Redstate

the condition that the Court determined by clear and convincing evidence that she was in.  Yes, the autopsy doesn't say she was in a PVS, but only that is a diagnosis that cannot be determined in an autopsy.

The question is, and always has been, in this case, is there a meaningful clinical distinction between PVS and brain death.  If you strip away the hysteria and admit that Terri Schiavo was in PVS, that becomes the operative question, whether she died fourteen years ago or two months ago?

If there was no meaningful difference, there wouldn't be two separate terms meaning two separate things.

is so monstrous.  Humanity is at least correlated with function at some level.  There is no humanity after death.  There is no function after death.

Would you claim that the loss of humanity following death is indepenent or causal to loss of function following death?  

Those claiming vindication for their advocacy of Schiavo's killing by virtue of this autopsy must ipso facto accept one of several monstrous premises: either that humanity is not something intrinsic, but dependent upon function; or that humanity's intrinsic nature is irrelevant as it is not worth preserving per se; or that humanity is worth preserving per se, but not so worth preserving as to grant its existence the benefit of the doubt in doubtful cases.

Nice false dichotomy. You misstate the other side's position in the first half. No one says it's dependent on current functionality - it's dependent on still having the base minimum hardware so that there might possibly one day be functionality.  There is a difference, regardless of how much you wish for ideological purposes to pretend there isn't.

And in the other half of the dichotomy you misstate the facts - at least implicitly - by implying that this was a doubtful case.  We do grant it's existence the benefit of doubt in doubtful cases. This wasn't one.  Not even close.

It matters not a whit how many Dr. Frist's were willing for political purposes to make remote diagnoses based on TV.  And even though this wasn't a doubtful case, the benefit of the doubt was given here and played out in years of thoughful deliberation in courts all up and down the judicial ladder. They all came to the correct conclusion. A conclusion that - much as you may wish for idealogical purposes to deny it - was (further) vindicated by the FACTS today.

Nice try though. Points for effort.

that the "benefit of the doubt" in question pertains to potential for recovery.

I think the benefit of the doubt in this case refers to the wishes of the patient to live under a vegetative state. In the absence of legal documentation, and in the presence of a dispute between legitimately concerned family members, they should have erred on the side of life, and in favor of the parents. That's my take.

If not, why not?

I think this is correct.  I disagree that it is somehow monstrous to posit that in order for life to have a moral relevance, there must be some potential for human functioning.  She was brain dead and could no longer think or act in any relevant human way; she did not even have the potential to at any future point.  Keeping her breathing was an act of unwillingness to let their daughter fully die by the parents, not the preservation of a full human.

You do not account for the court's conclusion that there was clear and convincing evidence to believe that Ms. Schiavo would not have wished to remain alive under circumstances she later founder herself in.  This is an issue not about humanity, but rather about respecting individual autonomy and choice.  Until you incorporate Ms. Schiavo's judicially established wishes, your premises are flawed.

No matter what you think of the sentiment, this is a well reasoned reply.  Possibly too argumentative, but not even near trolldom, and not deserving of a troll style rating.

Compensatory 5 dispatched.

Death is not an endpoint on a loss-of-function continuum -- fingernails grow after death, for example -- but a discrete state in itself.  I wouldn't characterize it as being what it is simply because it's the ultimate state at which the person does "nothing."

Why only this much brain function lost? Why not, say, deep mental impairment? A human only capable, by brain damage, of reasoning at the level of a particularly stupid cat (and that's stupid indeed)? That person will never reason as a human again. Is it ok to off them then?

"Keeping her breathing"

She wasn't on a ventilator, the only thing she needed was a food/water tube.

The flesh recedes.

No one says it's dependent on current functionality....

Not only is this factually incorrect -- many did do just that -- you then go on to argue that there was no "current functionality."  QED, eh?

As for your assertion that this was an indisputable case, reasonable people disagree.  Your willingness to dismiss those doubts (because the highest medical and scientific authority is, of course, Judge Greer) is nicely illustrative of the monstrousness on exhibit in this sad affair.

This is information which should be been available while she was alive, but her legal guardian did not want to take the chance that things may not be this way.  She was killed first, then it was determined if she could have been rehabilitated.   Had the tests turned out the other way, or even proven inconclusive, this would have been doubly tragic.

As it stands, Terri Schindler-Schiavo was killed inhumanely and for the wrong reasons.  That it took the hindsight of an autopsy to determine her actual condition is doubly sick.

clinical difference but is there a meaningful existential difference?

A brain-dead person has ceased all brain function yet can sometimes be kept "alive" with respirators and other mechanical devices.

Someone in PVS, like Terri Schiavo, has ceased all higher brain function, and her body is running at a purely a reactive level.  Her body was not even operating at a level that would correspond with the most primitive animals.  All her brain was doing little more than operating her heart and lungs and and some primitive reflexes.  If there is a separate soul, was it even in the body?

Nor would I keep them in a hospital bed and visit them everyday.  You can have a basic respect for the dead without believing they still possess personhood  or a speical status of humanity.

There is no right to suicide, and "choice" is not a prime moral value.

