Burnt Orange Report

Andrew, I think your reading of this situation is wrong. I encourage you to read this and see what you think about it.

Andrew, you are missing something: Right wingers lie like we breath.

She is brain dead.

She's more than brain dead, she is brain GONE.

She has no cerebrum or cerebellum, they dissolved after the tissue died from lack of oxygen brought on by heart failure.

That's what the CAT scans show.

There is no judgement call here. Her brain is gone.

Here's another one: The money is down to less than $50K, from the hospital bills, and the legal bills (which were approved by a judge).

It's all lies and right wing spin, and you are a fool for taking it at face value.

As to her parents, they can't get their head around the fact that their daughter died because of an electrolyte imbalance brought about by bulimia, and that her bulimia started when she was growing up with them.

They failed in some way as parents, and now their daughter is dead, and they are unable to deal with that, so they are torturing their son-in-law and what remains of their daughter.

Shame on them, and shame on you.

Of course the law is clearly being ignored. 10 years of court cases and multiple rulings from judges in Florida. They've all fucked up. I'm totally sure of it.

God, start a spin-off blog or something. This series is getting painful.

She has no cerebral cortex. NOTHING IS THERE. Certainly her initial care was inappropriate (and a jury found that to be the case in a related medical malpractice proceeding), but her brain has dissolved. Despite the wonders of an MRI, a catscan can tell the difference between solid and liquid.

A trial judge found that she would have wanted the plug pulled consistent with conversations with her husband, though her family testified otherwise. Several courts have had an opportunity to review that finding, including the United States Supreme Court.

I feel badly for everyone involved, and I'm thankful to some respects that her brain is that far gone so she cannot feel pain or ever know what's going on around her.

These are 17 expert affidavits filed by her family. None have examined her, none of them have looked at the scan, and many base their expert opinions on the heavily edited videos provided by her parents. Most of them haven't even looked at her medical records The most expert among these experts is a neurologist who simply says that he'd examine her with MRI technology. Not a single one of these 17 experts say (and this is her family's website, I'd imagine they'd have more) anything about the catscans.

See more here, and more here.

Andrew... you're way off base on this one. The Democratic Party does and should stand up for the weak and downtrodden, but this woman has been brain dead for nearly 15 years. Standing up for her, in my opinion, would be to allow her to rest in peace.

I'm disappointed to see that you, Andrew, are taking the right-wing talking points at face value without engaging in further research. Seriously, Andrew, this is one of your weaker posts.

Andrew, you gotta put down the GOP Kool-Aid! This poor woman has been basically brain dead for 15 years, and the evidence indicates that major parts of her brain have dissolved. Whatever made Terri the woman she was is now gone forever. She has only deteriorated, not improved. Democrats do stand up for the weak, powerless, and voiceless. But doing so now does not include prolonging a horrible family tragedy and cruelly keeping a body alive whose brain is largely gone, but whose soul (one could argue) is still trapped inside. It's time to let Terri rest in peace.

You should know of the lies and distortions that the far right is capable of. That you would take right wing rhetoric at face value without digging deeper is extremely disappointing indeed.

Notwithstanding the attacks on the GOP rhetoric.

None of us would starve / thirst a DOG to death, much less a human being.

You will argue that she is already brain dead and will feel no pain, but you do NOT have first-hand knowledge of that. And if there is even the remotest possibility that this woman will suffer a most horrible and painful death, then I'm rather shocked that the liberals and Democrats will stand by and gravely nod their heads.

Then again, most of you favor hacking little fetuses to death.

sorry. don't know why links didn't work

http://www.terrisfight.org/press/030405medaff.html (17 affidavits)

http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2005/03/red_herrings_17.html (discussion of affidavits)

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2005/03/09/17-medical-affidavits-about-terri-schiavo/ (more discussion of affidavits, the comments are interesting, I think)

I think that there are some profound ethical issues in this particular case given that she doesn't appear to need much more than food, water and turning to stay alive AND the withdawal of food and water will cause a fairly long death, but the mischarictarization of her diagnosis and mental state doesn't help with the dialogue.

