1. They disconnect her feeding tube to put her out of her misery. It's rather disgusting that the most humane way they're allowed to end her life is to starve her to death - this in a place where murderers and rapists on death row get a lethal injection!
2. The courts are even considering taking her parents' wishes over her husband's wishes. To me, a large part of the purpose of being married is to make one's spouse one's official legal next-of-kin. If a person wanted their parents to be their next-of-kin, they could simply not get married. The act of marriage is a very deliberate choice to give one's spouse precedence, no matter what. This is an issue about which I feel rather strongly, as my parents and I disagree on some fundamental aspects, while mi cielito's feelings on the matter are closer to my own. Even if my wishes weren't respected, I would not mind that much being kept alive if mi cielito needed me to be, because I love him that much. But, to be perfectly blunt, I don't love my parents that much, and I wouldn't want them to be allowed to override my wishes when I've taken specific measures to avoid allowing them to do so.
I would be interested in seeing a wide-ranging poll with both general results and results broken down into demographic categories, asking the two following questions:
1. If you were in Terri Schiavo's position, would you want to live or die?
2. If you found yourself incapacitated and no one knew what your wishes were, would you rather your spouse or your parents make the decisions?
9 comments:
1. They aren't really putting Terri Schiavo "out of her misery." She's incapable of suffering because much of her cerebral cortex has atrophied and been replaced by spinal fluid.
2. The courts had already decided this case. The politicians and some of their constituents are the ones considering her parents' wishes. As I understand it, the trials didn't deal with weighing her parents' wishes against those of her spouse. All the court did was try to figure out what Terri Schiavo would have wanted. If she'd left a will stating that she didn't want to be on life support, no one's wishes could have interfered with that.
It's all can get very complicated. Note to anonymous one.
Of course they dealt with her parents wishes and her husbands wishes and say as much in your next sentence. Each party is interpreting what Terri would want.
ALso, you don't need a will to make your wishes known you can do that with a health proxy.
Yes, the judges dealt with her parents' and spouse's wants, but I didn't say they didn't. What I said is that the trials didn't deal with weighing one wish against the other. The goal was to discern Terri Schiavo's wishes, not to determine who had the right to decide her fate.
No, you don't need a will to make your wishes known. You also don't need a health proxy, a power of attorney, or a notary public. Even a short videotaped statement would have helped avoid this mess.
And to Susu: If you agree that Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state, as defined by medical science, you also agree that she is not mentally aware at any time and is therefore incapable of suffering. This is not a cognitive mind trapped in an inert body. She may look like she's awake and responsive at times, but that's an illusion created, in part, by wishful thinking and our pattern seeking tendencies. We see her smiling with her eyes open and assume she's in there somewhere, but the CAT scans show that her cerebral cortex, where all higher brain functions take place, is basically gone.
For the Googlers: click here for some poll results like I mentioned in the original post.
For Anonymous: so what's your stance on this issue? I'm confused. I think you're also saying that important parts of her brain have turned into non-functional mush (I could be wrong about this - I haven't yet found a definition of cerebral cortex that is simple enough for me to understand). But then it seems like you're saying that because her brain is non-functional mush, she can't feel pain and therefore doesn't need to be put out of her misery. But if her brain is, in fact, non-functional mush, why would there even be a point in keeping her alive, whether she feels pain or not?
to Impudent Strumpet:
Yes, important parts of her brain are non-functional mush, so her misery isn't an issue. My stance is that her death is for the best. Keeping Terri Schiavo's essentially headless body alive for fifteen years is grotesque and has caused inestimable damage to the lives of everyone intimately involved with her. If she'd died in a cut and dried fashion, her family could have healed, and memories of her would persist. As it is now, those memories of a vibrant woman have been supplanted by broken hopes, misdirected hatred, political and religious opportunism, and the blank faced waste mill that her body has become. She should be put out of her family's misery.
to SuSu:
>...you are throwing a term like "cerebral
>cortex" out there to sound intelligent...
If it made me seem pretentious, I apologize. I thought it was a common English term.
