Comments on this thread are closed, because the thread has gotten too long. If you want to make further comments, or reply to something you’ve read here, please do so on the new thread. Thanks.

I realize that all we have to go on here is hearsay, but it makes me nervous. It would make me nervous in any court case: I’m really wary of convictions based only on eyewitness testimony, too.

And secondly, the courts don’t float above society: they’re subject to the same prejudices as everyone else. And one of those prejudices is a widespread belief that some lives are not worth living, that some people are just empty husks who are a burden on society, that medical care is a zero-sum game, and if we keep those people alive, we’re taking treatment away from someone more deserving. When judges weigh evidence, they have those prejudices in the back of their minds. I don’t have a lot of faith in the courts as neutral actors here. And given that they are biased, in the ways that everyone is biased, I tend to think we should err on the side of not killing people.

It seems to me that the people who want that feeding tube re-connected take one of two positions, and sometimes both:

1. They think Terri has a duty to live that transcends what she would have wanted, as you say, or in the alternative, a duty to follow the speaker’s position on this instead of her own, and/or

2. They think the court was wrong about what she wanted, for a variety of reasons, either that Judge Greer is a vulture or that Michael Schiavo has evil eyes or whatever.

Both positions can be defended, but I’d like to see a defense up-front.

As for thinking the court was wrong, I donno. I disagree with a lot of court decisions (especially when I lose!), but that’s the way we do things here, and for obvious reasons we don’t re-litigate things just because the loser is unhappy with the outcome. All the appellate courts are convinced that Judge Greer did a responsible job. I’d invite skeptics to read the Second District’s first opinion (available at abstract appeal, cited above) on this matter. What’s the theory here? That all the state and federal judges who’ve reviewed this are vultures? This wades us deep into conspiracy theory, deeper than I personally wish to go.

If you think Terri has a duty to live regardless of what she thinks, or that your opinion is to be preferred to hers, I’d be interested in hearing why.

I’ve begun a new thread for continued comments. If you want to add a comment or respond to a comment, please follow this link and continue the discussion there.

And by the way, thanks for the excellent, informative blog.

[Thank you! And thanks for letting me know about the open blockquote tag - I've fixed it! --Amp]

You don’t need a ton of programming skill to do this. If you are running on a Linux/Unix machine there is a simple way to write a server side redirect in a text editor that is a single line. Windows - can’t help ya there other than to sugget that you move :)

Otherwise, just put the link to the new page at the very top of this old one. Just go way up the code in the same way you take out the quote tags until you get to the first page tag and write the link directly after.

Reading the record can be helpful because it makes clear that the courts bent over backwards to give the Schindlers an opportunity to make their case.

But if you are saying, as it seems to me that you might be, that Terri has a duty to live that transcends what she would have wanted, then I clearly disagree with you. As with citing international declaration of human rights to food and water, all I can say is that there are also human rights to be free of unwanted state intrusion.

I am not in a position to comment as a general matter on whether one should trust nurses over doctors, like all things, I am sure that it depends on the circumstances. I have had encounters with nurses and technicians who thought they knew much more than they actually did.

However, one more try. Terri wanted that feeding tube disconnected. A court of law has found that, by “clear and convincing evidence.” That court has been sustained on appeal on occasions now beyond count. Properly speaking, Michael Schiavo has nothing to do with it now: everything that is happening is happening by court order because:

1. Terri wanted it this way, and
2. Our legal system is prepared to honor her wishes in this matter. Regardless of what her parents think, by the way.

This is not a new legal doctrine. The right to refuse medical treatment, even essential and life-saving medical treatment, comes down to us from the deeps of time in this culture.

Those of you disagree with this action in Terri’s case should explain - now, before you go back to telling us what evil eyes Michael Schiavo has, and such nonsense - why you think your opinion should be followed whereas Terri’s opinion should be ignored.

Amp, is there any way you can do something like ‘go to last read’ on threads like this? This thread is so long you need to stop for food and water on the way to the bottom.

No, I can’t, not at my (nonexistant) level of programming skill.

I could close this thread and create a new thread for continuing discussion. Would that do?

I am not argueing whether or not they are fair and balanced.

