And the removal of Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube has been pushed to the 18th.

[conuly]

Here.

Before people start debating this, let's get the following out of the way:
She doesn't use a ventilator.
She's not "hooked up to a machine" to live.
She isn't on life support, at least not as it's been defined to me.
She uses a feeding tube to eat. Removing this would cause her to starve to death/dehydrate.
Her parents say that she's minimally aware.
Her husband disagrees, and says that she didn't want to live like this.
He is living with another woman.
AFAIK, nothing from the insurance went to cover therapy for her.
It is argued that this therapy could've improved her condition.


Now you can go duke it out in my journal.

Comments

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

You know where I stand on this. I find it abhorrent that so many people supported his decision to starve her to death. Even if she didn't want to have therapy or anything, I'm sure she wouldn't want to die a lingering death.

[jet87.livejournal.com]

I honestly don't know whats worse: how her "husband" is sleeping with another woman (if he's living with her, you can be pretty sure of that), or that the ads in the article are all about dating women in Florida.

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

If he wants no part of her, he should divorce her.

Just put her behind him. Let her be her parent's responsbility.

And let her live. If there is question if one should live or die, always err on the side of living, I think. No one lives forever, but you are dear forever.

[leora.livejournal.com]

That he is living with another woman is put in no context. Perhaps they all lived together before she became ill. We have no information in that article, and thus to assume that this is in any way a disloyalty to his wife is to make a potentially horrible assumption.

If I were to be in Terri's position, I would still want my partner making the decisions for me, and I'd be thrilled if he were living with another woman. My parents wouldn't know that, because I am not that open about these matters to my parents.

However, to remove the feeding tube and to not euthanize her is a horribly cruel thing that should only be done in an evil world. Whether or not she should be euthanized is a more difficult question, but I would want to see if the husband has even attempted to get that to happen. If he didn't, then I can't imagine he cares for her that much to choose to let her die from dehydration.

I find it worrisome that therapy was not tried. And I would push for therapy as the next step. It is hard not to be suspicious of the husband. But there is a decent chance that this was truly her wish, and that should not just be discarded.

So, basically, I feel I don't have nearly enough information in this case.

[wakasplat.livejournal.com]

What can I say that I haven't already said? Disgusting, terrifying, awful. :-( (My latest (friendslocked) post is in part about the attitudes that perpetuate this, although didn't mention this in particular.)

[moggymania.livejournal.com]

I'm with maladaptive -- I find it horrifying that anybody would find it acceptable to kill somebody based on a disability, particularly by these means.

Most of my viewpoint is either firsthand or from knowing those in her postiion (or similar). A lot of people with my birth anomalies rely on a g-tube for feeding, and I have the same appliance installed for evacuating. I've been unable to talk in the cognitive and mechanical senses, stuck in bed, unable to move or use most of my body at various points... Through all of it, the times I wanted to die was when it was crushingly obvious people detested what I was or when I was in unbearable pain, never because of the physical issues themselves.

I wish we could get a "jury of peers" for disabled people, so WE could be the ones making policy on whether or how we get to live or die... Ths kind of case (Schiavo, medical marijuana, accommodation rights, etc.) always feels to me like a jury of rich white sorority girls in 1940 deciding what punishment to assign to a poor black guy for looking at them wrong.

[wakasplat.livejournal.com]

I wish we could get a "jury of peers" for disabled people, so WE could be the ones making policy on whether or how we get to live or die... Ths kind of case (Schiavo, medical marijuana, accommodation rights, etc.) always feels to me like a jury of rich white sorority girls in 1940 deciding what punishment to assign to a poor black guy for looking at them wrong.

Only knowing how such things work, it'd be something like a jury of Christopher Reeve, Elizabeth Bouvia, etc. :-/ (That's what happens when disabled people get appointed to a lot of state agency positions, they find tokens who are either acquiescent or have a lot of internalized ableism.)