>"cerebral cortex" is in fact
>its the outer layer of gray
>matter of the cerebral
>hemispheres.
The cortex is the outermost part, and it does consist of neuron layers. But calling it "the outer layer" is misleading. Although it's thin, it accounts for much of the brain's mass because of the way it's folded. It isn't just a covering for the cerebral hemispheres; it is a significant portion of them and is the seat of all sensory processing, motor control, and thought.
>To say that her "cerebral
>cortex" is fluid filled is true...
Spinal fluid may permeate the tissues, but I don't think "fluid filled" is an accurate description. Anyway, my point was that Terri Schiavo's brain has shrunk, and fluid has filled the resulting space.
>It is not "spinal fluid"...that is different.
>...inside the brain in the ventricular system
>is the choroid plexus and that secretes CSF
>(cerebrospinal fluid)...
Cerebrospinal fluid and spinal fluid are the same.
>there are 3 distinct types
>of "cerebral cortex"
In modern humans, there's one type of cerebral cortex.
>Her Brodmann's area is clearly undamaged,
>as Shiavo is able to make eye contact...
To which area are you referring? I don't think it's safe to say that any of her cortical tissue, much less an entire area, is "clearly undamaged." That's unknown, as far as I know. And she isn't able to make eye contact.
>...Shiavo is able to make eye contact
>and eye movement in response to stimuli.
I've seen the video clip of her eyes tracking the balloon, and I've heard her parents say that she responds to their voices. Go back to what I said about "wishful thinking" and "pattern seeking tendencies." The media keeps airing the balloon clip, but it turns out that those few seconds were edited from many hours of footage that show her to have no cognitive responses whatsoever. According to the doctors who testified, she is not able to make eye contact. Her eye movement is involuntary.
>CAT scans are useful (obviously)..
>but more to see changes in the structures
>such as shrinkage...
People like to separate mind and body. If chunks of your brain have withered, that will affect (and possibly eliminate) your thought patterns. Mind is body.
>...brain scans of people with Alzheimer's,
>shizophrenia and dyslexia can be
>compared to "normal"' brains.
Schizophrenia doesn't show up in any kind of physical test.
>MRIs are what they use in Shiavo's case.
I don't know if an MRI scan has been used. People are complaining that it hasn't. But that's like looking at a woman who's nine months into pregnancy and demanding that she undergo ultrasound tests to prove that she's pregnant. The CAT scan shows an "empty" area in her skull. When the doctors see that and then observe her directly, there's no need to do an MRI scan. If one has been performed, it was probably done shortly after she fell unconscious, before they were absolutely sure about her condition.
>...if she can respond to different types
>of stimuli..it is POSSIBLE for her to
>have a level of mental alertness....
You can respond to stimuli without being aware. Cells do it. A fresh corpse will respond to electrical stimuli. Yes, it's possible that she's aware, but the probability is so low that it's practically nonexistent. It's safe to say, with a high degree of certainty, that Terri Schiavo has no idea what's happening. She has no ideas at all.
So it sounds like everyone here agrees on what should be done, there are just differing opinions on how mushy her brain is. :)
You're wrong, SuSu. Schizophrenia doesn't show up in urine or blood, and it can't be diagnosed with a brain scan. There have been studies that show enlarged ventricles in the brains of people who've been diagnosed with schizophrenia. But, of the test subjects, a substantial number of schizophrenics didn't have enlarged ventricles, and a substantial number of people with enlarged ventricles weren't schizophrenic. If you were to give ten corpses to a neurologist (five of them healthy and five of them schizophrenic) he or she would not be able to tell you which ones had the disease.
But on corpses, nothing is going to light up in a brain scan, right?
If you're talking about neural activity, you're right. But you don't need that if you're scanning for structural differences.
And I may have been unclear when I said schizophrenia can't be diagnosed with a brain scan. Some diseases that affect behavior and thought, such as syphilis and meningitis, can be detected in a lab. When diagnosing schizophrenia, physical tests may be applied to rule out problems for which we have conclusive physical evidence.
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