I have spent an eternity saying this.

[conuly]

Terri Schiavo is not on life support. She does not use a ventilator. I don't know where that story started, but here it ends. She is not hooked up to any machines. She uses a feeding tube. That is not life support. Taking her off the feeding tube will cause her to - slowly - starve or dehydrate.

There is evidence that she reacts to things around her. There is also evidence that her condition would be drastically improved if the money from the settlement had gone towards her treatment instead of her husband's court bills.

So please, base your opinions off of accurate information.

And now, I will let other people talk about being in situations where they were believed dead, and post those links (links I've posted before) about other people who nearly died because "after all, she's not going to recover, might as well pull the plug now" - and at the time, they were conscious.

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

It's dehydration really, not starvation. The dehydration will kill first. It's relevant as death by dehydration is said to be even more painful than death by starvation. Apparently, when starving, your body can somewhat shut down the systems that complain about it. Whereas with dehydration, it creates massive pain throughout the body. Hangovers are generally caused by mild dehydration. Imagine an incredibly bad constantly intensifying hangover.

I am not pleased that this method is allowed to be used in any cases. I don't really want to argue this particular case, as I feel I know less about it than many who have taken positions. But I feel if we consider it acceptable to dehydrate someone to death, we should instead use a lethal injection or other more humane method. It takes days to die from dehydration... painful, painful days.

It's possible she won't feel it, of course. But if there's any chance that any part of her would...