Oh.
That was awful. That's all I want to say.
panzade wrote:jpn, I love you man but your post is off topic and in the context of Teri Schiavo off the mark. I'd hate to see you reprimanded for TOS violations...I live for your SOTD thread.
I don't think it is that off target. I've heard time and time again how "peaceful and serene" she looks. This was posted in a different thread:
Quote:"The cessation of eating and drinking is the dominant way that mammals die," said Dr. Ira Byock, director of palliative medicine at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire. "It is a very gentle way that nature has provided for animals to leave this life."
In a 2003 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 102 hospice nurses caring for terminally ill patients who refused food and drink described their patients' final days as peaceful, with less pain and suffering than those who had elected to die through physician-assisted suicide.
I'm just saying it is BS. If we are going to kill the woman do it humanely and quit jusitiying our actions with nonsense. Sorry if I offended.
You did not offend I assure you. I'm just pointing out that the circumstances that befell those children and what is happening to Terry just don't travel on the same track.
I know how much you're feeling...I do.
Also, she is not dying of starvation....
Is it considered more humane to kill someone by withholding water? I hadn't heard .....
She is already dead and has been for years.
What have I learned from the case. That this government has been captured by religious zealots.
I have learned that "only tea" crash diets can, ultimately and by mysterious ways, lead to death by starvation 15 years later.
In other words, I have learned that life has cruel paradoxes.
Ticomaya wrote:Is it considered more humane to kill someone by withholding water? I hadn't heard .....
Just pointing out that pictures of starving kids is hardly relevant.
Quote:She is already dead and has been for years.
What have I learned from the case. That this government has been captured by religious zealots.
Agree completely. They don't have complete control yet; but they're working on it.
IMO, it is the moral duty of every peace-loving American to fight these Fundamental Christianists in every way possible.
Cycloptichorn
I agree with you to an extent, Cyclo. The thing is, the push by the gay and lesbian community into politics is what really brought the religious right "out of the closet", so to speak. I think you can tell where I'm going to lay a great deal of the blame for the current state of affairs.
it's always down to the queers innit?
DrewDad wrote:
Just pointing out that pictures of starving kids is hardly relevant.
Why is everybody so thick headed here???
All I am doing is calling the bluff on she is dying a "peaceful death" nonsense.
Yeah, well, I don't think most of these people need any excuses to try and get power, Cjhsa.
It doesn't really matter what brought them out into the fore, just that they are here, they are crazy, and they aren't going to go away.
Cycloptichorn
blueveinedthrobber wrote:it's always down to the queers innit?
IMO in this case they haven't helped matters any.
They can hardly be said to be responsible...
I mean, damn them and their foolish quest for rights! Look at all the trouble they have caused!
Perhaps it is the homophobia displayed by the Christianists that causes more of the trouble, eh?
Cycloptichorn
As they say, you reap what you sow.
personally, I think everyone should stop saying sarcastic statements are irrelevant to this topic. The kids just showed that suffering in many countries is DUE to starvation, so, how can we justifyable STARVE a living human being? And, yes, I know the counter argument of "she can't feel it," but seriously, How do we know? And if we did for sure, and felt that death for her was human, why not do it quickly, in a way that we are sure is painless?
I posted my 1-cent solution on page 2.
We don't allow doctors to Euthanize in this country is why we don't use the 1-cent solution.
As for this,
We know that certain parts of the brain control cognition and thought. We know that Terri doesn't have those parts of her brain any longer.
Cerebrocrat wrote:
Quote:
But there's something being lost in this discussion of brain imaging methods. The fact that an MRI would give a better structural picture of Terri Schiavo's brain does not at all mean that the existing CAT scan isn't good enough for present purposes. I see much serious armchair scan-reading in this thread that signals ignorance of the subject. Let me tell you: if you are sufficiently familiar with brains and brain images, you do not need an MRI to tell you how severely the brain in the pictured CAT scan is damaged, nor do you need to see more slices than the one depicted here. This single image shows a very severely damaged brain. The large "blue blobs" in the middle are ventricles, also present in healthy brains (you can see the two little dark crescent shapes in the brain on the right) that have expanded to such a large size because the overall brain volume is so low. Cranial space that would otherwize have been filled by gray matter is now filled with cerebrospinal fluid. And yes, that's what the blue space is: cerebrospinal fluid that is filling up space left behind by necrotic brain tissue that has been scavenged and removed by the body. The white squiggly things are white matter - connective tracts that have the loose, uncoiled look about them that they do because, again, the grey matter that once compressed them is no longer there, so they "float" loosely in CSF. The gigantic ventricles, expanded white matter, and undifferentiated blue space in that scan all point to the same thing: massive loss of grey matter in the cerebral cortex. You don't need an MRI to tell you that, it's clearly visible in the CAT scan.
It is true that given the poor resolution of this image, it's possible that some cortical tissue has been spared. But that doesn't matter. Whatever wisps of cortex we might be missing in this image are not enough to sustain behaviors that could differentiate Terri Schiavo from any other vertebrate. All the neural equipment you need to do ocular following and emotional responses is subcortical. All the neural equipment you need to be a self-aware, reasoning, behaving human being is cortical. And since i gather this image was made some time ago, the present condition of the brain can only be worse.
There is no way any qualified brain doctor or scientist could look at this image and suggest that significant recovery of function is possible. The fact that we could have all this discussion on the subject is a triumph of politics over science. Tragic for Terri Schiavo, and really for us all.
Cycloptichorn
