Pimpbot

I read a quote from a doctor yesterday saying that while it may look like she is smiling and responding to her parents, in reality just the brain stem is functioning and the actual parts of the brain which would enable her to smile properly and show some kind of recognition for her family are long dead. He also said that while in this state, she couldn't feel hunger or thirst. This isn't the most humane way to do things, but with the current laws, it may be the only way. As with all things in our tabloid world, the husband has been made out to be the devil.

TouristTrap

Buchanan writing in wnd.com

Ours is a nation where a judge may not sentence Beltway sniper Lee Malvo to death, because he is too young to die, but can sentence Terri Schiavo to death, because she is too severely handicapped to live.

Schiavo continues the process of dying by starvation and dehydration, a method of capital punishment most would consider criminal if done to a pet.


This was the method used at Auschwitz to murder Father Maximilian Kolbe, the priest who volunteered to take the place of a Polish father of a large family, who was one of 10 the camp commandant had selected for execution in reprisal for the escape of a prisoner.

After being starved and dehydrated for days, Kolbe was injected by his Nazi captors with carbolic acid. He died a martyr's death, said the church that canonized him. That is what would have happened to Terri. Only she would have been denied the lethal injection by those watching her die.

That there arose a national outcry at the execution of Schiavo – so loud Congress and President Bush heard it and came to the rescue – is a sign America is not morally dead ... yet. But a culture of death has taken deep root in America's soul.

One wonders if our young, so many of them cheated of a knowledge of history in schools they are forced to attend, are aware of how closely our elites approximate, in belief and argument, the elites of Weimar and Nazi Germany in the 1920s and 1930s.

In 1920, Dr. Alfred Hoche, professor of psychiatry at the University of Freiburg, and Karl Binding, a law professor at Leipzig, authored "The Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life." They urged a national policy of assisted suicide for those "empty shells of human beings" – the terminally ill and mentally retarded, and those with brain damage and psychiatric conditions.

In October 1933, The New York Times quoted the Nazi minister of justice as saying that ridding Germany of such poor creatures would make it "possible for physicians to end the tortures of incurable patients, upon requests, in the interests of true humanity." "If we desire a certain type of civilization," said George Bernard Shaw, "we must exterminate the sort of people who do not fit in."

In researching "The Death of the West," I discovered that the first episode of publicized "legal" killing of an innocent was the case of "Baby Knauer." The father of the little boy, who was blind, retarded and missing an arm and a leg, appealed to the Fuhrer for permission to have his son put to death. Hitler referred the matter to his physician, Karl Brandt. In 1938, permission was granted.

When war came in 1939, a program code-named "Aktion 4" went about systematically eliminating all "life unworthy of life" in the Reich. By 1940, scores of thousands had been put to death. Then, Bishop Clemens von Galen took to the pulpit of Munster Cathedral to damn Hitler's regime for "plain murder" and direct German Catholics to "withdraw ourselves and our faithful from their (Nazi) influence so that we may not be contaminated by their thinking and their ungodly behavior."

"Aktion 4" went underground. One of its graduates, Franz Stangl, would turn up two years later as commandant of Treblinka.

After the war, the German doctors who had carried out Hitler's orders in violation of the Hippocratic Oath were judged guilty of "crimes against humanity." The Dutch doctors who refused to cooperate in the Nazi program of eliminating "life unworthy of life" during the occupation of Holland were placed among the moral heroes of an immoral era.

Ironically, as the protest to save Schiavo built up steam over the weekend, The New York Times in its "Saturday Profile" warmly featured another Dutch doctor. Dr. Eduard Verhagen has, said the Times, become famous in Europe for having "presided over the medically induced deaths of four extraordinarily ill newborns."

"For his efforts to end what he calls unbearable and incurable suffering," wrote reporter Gregory Crouch, "Dr. Verhagen has been called Dr. Death, a second Hitler and worse – mostly by American opponents of euthanasia."

Verhagen describes himself as a bearer of peace and happiness to children. When these suffering little ones die, he says, "the child goes to sleep. ... It's beautiful in a way. ... They're children who are severely ill and in great pain. It is after they die that you see them relaxed for the first time. You see their faces in a way they should be for the first time."

Franz Stangl could not have put it better. Hitler's doctors may prove to have been the medical pioneers of 21st century.