The problem is that with Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Health Department, (497 U.S. 261, http://web.utk.edu/~scheb/cruzan.html ), the law is pretty settled in this country as to how we treat patients in a persistent vegetative state if they've made their advance wishes on the subject known. The court in this case found that she would not have wanted to be kept alive by artificial means.

First: Chris, your comment is to assume that she's not in pain now as well. We all have to make some assumptions. Bed sores. No movement. A feeding tube for 15+ years. A few days until passing could very likely be of relief to her. I am a Christian just like many people that cry, plead and protest, and as a Christian, I have great hope from what awaits her when her time here is finishes.

I also believe that there is a clear difference between Kevorkian-style Assisted Suicide and ending artificial life. If you can not eat or drink and was in this condition 100 years--maybe just 50 years ago, she would have passed away some time ago.

Finally, I find it revolting that people like Frist and Martinez et al talk about how we must act immediately to safe this precious human life. What about the thousands, if not millions, of Americans who die because they don't have adequate health care because Congress refuses to act!? If I am to believe that they are so concerned about this life and its potential, I expect to see Dr. Frist introduce national health care legislation very soon!

I work in Skid Row--an area of Los Angeles populated with nearly 50,000 homeless men, women and children. Every day someone dies of something as simple as a cold or minor infection because there is no health care, no elected officials or judges, and no screaming fanatical fundramentalists pleading to save their precious life.

God bless Terry Shiavo, her husband and her parents. I would never wish anyone this kind of grief, but I hope they can find peace in these lasting days. To the cyncical Republicans exploiting tragedy to win a little electoral power, I wish you nothing but restless nights!

I agree that we must protect this woman. We must protect her right to self-determination. Life is not a gift when it is thrust upon us from the outside. No one deserves to be forced to live in a debilitated state. How can we be free if our government can circumvent our will and keep us alive artificially, even if that's precisely what we never wanted?

This case is important, make no doubt about it. It's about whether you or I or anyone else can exert control over our own medical treatment in such cases as we are unable to directly communicate with our doctors. It's also about the legal status of marriage, and what we mean when we legally combine two persons into one in that societal institution.

Terri Schiavo has basically no cerebrum. There is no chance, whatsoever, that she can recover. The reason MRIs were not done is that there's nothing to scan -- the CAT scan showed irreperable damage. Every doctor who has examined her case materials, which is to say every doctor involved in this EXCEPT the quacks testifying for her parents, concurs that there is no hope for recovery. Terri died fifteen years ago. There is no moral imperative to continue to prop up an empty shell.

In absence of Terri's own cognitive abilities, her legal guardian is the person she CHOSE as guardiant through marriage, her husband. This poor man has been through hell and back, and deserves no more scorn, no more recrimination. He is fighting to fulfill his wife's last wishes. He won't "divorce her and leave" because he loves her and wishes to see her wishes fulfilled. If this were about money, he would have cashed out long ago with the big checks offered to him by right-to-life people. That he has not shows a great deal about his character, and his love for his wife.

Terri's parents love their daughter, too. But they've made this whole situation much, much worse. She gurgles and they call it speech. She reacts to their motion and kind voices and they call it recognition. But they have defamed her husband, ignored her wishes, and are now endangering all of our rights to exert control over our own deaths. Simply because they don't want to let go. I empathize with them, but I cannot stand with them.

Favoring life does not mean forcing it upon other people. You are showing the sort of incurious "zeal of the convert" that often accompanies religious transitions, but clearly you're not thinking about this as a big picture. Freedom must include the freedom to die. I go to Church twice a week, my entire worldview has been formed through a Christian conscience. But I cannot agree with your flat assertion that we must prop up Terri's body for as long as the empty vessel continues to respirate.

