Terry Shiavo Back in the News...

[Zygote]

article

Read and discuss.

Does this change anyone's opinion?
Does anyone who claimed she had a chance of recovery feel differently about how they believed the situation should've been handled?

[adios]

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Does this change anyone's opinion?

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About what? Whether or not the process that determined her feeding tube should be disconnected was fair? Whether or not pulling the feeding tube, thus starving her to death, was a humanitarian gesture? Whether or not there was clear and convincing evidence that Terry would rather have the feeding tube disconnected than live in a permantly vegatative state i.e. Terry had more or less made a "living will" verbally to this effect? Whether or not the law in Florida is a "good" law? Whether or not the law passed by the House was an appropriate excercise in Congressional authority? Whether or not the Court rulings on this law were appropriate? This story seems to have little to no relevance to any of these issues which were the main issues IMO.

[Zygote]

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Whether or not the process that determined her feeding tube should be disconnected was fair?

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Yes, many people advocated that the courts were neglecting the Shindler's "credible" opposing medical opinions that suggested that Terry was not in a vegetative state and that she did have a reasnoble chance of recovery.

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Whether or not pulling the feeding tube, thus starving her to death, was a humanitarian gesture?

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Many people advocated that she was conscious and would suffer if they starved her.



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Whether or not the law passed by the House was an appropriate excercise in Congressional authority? Whether or not the Court rulings on this law were appropriate?


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We have already had more than enough debate on these issues.

[adios]

I'm just pointing out that the article is irrelevant to the main issues in the situation and thus are unlikely to change anyone's viewpoint. Even if someone who had faith in the almighty wouldn't be dissuaded IMO since presumably the almighty is capable of performing "miracles."

[kurto]

I think there's some relevence to this. If I remember it correctly, most doctors said she was a vegetable. This shows that they were right. I think its good to know this so that one can question the credibility (and motives) of the people who contested this. (I know this isn't the central issues... but it is nevertheless, useful information.)

I think there is value in determining whether a person in a vegetative state with no hope of recovery should be kept alive. When we value life, what do we mean? Are functioning organs without a brain/personality... 'life' that we value. (We don't think of the sanctity of life when we discuss 'ferns' or 'chinchillas'.... at what point does a person change?)

IMO- the person is dead. They are no longer 'that person.'

[MMMMMM]

To me, the primary issue wasn't whether she could recover or not. We don't kill paraplegics who can't recover, after all. So the article does not change my mind much one way or the other.

There was the question of whether she had some form of minimal consciousness. Maybe the autopsy answers that question and maybe it doesn't: I don't know.

Also as Adios pointed out the article does nothing to answer legal questions or whether life should be able to be taken on lesser standards than proof beyond a reasonable doubt (or that those would have been her wishes as her husband claimed). And I don;t see much point in rehashing all that here.

[Felix_Nietsche]

A lot of outlandish claims were being made that Terry was responding to visual stimuli (she was blind), that with therapy she could recover(brain shrank to half its size), that she would suffer if the tube was removed, etc...

When I heard the results of the autopsy it gross me out of how badly her body/brain had deteriated. The autopsy showed Terry Schiavo has been LONG GONE and all that is left of her is an empty shell that deficates and urinates. I don't think you can call a person a human if they can no longer think or feel. I think medical science went way to far to prolong the life of the empty shell that some people called Terry Schiavo.

The parents of TS are disputing the results of the autopsy. I feel badly for them but they need to face facts their daughter died YEARS AGO...

It must have cost a million dollars to have prelonged the life of her shell for all these years. Life is for the living and is was a mistake to have let her shell live this long.

[kurto]

I agree.

The sad thing is the parents are only prolonging their own grief. I know this sounds rude but I want to slap some sense into them.

[bholdr]

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The parents of TS are disputing the results of the autopsy. I feel badly for them but they need to face facts their daughter died YEARS AGO...

It must have cost a million dollars to have prelonged the life of her shell for all these years. Life is for the living and is was a mistake to have let her shell live this long.

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Your response was dead-on felix (no pun intended). I completly aggree.

[TomCollins]

At least she still had half a brain, more than her family has combined.