The Reptilian Brains of Terri's Executioners

For decades, neuroscientists have recognized that the brain has three distinct systems. One is derived from primitive reptiles that were adept at survival strategies. Another includes the limbic system – often called the “seat of emotions.” The third includes the neocortex and prefrontal lobes (comprising the right and left hemispheres of the brain) that account for thinking, verbal abilities and other “higher” functions. My theory is that Terri’s putative husband Michael, his attorney George J. Felos, and Judge George Greer – who ruled for years against Terri’s right to life – have highly developed reptilian brains and prefrontal lobes, but that they are sorely lacking in anything resembling a normal limbic system.

What exactly is the limbic system? Located just below the neocortex, it is the part of the brain that governs – among other emotions – affection, feelings, and most of all empathy

What is empathy? Simply, it is the ability to feel what others are feeling. It is not sympathy, which is feeling sorry for someone or that something happened. Empathy, on the other hand, is the ability to put oneself in the place of another person and actually experience the feelings they are experiencing – be they joy, anxiety, fear or pain.

Persuasive research over the past several decades, conducted by the most prestigious science institutions both in America and abroad, has relied on PET and more recently fMRI scans that visualize brain activity to demonstrate that structural and functional abnormalities in several brain regions (the limbic system, the amygadala, the hippocampus, et al) account for a lack of empathy.

People who lack empathy are called sociopaths, a euphemistic version of what was once called psychopaths. Like all cold-blooded killers, they are literally incapable of feeling what another person feels. While they may be expert at affecting what amounts to a parody of normality and integrity, charm and intellect, underneath their guises is a total inability to “feel your pain.”

You can call it bad character or you can say, as liberals and retro psychotherapists do, that the unfeeling person – like the terrorists who murdered nearly 3,000 innocent Americans on September 11, 2001 – are “victims” of their upbringings or circumstances.

I say that no matter the source of the behavior, people lacking the kind of empathy that allows them to kill without remorse – for instance, to starve a healthy woman to death – are no different than other 21st Century terrorists and deserve the same consequences: indictment, conviction and imprisonment.

While antidepressant, anti-anxiety and anti-psychotic drugs have successfully treated millions of people with biologically driven mental illnesses – there is NO CURE for sociopaths!

From what I observed, all of them are reptilian in their icy coldness, and malevolent fakers when they use the “higher centers” of their brains to dissemble and pretend that they “feel” what they clearly don’t feel at all.

They all knew exactly what starvation would entail for Terri, who at the time of her court-ordered death sentence was vibrantly healthy, save for her limited mental function. To name but a few horrifying symptoms that she probably experienced were:

Skin rashes that they knew she couldn’t scratch as well as irritation of all of her tissues, particularly of the tongue, mouth and vagina

And these merchants of death were also aware that the dehydration they ordered – depriving Terri of water – would entail:

Ostensibly unmoved by her plight were the triumvirate of reptiles. Terri’s money-hungry husband had already collected a million dollars in a malpractice settlement about his claim that doctors failed to diagnose her so-called but still-undocumented bulimia, and he now stands to receive $1.2 million as the heir to the remainder of the that judgment. Then there was his seemingly euthanasia-infatuated attorney and the idealogue judge.

All of them were unmoved by Terri’s agonizingly slow death because they claimed she would have chosen that fate for herself. Never mind the absence of a signed Living Will or videotape of her wishes.

During the nearly two weeks that Terri suffered after her feeding tube was removed, empathic people throughout the world had a heightened awareness of their own hunger pangs and thirst, and the merciful availability of the food and drink at their fingertips. But the reptiles didn’t.

When Michael Schiavo – who has obviously been busy following the money – decided that “for better or worse, through sickness and health, ‘til death do us part” was inconvenient, he chose not to divorce Terri nor to seek an annulment of their marriage, but opted instead for bigamy and to father two children.

And the normal empathy that develops when people become parents didn’t appear to happen to Michael. Instead of “feeling” the pain that Terri’s parents experienced and identifying with their determination to care for their daughter “in sickness and in health,” he seemed to feel – as all reptiles do – nothing.

And in what federalist.com called “the final act of selfish cruelty, [he] arrived only minutes before her death [and] denied the Schindlers' request to remain with Terri for her final breath.”

The website’s commentary went on to cite the words of Pope John Paul II, whose empathy for humanity and evolved morality provide stark contrast to the reptilian natures of Michael Schiavo and company. Last year, the Pope – on a feeding tube himself in his final days – ”effectively declared his `living will’ in a speech to doctors and ethicists,” saying: “The administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act." He described the denial of such care “euthanasia by omission."

As far back as 1950, Five Star General Omar Bradley stated what could be aptly applied to the Terri Schiavo case: "We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount...the world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants."