Some people have made a big deal of a supposed contadiction between statements that Terri Schiavo should be feeling no pain and the reports that she has been given morphine (apparently small doses, twice).

Could one of the participating medical professionals discuss this? Someone told me that it was for breathing distress, rather than pain. Is that correct?

From an article in the New York Post:

Some Schindler family supporters condemned the use of morphine. “If Terri’s death is painless, why is she on morphine?” read one sign held by a man outside the Woodside Hospice yesterday.

Schiavo has received two small doses of the opiate since the feeding tube was removed … not for pain, but to ease convulsions, according to medical experts.

I found this story interesting.
I think it is important to note, as well, that it is from Fox News, who has been accused ( right or wrong ) of being right wing.

Faux News is not just right wing, they are the right wing’ s publicity arm. They’re so right wing that they make moderate conservatives embarrassed. They twist, spin and mutilate the news to give it a right wing slant. Anybody who thnks Faux News is fair and balanced has pretty much demonstrated their sourcing standards. Watch ‘Outfoxed’. But expect to get asked for a different source if you cite Faux News.

Amp, is there any way you can do something like ‘go to last read’ on threads like this? This thread is so long you need to stop for food and water on the way to the bottom.

Also, a bit of further medical information re Terri’s level of discomfort. Terri is not free from conditions that, if she did feel pain, would be causing her pain right now. She has had for at least several years severely cramped and atrophied muscles, particularly in her hands, feet, and lower limbs. Those who focus relentlessly on how natural a feeding tube is apparently don’t make the connection between input and output, which must also be dealt with “medically.” Indeed, Terri Schiavo was at one point located to her home, where, after three weeks, her family acknowledged that her needs were “overwhelming” and she was returned to institutional care.

As someone who has had to make life-and-death decisions about the medical care of a loved one, I really appreciate what you said about it being a day-by-day thing.

I have to ask you, Robin, what exactly would you need to hear from a nurse or caregiver that would compromise your understanding that Terri’s cerebral cortex is GONE?

Lets start with the fact that I, too, am a medical professional. I happen to be a medical professional that has spent a time in a coma (enough to get me killed under that 10 day law in Texas) and been determined “hopeless.” BEFORE I became a medical professional.

I also happen to have spent virtually all of my adult life prior to that time dealing with a severely disabled child and a mother who had multiple cerebral hemorrages - back in the old days. My mother was the first adult to ever survive more than one cerebral hemorrage, the first adult to have a shunt implanted and the first human to try several experimental drugs that are standard therapy today. My mother was in a “vegetative” state for some time - back before there was no diagnosis for such.

So, there are some things I know both academically and from real time experience.

One of the things I can tell you from real-world experience is that an MD does NOT make you God. In point of fact, even the very best of them (and there are fewer of those than you think) make mistakes - critical mistakes. All too many of them are little better than quacks that I would not allow to treat my stuffed rabbit. But even the very best of neurologists has absolutely no real clue as to whether or not Terri is present inside that head or not. NOBODY on the face of this earth can say with any degree of certainty that Terri is “gone.”

Another thing that I can tell you is that there is not a single doctor in any field that does not rely almost entirely on the nursing staff - including the lowly CNA - for virtually all of his day-to-day observations of a patient’s condition. That is why each and every member of a nursing staff is required to document everything under the sun - including their patient interactions. Labs perform the tests - and these days the lab report tells the doctor what the numbers mean. Imaging runs the xrays, CAT, etc. - and most technicians that have been on the job awhile can read the results as well or better than the MD. The pharmacist is in charge of both seeing that your meds do not interact with each other and that you are getting an appropriate therapeutic dose. In this day and age, doctors interpret and co-ordinate. They are NOT “experts” in much. The “experts” are the nurses, the laboratory scientists, the pharmacists.

I would NEVER take the word of an MD over the words of all of the other “experts” - the ones that provide the ongoing care. Particularly not “experts” that will risk their licenses, their very ability to make a living, in order to present a contradictory view.

