Terri Schiavo

[Renderking Fisk]

Biltmore - If Terri was a dog folks from PETA would be kicking the door down. People are more concerned about their pets then they are over other people.

 

[android]

You are still going to compare a feeding tube with a ventilator?! It is not a machine unless you think the nurse's hand is a machine. Try this:

A device consisting of fixed and moving parts that modifies mechanical energy and transmits it in a more useful form.

What is the mechanical energy that is transmitted into a useful form? The nurses hand is operated by electricity and the belows of a ventilator?

There's a story about how Mark Twain asked a woman if she would sleep with him for a million dollars. She said yes. He then asked her if she would sleep with him for twenty dollars. She said no, that she wasn't that kind of woman.

Mr Twain replied that he had already established what type of woman she was, he was now in the process of negotiating a reasonable price.

Your insistance that they are not the same amounts to negotiating a price, nothing more. They are machines that keep someone alive artificially.

You are right that a nurse spooning food down somebody's mouth is the same thing. It's just more labor intensive. For that matter, we could administer mouth to mouth for years on end in lieu of a respirator. It would be expensive and unhygienic but could concieveably work. Regardless, it's all artificial life support.

This argument is a red herring anyway without looking at the individual case in front of us. I did not comment on the world. I just commented on the Shaivo case which is not a brain dead case.

What medical experience do you base this on?

Based on you limited understanding of mechanics and chemistry, I am going to make the assumption that you are not a doctor. Please correct me if I am wrong.

So you are probably basing your opinion on what you have obtained from the media. Once again, I am assuming, so correct me if I am wrong.

What I have read in the media is that hundreds of doctors over nearly fifteen years have said she is braindead. The parents, after searching long and hard, have managed to come up with what, three doctors that refute that claim.

I *believe* the hundreds of doctors are right and the three are wrong.
I *know* we probably won't ever know for sure either way.

I don't think you have any more knowledge of this case than the rest of us, so you *believe* the three dissenting doctors. So be it, but don't try to pass it off as fact.

 

[android]

If one starves their dog to death and the athorities find out they will be charged with a crime and if found guilty fined and possibly imprisoned. And that's just an animal. My babies could not feed themselves for a couple of years after birth. They still need me to provide food for them.

If I put a bowl of food on the front porch, the cats will eat it. (We don't have dogs.) If I put a bowl of food in front of Terri Schaivo, well I think we all know what would happen. Nothing.

And babies (at least the ones you get to take home from the hospital) aren't brain-dead, so they're not really part of this discussion.

 

[Biltmore Bob]

Brain dead people don't have the right to live in your world, R2D2?

The point you seem to forget or not believe or refuse to believe or whatever is...her parents and any number of people were willing to take care of her. What happened to her is immoral and criminal.

The fact that y'all have cats tells me alot.

I was going to ask if you were human, but then I remembered what an Android was.

 

[android]

Brain dead people don't have the right to live in your world, R2D2?

Those are your words, not mine. Please quote me where I said that.

I'm just trying to get us to a point where we can quit haggling over what is artificial life support and what isn't.

Good conservatives that understands black/white, right/wrong, good/evil, life /death can surely understand the difference between artificial and natural, can't they?

Why all the sudden do you want to be so wishy washy and shades of gray when it comes to life support equipment?

I want to know why it's OK to discontinue artificial breathing, but not OK to discontinue artificial feeding when the end result in either case is death. Please give me a sound moral reason why they are different.




BTW, I think the death penalty is a legal right of the state and that illegal aliens should be escorted to the nearest border, kids should be spanked when they're bad and that marriage should be only for a man and woman whether the ceremony be religious or civil.

I hope that will allow you to focus on debating the issue rather than making personal attacks calling me a liberal. My view may be somewhat Libertarian, but certainly not liberal.

Oh, and I believe in killing and eating animals and wearing their skin and hides. Especially when you use their fur to make a nice beaver fur felt fedora or a pair or Allen Edmond spectators. I also believe in killing Toquilla Palms and weaving their hides into Panama hats.