And yeah, part of my fear is fear that it could happen to me or others I know in the wrong situation. I know people who right now could no more prove they were aware than she can.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I'm a hardliner about this, and it has nothing to do with begrudging disabled people their rights. It has everything to do with where I draw the line on what constitutes a person, and the absolute horror I feel that I could be in her position some day, where I'm kept alive half because people I care about would think that I wanted to be that way and half because other people are trying to make a point.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

I find it absolutely disgusting that we're so afraid of death that the most humane option allowed is to force her body to starve to death. There are a great many cleaner, quicker ways that don't carry even the potential of pain (not that there really seems to be anyone home to feel pain, understandable wishful thinking of her parents aside, but there's a principle there). Someone who has no frontal lobe function -- who has, for that matter, a severely atrophied brain -- who is bedbound, who is operating only on the lowest lizard levels of life is not a person anymore; that's desecration of a corpse. Let the poor woman go.

[conuly]

Her family maintains that she reacts to them, they have videos of this. As for bed-bound, careful, you've described a significant portion of the people replying to this entry

[wakasplat.livejournal.com]

I'm not afraid of death. I'm afraid of murder and of desecrating certain forms of life just because some people can't imagine personhood or are afraid of contemplating personhood without a certain amount of brain function.

[leora.livejournal.com]

If I understand correctly, she'll die of thirst, not hunger. Which, I believe is claimed to be more painful. A horrible way to go. In fact, since hangovers are supposed to be mainly the pain of dehydration, it's probably a bit like an increasing hangover.

I think that a society that allows a woman to be dehydrated to death but does not allow a lethal injection is a massively stupid society. And that is the number one thing I object to, as that is the one issue I see is clear-cut. If it's okay to kill her, it should be okay to kill her in the most painless way that can be found.

[wakasplat.livejournal.com]

Remembering history:

Martin Luther
The Story of a Changeling at Dessau
Eight years ago [in the year 1532] at Dessau, I, Dr. Martin Luther, saw and touched a changeling. It was twelve years old, and from its eyes and the fact that it had all of its senses, one could have thought that it was a real child. It did nothing but eat; in fact, it ate enough for any four peasants or threshers. It ate, shit, and pissed, and whenever someone touched it, it cried. When bad things happened in the house, it laughed and was happy; but when things went well, it cried. It had these two virtues. I said to the Princes of Anhalt: "If I were the prince or the ruler here, I would throw this child into the water--into the Molda that flows by Dessau. I would dare commit homicidium on him!" But the Elector of Saxony, who was with me at Dessau, and the Princes of Anhalt did not want to follow my advice. Therefore, I said: "Then you should have all Christians repeat the Lord's Prayer in church that God may exorcise the devil." They did this daily at Dessau, and the changeling child died in the following year.... Such a changeling child is only a piece of flesh, a massa carnis, because it has no soul.

It seems some people are willing to say the same today. I find it just as horrible that people say this like this about Terri Schiavo as that long ago this boy was considered soulless. This is what happens when you draw lines like this.

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

You know where I stand on this. I find it abhorrent that so many people supported his decision to starve her to death. Even if she didn't want to have therapy or anything, I'm sure she wouldn't want to die a lingering death.

[jet87.livejournal.com]

I honestly don't know whats worse: how her "husband" is sleeping with another woman (if he's living with her, you can be pretty sure of that), or that the ads in the article are all about dating women in Florida.

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

If he wants no part of her, he should divorce her.

Just put her behind him. Let her be her parent's responsbility.

And let her live. If there is question if one should live or die, always err on the side of living, I think. No one lives forever, but you are dear forever.

[leora.livejournal.com]

That he is living with another woman is put in no context. Perhaps they all lived together before she became ill. We have no information in that article, and thus to assume that this is in any way a disloyalty to his wife is to make a potentially horrible assumption.

If I were to be in Terri's position, I would still want my partner making the decisions for me, and I'd be thrilled if he were living with another woman. My parents wouldn't know that, because I am not that open about these matters to my parents.

However, to remove the feeding tube and to not euthanize her is a horribly cruel thing that should only be done in an evil world. Whether or not she should be euthanized is a more difficult question, but I would want to see if the husband has even attempted to get that to happen. If he didn't, then I can't imagine he cares for her that much to choose to let her die from dehydration.

I find it worrisome that therapy was not tried. And I would push for therapy as the next step. It is hard not to be suspicious of the husband. But there is a decent chance that this was truly her wish, and that should not just be discarded.

So, basically, I feel I don't have nearly enough information in this case.

