Humans are never vegetables
If Rom Houben's case proves anything, it is the arrogance of those who think they can pronounce upon the state of a patient's consciousness, and determine his subsequent fate--when humility should force them to admit they cannot possibly know what that patient may be experiencing.
Houben is the Belgian man who spent 23 years misdiagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state when he was actually conscious and suffering from locked-in syndrome as the result of an auto accident. Locked-in syndrome means the individual is paralyzed, but retains full consciousness.
The misdiagnosis was discovered thanks to state-of-the-art brain scanning technology which neurologist Steven Laureys at Liege University Hospital used to discover that Houben still had activity in his cerebral cortex.
One has to wonder how many other patients through the years have been wrongly diagnosed as being in a coma or cruelly labeled "vegetables"-- a term which should be banished from the language as a reference point for discussing human beings.
Terri Schiavo's case comes to mind. Doctors argued for years over the level of consciousness they thought the Florida woman was capable of -- and their conclusions varied, whether they sided with Schiavo's husband, Michael, who wanted her feeding tube pulled so she would die or whether they sided with Schiavo's parents, who insisted she was conscious, recognized them and expressed emotions, including joy. Schiavo had suffered brain damage in 1990 after cardiac arrest, and she died in 2005, almost two weeks after her feeding tube was removed -- forcing her to undergo a slow death by starvation and dehydration.
Bobby Schindler, Schiavo's brother and executive director of the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation, commenting on Houben's case, told ABCNews.com:"We are learning how unscientific the diagnosis is. It's completely subjective and we are using it to sentence people to death, and it's dangerous."
It is indeed dangerous. Had that gross misnomer "the right to die" been at issue in Houben's case, this fully conscious man would have had to undergo the agony of people debating whether he should be allowed to live, and he could have faced the agony of knowing he was being starved to death, unable to communicate with anyone to let them know there was indeed a fully aware person inside his paralyzed body. Particularly poignant was Houben's description, via a special keyboard and computer, of how he tried to alert his caregivers to his conscious state: "I screamed, but there was nothing to hear."
He characterized the day the misdiagnosis was revealed as a rebirth for him: "I especially felt relief. Finally to be able to show that I was indeed there."
The lesson from Houben's case--and reinforced, sadly, too late by Schiavo's case-- is that if doctors and courts must err, it should always be on the side of life, and on the assumption that despite all outward appearances, the "I" is "indeed there."
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Belgian Case Reignites 'Brain Dead' Debate as Catholics Order Force Feedings
The family of Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman who was artificially kept alive for 15 years, say they feel both heartbreak and vindication over the news this week that a Belgian man thought to be in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) was fully conscious for two decades.
Schiavo, who had been diagnosed with a profound brain injury, was at the center of a seven-year legal tug-of-war that involved Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court and even President George W. Bush before a judge granted her husband the right to allow her to die in 2005.
In a strikingly similar case this week, Belgian doctors revealed that Ron Houbens -- thought to have no brain activity since a 1983 car crash -- had actually been paralyzed and was fully conscious, able to hear everything around him but not respond.
With the news that patients can be mentally "locked in" -- unable to breathe or eat on their own or communicate, yet fully aware cognitively --- some religious and ethical groups are saying, "I told you so."
And now the Catholic Church has weighed in, ordering doctors at its hospitals to ignore patients' advanced directives indicating they do not want artificial feeding if they are diagnosed as permanently unconscious.
"This is why we created our foundation, for stories like this man," said Bobby Schindler, executive director of the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation.
"Tens of thousands of people with cognitive injuries like these are using PVS to diagnose and kill," he told ABCNews.com. "We are learning how unscientific the diagnosis is. It's completely subjective and we are using it to sentence people to death and it's dangerous." . . .
"We will not be silent.
We are your bad conscience.
The White Rose will give you no rest."