Posted on 07/11/2011 4:46:42 PM PDT by wagglebee
Thanks for the ping. Finally some light of truth about so-called “vegetative state”.
PVS is long been shown to be overdiagnosed in at least 30 percent of cases, and some of the others probably are overdiagnosed.
I worked with the profoundly retarded, and lots of them looked “PVS” and were called vegetables by medical people when they were sick...but when they were well, they would respond to certain staff with smiles etc.
There was one very low functioning boy who was blind and we thought he might fit that diagnosis, but then one day I heard lovely singing, and when I went in, he was having a bath...and the staff said he sang (no words just melody) when he was bathed.
Lots of time fatigue, drugs (such as drugs for seizures) or illness can lower their ability to be alert.
thanks for the post. I am chagrined to find that I am
out of practice in reply to this. “PVS” was flawed from
the start.
That assumption, that an apparently comatose person should
be regarded as being able to hear anything, once was common
enough to appear in one of the older “advice columns” That’s
where I first saw it. (Ann or Abby). Kudos to your college.
Bump
If we really are allowed to euthanize people because they’re severely brain-damaged, we could wipe out the Left in our lifetime.
Absolutely!!
Still see the uniformed remarking that Terri was taken off “life support” on other sites.
Never stop correcting the record, friends!!
Praise God for FR and FB and dedicated lovers of life and liberty, who carry the torch for the innocent!!
Several studies, one as late as 2009, have found that as many as 41 percent of PVS patients had some level of awareness, and the evidence keeps building.Schiff called his first experience with an awakening - he discovered his very first PVS patient was speaking three years later - “truly surreal.”
We were taught that, as well. Everything I've seen shows that we can never assume what level of healing a person, a body created by God, is capable of. As you point out, this is hardly new, and there a growing body of evidenceas well as in anecdotal evidence, especially with advances in technolonogy.
Unfortunately, as we saw in Terri's situation, even though we should be progressing in compassion and ability as a society, too many insist on regression and cruelty (ironically, it is those who claim to be most "progressive").
As was said,
~~ Frank Pavone, national director of the anti-abortion group Priests For LifeTerri did not die from an atrophied brain.
She died from an atrophy of compassion
on the part of her estranged husband
and those who helped him to have her deliberately killed."
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