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

[ex-chaos-by-699.livejournal.com]

What's wrong with Christopher Reeve?

I'm just curious. I know very little about disability activism.

[conuly]

He made a big deal about curing his paralysis - stem cell research and all that. This is a good thing, to be sure, but he also made specific comments about how he "wasn't really interested in lower curb cuts" and so on.

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

There is going to be a lot of push for accessability in the coming years as the baby boomers have harder times getting around. They're gonna be sorry they didn't speak out when they were out jogging and taking step classes and all that.

(I, for one, appreciate ramps, curb cuts, and the like. Not for the time I spent in a wheelchair, but for my day to day life as a mother who has to use a stroller. Access is a good thing, and benefits more than people realize.)

[leora.livejournal.com]

I appreciate curb cuts, and I bet nobody realizes that. It's the lack od depth perception - steps are hard on the ankle when you can't quite naturally judge them the way you're used to. So, steps always require just a little extra impact on my feet and it adds up. You know the feeling you get when you think there's a step and there isn't or there was a step and you didn't notice, a bit like a small version of that all the time, quite annoying and thus best avoided.

So, I support curb cuts for the blind.

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

I have a hard time judging steps, never noticed with curbs. I had an accident, one leg is longer than the other now, and I don't know what it is, all I know is that it's hard for me to do steps, stairs.

It's funny, I can go up with no problems with perception, but it's painful.

Going down doesn't hurt as much, but I can't 'find' the next step.

I'm going to take more notice of curbs. I wonder too if because I have the stroller so often I use it as a walker. When I first started walking again, I did use it for just that. For support, balance, and the like. Hrm.