Terri Schiavo

[avram]

I’ve been meaning to write something about Terri Schiavo. I haven’t, largely because I find myself made very uncomfortable by too much about the whole affair. If I were king of the world, I’d have Terri put into her parents’ custody and encourage Michael to go through divorce proceedings. I’d also order Bush to publicly justify his signing the Texas Futile Care Law as Governor, and order that if anyone who voted to federalize this case ever uses “state’s rights” as a justification for anything ever again they’re to be bludgeoned to death with a metal-bound copy of The Federalist Papers.

Some of this discomfort comes from having watched a few of the videos up on the Terri’s Fight website. And some of the discomfort comes from knowing that those videos were cherry-picked out of four hours of footage that I’ll never see, and knowing the wonders that can be worked with that sort of cherry-picking.

Some comes from the very notion of the “persistent vegetative state”. Is anybody else squicked by that term? Isn’t it insulting to compare a human being to a vegetable? Is it too much to ask of our clinical, dispassionate medical terminology that it actually be clinical and dispassionate? And how often are these things misdiagnosed?

And then there’s the fact that the right wing has been complaining about “activist judges” for decades, and I’m worried that this could lead to some kind of wholesale assault on the judicial branch by the legislative and executive.

Other than that just go read what Jim Henley wrote, and know that I agree with about 90% of it.

Comments

[stormsweeper.livejournal.com]

Is anybody else squicked by that term? Isn’t it insulting to compare a human being to a vegetable? Is it too much to ask of our clinical, dispassionate medical terminology that it actually be clinical and dispassionate? And how often are these things misdiagnosed?

There was a CAT scan several years ago that showed her cerebral cortex was mostly spinal fluid at the time:

http://www.miami.edu/ethics2/schiavo/CT%20scan.png

That big gray area is all spinal fluid - in a healthy brain it's negligible.

Also, Michael Schiavo is largely a symbolic figure at this point, since 2000 or so Terri has been a ward of the state.

[gentlyepigrams]

Applying Jim's "my sister" standard (or in this case, the "my spouse" standard), I would be in Michael Schiavo's shoes after 15 years, and I would fight anyone who told me I needed to divorce him and let his parents drag his corpse around. I know what my husband's wishes are in this matter--particularly after this case--and even if we never get around to issuing medical directives, I mean to carry them out if it comes to that, *because* I love him.

I'm not an internet expert who can evaluate the claims made for Terri Schiavo one way or the other. What I do know is that something like 20 judges in 7 trial courts believe that her wishes have been evaluated adequately. I feel sorry for her parents: they're clearly desperate. Who would let themselves be used by some of the scumbags involved if they weren't? But that doesn't mean I want my mother to drag my sister's corpse around like that, or that I wouldn't fight it if my in-laws did it to the man I love.

[ckd]

The Bush-appointed guardian ad litem's report is linked from here.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for the link. To the commenter who mentioned Terri's cat scan--go to the following link where a phsysician who has read 10,000 CT scans discusses Terri's (the same one you linked)http://codeblueblog.blogs.com/codeblueblog/2005/03/csi_medblogs_co.html

Sorry, I haven't figured out how to put a link in a word.

Also, in case you think this issue is progressive versus conservative, go read the website for the progressive Not Dead Yet. The group advocates for disability rights. The link is: http://www.notdeadyet.org/

Sue Bob: http://www.suebobsdiary.blogspot.com/

[sirloafalot.livejournal.com]

It's a sad case any way you look at it, that's for sure.