After 15 years, everyone involved might have a sense of closure from this ordeal. Maybe not the ideal sense given the circumstances, but how long does it take before people are allowed to move on? Maybe if the technology permits, such as stem cell regeneration, there can be better odds for victims of PVS, but that's one tall order for people to recover after that long.
Originally posted by SamFisher Cohen, I'm pretty damned convinced by the findings of the courts who have exhaustively litigated this for several years and ruminated on these facts. You so expertly avoided the question: do the courts always do whats right for everyone? (How 'exhaustively litigated' was the OJ trial, anyway?) A hypothertical scenario: say not enough evidence exists to convict a husband of a crime injuring his wife to where she cannot speak ... can the courts overrule what he says his wife's wishes were? Just answer the question. You seem so convinced of the court's infallibilities. Shall we review the history of horrible outcomes where the courts were bound by law to make a horrible decision? But anyway, please enlighten me on these miraculous cases (I guess the courts, and the various experts on whose opinions they relied, must have not liked them so much Look'm up. Or just look up the meta-analysis. Since you are now a medical expert though, i invite, I beg, I plead you to address the report of the doctor that Jeb appointed to save her and he ended up arriving at the same conclusion most rational people have. I don't know who Jeb appointed and I don't care. That's where you have a serious problem ... your hangup WRT Republicans blurs your vision. Sishir Chang has posted it for us and referred you to it numerous times in the other thread. I don't believe you ever addressed it, once, you just say "yeah but her family and the nobel prize guys said this!!!!!!!". Are you purposefully ignoring it because it exposes the quackery that is the foundation of your argument? I care about what her family said because they're of more concern to me than what the Conservatives want or what the bitter Liberals don't want. Clinical research is not 'quackery', and I don't know what 'nobel prize winnners' you're talking about. Want to elaborate? I empathize with them, and recognize them for what they are, people who need counseling. Condescending, abhorrent bullsh*t. so you'd rather indulge their fantasies and their quack svengalis than respect what has been determined to be their daughters wishes? Fortunately for her (body, and her parents in the long run as well) others much wiser and well versed in this than you and I in the situation have decided differently, numerous times. I'm no 'medical expert' and I never claimed to be. Another instance where you must be confusing me with someone else. But after working in the healthcare industry for 15 years assessing medical quality of care and watching how medicine evolves, I can assure you that folks like you put far too much confidence in 'specialists', and far too much confidence in their abilities to see what new advances are coming around the corner. Look through the research on MCS and PVS. A lot of 'we're not sure' or 'we don't know'. How about : http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0D17FF345F0C7B8CDDAB0894DD404482 ' New Signs of Awareness Seen In Some Brain-Injured Patients' Again. they're not certain what it means for an MCS patient, but it might be that they just cannot respond. Isn't that a MATERIAL enough issue to make you wonder about how much the 'specialists' really understand? As for the 'quack svengalis', they may be the ones who imagine the next breakthrough therapy. Remember 'Lorenzo's Oil'? Lorenzo's oil finally proven to work The controversial do-it-yourself medicine that inspired the heart-rending movie Lorenzo's Oil has finally been proved to work. The new research ends years of uncertainty about the treatment and demolishes the claims of experts who repeatedly said it was a worthless quack remedy. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2851 I hope none of your children contract any serious illness. Apparently, unlike Lorenzo's parents, you would simply accept the 'experts' opinions and give up.
Cohen; I can understand your concern but what would you have us do? Ignore court rulings? This case has been so widely litigated and reviewed all the way up to the USSC that its hard to consider it a legal mistake. The OJ criminal trial was only tried once and when it was somewhat reviewed in the civil trial he was found guilty. This case has been tried and appealed repeatedly and found to be in accord with the strictest interpretation of the law. What you're asking for is for the courts to ignore the law or interpret it very very broadly.
