I know this is controversial, but aside from the fact that her hubby may have ill intent - what point exactly is there in continuing to keep someone in a vegetative state alive for several decades who suffered brain damage as a result of something they did to themselves (as a result of an eating disorder)?
Would this be any different if it was the result of a direct suicide attempt (rather than an eating disorder), or from a drugs overdose? It's not like she had an accident or a stroke unrelated to drastically risky lifestyle.
I am all for giving people a second chance (especially if they caused themselves damage from EDs or addictions, rather than outright suicide attempts where it is clear that the person WANTED to die and they may be very unhappy at having been kept alive or revived) but keeping someone alive for 15 years in a vegetative state after they almost killed themselves?
Sorry but that just is NOT natural.
She was not born that way, she got that way as a result of abusing her own body.
Even in a case where the patient has done NOTHING wrong there has to be point where you stop and ask yourself how far you should go in attempting to save lives, and to be honest where patients have neglected their personal responsibility and then - surprise surprise - suffered damage from it, this does not exactly pull the argument in their favour!
I find the religious outcries amusing - so if doctors should not have been allowed to play god by giving or taking lives that would not natirally have been preserved - guess what, she would've died 15 years ago!
And the feeding tube... considering the circumstances under which she got herself into this condition, that's just ironic really. :?
What is this world coming to when people can go about damaging themselves and then have the cheek to sue the government or doctors for the results of their foolishness, because the doctor did not spot the eating disorder SHE WAS TRYING TO KEEP A SECRET (d'uh if you want your doctor to treat you for an ED then tell them you have one rather than keeping it a secret and then suing the doctor for not reading your mind!)? (See also this case:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050314/344/fe8fc.html)
Want people to value your life? Start by not deliberately damaging your body or violating the law (as in the case above)!
And no I do not believe that she *has* to die, but after this amount of time in a permanent vegetative state, with no hope of recovery, I do not believe she should be kept alive through public funding either.
If the parents are that desperate to keep her alive, they can care for her at home and pay for it themselves.
And the husband would have more credibility if he signed over the rights to the cash (of which there is little left, compared to the outrageous amount she was awarded for damage she did to HERSELF!) in case of her death to a charity NOW.
Noetic, a few points. It was a misdiagnosed potassium deficiency that caused the brain damage. The hospital were negligent and that is why she had a compensation payout.
Exactly - she went to her doctor because her eating habits had caused her periods to seize, and then the doctor got sued because he didn't jump from her complaints about her cycle to a potassium deficiency.
He could NOT know that she had been starving herself and messing with her fluid intake to lose weight if she did not tell him about these things. Without that knowledge, when you get an apparently healthy woman in a healthy weight range, you can't be expected to be a psychic and know that she was messing with dangerous dieting methods and that she was at great risk of a heart attack.
The potassium deficiency was caused by an eating disorder, but even if it was caused by her attempting suicide, it doesn't mean that she should get treated less well than anyone else.
I was not advocating that at all - however from a moral PoV, someone trying to kill themselves in a "serious" suicide attempt (not a gesture or melodramatic type of thing), you can assume that they had reasons for not wanting to live, and this does influence certain decisions medically, such as whether doctors are willing to give them organ transplants (rather than giving the donor organs required to someone else).
Many people act like this woman is some kind of martyr who is being tortured etc. That is why I pointed out that such self-inflicted damage could be compared to damage from drug addiction or alcoholism etc.
Have you seen the video? She is able to breathe on her own, she is concious, she can make sounds, she reacts to light, and noise.
I have seen several videos, yes. Autonomous functions like breathing and heartbeat are no proof whatsoever of consciousness or awareness - the regions of her brain that are irreversably destroyed were those responsible for congition and conscience, not for breathing.
How do you know she is conscious?
Occasional random movements or sounds do not equate to conscience - pasting a few minutes of "activity" together from hours and hours of video footage to "prove" that she is alive and conscious is all well and good, and I do believe her parents' wishes are genuine, but then they are bound to see in those twitches what they so desperatly WANT to see, right?
My grand motehr also was Alzheimers, she died beofre I ever really got to know her.
Euthanasia.... Whoooeee thats a tricky one... definately not in cases where higher brain function perisists or could potentilly recvoer, but in cases where it is a meical certainty that no cognitive function will return, i.e. he goen adn he aint coming back, if you ask me the poor fellow's already dead. all youve got left is a sack of meat that could be put to good use, if the meatsack in question has previously indicated that he/she wouldnt mind being used for spare parts. I know I would rather be used for spare parts if I were in that situation. otehrwise I would just be a lingering drain on the emotional and financial resources of everyone I care about, when bits of whats left of me could save several people's lives... mysanthropic as I may be I am not so disinterested in human life as to see no value in that. Im rambling... Anyhoiw thats how I feel about that. brain-dead sacks of meat should be cannibalized for spare parts, anyone with higher cognitive function intact gets to keep frenching the tube.
Oh, and the same applies to people who dont think yet as well as those who are done with it (to the extent that your average human really thinks anyway. a fetus that hasnt developed higher cognitive function rates no higher on my kill/dont kill scale than a certified vegetable. When I say I disaprove of systematic efforts to abort ASD pregnancies, I say that because its a bad idea from a genetic standpoint, rather than a moral standpoint. Same goes there as with a PVS case, if there are any bits of meat that can be used for something, use 'em. We have to many people as it is anyway.
You do have a point, yes it's murder. Ok, so he was guilty of that. However, I still don't think he should have recieved the death penalty. I think a 15 year maximum on man slaughter (involuntary) would have been more fitting. He only killed an abortion doctor. He didn't kill a kid, and he didn't kill a cop. He also wasn't dealing dope or robbing a place with the need to eliminate a witness. Bioethicist and abortion doctors are expendable in my opinion.