Englishmum

I actually mainly read the news via Reuters (whom my husband works for). However, the link to the affadavits by the three nurses who cared for Terri Schiavo was the first link which came up on a search engine so I read what they said.

I still want to know what is motivating her husband to want her dead rather than divorce her and relinquish all responsibility for her to her blood family who want to care for her? He has a new partner and children with her....

It is cruel and heartless to let this woman slowly starve and die of dehydration. She is a human being for goodness' sake.

(I'm not at all surprised that izibear has brought up the topic of eugenics...)

Bob

because if it is her wishes to not be kept in that state, he loses guardianship when he divorces her, so he stays married to fight for her...

Lesley1020

And I would buy that, if it wasn't for the fact that he started campaigning to have the tube removed after he received the malpractice settlement. For her CARE. My understanding is that it was given for that purpose, not to spend it in an years long effort to end her life.

There is also an affidavit from his ex girlfriend stating that he admitted to her that he was not aware of her wishes under such circumstances. One of the TV stations (I forget which) broadcast a glimpse of an old TV interview while the malpractice suit was going on where he said he loved her with all his heart and would continue to care for her as long as he could.

Interesting that she worked for a life insurance company,and that he declines to comment on the amount of policies he will cash in on in her death. On the other side of the coin, since he turned down millions already that may make you think that money is not a motivator and maybe his reasons are genuine. Again, I would buy that if it wasn't for the unexplained "trauma" on the bone scan. Perhaps Mr Schiavo is concerned that if she had received the therapy she needed way back when, she might have been able to have been rehabiliated and been able to communicate anything he wouldn't want people to know?

All speculation of course, and just thinking out aloud - but this is a unique case and if there is doubt - I don't think he should be the one making the choice.

I made a living will today, something I should have done long before now, especially with MS etc., but I can tell you one thing, I did not tick the box that says I want to have nutrition/hydration withheld.

I am sure that most people would agree that this is an extremely unpleasant way to die, but unfortunately, in a circumstance like this, the only way since there is no other option - other than to keep her alive and give her the rehabilition efforts that have been absent for several years.

If it was a member of my family - all that would be going through my mind is what IF she is aware. What if the doctors are wrong? There have been cases where people have been severely brain damaged and recovered. She hasn't been given that chance.

Iginla

A few quotes from the article that's alarmed you.

"On three or four occasions I personally fed Terri small mouthfuls of Jello, which she was able to swallow and enjoyed immensely. I did not do it more often only because I was so afraid of being caught by Michael."

A miracle worker! Feeding a patient with no swallow reflex!

Then from the link in that article:

"Doocey then revealed that Carla was fired from the care facility because of a disagreement with Michael Schiavo in an incident where she claims he injected Terri with insulin.

Ms. Iyer said that after Michael visited Terri one day for about 20 minutes, with the door shut, she went in after he left and saw Terri sweating, lethargic and "crying hysterically."

Carla checked Terri's blood sugar, and it was barely reading on the glucometer. She also saw a vial of "insulin concealed in the trash bin."

According to Carla, there were needle marks underneath Terri's breast, under her arms and near her groin. Carla talked to the police and then went to the director of nursing, who was very upset that Carla had gone to the police."

So a nursing assistant went straight to the police without talking to the nurses regarding the so-called needle marks. I presume she handed them the vial of insulin.

and this vial of insulin is I presume now part of a police investigation.

After all she is insinuating something underhand.

Hope he sues the arse of her!

Englishmum

But there is no proof that is truly what she did say to him...he just says that she said that. I think if there is any reasonable doubt, one must err on the side of caution and *not* withdraw food and water.

Don't you remember a case in the UK a few years ago where Diane Blood wanted to be inseminated with her dead husband's sperm (which had been frozen)? The courts decided that because he had not agreed to this *in writing* before his death, she could not go ahead with IVF in a British clinic.

Diane Blood therefore went to a clinic in mainland Europe and subsequently delivered her dead husband's baby.

anotherlimey

According the the BBC, the husband filed the petition to get the feeding tube removed nearly 6 years after the court settlement ($700,000 for her care, $300,000 for the husband).

snowbunny

My biggest issue with this is that President Bush, while governor of Texas, signed into law a bill allowing a hospital to pull a baby's ventilator because the baby had no chance of survival AND the parents could not pay. The mother objected, but the hospital insisted. The baby struggled to breathe, *conscious* until he lost consciousness and died. He had the full cognitive ability of a normal six-month-old and was not unconscious.