Just flesh at that point. Why not use them as meat?

In this case their was no disagreement (except politically motivated).  All of the doctors who actually examined Sciavo IN PERSON claimed she was in a persistent vegetative state (except, I think, 1 that was paid by the parents).  I respect Sen. Frist's medical credentials as much as anyone, but no one can seriously think he believed his diagnosis of her considering it was on video and he did not practice that sort of medicine.

as a poster, I've read it for a while, but only recently signed up.  How do you rate comments?  I ask because I saw the post about the "compensatory 5" or whatever.

You have the reputable medical opinions, the court decisions, now the autopsy.  What more proof do you need that Terri Schiavo was in PVS.  She was blind.  That videotape of her following the ballon with her eyes, that so many people based their belief in her conciousness, was nothing more than wishful thinking.

Can you at least admit that the diagnosis of PVS was correct and start the discussion from that, by now, indisputable, fact?

A basic respect for the dead, (coupled with the fact that there's a very nice Burger King about a block from my apartment) means that I choose not to eat dead humans.  If a situation ("Alive") dictated I had to, then I would without regret.  But certainly you can have respect for something inanimate, and hold some inanimate things in higher value than others?

Where I'm going with this is simple: Either your respect for inanimate lumps of tissue is based on some underlying rationale, or unfounded superstition. Which?

Because we had a large influx of leftist users who would uprate each others comments and downrate conservative views, we turned them off for a while.  Our solution now is to give certain people comment rating ability once we see they are part of the Republican community.  We are pretty liberal (haha) in giving out that ability as long as one is not a troll or on the left.  After we see a few comments by a person who seems to fit the bill we activate the ability.  We do, of course, reserve the right to deactivate that ability.

Hope that helps.

What is your basis for saying there is no right to suicide.  You believe the government should be able to intervene in this sort of instance and, if so, do you also believe there is no right to refuse medical treatment (which is often tantamount to suicide), and, if so, then by your rationale the lack of universal healthcare in this country would be analagous to the commission of genocide by the U.S. government.  This is obviously ridiculous, but it logically follows from the idea that someone cannot choose to die if in a PVS.

"If there was no meaningful difference, there wouldn't be two separate terms meaning two separate things. "

You don't understand medicine, Trevino.  PVS is a clinical diagnosis; pathologists don't do clinical diagnoses.  Hence, her condition on pathological exam was 'consistent with' PVS.  You will never get a pathologist to state is more strongly that that.  Pathologists don't make clinical diagnoses.  Just has cardiologists should not attempt neurological exams.

Suppose one is deeply brain damaged, to the point, as I mentioned in an earlier comment, of being stupid even by lower-order animal terms. Nothing will ever arrest this or alter it. What then?

And you're the one mis-stating, or simply misunderstanding. Or perhaps you've simply missed the point altogether: Your second paragraph is merely a restatement of the position you claim trevino is misidentifying or misrepresenting. Can't have that spoon at both ends, friend.

....to your question is, "We don't know," why the presumption in favor of death?

But thanks for impugning the motives of all who gave her the benefit of the doubt.

....are you arguing with here?  Did you read the post?

As a moderate registered independant who often works for GOP candidates would I be counted as "left" by the moderators of this site.  I.e., is it philosophical/partisan disagreement that discounts you, or are you referring to folks who use the site to pick fights/troll rate/etc.?

But we're always willing to revisit decisions.

"Death is not an endpoint on a loss-of-function continuum"

So Trevino, why do right-to-lifers accept the termination of life by ending mechanical ventilation?

I'm sure you're aware of the case in Texas, where the little kid was killed against the wishes of his mother by State order.  This was done under a law signed by Bush.  

We do, of course, reserve the right to deactivate that ability.

I think I'm not alone in believing that exercising this option is overdue. I further believe RS needs to seriously reconsider how they are handling ratings.

I don't understand medicine.

Well, moving on -- you don't understand the preceding exchange.  So we're even....in the imaginary world where I don't understand medicine.

Wow.

You take trevino's comment that there's no right to suicide and within two sentences manage to accuse him of supporting genocide by the U.S. government.

I don't think I've seen anyone accelerate from zero-to-troll so quickly without using profanity before.

I was just curious, because I very much enjoy the reporting on this site and I would be fairly disappointed if the site were run in quite so monolithic a way.  I do, however, like the fact that the site moderators are actively trying to stimulate reasoned discussion instead of juvenile fighting ("Flame wars").

Let me know which pro-life activists endorsed this monstrosity, and we'll talk.

Oh, you were just invoking it as a vapid rhetorical tactic?  Silly me.

Prior to the withdrawal of food and water, Schiavo was not dead. Absent same, she would, in all probability, not have died in the near term, barring certain unforeseen or unforeseeable circumstances. She was not clinically brain dead, though she was clearly not capable of normal higher brain function.

Thing is, the mental state in which Terri Schiavo existed looked (at least to me) not all that far removed from the mental state of a young baby. Was Schiavo human? Is the baby?

Perhaps a better question: is the baby a person? If the baby is, why would Schiavo not have been? For that matter, what of some autistics?