Also, for those of you who are concerned about her suffering... she will not die of starvation. Due to dehydration, she will experience renal failure as her blood becomes slowly more toxic. People die of this all the time without knowing its happening. Why? Because it doesn't hurt.

It's against the law to starve a family pet to death, why in the world would we allow this to be done to a human being?

She is in for 2 weeks of slow and tortuous death by dehydration. See http://thrownback.blogspot.com for the details.

And yes, it is painful. Try going without water for 3 days and see how you like it. I doubt you could last a day. See http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/370oqiwy.asp?pg=2

At least have the guts to call this what it is - a killing. If there were any actual evidence that Terri wanted to be killed if in this state, fine, show the courts the signed document. The "word" of her faithless husband is meaningless. Her parents want to care for her, and her care would be paid for in full.

If there were any doubt or dispute about her condition (as there clearly is), why not do an MRI and a current CT scan? Why, because her husband wants her to be killed simply because he is tired of dealing with her.

What a sad day.

Thank you, Andrew.

Andrew, I must also agree that you are wrong.

At the core of this is the sanctity of marriage.

Also, you do know that Michael Schiavo has been offered $1 million not to pull the plug? Which he declined on principle?

Read this: http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2005/03/debunking_lies_.html

And this:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7231440/

It's time for the right-to-life absolutists to stop flogging Terri Schiavo's body for political points. It's disgusting.

TM - because it's considered a medical treatment. And people have an absolute right to refuse medical treatment.

The Florida law is that if there is clear and convincing evidence that a person wants to refuse treatment, treatment must not be given. It is a matter of personal liberty and privacy.

Michael Schiavo insists that is what his wife wants, and that's been clear and convincing enough for Florida courts.

The legal theory here is not that Michael is going to starve her. The theory is she is starving herself, per instructions passed through her husband prior to her incapacitation.

At any rate - starvation is really not a painful way to go, according to the medical experts

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Schiavo/story?id=531907&page=1

While i find much of this somewhat horrifying, and am still strongly conflicted about not prolonging misery, i have to wonder what arguments we'd be having if Terri Schiavo had left written instructions? Would people still be demanding that she not be "starved" into bodily death (which would have happened whether the "intervention" occurred today or 15 years ago)? Would we even know about this case to complain? How many similar cases go on that we don't rise up in arms about? That's what bothers me most. It's all too similar to so many arguments about "life" where we argue about some particular fringe case and don't get off our butts to save the saveable (see the skid row comments above) regardless of the similarity of situation. I haven't decided what i fully think about this case yet (and i'm a hardcore biologist with some medical background, trying to listen to all sides), but i do know that certain factions get so shrill as to be unlistenable to on topics like this and, i think, lose their own arguments by themselves. They are, and will continue to be, their own worst enemies.

What's really interesting about this case is that suddenly the right-wingers want the government to pass a bill making it harder for relatives to make these decisions on behalf of loved ones. Aren't right-wingers traditionally in favor of less government?

They don't want Social Security or universal health care; they don't want government protection for the environment, but they want special bills passed to micro-manage complicated medical decisions which should really be decided by families and their doctors.

She does not talk. She is not truly aware. Terri Schiavo is dead. You want her parents to be able to force her body to live in a suspended hell, not quite dead, never again really alive. That is cruel, and you should be ashamed.

When she married Michael, she gave him this authority, and he gave her the reciprocal. I hope that if he had been the one to fall into this state that she would have fought as hard to carry out his wishes.

Perhaps I should have read more, and some interesting points have been made. Still, we should err on the side of protecting her life until all of the necessary tests have been done. We need to know for sure that she is in a PVS, 100% and need to know fore sure, 100% that she wished to die. Even then I would have a problem starving a woman to death.

We do know 100% sure that she wanted to die -- the person who speaks for her has said so, and aside from vile attempts at character assassination, he has done nothing to indicate ulterior motives. He is not profiting from this.

