Colleen Carroll Campbell: Terri's fight continues

STLToday ^ | 7/28/11 | Colleen Carroll Campbell

[wagglebee]

he death of Terri Schindler Schiavo in 2005 is a distant memory for most Americans. But for the family that spent seven years fighting Terri's estranged husband and the court system to stop the starvation of their daughter and sister, recollections of the 13 days Terri lingered without food or water before finally succumbing to death remain vivid and painful. And the knowledge that other brain-damaged patients could suffer a similar fate has propelled this once-ordinary family into around-the-clock activism.

"It was almost like there really wasn't an option," said Terri's sister, Suzanne Schindler-Vitadamo, when I interviewed her last weekend in Kansas City, Kan., at an end-of-life ethics conference sponsored by the St. Gianna Physician's Guild.

Along with her mother, Mary Schindler, and brother, Bobby Schindler Jr., Schindler-Vitadamo now works full time for the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, a non-profit group that advocates for disabled patients threatened by health-care rationing and euthanasia.

"I used to be a stockbroker; Bobby used to be a high school teacher," Schindler-Vitadamo said. Yet, after witnessing how her brain-damaged sister died on the orders of judges and medical professionals who regarded Terri's life unworthy of even the basic care of food and water, she said, "none of us could ever imagine going back."

Before his death in 2009, Terri's father, Robert Schindler, also dedicated himself to raising awareness about the dangers posed by a culture that increasingly judges the right to life on a sliding scale, a scale on which lives like Terri's count for little.

[BykrBayb]

You may think you're being original, but you're not the first troll to come here with lies attacking Terri Schiavo and other cognitively disabled people.

Cue the music!

[little jeremiah]

I vote that you are morally dead. And deserve zotting.

[BykrBayb]

We’ve all read the actual autopsy. Most of us have copies of it on our hard drive. We don’t need to rely the lies of a troll.

I don’t understand why they hate Terri Schiavo so much. She’s been dead over six years, but somehow, she can never be dead enough for them. They can’t resist an opportunity to bad mouth her.

[metmom]

IBTZ

[wagglebee]

Bull. Go read the autopsy. Her frontal cortex was LIQUID. The Brain on the left is a normal human one and the one on the right is Terry's shortly before she died. The Black area is where brain tissue has been replaced with cerebo-spinal fluid

Hey troll, why don't you go for two weeks without food or water and we can see how your brain looks.

Here are the FACTS:

1. Terri was conscious and alert when she was murdered.

2. Terri's murder was nothing more than a dress rehearsal for death panels, death panels that YOU SUPPORT.

3. All of your talk about money is meaningless. Terri had plenty of money, money that was stolen by her murderers.

Go back to DU, they were thrilled to see Terri murdered.

[wagglebee]

You may think you're being original, but you're not the first troll to come here with lies attacking Terri Schiavo and other cognitively disabled people.

I'm willing to bet that this isn't this troll's first time.

[BykrBayb]

This troll’s timing sucks. I can’t stick around and watch the blood thirsty bastard ride the lightening. Would you save me a copy of whatever gets deleted?

[xzins]

You totally misunderstand the Shiavo case, Quis. It isn’t about government money keeping someone alive. It’s about a judge forbidding someone trying to use natural means to keep her alive: feeding her naturally, giving her water naturally.

If they folks wanted to sit there with a spoon and a bottle, then they were actively (a probably futilely) giving of themselves to keep her living naturally.

The judge’s order forbade any effort on her behalf, and it was therefore an order decreeing the homicide of Terri Shiavo.

The same with any ill person. If they can be kept alive with natural methods, then it is necessary to continue those methods to honor life and to avoid homicide.

Call me nuts, but Shiavo’s homicide was the beginning of very bad times for America.

[wagglebee]

The troll has no cognitive ability, frying him will free up bandwidth.

[EternalVigilance]

This country is trillions in debt because we are unwilling to make hard choices that previous generations accepted as simple facts of life.

Sorry. We're not trillions in debt because we don't off enough weak and helpless human beings. We're trillions in debt, and our moral underpinnings are coming undone, because of folks like yourself who place little or no value on the life of the innocent.

[wagglebee]

There comes a time when we have to ask whether it really is worth it for medicare to cover a $100,000 prostate cancer drug that prolongs lives an average of only 4.1 months longer than the placebo ( http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/medicare-will-pay-for-prostate-cancer-drug/ )

Like a typical pro-death troll you are taking your talking points from a NEW YORK TIMES BLOG.

You are truly pathetic.

[EternalVigilance]

Sorry but wasting money on a medically hopeless scenario is NOT being fiscally conservative. A line has to be drawn SOMEWHERE.

You seem to be a mental and moral vegetable. How's about we draw that line with YOU?

[wagglebee]

Great idea!

[little jeremiah]

Thumbs down!

[little jeremiah]

They love death, they hate Life, and naturally hate the Author of all Life.

There are those who love God and therefore love all Life, and those who hate Him and therefore hate all Life.

She symbolizes Life and God’s love, so they hate her.

They reveal the darkness in their hearts by their own words.

[little jeremiah]

Death lovers see mercy and loving kindness as faults and weakness. They worship cruelty and evil, it’s really amazing.

[EternalVigilance]

Lock ‘em in a hospice room for a couple of weeks with no food or hydration. Since they obviously have no human feelings, they obviously won’t feel a thing!

[little jeremiah]

Then they can experience the ecstasy they condemn onto others.

[wagglebee]

Since they obviously have no human feelings, they obviously won’t feel a thing!

Not true, I distinctly remember hearing that being dehydrated to death produces euphoria (even in those who are "brain dead").

[Jim Robinson]

zot