“What can we expect?” asks Christopher Flickinger in an article in TheRant.us. “For those citizens with handicaps or disabilities, you are forewarned – someone may have his eye on you. If you’re blind, deaf, mute, in a wheelchair, on crutches, use a walker or a cane, walk with a limp or have an appendage missing, you better mind your P’s and Q’s. One little slip-up, just one, and someone could deem your life unfit for living, take away your wheelchair, put you in a Hospice center and starve you to death. [The] excuse would be, “Well, they’re worthless shells of a human. Those cripples have been draining my pocketbook for years – all those ramps and elevators and special parking spots. Forget about legislation in order to fix Social Security. I’ll fix it myself by lightening our load... With this new precedent of social Darwinism sweeping the nation, there’s no end to the possibilities. In a way, we’ll pick-up were Hitler failed. Forget about a master race. We’re more interest in preserving the lives of those who can win the race. And as for everyone else, Pandora’s box is now wide open.”

In Schiavo’s case, criminal proceedings may yet ensue. According to NewsMax.com, Florida's Department of Children and Families had received 89 allegations that Schiavo had abused his wife – but Judge Greer (surprise!) ruled that DCF summaries of those allegations must remain secret to everyone except (surprise!) Michael Schiavo himself. However, The St. Petersburg Times and the Tampa Tribune have now filed lawsuits for the release of the abuse summaries.

It’s too late for Terri, but it’s not too late for American citizens to take careful note of those elected officials – overwhelmingly liberals – who through their support of abortion and now euthanasia are responsible for what has become a “culture of death” in our country, and to boot them out of office or make sure they are never elected.

test cases...

Do we remember this? Scientology Charged in Member's Death Scientology charged in member's death

The church faces two felony charges in its treatment of Lisa McPherson. © St. Petersburg Times, published November 14, 1998

Exerpts: "The Church of Scientology in Clearwater has been charged with criminal neglect and practicing medicine without a license in the 1995 death of Lisa McPherson, the mentally disturbed Scientologist who turned to outsiders for help before church officials intervened and placed her under their care." ....

"McPherson was physically healthy when she entered the downtown Clearwater hotel for what Scientology officials first described as rest and relaxation. She was pronounced dead 17 days later after Scientologists drove her to a Pasco County emergency room 45 minutes away.

By some estimates, McPherson lost 30 to 40 pounds during her stay. Her body was gaunt, bruised and marked with sores. She had dried blood around her mouth, according to an emergency room nurse, who described her appearance, saying: "She was thin, she was unkempt, dirty. Just not taken care of."

McPherson was being cared for at Scientology's spiritual hub in Clearwater, where the "technology" devised by founder L. Ron Hubbard is said to be practiced with the highest quality and precision.

On Nov. 18, 1995, church staffers took McPherson to Room 174 at the back of the hotel, turned the lights low and began to keep a "watch." They were following Hubbard's directives for dealing with psychotic people. They did not speak to McPherson or within her hearing. Their "watch" was a Scientology method intended to quiet McPherson and relieve the mental instability that became evident earlier that Nov. 18, when she disrobed at the scene of a minor accident and told a paramedic, "I need help. I need to talk to someone."

McPherson was taken by ambulance to nearby Morton Plant Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. But Scientologists are taught that psychiatry is harmful and strongly oppose psychiatric medicines.

Within an hour of McPherson's arrival at Morton Plant, at least eight Scientologists arrived and told a doctor it was against her religion to have a psychiatric exam. They promised to care for her 24 hours a day and signed as witnesses on the release form that allowed McPherson to leave against the doctor's advice.

She was driven to the Fort Harrison Hotel, where, instead of growing quiet, she worsened. Her experience was described in vivid detail in daily logs written by Scientologists who watched her.

McPherson babbled and banged on walls and walked like a robot. She vomited and defecated on herself. She slapped and poked and kicked Scientology staffers. She screamed at them, and tried to leave."

For days, as Scientology security guards took shifts outside McPherson's door, staffers fetched sandwiches and bananas for her. They made protein drinks. They gave her vitamins, herbal remedies, aspirin, Benadryl and doses of the prescription sedative, Chloral Hydrate. They held her down and administered these substances with a large syringe placed in McPherson's mouth, the affidavit states, "even though she was never seen by and had no patient/doctor relationship with the prescribing physician."

"They got her to drink glasses of "Cal-Mag," a mixture of calcium gluconate, magnesium carbonate, cider vinegar and water that Scientologists believe is healthful...."

See Article. Search the web, there are many, many cases - California, Canada, other locations where the handicapped, or those with psychological problems, the weak, etc. have been treated by Scientologists in a typical and unbelievably inhumane manner.

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