You scare the crap out of me, Andrew. You sound like a fanatic on this issue, and I'm terrified that someday someone like you might force ME to persist in a half-living hell state. People deserve to die with dignity. Just because we can preserve a life doesn't mean we MUST. Quality of life is FAR more important than quantity.

Terri Schiavo has jello for a cerebrum. She has no fucking brain. There's no coming back from that. Every doctor connected to her case -- which the doctors supporting her parents are NOT -- is unanimous in this declaration. Why must we satisfy YOU, a pro-life fanatic with no connection to this situation? Who the hell are you to force other people to persist in a not-quite-alive state of vegetation?

Gonna have to go with Kirk et al on this one. Let the poor woman die. Were that this ridiculous government would allow her to be injected with something that might make it quicker. I think we have a good deal of things that we might focus on instead of keeping individuals like Terri Schiavo on a feeding tube in order to make a point about the right to life. All this energy, might for instance, be poured into feeding hungry children who, unlike Ms. Schiavo, might have the opportunity to live full and productive lives should we ever get around to them.

I'm waiting for the unbiased agreement that we can all accept the conviction & death sentence of any severely, mentally retared individual who commits murder and admits it. They can't think for themselves & will never have a productive life.
After all "legitimate" appeals have run their course, no one will be allowed to provide food & water to the "dead man walking." If he or she cannot nourish themselves (sort of difficult to drive to the grocery store, garden, raise livestock or drill wells in prison) then they will die with zero intervention from the outside world, that is, no assistance......a natural death by starvation.
And who should ever again question the right of a convicted killer who wants to die and states it in public (not some secret little conversation with only one individual)?

Sanctity of marriage? Give me a break. And you say the right-wingers are going nuts.

There are legitimate privacy issues here but a family's right to privacy is not absolute. You cannot abuse your children and you are required to provide them with some sort of an education. You are not allowed to kill your wife, unles, apparently, she has brain damage. Come on.

Let's stipulate that this case should be reminding us all that we should have written advance directives. If Michael Schiavo is carrying out his wife's wishes as he understand them then gob bless him. But let's not forget that Andrea Yates also believed that she was acting in her children's interest when she drowned them in a bathtub.

I keep hearing that she is brain dead, and that her medical records demonstrate this. But when I ask people who claim to have seen this online exactly *where* they saw this -- because it would make a difference to me -- it all fades off into mumbling.

If anyone has a link to medical depositions from a professional, preferably a neurologist, who has examined this woman, I would love to see it. Really. It would be so much easier on my conscience to think that this woman really is brain-dead, or that she really did tell her husband "no tubes."

Except, oh yeah, she isn't on a tube. There is nothing in a gastrostomy that prevents her from moving about at will. It's the lack of physical therapy that is doing that, as far as I can see.

In the absence of such link, I am inclined to believe those who question the diagnosis. Which leads to questioning the motives of Michael Schiavo.

But the important thing in my mind, is that if in fact she has been receiving substandard care all these years, we should be really sure before we starve her to death. Surely she deserves that much.

Dana

Try this link for information: http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/infopage.html

Anyone care to speculate as to why there is an extreme effort to keep John Evander Couey alive, to make sure he does not commit suicide? What would be the purpose?
How can anyone make a logical argument (please flowchart it) or exhibit any sense of humanity, justify the selection process of those marked to die v those to live?
Why does Couey deserve due process & the constitutional right to life (state to federal level), but not Schiavo?
Why do liberals consider intervention by the federal government to be frivolous, to be an abuse of power, yet never complain about last-minute stays and accept any federal court's reversal in a death penalty case even after the convicted murderer has had due process, been through the full appeals process and asks to be executed?
I know the answer so I must ask: On what basis do liberals who are opposed to the death penalty support their superiority in both intellect & education to those of us considered conservative? Liberals defend their position by stating that it is a moral duty, that they are opposed to the death penalty and have no problem with even the most absurd stays if it keeps someone from being executed.
But what about the right? If we are to accept & respect the liberal position then why can they not accept our position that any action, unsupported or not, that preserves our beliefs in the "right to life" is just? Why the double-standard? Superior human beings with the answer to all of life's questions?

