(no subject)

[crankylex]

If the amount of attention that is being focused on the Schiavo case were to be focused on a cause that involved people not in a persistent vegetative state, something useful might actually get done.

Instead, the President of the United States is now involved in keeping this woman in that same persistent vegetative state for the rest of eternity.

Let it be known here and now that if I should happen to fall into an irreversible coma or vegetative state, I do not want to be kept alive. I don't want a ventilator, I don't want a feeding tube. I don't want to be shocked back into life when my heart fails. I will already be gone. Let the husk go.

This is why everyone should have a living will. If the right to die offends your religious beliefs, you check off the box that say you want all means of life support provided. I have no religious beliefs to offend, so I would like the ability to choose for myself what happens to me.

I can't imagine what it must be like for her parents, but this isn't doing them any good either. Not only is there no closure for them, there is no hope for it. With her body maintained artificially, she might outlive them. And then what happens?

It's a sad, sad situation all around, but the last person that needs to be involved in it is George W. "OMGLIFEATALLCOSTSEVENIFITSNOTREALLYLIVING" Bush.

Comments

[burningeden.livejournal.com]

Heya Lovely.

I was all for letting her die peacefully until I went to her website and looked at the videos.

http://www.terrisfight.net/

She's *so* not brain dead. Brain *damaged*, yes, but she laughs, she hums, she smiles at her mother's jokes and she nods her head or shakes it. She likes balloons and she loves being read to. When you stop she puts up a fuss.

I don't agree with starving someone. If they want to kill her they need to do it in a humane way.

[ragingpixie.livejournal.com]

YOU. YOU ARE THE SENDER OF JEWELRY THAT MAKES ME CRY AND ADORNS MY WRIST AT THIS VERY MOMENT.

YOU ARE MY MUFFIN FOREVER.

[crankylex.livejournal.com]

Did you like it, even though it was OMG SO GAY?

[margotlefaye.livejournal.com]

Ummm. Sorry, but no matter what it looks like, persons in a persistent vegetative state are incapable of cognitively making the responses mentioned above, that is, of consciously responding to the stimulation described, and Schiavo has been diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state. However, there are reflexive or involuntary responses that can mimic sentient responses.

Unlike people in a coma (who may, upon waking up, remember what people said to them while they were unconscious) people in a PVS are no longer capable of cognitive functions. But, they have wake-sleep cycles, which people in comas don’t have. People in a PVS can laugh, smile, grimace and appear to be responding to the people around them. Relatives are often convinced their loved one is looking at them, paying attention to them, responding to them. But they aren’t.

Here’s a link to an article on PVS and Coma from the National Institute of Neurological Disorder and Stroke:

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/coma/coma.htm

And, here’s a news article by a science writer for the Associated Press which has been published in both the San Francisco Chronicle and the Kansas City Star. The article is specifically about the false hopes families have when they see these reflexive responses, including Schiavo’s:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/03/21/national/a171007S88.DTL

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/politics/11194029.htm

Note that a court-appointed doctor, that is, one who is independent of both the husband and the parents, has stated that her responses are simply reflexes.

Here is the sad and terrible truth: Schiavo has the kind of brain damage (due to lack of oxygen) and has been in it long enough, that she's not going to get better. Again, she's not in a coma, PVS is different. Her parents and their supporters refuse to believe this. Her parents and their supporters take these random responses, these physical, non-cognitive reflexes, as signs of an awareness that Just. Isn’t. There. That’s the reason why the courts keep upholding her husband’s right to make the decision to let her die in much more peace than continuing as a vegetable is going to allow her. The Republican congress which is interfering in her husband’s rights--in her rights, actually--is a congress that is unscrupulously and unconscionably making political hay out of a devastating personal tragedy. The memo they circulated put the lie to their supposed noble intentions. This is a way to look good to the right-to-life groups and make the democrats look bad. Another terrible reality: most of these SOBs know that it won’t change a f***ing thing. They know that any court that reviews the facts is going to continue to find that the medical evidence is that she’s not going to recover, that her parents are deluding themselves, and that there was no violation of Terri Schiavo’s constitutional rights. That, after all, is the basis of the law passed by Congress: they are simply saying that a Federal court should review what the Florida courts have done to ensure that neither her constitutional rights nor her rights as a U.S. citizen are being violated. Meaning, the Federal judge isn’t necessarily going to hear the whole case all over again, just make sure that Terri Schiavo’s rights weren’t violated--which I would have thought seven years of adjudication, decisions and appeals which ended in upholding the decisions would have established.

So, the ultimate sad and terrible truth is this: the only result of this legislative circus is that this poor woman is going to be forced back onto a feeding tube which will inevitably be withdrawn again, all so that a bunch of cynical politicians can look good to their constituents. They aren’t saving her life, they are prolonging her suffering, mostly for political gain.

P.S.: as I was getting ready to hit the "Post Comment" button, there was a news report that the Federal Judge now hearing this case has said he is not convinced that he should order the hopsice to reinsert her feeding tube.

