Man, this country is screwed up.

[The Giant-Size Man Thing]

And it's not unhealthy to hold on to the impossible? Sadness passes in time. What the Schindlers are doing to themselves is bad enough. Sometimes you just have to let go.

And there's a difference between the Monty Python skit and the reality of the situation. In the Holy Grail, the guy who was not dead was that: not dead. Schiavo, on the otherhand, is. It's stupid to compare the two. The Parrot skit is more closely related to the situation at hand. The customer (Michael Schiavo) tells the clerk (Schindlers) that the parrot (Terri Schiavo) is infact dead, it has ceased to be, but the clerk assures the customer that the parrot is alive and is just sleeping. To prove that it's just sleeping, he rattles the cage (see Schindler's editted video of Schiavo's responses). That's the way I see it.

[Xtermo]

Meh- I can't hold your point of view against you, Goj. It's your own to have.

I'm not saying that it's healthy. Just that I don't think it wise to take anything one cannot give.

At this point it feels dangerous to me to allow judicial appointees to decide who is dead and who is not. If lines are not drawn eventually, the powers of the government will slowly evolve, becoming infinate and unbalanced.

I merely choose to draw the line here and not when there is a ruling that a mentally retarded person is not a living person, or the feeble elderly are not a living person. Don't think they're going that far? They've already done it to unborn children. Why wouldn't they press onward with their aiding the overall strength of the people of America?

But that leads us to a whole other topic entirely, so I think I'm about done in this thread.

[Ai]

Yagyu said:

So, this is all the human race has come to? The strong live, and the weak die? Then we aren't that much evolved than apes.

Welcome to reality. About time you got here.

[The Giant-Size Man Thing]

M.T. said:

Meh- I can't hold your point of view against you, Goj. It's your own to have.

I'm not saying that it's healthy. Just that I don't think it wise to take anything one cannot give.

At this point it feels dangerous to me to allow judicial appointees to decide who is dead and who is not. If lines are not drawn eventually, the powers of the government will slowly evolve, becoming infinate and unbalanced.

I merely choose to draw the line here and not when there is a ruling that a mentally retarded person is not a living person, or the feeble elderly are not a living person. Don't think they're going that far? They've already done it to unborn children. Why wouldn't they press onward with their aiding the overall strength of the people of America?

But that leads us to a whole other topic entirely, so I think I'm about done in this thread.

Well, seeing that brain-dead people are pulled off life-support everyday, I don't see it as much of a slippery slope as you do.

[Xtermo]

What part of "she hasn't been on life support" do you not get? She has suffered some undiagnosed type of brain damage that has completely stripped her of higher brain functionality, but she's not dieing in and of herself. She just lacks the physical capacity to use base motor skills to feed herself.

She's not been on a respirator, nor any other kind of life support. She's just been fed mechanically because she cannot feed heself. If she was fully brain-dead she would not be able to have digested the food given to her by the tube anyways.

And Goj- even plants give off readings by an EKG. If there were literally no reading, she'd be cold and stiff. Even random neuron firing gets picked up with those things, and she's demonstrated at least enough movement to be at least in a state in which random neuron firing makes her appear living to those who hope for the best, though it seems likely that it is no more than that.

Like I said- the person is gone, but she's still alive. If she were dead, there wouldn't be this much attention. Us midaeval conservative types would have found something else to talk about if she were wholly dead already.

EDIT: Also, research within the last 10 years or so has contradicted the old idea that brain and nervous tissue cannot be regrown. This would actually make a prime (if not hopelessly advanced) case for stem-cell regeneration. Just thought you might like to know.

[The Giant-Size Man Thing]

Could anyone give me a link about whether or not she could feed herself? I cited an article to support my point, at least, couldn't you guys do the same? Because, according to my source....

According to physicians who have actually diagnosed her in person, she displays no awareness of her surroundings, is unable to swallow, and any consciousness or personality died in 1990.

My source makes it seem like she is dependant on the feeding tube (actually stated). Besides, according to Florida law, Feeding Tubes are a form of life support.

[Xtermo]

Well, I said she lacked the "physical capacity to use base motor skills to feed herself." I don't recall saying she could feed herself, and if I did I was wrong (although supposedly several nuses in whose care she lived for a while claim she can swallow liquids, but I'd have to dig those claims up, and I'm not sure how much truth there is to them).

If in fact Florida law defines her feeding tube as a form of life support, I'd have to disagree with, but relent to their definition. They are legally soverign in this case, after all, whether or not I agree with their decisions.

