Terry Schiavo

What is everybody's opinion on this situation?

Yesterday, Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was removed. She will now die in agony as she starves to death for what could be a long and painful period of as long as 2 weeks. I think this is sick and totally inhumane, as this woman isn't even in a coma or on life support. She is paralyzed from the neck down and suffers brain damage. She is able to non-verbally communicate with her family and responds to them being in the room with her. Despite this, her estranged husband wants to see her put to death. He claims she wouldn't want to live like this, despite claims from friends and family who have said otherwise.

To some people this is a religious issue. To me, it's an issue of inhumanity. This woman is obviously at least semi-conscious of her surroundings, thus able to feel pain. Imagine having to starve to death and not being able to do anything about it because you're paralyzed and can't talk or thoroughly communicate.

How sick can these people get?

Some people might say, "But, I wouldn't want to live like that."

Well, this isn't you and this woman has no legal documentation or will stating what she would want in a situation like this. I don't think it's right to play god with someone who isn't dying, especially if that person doesn't have the ability to have a say in it.

Where does the government come off allowing this sort of thing to go on? It just shows you how dysfunctional everything has become in the world. It's a desensitization of sorts.

Now, this woman will die at her estranged husband's request, then he will collect the rest of her money that would have went into her treatment. Like I said, he is estranged from this woman and has since remarried and had 2 kids. Why should he have more say than over her own parents, who want her alive?

I think this is just sick. They wouldn't treat a dog this way.

 

I do not understand how her own parent's decision in the matter is outweighed by her ex husband (whom, unless they have children together, should no longer be a part of her life). Under different circumstances (i.e. life support), this outcome may prove to be somewhat logical (though I am not quite sure I agree with that in some senses). However, for a woman who is still alive and breathing on her own, her death will be murder on the part of the judge who allowed this to take place. Cruel, inhumane, and utterly intolerable.

 

The parents will go to their graves bitter.

it's a shame.

 

I don't think they made the right decision but it could be argued that keeping her alive is playing god as well.

 

I think you both have misread Matt's post. The fact is that she is not dying! She was not on life support, she was not in a coma and she does not have a terminally ill disease. She is merely paralyzed and has brain damage. The only thing they are removing is her feeding tube. However, since she is paralyzed, she cannot feed herself. Without the tube, she will die.

The judge is not ordering that the life support plug be pulled on a woman who is in the final agonizing stages of cancer. They are pulling out the feeding tube on a woman who is incapable of feeding herself due to her paralysis. They are committing murder by denying her access to food.

 

she's brain dead i doubt she gives a fuck what happens to her, she doesnt even know what the fucks going on

 

Last night I was watching Fox news and the man they were interviewing said she will fall asleep into a peaceful coma.

Yes I think it is inhumane the way they are going to let her die. That is so wrong but I also think it is wrong to keep her alive. After 13 years she has been like this. She will not be getting any better. She can't even talk. She can't leave the hospital because there is a tube in there that has been feeding her for 13 years. That doesn't seem humane to me.



I've never suffered the loss of a child. My heart goes out to her parents who have to stand by and watch their daughter suffer like this. I wouldn't wish this on anyone.

 

Let's get this down straight. There is a tube feeding her which means she might partially be on somekind of life support because she probably can't chew her food even if someone did feed her like a baby. I wonder if someone pinched her if she would feel it? Yes she is alive, but does she show a state of reasoning. doubt it. I doubt she would want this all to be on T.V. I can't know what she would do, but I would want my family to go on with THEIR lives and not be tied to me, to keep them tied to me would be selfish. Yes it does seem inhumane, but our world is inhumane and always has been. PPL get killed and die everyday most are brutally murdered atleast they are and have been considering this womans situation for 13 years. Her parents say that she on occasion responds to them. That to me sounds like selective reception hearing and seeing what you want to or what makes and complies with your point of view. Yes, she might have pulled through this or someone could come out with a miracle drug the day after she dies, but these things are unlikely. Plus the NEWS only feeds us what they think will stir emotions in us. We do not know everthing about this story and never will. Finally the day after this story ends we will all say a few words about it and go on with our lives. :X

 

dickydoo I think you said it perfectly. I was going to say selfish but I didn't. It does seem selfish to keep her alive under these conditions. Her parents don't want to let go. Understandable to some degree but it's selfish for them to keep her alive like this so they can keep looking at her daily.

 

She may not be on life-support, but the doctors have said (and have BEEN SAYING for ages) that she is completely, and totally, brain-dead. What her parents think they are seeing is what they want to see - I can't exactly blame them for that. But to keep a woman alive, who isn't even aware of what's going on around her, seems cruel as well.

The big problem here though, is not the right-to-die people vs. the that-murder people. It's about the people who DON'T have their wishes expressed, legally, in writing. If she had done that, either together with her husband or by herself, this whole mess would have been avoided. My brother and I have already done ours...yah we're young, but things happen.

All of you go do this now...I don't wanna see YOU on the news as well.

 

I followed this case quite closely when I lived in Florida, it was on the news practically everyday.

