Has the Schiavo case Become a Political Football?

I think it would only be an 'imposition of life' if life has essentially ceased other than by artifical means (heart machine, respirator, etc.) Terri Schiavo was a physically healthy young woman who needed no machines to sustain her life. She was severely brain damaged that prevented her from being able to feed herself. Thousands of people across the country for many different reasons are unable to feed themselves including ability to take nutrition and hydration by mouth for permanent and/or temporary reasons.

So no 'life' was being imposed on Terri Schiavo. Her life was taken by withdrawing hydration and nutrition; i.e. food and water.

So the debate is now whether hydration and nutrition shall be considered 'artificial life support', and if it is determined that it is, then we have to decide who shall and who shall not be receive it: the profoundly retarded? The quadriplegic? The person with a terminal illness? The 'unwanted' infant? Who can decide that a person's life has no value? And every time we decide a person's life, at any age and for any reason, has no value, we diminish our humanity and cheapen life in general. It is not beyond the possibility that we revert to primitive mentalities where any life is expendable and taken with no serious thought given at all.

Very well said, Fox & Debra!

Fox, wrong .... people are not born with tubes in their stomachs ..... it's called 'life support'. Terri could not swallow food or water .... she had to be fed and watered like a vegetable ...... persistent vegetative state ....

And for those who hoped for the Bush administration and Congress to be damaged by the Schiavo case, there is an interesting new poll out that suggests the possibility for some sympathy for their 'overstepping their constitutional boundaries':

Zogby Poll: Americans Not in Favor of Starving Terri Schiavo
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 1, 2005

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Polls leading up to the death of Terri Schiavo made it appear Americans had formed a consensus in favor of ending her life. However, a new Zogby poll with fairer questions shows the nation clearly supporting Terri and her parents and wanting to protect the lives of other disabled patients.

The Zogby poll found that, if a person becomes incapacitated and has not expressed their preference for medical treatment, as in Terri's case, 43 percent say "the law presume that the person wants to live, even if the person is receiving food and water through a tube" while just 30 percent disagree.

Another Zogby question his directly on Terri's circumstances.

"If a disabled person is not terminally ill, not in a coma, and not being kept alive on life support, and they have no written directive, should or should they not be denied food and water," the poll asked.

A whopping 79 percent said the patient should not have food and water taken away while just 9 percent said yes.

"From the very start of this debate, Americans have sat on one of two sides," Concerned Women for America's Lanier Swann said in response to the poll. One side "believes Terri's life has worth and purpose, and the side who saw Michael Schiavo's actions as merciful, and appropriate."

More than three-fourths of Americans agreed, Swann said, "because a person is disabled, that patient should never be denied food and water."

The poll also lent support to members of Congress to who passed legislation seeking to prevent Terri's starvation death and help her parents take their lawsuit to federal courts.

"When there is conflicting evidence on whether or not a patient would want to be on a feeding tube, should elected officials order that a feeding tube be removed or should they order that it remain in place," respondents were asked.

Some 18 percent said the feeding tube should be removed and 42 percent said it should remain in place.

Swann said her group would encourage Congress to adopt legislation that would federal courts to review cases when the medical treatment desire of individuals is not known and the patient's family has a dispute over the care.

"According to these poll results, many Americans do in fact agree with what we're trying to accomplish," she said.

The poll found that 49 percent of Americans believe there should be exceptions to the right of a spouse to act as a guardian for an incapacitated spouse. Only 39 percent disagreed.

When asked directly about Terri's case and told the her estranged husband Michael "has had a girlfriend for 10 years and has two children with her" 56 percent of Americans believed guardianship should have been turned over to Terri's parents while 37 percent disagreed.
http://www.lifenews.com/bio891.html

I for one am encouraged that the country isn't yet ready to give up a conviction for a culture of life rather than seeing people as 'expendable'.

Geli writes


If the medical community, including those care givers who were with Terri day in and day out, had been in agreement on that, and they weren't, then there is the possibility of error. And if we err, I still always want us to err on the side of life. If she truly was PVS there was no harm in allowing her parents and siblings who loved to to continue to care for her. If she was not, then what was done to her would have been murder doing it to anyone else. If they were so sure she was unaware and unable to feel or think anything, then why administer morphine during the starvation/dehydration process? It is just all too macabre for me and is unconscionably cruel to intentionally do to any living creature.

Fox, if 'yoou' don't know the facts in tthe case, how couldyou expect annyone picked at randomin a poll to know?
Polls are 'opinions', from people. Can you see where they might be misleading? Particularly if cast from ignorance.

Every thing you just said was ignorant opinion ........ documentation free ignorant opinion and wrong!.

Geli I know what the 'facts' are of this case based on what I have seen, read, and heard. That's pretty much any of us have to go on. The other day on television, I was watching a media analysis that the alphabet channels had all pretty much been consistent in presenting only Michael Schiavo's side of the issue, and of course they all are pretty much interested in seeing the Bush administration and GOP discredited in any way they can make that happen.

The old internet, talk radio, Fox News, and what few balanced sources are out there gradually got the information out re facts the alphabet channels didn't bother to talk about. And thus, the Zogby poll confirmed what I had already suspected was happening. American people are not yet ready to support euthenasia on demand and they mostly do not view Terri Schiavo's death as either 'withdrawal of life support' or 'mercy killing'.

Now whether you agree with that or not, it is a fact. And I for one, am glad of it.

What eloquence! What a marvelous organization of facts! What impressively clear logic! Very persuasive!

You left out accurate .... or were you speaking 'rectorically'?

The Zogby Poll Foxfyre quoted above shows a (more than 'slightly') different picture than the FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll of March 29-30, 2005.

Interesting, for instance, as well:
Source

I think the long two weeks it took Terri Schivo to die changed a lot of minds. Just my ignorant (according to Geli) opinion.

