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

[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.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

I see where you're coming from, but to me, a certain level of brain function defines personhood. Else you have a body but no mind inside it. My worst fear for Ms. Shiavo -- and for myself, if ever I am in that position -- is that there's just enough of the person left to be aware of the situation but utterly unable to change it.

[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.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

Precisely. As a society we have this mental block on the idea that killing someone with premeditation could ever not be murder, whereas letting them potentially die in pain is okay because it's "natural." Appalling, since this situation and others like it are not ones that should be arrived without extensive thought and investigation.

[gingembre.livejournal.com]

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.

I completely, wholeheartedly agree.