I'm somewhat on the fence with this one. Really to me the issue is whether or not her husband is telling the truth regarding what he says his wife voiced she would want if this were to happen. No one will ever know what she truly wanted.

A less publicized case was concerning a baby in Texas last week, where a hospital decided to allow a baby to die, despite the wishes of the child's mother. The hospital deemed the child's condition fatal. Still ver sad though

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/03/15/lifesupport.baby.ap/



On a personal note, my best friends father was on life support for two months after a car accident. Three times the family was brought in for last rights as the hospital didn't beleive that he would make it through the night. What if the hospital decided to remove him from life support?

That was six years ago and today this man is living a healthy normal life outside of needing the use of a cane to help him get around.

 

There was a program not too long ago on the Discovery Health Channel about a man who was in a coma for nineteen years. Despite what his doctors claimed, he awoke. He has slurred speech from being asleep so long and believes that he is still nineteen years old. However, with the use of speech and physical therapy, he could make a full recovery.

 

I wouldnt even consider myself remotely qualified to make a decision like that. But i think that if she had no thought and feelings, then ok, but if she recognized people and stuff, then no

 

I haven't really looked into this case that much. But I do think ew should all go and write down stuff like that because you never know what might happen.

 

It is an interesting case and I am glad you brought it up Pressed Rat. The implications of the decision to let her die are relevant to a number of major discussions that occur throughout this forums regularly.

Super_Grrl raises what most would argue is the strongest case for letting this woman die. She told us that

Super_grrl argued, though, that the problem was about the necessity of having your will in wishes in writing. I have to disagree. I have experienced two instances of people (relatively close to me) who have made it absolutely clear that, in the instance that they developed cancer, they would refuse treatment, as such treatment would only sustain a miserable life. They both developed a cancer and were quick to fly south of the border because the wait for treatment was too long in Canada.

The problem with having your previous wishes being the determining factor in such a situation is the necessary ignorance to current wishes. Circumstances can change minds and wishes.

The problem inherent in this situation is whether it is crueler to let a person in such a state continue living, or whether it is cruel to eliminate life regardless of circumstance. I would argue that the implications of admitting that this life is not worth living are dangerous and are distantly akin, in justification, to that of any attempted genocide throughout history.

The ability to determine whether it is cruel to let someone in such and such conditions continue to live can only be arrived at through arbitrary means.

To put it quite simply, there is no way of determining what is necessary for life to be worth living. If we admit that it is cruel to allow a woman with brain damage who can not eat by her own power, then we have set precedent on which to justify the euthanising of ‘every’ person in similar circumstances, regardless of any expressed wishes.

That implication is based on the idea, regardless of personal opinion, that we, as a society, do not allow people to do cruel things. The wish for life, by a person in these circumstances, would be equated with the wish of a pervert to rape a child.

We do not allow cruelty.
If we decide that it is cruel to force life on someone with debilitating disabilities, then we must not allow anyone who has debilitating disabilities to live.

That would be my primary argument. Not only does such admittance, that it is cruel to let such a person live, allow for those who wish to live not to live, but it opens the door for further categorization of life as unworthy. The line will be set in stone now, but as we all know, lines get broken everyday. It won’t be long before we have decided that it would be cruel to let AIDS patients live, and cancer patients. How long would it be before anyone with cerebral palsy, or down syndrome, was categorized as unfit life on the basis of cruelty?

Not only that, but the role of genetic human modification would be strengthened. If it is cruel to have debilitating disabilities, than ought we not research and legislate genetic modification in order that those disabilities are eliminated?

Once that door is opened than we run into the problem of the ‘cruelty’ of leaving things up to chance. Natural birth could conceivably become ‘cruel’ because it leaves the possibility of debilitating disabilities open. It all seems a little far-fetched, but you have to remember that there is a reason that we say all human life is equal.

Appealing as the ‘right to die’ may be, I suggest that the implications are actually considered before we jump on board.

 

I think it is cruel. It has been said by people other than her family that she responds to stimuli. Her husband should just find a way to divorce her. Oh and he should have to go without food for at least two weeks.

 

At least you know that they are still married. Yes, he has a new women in his life and children, but he has NOT remarried as PR inaccurately posted. He is her guardian, the courts have not ruled that the parents should take over that guardianship. It is a very good example of why we should put our wishes in writing, not relying on telling your sig other verbally and thinking that will take care of it. Because if her husband is telling the truth, she did not want to live this way and now has for 15 years!

 

You are right. He is not remarried. He might as well be, though. He's been living with this other woman for years and has fathered two of her children.

 

kinda reminds me of that metallica video for "one" from the and justice for all album. I dont know what movie the clips come from, exactly..... but that guy was paralyzed, could not speak as well, so the only thing he could do was communicate through morse code....... his code was "S.O.S. please kill me"

 

This thread was bringing the same imagery up for me, too. I spent so much time in a hospital once - I can't imagine living life like that for years. Well, not really a life as much as an existence.

P.S. I think the "movie clip" was made for the video. I thought the same thing at first, too. It was very well done.