Cohen: this marks the second time you have, for some reason, attempted to invoke the criminal justice system in an attempt to defend your position. I'm not sure why you do this, but it is either out of ignorance as to the way it works or a deliberate attempt to distract and discredit via irrelevance. Either way it is immaterial. The courts, who made findings of fact, reviewed the doctors asssessments, and even reviewed the assessments of the "power of prayer" quack doctors that you hold in high esteem. They did so more patiently and extensively and exhaustively than you did. But keep invoking OJ if it makes you feel better... I find it particularly amusing about how you accuse me of "expertly avoid[ing] the question" that the law is always right. Are you in a PVS yourself? THis is from the other thread, directly responding to a post of yours, in which you similarly injected the irrelevant criminal law analogy: http://bbs2.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=92647&perpage=30&pagenumber=3 Perhaps you missed it? I find it hard to believe since you continued posting in that thread afterwards. Anyway, speaking of avoiding, I'm glad you've avoided putting forth credible evidence of brain dead people recovering from PVS by positing that i look them up. That really helps your cause. Where should I start? TomDelay.gov? Cultureoflife.com? Help me out Cohen. You're the one who knows about this. You've also, of course, avoided, for about the nth time, addressing the voluminous credible medical evidence against the vegetable rights crusade you irrevocably committed yourself to. Read the report Cohen. It's pretty convincing. It's alot more convicing than the Nobel Prize Winners you cite - and by this I mean this gentleman: This gentleman that you refer to as influencing your opinion, based I guess off some interview you saw on some cable news channel (I guess not fox, ha), billed by the pro PVS crowd (her family & various politicians) as a Nobel Prize winner, or a Nobel Prize nominee, is of course neither - other than some born-again christian who runs a pseudo-medical/religious website and obviously has his own agenda. But then you've got "Lorenzo's Oil" in your corner. That would be great if we were talking about adrenoleukodystrophy. But of course we're not. People have challenged you before to post peer-reviewed credible evidence, and you have nothing. You basically made a snap-judgment based on some interview of a grieving family member who was spouting off delusional silliness in a moment of emotional stress and now you're stuck with it for better or worse .... actually take out "better" and just leave in worse. You can continue to defend this view, but I suggest you get acquainted with the power of prayer you have aligned yourself with because this is an argument you're not going to win on your own. Edit: I also like how you enjoy framing the issue as a bunch of bitter liberals making trouble. I guess that's why 70-80% of the country thought this whole thing was an embarrassing fiasco, which correspondingly caused GWB, who, 2 weeks ago was saving vegetative liives by signing bills in his pajamas, to retreat off the scene like a beaten dog after his approval rating dropped because of it.
I posted this in the 'Schiavo Neurologists' thread but will do it again here since its such a big topic of debate. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7328639/ This link has an image from her 2002 CAT scan.
No. I don't want court rulings to be ignored. But courts are bound by law, which is not always what's 'right'. In this instance, I'm still at a loss as to why the husband did not just divorce Terri and let the family care for her. Although it is possible that a young woman would mention to her husband that she didn't want to be kept alive by machines, I seriously doubt they went into great detail and she considered whether that would include removing a feeding tube.
SamFisher, You've still expertly avoided the leag question that I posed. Regardless of whether these were 'pre-trial motiions'. The question was if there was possible wrongdoing, would it require a criminal conviction of the husband before he loses the right to resolve medical decisions for his wife. As for the medical issues, we'd still be bleeding patients if everyone had your opinion WRT medicine. You know why I brought up Lorenzo's oil ... to show that your approach to medicine, the meekish 'this is what the experts say and all other views are quackery' ... is dangerous and wrong. You act like I have no medical grounds to stand on, but what do you stand on? Go to MedLine and enter CMS/PVS. AGAIN, it's a poorly understood area of medicine. Hence, we will contionue to see reports like the one about whether MRIs indicate that some CMS patients may actually be aware but lack the ability to respond. Or the recent research that shows that the stems cells in the brain can grow new neurons...contrary to what the 'experts' have claimed. Neurogenesis...I'll be d*mned. The undeniable fact: we have a LOT more to understand about this condition and there will ultimately be therapies and even cures for many of these people. Or you can just trust the 'experts' and accept that there will never be a cure and stop trying to hold out 'false hope' and send everyone to counseling.
My wife and I talked about this the other night. I told her that I would be devestated if I knew she didn't fulfill my wishes not to be kept alive in a PVS and instead just signed away her guardianship over to my parents just to appease them so they could keep my alive. If you told your wife the same thing, would you have a problem with her signing you over to your parents, despite your wishes?
Prediction: in our lifetimes, the pace of breakthroughs in this medical specialty will accelerate. BTW, what does a flat-EEG mean? Apparently, some brain functions are still working. Weren't people once considered 'gone' when the heart stopped? After all, there's no way to re-start a heart, right? No doctor can claim that they know where the technology will be at in only 5 years. IIRC, we only learned about adult brain neurogenesis in the last couple of years. That will prob spur additional research (they already identified a protein that may help the stem cells survive in parts of the brain where they would normally die off). In only 10 years we'll be substantially ahead of where we are now.
