discrimination.

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Has the Schiavo case Become a Political Football?

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