Schiavo's life was tragically short, but her legacy is long (USA Today editorial)

USA Today via Yahoo News ^ | 4/1/05

[Wolfstar]

USA Today is Title/Link Only

[Long Cut]

Window dressing. Don't bet the rent on any actual laws being passed. I'd be shocked if they were even brought up for a vote.

As the hysteria dies down over the next few weeks, the comittees will move on. They can read the polls quite well.

The public at large will not long tolerate the focus on this issue.

[buffyt]

I have three grown children, too. I have already told them that if anything happens to them and they are in a coma or bedridden it will be ME who takes care of them. Their spouses can help, if they want to, but I have offered to do the work myself. My kids know that means I love them.

[Peach]

I don't want anyone involved in my end of life issues but my husband. Period.

And he has my permission to keep trying for a period of time and lead another life in the interim if that period of time goes beyond a year. I don't believe in tying my family to my bedside any more than I believe in govermental intervention in my life.

[Peach]

Let's try not to re-argue the specific case that brought us all to this point but discuss the broader implications of end of life issues.

[rebel25]

i disagree it talked of the "countless number of physicians" that said she was brain dead, and said the family said she wasn't with no mention of the doctors backing them up.

[Diogenesis]

felosious (fee-losh-eyus) or felosian (fee-losh-eyan) adj. - incredibly active
and duplicitous while promoting the death of other humans
using a variety of illegal, conspiratorial, PR, fiduciary, pseudojudicial, and other means
for profit.

[buffyt]

We toured Dachau in 1998. I keep remembering the photos of the starving prisoners in that death camp, when I think of Terri.

The grounds

The famous gate

Reconstructed Barracks

The Main Building

The Krematorium

Behind the Krematorium

The Jewish Memorial

The Carmelites

Practical

[Wolfstar]

I understand your concerns, Peach. Truly. I share them, and especially fear what might be the outcome of laws passed by "a Congress, some of whom at least have expressed the ideal that life is life and no one should ever be taken off a machine for any reason." In addition to young children and other people who cannot, I would add to your list people who are not Christians and hold different end-of-life beliefs.

The issues are many and complex, which is why I'm trying to encourage people to look away from Schiavo as one individual case, a to begin focusing on the larger issues that will affect us all.

[OldFriend]

That is exactly how I feel.

My children are the ages of the Schiavo's when this tragedy befell them.

I told them this weekend that I would want any of them to go on with life, find love and happiness and have children too if that is what they wanted.

Wouldn't want my husband or my children to effectively end their lives if their spouse's life was ended.

I love them all too much.

[OldFriend]

Have the children and their spouses agreed to assign guardianship over to you?

[Wolfstar]

It's coming up on 1:00pm Pacific time. Am going out to lunch, but will catch up to the discussion later.

[buffyt]

As we toured Dachau, even the gas chambers, we walked through those, and the barracks. They had photos everywhere, of the victims of starvation, torture, medical experiments.... I thought, as this sign reads... "NEVER AGAIN" But I was wrong. We are still starving our fellow men/women to death....

[mc5cents]

So much for the right to self determination extermination.

That is what you meant wasn't it?

[jwalsh07]

"Her parents insist she was alert and capable of some recovery. Her husband and countless experts say she was without conscious thought and had just reflexes, not responses."

This is right out of ole Joe Goebbels playbook. One side of the story subtly ignoring the countless Doctors who testified and/or filed affadavits saying that Teri Shiavo had some level of consciousness.

USA Today is not, I repeat, no and uninterested objective observer. They take sides and they hardly ever take the side I am on. This editorial is the same ole, same ole. BS laced with perfume is still BS.

[GloriaJane]

From what my Mother in law told me he ate battery acid from a car battery they had in the house to charge. His brain swelled, he went into convulsions, he started bleeding from his ears, nose and mouth.

The Children's Hospital here in Columbus, Ohio saw no hope. A specialist flew in from somewhere and said he also saw no hope. But if the family were to give him permission he would try something. He opened his head and washed his brain with fluids. They left this head open for a while.

He lived but all the Dr.s said he would never be anything other then a vegetable. None saw any hope. They were wrong. And I have three beautiful children to prove that they were very very wrong. That's why Terri's fight meant so much to me. I know the Dr.s can be wrong.

Had my Mother in law and Father in law listened to the Dr.s they would have let him go. Thank God they did not.

[buffyt]

So far. But if that changes, it is fine with me. I am just saying that I will be there to the end for them. Their spouses are welcome to take over or help. I am just promising that I will be there, even if everyone else abandons them. Of course, I am pretty old and won't be able to take care of them forever. But I have promised them their whole lives that I will always be there for them.

[OldFriend]

Please don't reduce the holocaust to a decision to remove a feeding tube of a woman who no longer had any life to call her own.

[buffyt]

Just that I won't abandon them or give up. I will seek the best medical help I can find, if they ever need it. As I get too old to take care of myself, they will do the same for me. We have discussed this many times, way before the Terri S case came up.

[ContraryMary]

I think the debate will be good for all, and I welcome it. The Pubbies have to tread cautiously, however. People don't want the Congress to dictate their end-of-life decisions. If they overreach, as the Dems did with Hillary-care, it will cost them.

[GloriaJane]

I feel the same way you do. If anything happens to one of my own I will be there to take care of them. I did it for my mother and I would do it for my children as well because that's what love is. Giving freely of ones self.