 

[jamespowers]

There's a story about how Mark Twain asked a woman if she would sleep with him for a million dollars. She said yes. He then asked her if she would sleep with him for twenty dollars. She said no, that she wasn't that kind of woman.

Mr Twain replied that he had already established what type of woman she was, he was now in the process of negotiating a reasonable price.

Your insistance that they are not the same amounts to negotiating a price, nothing more. They are machines that keep someone alive artificially.

You are right that a nurse spooning food down somebody's mouth is the same thing. It's just more labor intensive. For that matter, we could administer mouth to mouth for years on end in lieu of a respirator. It would be expensive and unhygienic but could concieveably work. Regardless, it's all artificial life support.

I heard the Mark Twain story a long time ago. it has no bearing on this case. You insistance on concentrating on machine versus non-machine is still a red herring and has no bearing on my points about her husband and how was not qualified nor should he have been her guardian with the background and the fact that his interest lay in getting rid of her in favor of his new girlfriend and family. If you want to call a feeding tube a machine fine but you are wrong and I am not even go into the sophistry of comparing a feeding tube to mouth to mouth recesitation. I suppose when you get operated on that oxygen that they give you is considered "life support" then?

What medical experience do you base this on?

Based on you limited understanding of mechanics and chemistry, I am going to make the assumption that you are not a doctor. Please correct me if I am wrong.

So you are probably basing your opinion on what you have obtained from the media. Once again, I am assuming, so correct me if I am wrong.

What I have read in the media is that hundreds of doctors over nearly fifteen years have said she is braindead. The parents, after searching long and hard, have managed to come up with what, three doctors that refute that claim.

I *believe* the hundreds of doctors are right and the three are wrong.
I *know* we probably won't ever know for sure either way.

I don't think you have any more knowledge of this case than the rest of us, so you *believe* the three dissenting doctors. So be it, but don't try to pass it off as fact.

Based on your statements that oxygen is a chemical and not a gas I am certain that you are not a chemist or doctor either but that is beside the point. Any fool could see that this case is more than simple. You don't need to be a doctor just someone with common sense.
I am basing my opinion not only on the media but from the statements of nurses, friends and family of Ms. Shaivo. The news media are a bunch of fools and I rarely even pay attention to what Peter, Ted or Dan have to say because of their track records.
You never want to address what the situation surrounding the case was. I can get as many doctors as I pay to say whatever I want. You get what you pay for. Do you also know that the husband's lawyer had part ownership of the hospice care home that Ms. Shaivo was staying at? I bet not.
Fifteen years of being brain dead? How is it that she was left alone for twelve of those years by her husband and then after he got the huge monetary settlement she became "brain dead" and her husband remembered that she wanted to die rather than be in this state that she was already in for twelve long years? If he really loved his wife he would not have had two kids out of wedlock and lived with another woman. These extenuating circumstances just makes this whole thing ridiculous.
I don't have any more knowledge than the rest of you about the case. It is just that I have studied the whole situation more than many people are willing to because they accept what is told to them like lemmings. I prefer to think for myself and do the research. Anyone could have read every thing I wrote in several publications and seen the testimony if they cared to research it. It really is elementary. It is not my belief it is the testimony of several friends, family members and doctors of Ms. Shaivo's ---unconnected to this case---that I rely upon find the true facts of the case not some stale old ideology that does not bend to facts. Please do not try to tell us that you know exactly what Ms. Shaivo wanted. You do not know and neither do I unless you are part Vulcan and managed to get off a mind meld before she passed on.

Regards to all,

J

 

[android]

Based on your statements that oxygen is a chemical and not a gas I am certain that you are not a chemist or doctor either but that is beside the point.

I am really trying to avoid personal attacks, but you are really showing your ignorance of the world around you. That makes it difficult for me to believe that you are capable of making an informed decison in this case. I don't mean that you're not sincere. It's just that when you are plain wrong about absolute facts, how can you be correct about the point you are trying to make about the medical profession and judicial system?