All because his parents could not pay.

We need to decide how we are going to pay for long-term care for not only people who require respirators, feeding tubes, cancer treatments, organ transplants....is it fair to try to continue one woman's life when every day people of all ages and prognoses are denied life-sustaining care because they cannot pay?? Terri DOES require money to receive her care; she is being treated through charity at her hospice. But that ties up resources someone else who is fully conscious and wishes to die with dignity could utilise.

If people are concerned about the cruelty of dying through withholding food and water, then they should be out lobbying for a more humane method to hasten death, such as opiate overdose or potassium overdose.

My heart goes out to Terri's parents. Without questioning her husband's motivation or character, I can say that *my* ex-husband would have pulled the plug long before Michael did and would definitely not acted in my interests as my parents would have. And I would rage against a system that would not let me feed my daughter because her husband had denied it, if I were truly convinced that it were in her best interests and would have been her wish.

But as a citizen the only fair way to decide is to have one law for all to follow; and to remedy the gross hypocrisies between the heroic measures used to keep Terri alive, and the medical care denied people every day; and the complaints about the cruelty of withholding food/water but offering no other way to end a life that will end in starvation otherwise.

TouristTrap

Watched Larry Live earlier. Apparently they had a woman on last night who had been diagnosed with the same thing as Terri, and had had the feeding tube removed. She says that throughout her ordeal, she was screaming inside, 'Please feed me, please help me" Today she's rehabilitated.

A neurologist spent 10 hrs with Terri and believes that there is the possibility that she is in the same position and could be rehabilitated.

Since all options haven't been explored, there is no way of them truly knowing what is going on. I watched the 2002 tape where she seemed to be trying to communicate with her father, and just could not believe that people would want to have her murdered, there is just no other term, it is what it is. Even death row inmates get food and water till the end.

Her 'husband' suddenly recalled in the year 2000 that they'd had this important conversation..years after the fact, if I am recalling correctly.

snowbunny

Years ago I learned about locked-in syndrome, which Kate Adamson suffered. It is *extremely* rare to recover from this horrific condition in which one is fully aware but cannot communicate except *perhaps* through blinking the eyes. I know for a fact that if I'd had locked-in syndrome for 15 years I'd be begging to be let go.

What Kate had and what Terri has are almost opposites. Kate suffered damage to her brain stem while her cerebral cortex remained intact. She therefore had near-normal EEG (brain wave) activity, showed response to pain, etc. But she couldn't initially breathe on her own, or do anything that required a healthy brain stem; her brain could not move her facial muscles either voluntarily or involuntarily.

Terri's brain stem is what is keeping her from being clinically brain-dead, and allows her to breathe, involuntarily swallow -- but it is the involuntary processes that are preserved. She shows no response to painful stimuli, and no brainwave activity -- Kate's cerebral cortex, which controls conscious thought, was intact, where Terri's has been destroyed.

999,999 people with locked-in syndrome never recover and those who can communicate via blinking usually will request to be let go. Being fully conscious, able to feel sensation but completely unable to move or talk.... and it is too bad that we have nothing to offer these individuals who wish to die other than removing a feeding tube.

Kate's issues were that she was misdiagnosed and the decision to remove her feeding tube was made a few months, not many years, past her stroke. I don't know precisely why the decision was made to pull Kate's tube -- I've read different comments, ranging from that it needed to be pulled in preparation for bowel surgery, to a claim that after it was pulled, Kate's husband noticed a change for the positive in Kate and fought to have it reinserted. If you know why Kate's tube was originally removed and why her husband began to fight the removal *after* it was performed, I'd love to know.

http://www.corante.com/loom/archives/000795.html

anotherlimey

Every neurologist will say this, the brain is so complex that there is always a chance someone will recover from severe brain damage. It's just a degree of probability, and as the years go on it becomes less and less likely she'll recover.

We're at the stage now where it's almost pointless trying therapy; if she's kept alive she'll go through more clinics with different treatments that have a very small chance of changing anything.