Here's an interesting story/link:
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=3986

Andrew, I must disagree.

Under Texas law she would have had her feeding tube pulled years ago.

One of the right-to-life groups leading the fight to save her was given the opportunity for final approval of the Texas law in these cases. The law they came up with is that relatives do not have the say-so on these cases. They are too emotionally involved.

Under Texas law now the hospital convenes an ethical board which examines the evidence and decides if life support should be terminated. If whoever has guardianship disagrees they must find another agency that will provide life support in ten days.

In this case her Florida hospital did this years ago.

You had not heard much about the Texas law becuase until recently most victims with life support removed over relative objections were minorities. In the Houston case this week the victim was a white male and some hospital has agreed to supply life support but will not discuss the case.

As GOP memos had demonstrated Terri Schiavo is a political case being played for political reasons.

Setting aside legalities - I had a relative with end-stage ALS where she and her religious family finally decided to have morphine and a drug to surpress the gag reflex administered with her family around her while her assisted breathing apparatus was turned off. These are deeply personal and private family and doctor decisions that politicians should stay out of.

Gary Denton

Andrew, I must disagree.

Under Texas law she would have had her feeding tube pulled years ago.

One of the right-to-life groups leading the fight to save her was given the opportunity for final approval of the Texas law in these cases. The law they came up with is that relatives do not have the say-so on these cases. They are too emotionally involved.

Under Texas law now the hospital convenes an ethical board which examines the evidence and decides if life support should be terminated. If whoever has guardianship disagrees they must find another agency that will provide life support in ten days.

In this case her Florida hospital did this years ago.

You had not heard much about the Texas law becuase until recently most victims with life support removed over relative objections were minorities. In the Houston case this week the victim was a white male and some hospital has agreed to supply life support but will not discuss the case.

As GOP memos had demonstrated Terri Schiavo is a political case being played for political reasons.

Setting aside legalities and politics - I had a relative with end-stage ALS where she and her religious family finally decided to have morphine and a drug to surpress the gag reflex administered with her family around her while her assisted breathing apparatus was turned off. These are deeply personal and private family and doctor decisions that politicians should stay out of.

Gary Denton

My question is who is paying for all this. The medical bills must be overwhelming.

The ongoing debate over the fate of Terri Schiavo is a revealing example of the differences between the secular and the religious world views. Those who advocate that Terry be kept alive and those supporting her right to die have two very different conceptions of the soul. The difference is crucial because the difference in their metaphysical views has significant ethical and political implication.

According to the secular philosophy, the soul is the essence of who an individual is – the essence of their character, and the motive force of their actions. It is the unique trait of human beings, who are able to guide their own actions and course in life through the exercise of their conceptual consciousness. Because the mind is a consequence of the process of the brain, the soul is also made possible by the biological processes of the human body and cannot exist without it. Life, in the secular philosophy, is a process of acting on values of one’s choosing with happiness as consequence of their successful accomplishment. This goes on until one cannot or does not choose to engage in the process of value-pursuit and dies.

According to the religious philosophy, the soul is a spiritual entity, separable from the body, and existing is some non-material realm apart from the material world. According to this philosophy, the soul is an immortal entity temporarily attached to a physical body by the whim of an all-powerful being. Since the soul does not “belong” to the mortal being, it comes with certain conditions, namely whatever the local mystics deem to be proper. Life, in the religious philosophy, is a process of dutifully obeying the commandments of a higher being, so that the soul may be less susceptible to happiness or misery in some future state of existence. Since the choice to live is not up to mortal humans to make, the choice to die cannot be either, since their life does not belong to them. Furthermore, the end of mental activity does not mean the death of the soul, which remains trapped in the body as long as it is biologically alive, just as an fetus possesses a soul prior to developing a conceptual consciousness

The vast difference and the ethical implications of these world views should be clear. In the secular philosophy, man has a “self-made soul” that he shapes and that shapes his life. In the mystic philosophy, man is granted his soul by a deity and must obey that deity or expose the soul to “eternal damnation” in the beyond. Religious groups oppose the right to die for the same reason that they oppose happiness as the ultimate moral end: it represents a threat to their conception of human nature.

