[8mmMauser]

T'wit, I find your post on the writing of Amy Green refreshing and a great encouragement. Thank you, Amy Green, if you are lurking, and somehow I think you may have visited the Terri Dailies.

A year has now passed since the starvation/dehydration death of Terri Schiavo, and the debate surrounding her case, though never insignificant, is becoming ever more pertinent in a world increasingly obsessed with "quality of life." Last Wednesday, renowned bioethics writer Wesley J. Smith visited the College to deliver a lecture about the growing trend to consider certain human beings "disposable" based on their perceived "quality of life" and their value to society. In his numerous books and television appearances, Smith has lamented that, in modern bioethics, sentience is no longer sufficient to prove "personhood." Patients must also demonstrate rationality -- a dangerous theory that in 1997 led doctors from the International Forum for Transplant Ethics to propose that patients deemed to be in a "persistent vegetative state" (PVS) should be considered dead and have their organs harvested. The bottom line, however, is that doctors still know too little about the regenerative capabilities of the human brain to reliably diagnose PVS (which is not, contrary to some assumptions, the same as brain death).

Supporting life

8mm

[T'wit]

>> ...doctors from the International Forum for Transplant Ethics to propose that patients deemed to be in a "persistent vegetative state" (PVS) should be considered dead and have their organs harvested.

There is no point in harvesting organs from those doctors. They have no heart or soul, and the rest of their organs are poisonous.

[T'wit]

>> ...led doctors from the International Forum for Transplant Ethics to propose that patients deemed to be in a "persistent vegetative state" (PVS) should be considered dead and have their organs harvested.

Contrast those ghouls to Dr. Ragucci, the recovered PVS patient: "Dr. Ragucci... says he was somewhat conscious even when his doctors perceived no brain activity, and it bothered him to hear nurses and doctors referring to him in the past tense. 'Somebody has to realize that you're in there,' he says. 'Just because you can't move doesn't mean there's not somebody in there.'"

[T'wit]

The young lady writes with a sure and mature hand. She will be a catch for whatever publishing company is lucky enough to employ her.