[stuck_in_new_orleans]

shes brain dead

[Numbers Guy]

shes brain dead

I think the Goebbels rule is that you have to repeat a lie 1000 times before people will start to believe it. At that rate you're going to be typing "shes [sic] brain dead" for the rest of the evening.

[spinestein]

[shes brain dead]


This statement is provably wrong and easily so.

"Brain death is a clinical diagnosis. Absent brain stem reflexes, failure to initiate respiration when off the respirator, and absent cortical function are accepted criteria of brain death. A flat electroencephalogram for longer than 12 hours (in the absence of hypothermia or sedative drugs) and absence of vascular filling of the cerebral vessels on cerebral angiography corroborate the diagnosis of brain death."



This means that all persons who are medically diagnosed as being brain dead are unable to breathe or have heart function on their own or have any measurable brain activity.

Schiavo has no difficulties with breathing or heart function and she has a large amount of constant and measurable brain activity.

If you want to argue for the withholding of food from someone who is in a "mentally incompetent state" then do so, but grossly misdefining her condition is not going to get you anywhere, here.