[The Giant-Size Man Thing]

Sorry, I must have misread your posts. Viper mentioned something about her being able to feed herself and I got hung up on it. But, all of those basic functions, digesting, breathing, blinking, etc., are still all basic functions, with no need for higher brain capacity or function. The person herself, however, is dead and that's all I'm trying to say.

And I don't disagree with the fact that Florida considers the feeding tube life-support. If the patient can't feed himself or herself, something has to support their basic need of food and liquid. And I don't think life support is a bad thing. It's just that in this case, it's gone on for far too long.

[Mega Raptor]

Honestly, I don't see what the big deal is. The woman 'died' years ago and is now little more than meat. Harsh, but true.

I don't really see anything wrong with what the husband is doing (reports from about 10 years ago state that a good chunk of her brain was more or less a liquid by that point), and I think the parents are having a perfectly understandable emotional reaction to their daughter's death.

I mean, that's what it all comes down to. The woman is dead. The body may be supporting itself when fed, but the woman isn't there anymore. Any semblance of memory, personality, even the proverbial 'soul' is gone. She is nothing more than meat now, get over it.

Now, honestly, I think the only reason this got to the level of government it did is because Jeb wanted to make her a ward of the state, and my guess is Dubya pushed for a favor for his brother.

Really, I'm more worried about the level of control that would be granted to the government if a precedent is set in favor of keeping her on life support. If I ever got that far gone, I'd want to be cut off, not kept in a weird zombie-like state like she is.

[DarkAries]

Reminds Aries of that part in Blade 2.

"Brain's dead...body's still trying to feed..."

[Xtermo]

Mega said:

Now, honestly, I think the only reason this got to the level of government it did is because Jeb wanted to make her a ward of the state, and my guess is Dubya pushed for a favor for his brother.

Really, I'm more worried about the level of control that would be granted to the government if a precedent is set in favor of keeping her on life support. If I ever got that far gone, I'd want to be cut off, not kept in a weird zombie-like state like she is.

Yer probably right about El Presidente. It looks like they were setting up a political move, then they realized they'd get trounced either way and just said, "Eh... Screw it."

And my advice to you is- get it in writing, mister. If there had been a completely legally binding statement issued by her, and not just heresay one way or another, none of this bullshit would be going on today.

Here's a thought, though- let's suppose that everyone has only the best of intentions, and that all medical testimony accepted by the judges is 100% accurate. If she's completely unaware of her surroundings and cannot do anything about it anyways, and the parents are willing to take on the full cost of supporting her empty frame- is there anything wrong with letting her go on in their care? If she is, in fact, dead within she'll never know the difference anyways, right?

I dunno. Just food for thought.

[Meyo-san]

Ai said:

Welcome to reality. About time you got here.

Reality? No, this is nazisim.

[The Giant-Size Man Thing]

M.T. said:

Yer probably right about El Presidente. It looks like they were setting up a political move, then they realized they'd get trounced either way and just said, "Eh... Screw it."

And my advice to you is- get it in writing, mister. If there had been a completely legally binding statement issued by her, and not just heresay one way or another, none of this bullshit would be going on today.

Here's a thought, though- let's suppose that everyone has only the best of intentions, and that all medical testimony accepted by the judges is 100% accurate. If she's completely unaware of her surroundings and cannot do anything about it anyways, and the parents are willing to take on the full cost of supporting her empty frame- is there anything wrong with letting her go on in their care? If she is, in fact, dead within she'll never know the difference anyways, right?

I dunno. Just food for thought.

Well, the real question is whether or not Terri Schiavo would have wanted to live this way. Appearantly, Michael Schiavo, he husband, turned down 10 million dollars in order to honor what he believes would have been her decision on whether or not she wanted to live that way. The parents, on the other hand, are finding ways to profit off of this situation. New York Times article. So, my question is, who do we believe? The Schindlers, who are selling names and information about people moved by this mess, or Schindler, who turned down millions in order to carry out his wife's wishes. Like I said, I believe all of this "Michael Schiavo is a bad person" stuff was perpetrated by the parents and their family.

[The Giant-Size Man Thing]

And it's over. Now she can finally rest in peace.

[Ai]

Yagyu said:

Reality? No, this is nazisim.

You're an idiot. Survival of the fittest is not 'nazisism', as you say, it's a way of life. It's how things work.

Thank God she died.