-tom

Taffyles

It's hard to keep objective in this issue when highly emotive phrases such are "starving to death" and "dying of thirst" are thrown around so glibly. Standing back- the woman is in a vegetative state- she cannot feel pain and common sense alone should tell us that it takes longer than two weeks to starve someone to death. Removing her feeding tube is just a removal of an artificial means to keep this woman alive. The parents are playing on peoples emotions in their desperate attempts to hang on to their "little girl" at all costs. They are now using the religion card heavily claiming it is a mortal sin to let her die and that their daughter will stay in purgatory if she dies this way......as if 15 years in a vegetative state is not purgatory if this woman has even a glimmer of the cognition they claim she has. The way I see it they are not attempting to prolong her life, they are prolonging her death.
And its a subtle form of abuse IMO. They claim she can lead a fulfilling life-her doctors don't agree and just looking at the tapes they endlessly play of her, there's no life in those eyes just involuntary reflex reactions, even plants react. And you have to ask yourself- whose needs she would be fulfilling if they re-insert the tube, Terri's? I think not, her parents more like. I'm sorry but I'm losing sympathy for the parents in this- being so close to Tampa, this has been in the news for years here and we've watched it play out. They are demeaning their daughter now, she doesn't have a shred of dignity left. I think they should "let her die" which is what would have happened 15 years ago if left up to their "God" to decide. I hope my mother would love me enough to let me go and die with dignity if I were ever in that position. That poor woman is not being starved to death she is being allowed to die a natural death and not forcibly kept alive anymore. Terry Shaivo 'died' 15 years ago.
Of course the irony in all this is Terri got into this state because she was bulimic..and her mother is still fighting to put food in her (just a thought to ponder).

jjmb

Well, it seems it Terri had been in Texas, she would have been allowed to die, as at least part of the her treatment is paid by Medicaid, according to a CNN report today. As Bush passed a bill in 1999 which allows for the withdrawal of treatment if the patient cannot pay, then under that criteria, she would already be dead by now, regardless of any written or spoken living will. Apparently, several states are considering similar bills.

I know if I was in that condition, I would not want to kept alive,the thought of living in shell of a body whilst having an active mind, would be a living hell to me. I don't have any real religious beliefs so have no concerns about death in that respect but it does puzzle me why anyone with such beliefs should be fighting the inevitable. I think the best comment I saw on that subject was this on the 'have your say' page on the BBC

'Terri is 15 years late with her appointment with God. God wanted her for some special reason. Let her go in peace.'

If it is truly God's will that determines our lives then in reality she should have died 15 yrs ago as it only through human invention that she is now alive, as she was on ventilation for at least the first 2 months of her ordeal.

As to the abuse angle on this case, I watched an interview with the court appointed guardian who reported on this in 2003, he says he saw no evidence of any abuse, quite the contrary. In 15 yrs, Terri has not had one bed sore and quite early on the hospital had to get an order to stop Michael from doing too much for his wife, he even trained as an RN to help with the care of his wife.

This guardian saw no evidence that she was in anything but a vegative state despite being at her side for at least 20 days of trying to get her to response in any knowing way.

As to her wishes, she attended 2 funnerals of relatives who had suffered a prolonged death where she stated to many people that she would never want to be kept alive artificially.

Hopefully, this will open up the debate about modern technology in the use of medicine. As someone else said it's extremely rare for anyone to come out of a state like this after so long and not even possible if their cerebral ortex has 'disappeared' as in Terri's case. Surely, now is the time in the light of living wills, to allow for some drug induced death, so the survivors (the family) don't have to go through the anguish of thinking their loved ones died in pain through starvation and dehydration even as we are assured its not a painful death.

Taffyles

Yes my sympathies are with the husband- he lived with the Schindlers for a few years after Terri's collapse and all was hunky dory with them until it became clear there would be no recovery for Terri- that's when the trouble started. In '98 he petitioned to have her feeding tube removed having tried everything. Every court involved in this case has said that the parents don't have any evidence to make a case to re-insert the feeding tube.
Terri had told her sister- in -law and close friends that she would not want to be kept alive artifically.
Doctors on CNN the day before yesterday said Terri would be given medication as necessary..and I doubt they can say much more on that subject.