1) Oxygen is an element. It's atomic number is 16.

2) 2 atoms of oxygen combine to form 02*. This is a chemical compound which is naturally occurring all around us. The air we breath is 21% 02. The rest is mostly nitrogen (N2)

3) chemicals exist as gases, solids or liquids.

4) O2 exists as a solid from 0 - 55°K (Kelvin), a liquid from 55° to 90°K and as a gas from 55° K and up.

(0 degrees Kelvin is -273.15° Celsius and 0°C = 32°F)

* O2 and N2 should have subscripted numbers, but I don't know how to format that here.

 

[Slicksuit]

I don't wish to complicate matters further, but just a point of clarification. Tube feedings aren't generally administered via syringe by a nurse. They are either pumped by a machine (whereby the machine forces the solution by pressure) or allowed to simply flow directly into the stomach by gravity (the solution is in a chamber and allowed to flow down the tube at a specified rate). Administration by a syringe is generally not performed because it can be difficult to guess how much solution the stomach can handle, and forcing too much, too quickly can cause cramps/nausea/vomiting, etc. I am aware of such details, as I used to be a nurse.

Parenteral nutrition, as it is called when nutrients are administered by another to a patient, can be both long-term (as was Terri's case) or short-term (surgery to the face/neck, similar to JP's aunt's case). Do not confuse the two - the difference is whether the patient can be expected to have a meaningful recovery. Patients in a coma are a special grey area between both ends of the spectrum.

It will be very interesting to hear the autopsy reports when they are completed. Such information can conclusively answer both the extent of Terri's brain damage, as well as any evidence of possible abuse.

 

[jamespowers]

I am really trying to avoid personal attacks, but you are really showing your ignorance of the world around you. That makes it difficult for me to believe that you are capable of making an informed decison in this case. I don't mean that you're not sincere. It's just that when you are plain wrong about absolute facts, how can you be correct about the point you are trying to make about the medical profession and judicial system?

1) Oxygen is an element. It's atomic number is 16.

2) 2 atoms of oxygen combine to form 02*. This is a chemical compound which is naturally occurring all around us. The air we breath is 21% 02. The rest is mostly nitrogen (N2)

3) chemicals exist as gases, solids or liquids.

4) O2 exists as a solid from 0 - 55°K (Kelvin), a liquid from 55° to 90°K and as a gas from 55° K and up.

(0 degrees Kelvin is -273.15° Celsius and 0°C = 32°F)

* O2 and N2 should have subscripted numbers, but I don't know how to format that here.

Yes, yes we have all had high school chemistry. Wheee!
The standard state of oxygen is as a gas not as a liquid at 298 K. About two thirds of the human body, and nine tenths of water, is oxygen. You are right it is an element. What we breathe is not a chemical but a gas unless you like breathing liquid oxygen--which would likely kill you just as dead as Ms. Shaivo. I meant that it was not a chemical (like water) in gas form. I figured you would understand that but I suppose I figured wrong since you think a feeding tube is as much a machine as an automobile. Considering it can also be a gravity fed process--therefore no "mechanical energy" is used---unless you consider gravity a machine.
Clearly you are going to use these red herrings and straw man arguments in order to deflect the facts of this case involving the husband and whether his motives were sincere or purely selfish and based on his want to simply move on and be done with his wife. Such inauthenticity and avoiding the issue to go out of your way to invielge this subject is moving from the sublime to the surreal.
My job is done here until you decide to address the husband's actions and the cause of Ms. Shaivo's predicament in the first place. That is what I started this with and that is what I end it at.

Regards to all,

J

 

[Chamorro]

I don't see any "meaningful improvement" in the "quality" of this conversation.

As in life, if you choose to believe as such, there is one higher power that might overide my decision ... but if or until that happens ... I'm shutting this down.