MrCoffee
'Only killed an abortion doctor'? So it's ok to murder a human being if you don't agree with them? You're a fine on to talk about Nazis!
[sarcasm]
Im sooo soo sorry for having posted my personal views here, MrCoffee. Also, allow me to thank you for highlighting the link between my post and supporting CAN, somehow I missed it when I wrote it. Thanks for making things easier on those of us who cant think for ourselves.
[/sarcasm]
I never said I supported CAN or autism cure/prevention efforts. I recall saying that I was against them on genetics grounds. I fail to see how this is supposed to translate into supporting them.
Somebody please kill this thread, it has far outlived it's usefulness.
we need a separate forum for abortion issues so they dont get mixed up with everything else
Abortion isnt a genetics issue, its a personal and often religious issue. those are two things that genetics DEFINITELY dosn't need any more of.
10/1 someone else put him up to it. What the heck makes you think he came up with the idea himself? Nowhere in the story does it say it was his idea. In fact they said he was a protester. which implies that his action was not actually aimed at getting the water to Schiavo, but more likely at making a statement, i.e. getting media attention and turning public opinion in the favor of whatever group organized the protest. I very much doubt the kid came up with such a fine-tuned tool for generating progpoganda- because thats what this is, no question about it.
Well, maybe somebody should ask that kid if it was a "reflexive action" that caused him to bring some food and water over. Go right on ahead, ask him. I already know what his answer would be, because I work with kids and drove a school bus for many years. Yea, I know he's a kid and 12 years old. But why can't I consider him as honored? I have every right to say good things about someone who stands up for the vulnerable.
MrCoffee
Boys are quite able to be kind/strong/compassionate/horrible as any man. If I was that boy, I wouldn't want people patronising me by calling me a man.
Boys are quite able to be kind/strong/compassionate/horrible as any man. If I was that boy, I wouldn't want people patronising me by calling me a man.
That's fine, let's call him a boy. But it still took a lot of guts to cross that line.
MrCoffee
Perhaps you havent been a kid recently MrCoffee. Sure, sometimes they can be stubborn and obstinate and act as if they had minds of their own, but at other times, they can just as easily be clay in the hands of a sculptor. This is especially true where religion is involved, where the instructions they recieved are identified with an authority they have been taught to obey all their lives. This is what we call 'brainwashing.'
That poor kid knows nothing but what his parents/otehr authority figures have told him, for all we know he might not even know he wasnt supposed to cross any 'line.' there is no evidence whatsoever that he did it for any of the reasons ascribed to him by others, including you, MrCoffee.
A quote from the U.S. News:
Outside the hospice where Terri Schiavo lay, eight more people including a 10-year old boy and 13-year-old twin girls were arrested for trying to bring her water.
I dont want her to die, Joshua Heldreth, 10, from North Carolina, said before his arrest. Im not afraid because God is with me.
It is just amazing the amount of sensitivity that kids can have towards others.
What I have seen in just this post alone has torn me up inside. I have seen autistics in this forum treating each other with the same contempt that the world has always shown to us. Some have said, because my views and beliefs are not the same as theirs, that someone else must have persuaded me or made me believe the way I do, as if I do not have a perfectly good mind of my own. About others, they accuse them of being put up to actions or of being brainwashed. Still others have been scorned for thinking of other human beings, with lesser capabilities, as meatbags only good for spare parts.
Do you not realize those are the very things some neurotypicals think of us?
Boy, that's a good observation, monastic. If we are going to be fair, and support each other, then by golly we had better proceed to stand up for those with cognitive and neurological disabilities as well. If we don't, then we are in big trouble!
During this whole ordeal with the Schiavo case, a co-worker (NT) said this to me, "Poor thing, they should just let her die. No one with a disability should even be allowed to live." When I asked them if autistics would be included in their "grouping" of people that should die, they said, "Definitely, yes. They suffer a lot more sometimes because they aren't capable of living a full and successful life and they know they cannot."
And yes, that is DEFINITELY the way many non-disabled folks view us. We are often seen as being like scum. It is a fact that many NTs want us wiped off of the face of the Earth. Inmates on death row get FAR more support then those with mental and physical impairments. Like you say, Monastic, if we don't value someone else's life, how can we expect someone else to value ours?
MrCoffee
I regard the fact that more children attempted the same thing as proof positive that an exterior force motivated them to it, because the people organizing the protests want pictures of kids in handcuffs to show off what evil people the 'bad guys' are, that they would arres children. I absolutely do not believe that it is mere chance that so many of those involved are children. Someone with real political savvy is behind this.]
I know we're being divisive, I dont especially care, I am at this point pursuing the argument only as an exercise of my arguing skills. I know this probably sounds cynical, but I'm a cynic. Thats what I do.
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that last point is absurd. Schiavo is brain dead. Her mind/soul/consciousness/whatever you want to call it is NO MORE.
SHES GONE AND SHE AINT COMING BACK.
even the most profound autistic has cognitive function, he'she is a thinking human being, even if they are unable to share their thoughts. Shaivo has NO COGNITIVE FUNCTION. The person called Terri Schaivo died 15 years ago. If God exists, may he/she/it/they rest her soul.
Hmm. Perhaps some aspects of the case have been misrepresented to me. I will concede that she may not be brain dead. In that case I suppose you are quite right Gareth, functional neuroimaging scans may be in order.
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I do NOT concede that not being brain dead means she is capable of consciousness. I still think it is rather unlikely that her mind remains. I will however reserve final judgement on that until consulting with more knowledgeable sources.