Thanks for the link Walter.

Here's the direct link to the Zogby poll. As we all know, the way a question is worded can greatly affect the outcome in any poll.
http://www.zogby.com/Soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=11131

Supporting Zogby's results is today's Rasmussen report showing GWB's approval rating back up to 50%. During the bashing of the president and Congress over the Schiavo case, the approval had dropped into the mid 40% range.

i think the pendulum has swung and the verdict is coming down on the side of life. I sincerely hope that is the case.

Well, yesterday the pro-Bush votes were 51%, today it is down to 50%.
Source

Walter writes


Yes, even a cursory review of Rasumussen's daily polls--each result shown is an average of results of the previous I think week, or is it three days? I can't remember--will show a one or two point fluctuation as normal. The point is, there was some negative public reaction when it was being reported by the talking heads that the Bush administration and Congress were overstepping their constitutional authority, violating states rights, etc. etc. etc. It appears now that the pendulum has again swung and, once people have time to really think it all through, are now more sympathetic with all efforts to defend Terri Schiavo's right to life.

Misplaced priority.
from the April 04, 2005 edition

Congress' implicit healthcare rationing

By John Kitzhaber

PORTLAND, ORE. – As an emergency physician and former governor, I am struck by the towering contradictions - and indeed the hypocrisy - in the controversy over the tragic plight of Terri Schiavo. On the same day that the US House of Representatives voted to involve the federal courts in her case, it also approved a 10-year $92-billion cut in Medicaid funding - $30 billion deeper than the cut recommended by President Bush. The relationship between these two decisions - virtually unreported by most media - goes to the very heart of why we're unable to resolve the growing crisis in our healthcare system. While involving the federal courts in an attempt to save the life of one highly visible individual, Congress made a fiscal decision that will deny thousands of other Americans timely access to healthcare, some of whom may die as a result.
In the Monitor
Monday, 04/04/05
To understand this point is to understand the insidious form of implicit rationing practiced by legislative bodies throughout the nation - starting with the Congress. When the Congress cuts Medicaid funding, it is a direct cost shift to the states that administer the program. However, unlike Congress - which has run up a $7 trillion national debt over the past four years - states are required to operate within a balanced budget. So they respond to cuts in Medicaid by dropping people and/or services from coverage.

In 2003, for example, in an effort to balance the budget in the face of falling revenue due to the recession, the Oregon legislature discontinued prescription-drug coverage for certain categories of citizens covered by the state's Medicaid program. This action was apparently based on the assumption - widespread in legislative circles - that if we just stop paying for the healthcare needs of the poor, they'll somehow go away and the public sector can avoid the cost.

As a consequence of this decision, Douglas Schmidt, a man in his mid-30s suffering from a seizure disorder, was no longer able to afford to purchase the medication that controlled his seizures. He subsequently had a grand mal seizure and suffered severe brain damage. He was put on a ventilator in a Portland hospital, where he remained for several months. Eventually he was transferred to a long-term care facility where he died after life support was withdrawn - following a court order to do so.

The cost of his antiseizure medication was $14 a day; the cost of his hospital care was over $7,500 a day - a total medical bill exceeding $1 million. The legislature saved no money through its implicit rationing decision, yet Mr. Schmidt died of political and budgetary expediency based on a policy that said, in effect, we will not pay pennies for medication to manage a seizure disorder, but will pay thousands of dollars to keep an individual on life support after that unmanaged seizure disorder causes severe brain damage.

It is a policy that says we will not pay to manage many very manageable health issues in ways that would prevent people from ending up in long-term hospital stays; or says we will not pay to provide all pregnant women with good prenatal care, but we will pay to resuscitate their one-pound infants in a neonatal intensive care unit. And this should not be acceptable to any of us.

Certainly no one in Congress could openly support this kind of policy; no one could justify the human consequences or the tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars. Yet, that is exactly the policy Congress embraced when slashing Medicaid funding, even while calling for court intervention to save Mrs. Schiavo's life.

Nobody in Congress rushed to give Schmidt access to the federal courts when he could no longer gain access to his medication. There was no moral outrage over his death - or the deaths of thousands of other Americans who die each year unable to afford timely access to healthcare. It is very much like high-level bombing where the pilots never see the faces of the people who suffer because of their actions.

Schmidt was a statistic - one of the millions of Americans who had no way to pay medical care. The cause of his death was not as dramatic - and therefore not as newsworthy - as the plight of Mrs. Schiavo. But it was no less tragic because it went largely unreported.

This nation, its political leadership, and its media need to be willing to express the same concern and invest the same energy in ensuring that all Americans have timely access to needed care that they do in responding to the plight of highly visible individuals. Until then, the crisis in our healthcare system will continue to deepen. If indeed we claim to be a society guided by moral values, then surely we cannot apply them selectively.

• John A. Kitzhaber, a physician and former governor of Oregon, is the director of the Center for Evidence Based Policy at the Oregon Health Sciences University.

Really, so you have a generic issue with removing nutritional life support from any patient even in the absense of disagreement among the family? You're saying that once nutritional life support is implemented, it should be illegal to remove it in all cases until the patient succumbs to another consequence of their illness, even when the patient has indicated not wanting to be supported through artificial means? So when abnominal feeding tubes are installed as a temporary measure, while determining the likelihood of recovery, we should legislate that nutritional support never be withdrawn? We should sustain everyone who can be sustain through abdominal feeding unless they are unable to support life due to other causes?

I return to my original question. Are we having this discussion because there was a difference of opinion among the family, or are you advocating that nutritional support never be discontinued once implemented? I believe it is the former.

I'm with J_B on this one... Kinda demolishes the whole "Terri's been murdered" argument, too.