Terri Schiavo is not an isolated case, as lawmakers claimed when they blatantly disregarded the Constitution and federalism in an attempt to preserve her body – it is an instance of the same reasoning they use to oppose the right to die and abortion. It is a reasoning that denies the essential difference between human beings and carrots on a mental/physical level and claims instead that the difference exists in some unreachable, imperceptible, and unknowable realm. It is no wonder then, why they must resort to force to bully their religion on those who live their lives for a this-worldly purpose.

Andrew I totally agree. Terri must live.

A Time for Enlightenment

Enlightenment unto them, whose love of vanity has condemned an innocent lamb to death...either by deed, denial, dismissal, or distaste. Many said with revulsion, “Look at her!” Don’t they know that we are all beautiful in the eyes of the Creator? Did they not see the beauty of life heave as breath in the innocent woman’s body? Did they not know that a heart beat there? Did they not feel the pain of her mother Mary as she cried “Mercy,” but she was barred from soothing the lips of her thirsty child with but a tear of water for comfort?

Search your hearts to answer how a being that was described as incapable of feeling pain is given morphine to deaden the pain as her body dies? What is this passionate, compassionless, compassion I’ve seen? A soul has to wonder, but a soul already knows.

At this Passover season and beyond, when the one called the “Holy Father,” and the Son of the king, and the Spirit of Mary’s first born child prepare to receive their blessings...let ALL introspect to discern which path they truly travel. Let your enlightenment be quick, for time is fluid. It may not support the length of your journey.

May the spirit of peace guide you.

Live life with no regrets,
By S.D. Moore

If all you Christian wackos out there believe in heaven and god so much, why not let Terri go to your lord.Keeping her alive as a science project is the fundamental wrong here. If god wills her to live, why did god disolve her brain. Give her water when she says "I'm thirsty" and not before. Wait for it, it's not going to happen. She is bleeding funds that could go to care for people that are still alive. What if I dug up someone's dead grandparent, and managed to get them "alive" on a feeding tube, would you want that? A dead person that you have already said your last goodbye to being kept alive, unconcious, and in pain. Anyone that has had a family memeber that has lived with great pain due to disease or severe injury die knows their only comfort is knowing the relative is no longer in pain. Why does America care so much about this, soldiers that haven't even had 15 years of adult life are dying in Iraq by the dozen, but we all care about this Fucking Vegatable. Death to all republicans, I'd pull all of your feeding tubes if I could- but we all know that won't happen until your oil money runs out. Fuck Bush.

when are the (guilt spewing)parents of terri schiavo going to take responsibility for the harm they have done by creating a bulimic terri schaivo? I hope most intelligent people realize that it is bulimia (and a resulting heart attack) that really killed terri - not a feeding tube (removal).

Shame on the Schindler's (and the political idiots outside the hospice) and shame on Bush and the out-of-control congress (we need to get some checks and balances back in the system before we find out that Iraq will have a better democracy)

Of course they (the schindler's)could file an appeal to say that they murdered her (terri) by guilt and other psychological harm/torture and maybe get a TRO for their murder trial as she (terri) would be a material witness.

as a further note - I am so glad I had the right to bar my wifes father from visitation (and to make all life decisions) when she was at deaths door - I know it helped her recover. she even told me that she would have thought she had gone to that other place if she would have woke up to see her ..... father.