[syzylynx.livejournal.com]

I saw a snip on the Daily Show that had a congresswoman stating that as governor, Bush signed into law (over the objections of the parents involved) legislation that resulted in removing a feeding tube from a six month old infant. I could go on about what a two-faced hypocritical scumbag he is, but I'd be singing to the choir. I'm just disgusted with the people who buy his "pro-life" bullshit when he executed more people than any other governor in history and had no problem killing 100,000 Iraqis. HATEHATEHATEHATEHATE.

People should be outraged by the blatant manipulation of our government and legal system. One day they'll wake up and it will be too late because we're already fucked as it is.

[ragingpixie.livejournal.com]

IT IS IN NO WAY SO GAY. IT IS PERFECT AND BEAUTIFUL, LIKE OUR LOVE.

[burningeden.livejournal.com]

Ummmm, sorry, but nothing will make me change my mind about starving someone to death. Nothing. If they were giving her a lethal injection I would not utter one sound of contempt because that is *humane* and over fairly quickly. Starvation can take up to two weeks. Have you ever seen someone who was removed from a feeding tube? I have. Twice.

By day three, their lips begin to crack open and bleed. When they moisten their lips (or maybe it's not even an actual attempt because they aren't cognizant, but work with me here), you notice a thick white coating on their swollen tongue and the smell is atrocious. By day six, their tongue is so swollen that it lolls from their mouth, but there is no drool because there is no moisture.

I watched my grandmother suffer for fifteen days before she finally died. She was in a coma, caused by a stroke, but she could still breathe on her own. They assured us that she'd never wake up again and that her quality of life had ended. By the second day, even though they had provided her with a steady drip of morphine, I could hear her stomach rumbling and she'd make pained grunts every time it happened. My uncle and I had serious discussions about smothering her or injecting her with something to end her suffering, but neither of us fancied a life in prison. So we watched. And we waited. And we hoped that it would be over soon.

She died covered in blood from her nose, her lips, and her eyesockets. The doctor explained something about lack of fluid causing your blood to basically *boil* from your body when you die, but I never understood it. All I saw was my grandmother, the same one who cooked us Thanksgiving dinner, being starved to death until she died.

It's not humane. It's not painless or pretty.

She deserves better than that. I don't care what's wrong with her. She deserves to die in peace and not after two weeks of starvation.

[margotlefaye.livejournal.com]

I am terribly sorry for the ordeal that your family endured with your grandmother's passing. If any of the arguments had focused on the apparent cruelty of death by starvation and dehydration, your eloquent testimony might well have persuaded me to your point of view.

But, those aren't the points that are being argued in the courts or in Congress. Those aren’t even the points Terri Schiavo’s parents are arguing. The arguments have been about who has guardianship, what were her wishes, what is the possibility of recovery. The courts have consistently found that her husband has guardianship, that she would not wish to continue as she is, that there is no realistic possibility of recovery. (Another irony: here’s a link to a paper which includes discussion of the research possibilities. Some of them involve fetal brain tissue grafts. Which, of course, our current Congress and President would never approve. Finally, the author of the paper believes that the ethical controversies surrounding PVS are actually deflecting money away from the research that might provide hope for recovery from PVS, hope which, in the current state of medicine, does not exist. http://www.cwu.edu/~chem/courses/Chem564/finalpapers/PVSfinal.html )

I agree that there are no good choices here. But, the point is that it is Terri Schiavo’s husband and her doctors who have the right to make those choices, that the courts have consistently upheld those rights, and that the move of Congress and the President (again, they have only empowered the Federal courts to ensure that Terri. Schiavo’s constitutional rights and rights as a U.S. citizen have not been infringed) was motivated largely by a cynical desire to look good to their conservative power base rather than a belief that their actions will do anything that will change the outcome for this poor woman.

The Federal judge who refused to reinstate her feeding tube declined to do so in part because replacing the tube would require surgery. She is particularly vulnerable to complications from surgery because of her medical condition. And it would be insanely cruel to inflict that surgery upon her if, as is almost inevitable, the tube is ultimately going to be ordered withdraw one more time (it would be the fourth, by the way, if it is reinserted and removed).

Because of the nature of her brain damage, I don’t know whether Mrs. Schiavo actually feels any pain at this point. If she does, I don’t know if the death you describe will b e worse than, or not as bad as, the pain of the muscle, joint and bone deformities (visible in the video clips that are being shown) her condition engenders, and which will only worsen over time. We don’t know. We can’t know. I do know that Congress and the President had no business second guessing the decisions of the doctors, her husband, and the courts.

Again, I’m sorry for your pain and that of your family. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Neither would I wish what is currently happening to Terry Schiavo on anyone.

[margotlefaye.livejournal.com]

As an evangelical Christian, I stongly suspect that George W. Bush is the Antichrist and that the Rapture will be starting shortly.

And no, that is not a joke.

[crankylex.livejournal.com]

WE ARE OUR OWN OTP.