We are lucky because we have the opportunity to discuss this with our spouses and parents in depth now so there are no misunderstandings. And FWIW, I will let my feelings be known, but we cannot know all of the circumstance in advance so my wife will have to use some judgement. If it was just the 2 of us, I'd make the decision outright now but we have children involved and their welfare comes first.
Yes, I totally agree the law isn't always right but it is still the law and in our society we abide by the rule of law. The alternative of asking the judges to go against or beyond the law opens up a can of worms that in most cases would be detrimental to society and at the least should be considered judicial misconduct. For conservatives, and I don't know if you are one of these, this is a case of be careful what you wish for. Conservatives for decades have railed against 'judicial activists' for broadly interpretting the law and so have been seeking to put conservative justices. Well they got what they wished judges who rule on the law strictly and the rulings on this case have been legally strict. I was wondering about that too but this is a much more complicated question that simply for Mr. Schiavo to walk away. For one it seems most likely to me that he really does love her and wants to do his utmost to honor what he believes her last wishes. The amount of trouble and hate that he's gotten don't seem worth it to go for this and we know he's already turned down money and all of the settlement and insurance money is gone. The second thing that I've been reading is about that even if he did divorce her the process would still go on. Apparently the legal rulings aren't on his behalf but are written on her behalf and that the court decisions have centered on her desier to not be maintained that way. So legally Michael Schiavo has no official say in this since the courts are interpretting Terry Schiavo's wishes.
Terry died due to dehydration not starvation. I say put a Big Mac, large order of fries, and a large chocolate shake in front of Terry and let her have at it. But wait, she can't feed herself or swallow when soemone else feeds her. The question begs whether anyone would really want to "live" like this. I would not and my living will confirms it.
So the redux of what you are saying is that doctors and the court system are not perfect. Due process in our legal system and 99 out of 100 doctors could be flat out wrong. But what choice do we have? Do we as a society keep patients in a condition similar to Terry's alive (costing $100,000 a year) waiting for the miracle cure that is 1, 10, 20, 50, or 100 years away? And do you concede the gross injustice of keeping Terry alive for the 15 years or so if it has really been against her wishes?
No. You don't know what you are talking about and are making no sense. I can't avoid what doesn't make sense. I'm not avoiding anything. I'm saying impartial individuals have weighed these questions intensively - you made a snap judgment based on the emotional bleatings of a bunch of folks with an agenda who think baby jesus is going to come down and revive the dead. What is your proposed course of treatement here doctor? Crystals or prayer circles? I stand on the opinion of multiple reputable physicians who has studied the case and have come to the same conclusion. The condition of this individual was not poorly understood by any means. She was brain dead for 15 years. It was a husk, being kept alive by machines. Every possiblity of her recovery was considered by the various tribunals & physicians, and yes, those so-called experts are a lot more trustworthy on the science of this issue than you are, judging by your posts on the subject.
The main question about this issue that keeps popping into my head is: "Are the parents wanting to keep her alive for her benefit or for their's?"
Cohen; You're correct there but you have to ask the question in Terry Schiavo's case how long is long enough? She's been kept alive due to extraordinary efforts of her doctors and hospice staff. A potential cure for regrowing brain matter is probably decades away. She's been in this state for 15 years and as time goes will continue on a long slow decline. At some point is it just cruel to keep her alive? I've largely sided with the remove feeding tube side because of the legal issues involved and have wrestled with the personal implications. I've come to the conclusion that I wouldn't want to be kept "alive" like that for such an inordinate amount of time even if I knew that in 10 years their would be a cure. For one I would wake up in a totally different world with most of the people I knew gone or different and I would've already lost decades of my own life in limbo and wouldn't be the same person myself. That's not a fate I want and not one I would want to impose on others. For this case all I can go is that the ourts have ruled this was her wish and as one who respects the rule of law I will abide by that.
Mess with the bull you get the horns ... Schiavo Family, Husband Spar Over Funeral TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - The medical examiner completed the autopsy of Terri Schiavo on Friday, clearing the way for the release of the body to her husband, who plans to cremate her remains and bury the ashes without telling his in-laws when or where. ...
