Iginla

Breathing oxygen "is something that we take for granted every day of our lives to survive."

So giving someone oxygen in your mind is not artificial also?

How the oxygen is administered does not make any difference?

Fact is they are both means of artificially sustaining the bodies needs when it is unable to do so itself.

fatbrit

Should a living will be made compulsory (e.g. make it part of the drivers licence)?

If so, does the state have the obligation to keep a person respiring indefinitely if they have so chosen?

Who is going to pay for all this? (Texas certainly isn't!)

tony126

This thread has provoked a lot of comment and views so would it be right to follow the same procedure for patients with advanced alzheimers? They certainly are not going to get better and depend on others for their "life support".

candy wy.

removing oxygen from someone who is not brain dead is no differnent to me
than removing the feeding tube..

anotherlimey

Do you have a link we can refer to?

There's lots of disinformation being distributed.

candy wy.

i guess from the views of some people anyone that has to depend on any type of life support and has some type of brain imbalance should be allowed to die.

anotherlimey

The thing is the judge is making a legal decision, not an emotional one. People keep saying that the judge wants to kill her, or the judge wants her dead, but it's simply not true. The judge is there to make a legal decision, in this case he decided that the legal guardian has the right to request removal of the feeding tube.

If every judge made emotional decisions all kiddie fiddlers would be hung, drawn and quatered (not that there's anything wrong with that, but the law is the law.)

-tom

Iginla

Good point, it would be nice in future for all these claims to be backed up with some sort of source.

If not, then all one can do is dismiss them as heresay.

AlisonPA

It's the Terri's fight website http://www.terrisfight.net/

Go to the 'timeline' and read the transcript in 1993 I think it is. There are more highlighted ones too and also more in the "transcripts page"

anotherlimey

But that site is run by Pamela Hennessy, a friend of Terri's parents.

Iginla

I sincerely hope you're not referring to me here.

Nice generalization.

candy wy.

did i mention your name.

Iginla

So oncology patients with rampant cancer shouldn't be extubated?

snowbunny

Please remember that this is a living person and her medical history is legally private. Only what has been made available in court is credible, and even parts of that are not publicly available. In cases where the parents or the husband or a third party (like a nurse) have told the media a given detail, they've done it to bolster their position on the case.

It is common practise to not treat a bacterial infection in someone who is terminally ill (will not recover a meaningful life). It is a far kinder death than is starvation. That said, I have no idea if she had a URI and was denied treatment. I've read and read on the subject from court records and not come across that one.

Google on the University of Miami ethics cases and there's a bit on Terri. Her CT scan, for one, which shows she has nearly no cerebral cortex left.

candy wy.

yes a living will should be made by all...
i am sure if it was a person wish to be kept a live indefinitley they could take action to see that it was paid for they have insurance for everything else over here..