[wakasplat.livejournal.com]

What can I say that I haven't already said? Disgusting, terrifying, awful. :-( (My latest (friendslocked) post is in part about the attitudes that perpetuate this, although didn't mention this in particular.)

[moggymania.livejournal.com]

I'm with maladaptive -- I find it horrifying that anybody would find it acceptable to kill somebody based on a disability, particularly by these means.

Most of my viewpoint is either firsthand or from knowing those in her postiion (or similar). A lot of people with my birth anomalies rely on a g-tube for feeding, and I have the same appliance installed for evacuating. I've been unable to talk in the cognitive and mechanical senses, stuck in bed, unable to move or use most of my body at various points... Through all of it, the times I wanted to die was when it was crushingly obvious people detested what I was or when I was in unbearable pain, never because of the physical issues themselves.

I wish we could get a "jury of peers" for disabled people, so WE could be the ones making policy on whether or how we get to live or die... Ths kind of case (Schiavo, medical marijuana, accommodation rights, etc.) always feels to me like a jury of rich white sorority girls in 1940 deciding what punishment to assign to a poor black guy for looking at them wrong.

[wakasplat.livejournal.com]

I wish we could get a "jury of peers" for disabled people, so WE could be the ones making policy on whether or how we get to live or die... Ths kind of case (Schiavo, medical marijuana, accommodation rights, etc.) always feels to me like a jury of rich white sorority girls in 1940 deciding what punishment to assign to a poor black guy for looking at them wrong.

Only knowing how such things work, it'd be something like a jury of Christopher Reeve, Elizabeth Bouvia, etc. :-/ (That's what happens when disabled people get appointed to a lot of state agency positions, they find tokens who are either acquiescent or have a lot of internalized ableism.)

And yeah, part of my fear is fear that it could happen to me or others I know in the wrong situation. I know people who right now could no more prove they were aware than she can.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I'm a hardliner about this, and it has nothing to do with begrudging disabled people their rights. It has everything to do with where I draw the line on what constitutes a person, and the absolute horror I feel that I could be in her position some day, where I'm kept alive half because people I care about would think that I wanted to be that way and half because other people are trying to make a point.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

I find it absolutely disgusting that we're so afraid of death that the most humane option allowed is to force her body to starve to death. There are a great many cleaner, quicker ways that don't carry even the potential of pain (not that there really seems to be anyone home to feel pain, understandable wishful thinking of her parents aside, but there's a principle there). Someone who has no frontal lobe function -- who has, for that matter, a severely atrophied brain -- who is bedbound, who is operating only on the lowest lizard levels of life is not a person anymore; that's desecration of a corpse. Let the poor woman go.

[conuly]

Her family maintains that she reacts to them, they have videos of this. As for bed-bound, careful, you've described a significant portion of the people replying to this entry

[wakasplat.livejournal.com]

I'm not afraid of death. I'm afraid of murder and of desecrating certain forms of life just because some people can't imagine personhood or are afraid of contemplating personhood without a certain amount of brain function.

[wakasplat.livejournal.com]

Remembering history:

Martin Luther
The Story of a Changeling at Dessau
Eight years ago [in the year 1532] at Dessau, I, Dr. Martin Luther, saw and touched a changeling. It was twelve years old, and from its eyes and the fact that it had all of its senses, one could have thought that it was a real child. It did nothing but eat; in fact, it ate enough for any four peasants or threshers. It ate, shit, and pissed, and whenever someone touched it, it cried. When bad things happened in the house, it laughed and was happy; but when things went well, it cried. It had these two virtues. I said to the Princes of Anhalt: "If I were the prince or the ruler here, I would throw this child into the water--into the Molda that flows by Dessau. I would dare commit homicidium on him!" But the Elector of Saxony, who was with me at Dessau, and the Princes of Anhalt did not want to follow my advice. Therefore, I said: "Then you should have all Christians repeat the Lord's Prayer in church that God may exorcise the devil." They did this daily at Dessau, and the changeling child died in the following year.... Such a changeling child is only a piece of flesh, a massa carnis, because it has no soul.

It seems some people are willing to say the same today. I find it just as horrible that people say this like this about Terri Schiavo as that long ago this boy was considered soulless. This is what happens when you draw lines like this.