Posted on 03/16/2005 10:06:33 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
I'm sure you and Hitler would have been in complete agreement. You must be guite a genius in your own mind.
I don't see how simply eating is deemed to be "continuing medical care". Don't you see that they are taking action to KILL her- this is not a "allowed to die" situation. They want to deprive her of food artificially they won't even let her parents feed her. This case has nothing to do with allowing a suffering loved one to "go home". I think what you did was right and just but the case of your wife was utterly different. I don't understand why you can't make the distinction.
Yeah, and BTK was the president of HIS church, too....
luv2ski replied:
"Yeah, and BTK was the president of HIS church, too..."
Excellent comeback .(LOL)
Unfortunately, one poster was able to hijack the thread.
It's an argument by paradigm, not syllogism: the incidences are examples that, taken together, establish a pattern of neglect, which pattern supports the proposition that Michael's primary motives are something other than Terri's best interests. Consistent with a paradigm argument, the more examples, the stronger the case - and others have documented these meticulously.
Here's another rock on the pile: Terri could conceivably make a court appearance herself. However, her wheelchair is broken. Michael has not had it fixed. I'm not sure, but he may have even explicitly ordered it not be fixed.
Where would this stop? Suppose all she needed to survive (beyond the feeding tube] was a 'little' heart/lung machine? Suppose the machine cost $1 million? Suppose $1.95
Where does it stop, indeed? That argument - a reductio ad absurdum - can slice the other way. Where do we draw the line of personhood, with the rights and privileges enjoyed under the law? It has always been my contention that replacing a logical criteria - life is a dynamic continuum that begins at conception and ends with a natural death - with a scalar one, such as a) development, b) brain activity, c) intelligence, or d) volume of liquid one can swallow, has proven dangerous in a broader historical context. Before you respond to that, ask yourself what makes you you? Is it the cells and nerves that comprise the man known as WC on FreeRepublic? Our cells completely turn over every 10 years. There is a dynamic principle, even a divine spark, elusive, that defines us as human beings and defies all scientific inquiry. We are, and each of us is special, not measurable in our entirety by any scale but transcendent, characters in the magnificent theater of Creation.
Regarding your hypotheticals and, specifically, terminal patients: I agreed with your earlier argument about terminal cancer victims. Oat-cell lung cancer, which killed my father-in-law at age 57, kills 94% of its victims overall, and almost 100% with extensive-stage disease. Only two clinical stages exist for this devastating carcinoma. He elected to forgo chemo. That was his choice and I don't hold it against him. I may have even made the same choice, given the prognosis for this particular disease and the drastic side effects of powerful drugs like etoposide, vincristine, and cisplatin. You know even better than I the pain and tears brought by cancer, watching the one you love deeply slowly succumb, weakening day by day, week by week, vicariously dying with them each day.
Terri's case is quite different: no chemo, no ventilator. All she needs is a feeding tube. With the proper therapy, there's no reason to assume she could never be rehabilitated. The testimony of doctors favorable to her cause seems to have gotten short-shrifted - improperly weighted. Judge Greer gave a doctor with over a decade visiting Terri triannually less weight than one who visited her for 30 minutes. This is consistent with Judge Greer's pattern throughout this case (see the transcription at 607 of a Nov. 2002 ruling against evidence that could have proven harmful to Michael). What is unclear to me, though perhaps irrelevant, is whether the seed of this pattern lies in favor toward Michael or favor toward euthanasia for the disabled and the precedent it will establish; it's irrelevant because they are synonymous, but I suspect the latter.
Others are seeing this.
BTW as an interesting fact: did you know that Judge Greer is legally blind? There is a picture posted somewhere on FR of him "examining" several documents pertaining to this case. He is not wearing any glasses (presence of contacts unknown).
You never did answer the guy asking you if you were sympathetic to the Schindlers' cause or not.
IMHO, your wife's situation was much different from Terri's. You make another excellent point referring to what happens in hospice care, and it is one of many reasons why Terri is improperly housed at a hospice. With that feeding tube, she is not terminal (as her five years there would also indicate). She does not receive antibiotic treatment for infections in hospice, as it is only palliative care given there. She did not receive regular dental cleanings and exams, because hospice only provides palliative care. Terri is not dying, and she should not be in hospice! Terri being housed in hospice for five years is only one of MANY irregularities in this case.
Love the blue, but what is it?
(I have a Mac, maybe that's why I can't see it??)
It has a smiley face in it!
Neither can a newborn baby. Should parents be given the power to "end an infant's suffering" by withdrawing the "medical care" (sheesh, my mom could be called a professional nurse!) that is providing sustenance to the helpless?
The REAL problem here, folks, is not that Terri cannot feed herself. The problem is that unfortunate Terri cannot speak. So other more unethical, heartless, irrational people have decided they have the power to speak for her.
Orecon
Where the heck have you been?
You have not read the medical factsl.
Where did you come from? Do you know how to read?
Are you under the impression that she will die on Firday? That would only be the day when they stopped giving her nourishment.
Given that there are have only been two fact-finding judges in these matters related to Terri, and one of them sided with the Schindlers, I fail to find the fact that the other has not indicative of anything other than bias (or worse) on the part of the judge that accepted only pro-Schiavo evidence.
What is really sad (and an obvious miscarraige of justice) is that this is not the only report of this nature regarding Terry's awareness and non-vegitative state.
When Terry's story first made big news, all you heard in the media was that Terry was a vegitable and had no hope of recovery. The only reason she was alive was artificial means, and that Michael just wantd her suffering to end.
But now that far more people have joined in the case, lots more information has come to light. Information that points to far more than a simple "let her go in peace" situation.
I honestly don't know if Michael is responsible for Terry's initial problem - though some think he isn't completely innocent in that regard, but I do believe that he has done absolutely nothing to encourage any sort of recovery. Her being alive has represented an inconvenience to him.
What REALLY sheds a dark shadow is that the family and interested 3rd parties have offered to take responsibility for all of Terry's needs - completely alleviating Michael of any "burden". He refuses - why? Because he has something to gain when she dies.
The fact that the courts have been so blind to all of the mounting evidence that Terry IS viable - and not a "vegitable" as Michael would have them believe - is a travesty of justice.
Why has there not been any sort of legal investigation as to the cart altering at the nursing home as documented by this statement? This just makes me ill.
What condition could Terry have possibly been in had she received the prescribed therapy over the years? I think Michael's fear is that she might be in a position to finger him for something.
If it gives some comfort to her grieving parents, then it matters... have some compassion for the living..
"Keep trying, Schindler's!!!!!!!!!!! Hang in there, Terri. Waiting for Dept. of Children & Families to weigh in and take Terri into protective custody."
Please don't wait for humanitarian protests from Bianca Jaeger and from Human Rights orgs. They're too concerned about taunts afflicting confined terrorists.
ORECON, with regard to "the medical facts"; you asserted in 227 that "All doctors agreed, only one quack thought he could work with her." In #270 I how that assertion is self-refuting, and contradicted by the historical evidence.
Second, in your frequent appeals to the mere fact of certain laws and court decisions as being dispositive of the issue, I wonder if your opinion hinges on a presupposition of legal positivism; ie that law is just a social construct - that there are no necessary moral constraints on the content of law or the decisions of judges - that by definition there is no such thing as an unjust or unwise decision of a court, no matter how absurd or immoral the outcome. Am I correct to think that your philosophy of law is one of legal positivsm?
Cordially,
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