What I DO know is this: there are hundreds of thousands of patients in this country alone every year that depend for some period of time on a tube for their food and water. The United States Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (both of those are part of the UN agreements http://www.hrweb.org/legal/undocs.html ) ALL state - before nearly anything else - that each and every human being on this planet has a RIGHT TO LIFE without “distinction of any kind’ - INCLUDING STATUS. The Florida Constitution specifically guarantees a right to life to each and every citizen WITHOUT REGARD TO DISABILITY.

Now, before you discount what I am saying and label me a “right to lifer” let me tell you this: I am blue state born, blue state bred and when I get around to it I will be blue state dead. I am NOT Republican - or a Democrat. I am socially liberal about many things. I have been a women’s rights activist for my entire adult life and I’m not exactly young anymore. I am specifically NOT religious and in fact have not set foot in a church other than to attend a wedding or funeral in 30 years. I am a scientist. Some of my ancestors first arrived in this country in the year 1620 on the Mayflower. Others of my ancestors met the boat. I come from generations of people that have fought in every war - sometimes on both sides of the fence - for as long as this nation has existed. I was raised by a woman who was Truman’s librarian and the executive assistant to the Board of Generals. And I am a medical professional as well qualified as most.

Terri Schindler-Schiavo was not, prior to this crime, brain dead. She was not terminally ill in any way whatsoever. She had not, over the period of some 15 years, yet experienced any of the drastic “maybes” sometimes associated with feeding tubes. She is entitled by every treaty on human rights that the United States has ever been a party to to the basic sustenance of life - food and water. Nowhere do any of those agreements and treaties state that you are entitled to food and water only if you can consume them in the usual way. THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS FOR QUALITY OF LIFE OR MENTAL STATUS.

There are doubts in this case - doubts that have been raised and discounted by a single “judge” over and over. Judicial review reviews the procedure, not the findings. No NEW evidence or assessment of Terri’s status has been allowed to be assembled in **years** This CAT scan is a decade or more old.

We do not know everything - or even much on the scale of things - about the neurological system. You may hear nerve cells don’t regenerate, but I can assure you that they do because I am typing with an arm that has been fully functional for nearly 20 years DESPITE a diagnosis of 4 **broken** cervical nerves that led to complete and “unrecoverable” paralysis of my entire upper right quadrant. Note that had Christopher Reeves not acquired an infection, HE was showing great progress towards recovery. And let me point out that my diagnosis took place just a few years before the time that Terri was injured at one of the top medical institutions in the country for such things, using the very latest technology. I was reaching full recovery just as she was being injured.

There is extensive disagreement between the family members in this case. All of Terri’s long time friends and birth family claim that Terri would want to live. All of the people that claim she would want to die are either Michael himself, who has a conflict of interest both in regards to money and the new relationship, or his immediate family. The judge himself has acknowledged that years ago he discounted sworn testimony regarding her wishes given by a party not related to either her family or her husband’s family.

In my opinion - and I have had to make these kinds of judgements for my child, my mother, my self, my great neice and my sister repeatedly over a lifetime - those who state that they believe the husband because they would tell their husband something like this but not their own parents are virtually begging to be left in Terri’s condition. And that circumstance is not the norm. Certainly in my family, despite our many battle, disagreements and resentments, everyone is very aware of what our own, our children’s and our parents wishes are - just in case.

Note also that the judge discounted Terri’s religion - something else she is entitled to. Terri was a practicing Catholic, raised in Catholic schools. The Catholic Church might agree with Terri’s right to refuse medical treatment, but they would judge this action given the present circumstances of her known condition, as *suicide.* She would not even be entitled to last rites! This would be an abomination to every religious teaching Terri ever knew.

Were Terri terminally ill our laws have given the family the right to refuse medical treatment for her. But she is not and has never been terminally ill. The state of her cerebral cortex - whatever that may be at present - renders her DISABLED not dying. She is simply inconvenient.

This is MURDER. This action against this disabled individual is a crime against humanity for which the United States of America can and should be prosecuted in an internaational court of law.

This is an abomination. Since when does the executive branch “obey” the judicial? If that were the case all the people of color in this country would still be slaves! The executive branch exists to act as a check on both the judicial branch and the legislative branch. Both George Bush and Jeb Bush have abandoned their clear, sworn duty to uphold the Constitution.

We do NOT murder the disabled in MY America - even with judicial permission.