(FWIW, humanity seems to me to highly contingent on the matter of personality, or identity. Identity is a very fuzzy concept; it's a hard philosophical problem, and not everybody has the same conception of it.)

Not trying to answer for ChiMod, bet there are any number of good reasons not to eat dead humans.

1. It's unhealthy. Extensive cannibalism in society would likely lead to things like Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
   
   
2. Respecting the wishes of the person who used to be there.
   
   
3. It's illegal.
   
   
4. Sentiment.

There wasn't a presumption in favor of death.

The presumption was, in a case defined by the preponderance of medical evidence that she has no higher brain function, that her previously stated wishes and those of her guardian should have some sway.

I try to avoid eating dogs, cats, horses and dolphins as well as people.  My rationale might not be airtight, but I think it's well above superstition.

I'd link each of those animals to some degree of higher intelligence combined with a special sort of relationship with human beings.  Now technically once the animal is dead they lose future potential for both of those things, but the relationship aspect is something that should accord the physical body a degree of respect, even after death.

The value of this respect is fluid-- as I said before, if I were starving on a mountain somewhere it might be a different story.  But respect for the prior human relationship combined with convenience of other foods is probably as close to an answer as I can verbalize.

Why 3?  Why 4?

There's no moral separability between the mechanism and end, here.

Read the full post (This is obviously ridiculous, but...). And please consider your ratings more carefully, in general.

If I choose to stop eating, does the government have the right to force feed me?  

This is the type of thread that they should be turned off on, if that's possible on a thread level.  There are already several marginal troll ratings based on viewpoint, not content.

I did read the full post, thanks.  Perhaps if you hadn't tried to Dowdify what he said it would be clearer: This is obviously ridiculous, but it logically follows from the idea that someone cannot choose to die if in a PVS.

Sure looks to me that he's claiming that even though it's ridiculous it's the logical conclusion from trevino's argument.

And if you have a question on my ratings, feel free to ask - I have no problem explaining them, such as in this case.

It may be your take, but it was not the law.  The law gave decision making authority to her husband.  And despite all the (often untrue) allegations thrown at him, it was he who had the right to make a decision.  Change the law if you have a problem with it but don't throw it out the window in mid-process.

Re: ...either that humanity is not something intrinsic, but dependent upon function

We accept that already when we agree that turning off a respirator on a brain dead person. After all, the person is still human by any definition and is still alive. But said person does not have a functioning brain.

I'm sorry, folks, but I cannot see any difference between Terri Schiavo's condition and her feeding tube and the hypothetical brain dead person on a respirator. Not one argument I've seen here, or elsewhere, has shown me such a difference.

Good point.  I had forgotten about the balloon. Following a balloon would indeed be hard if blind.

all utilitarian arguments, which one could easily imagine being overcome by some stronger utilitarian consideration if circumstances, or the strength of the argument were sufficient.

1. Light snacking wouldn't destroy brains with any rapidity -- and smoking is still legal.
   
   
2. Who cares? They're dead.
   
   
3. Why?
   
   
4. Seems like a silly reason not to enjoy barbecue.

....there's an argument in the post here that addresses precisely your point here.  And refutes it.

wow.  You manage to take a line of deductive reasoning by me that follows based on his comment as well as taking a question and calling it an accusation while completely misrepresenting me in two lines.  I did not say he believed that; I simply pointed out the belief in no right to suicide logically leads to ideas he probably doesn't agree with, so he should flesh out his argument and the philosophic underpinnings to it.

That was ridiculous.

And that's why I generally avoid these threads.  If it wasn't for the comment rating question, I wouldn't have even read these comments.

even after they may have died. Does this make my cats human with all the rights thereof?

4. Sentiment is not a rational thing.  I also refuse to eat dog or cat.  It is not a moral issue for me, it's pure sentiment. I'm sure the sentiment could be overcome in dire enough need, but I see no need to try otherwise.
   
3. A couple of good reasons:
   

          3.1. The health issues mentioned is reason 1.  Public health is a valid area for legislation.

          3.2. To prevent traffic in human flesh and the complications that would cause.

However, those probably aren't why cannibalism actually is illegal.  I believe that it's primarily illegal because people think it's gross and/or morally wrong under their religious beliefs.

but he might not get it if you are that succinct.

Dude, you have no idea how funny it is to see someone tell someone on the cusp of a Masters of Public Health that they don't understand medicine.  You are one funny dude.

Or having some sort of underlying belief system that prevents you from eating sauteed kitty.

Starvation can do some damage after all.

There's a good summary of the argument that potential hardware for future function is a major difference between Schiavo and a baby.  Not to mention that babies, although they might not be able to express themselves yet, do have frontal lobe activity even when still in the womb.  Terri Schiavo was far less capable than any human baby and her future brian activity would only worsen.

Technically her husband didn't make the decision to remove the feeding tube. He was for it, and he petitioned the court for it. however the decision was up to the court system. If he had changed his mind at the 11th hour the court didn't have to go along.

Now, that's probably overly picky. Indeed the court would have never brought up the subject if he hadn't petitioned, and probably would have gone along with him if he changed his mind.

I guess I'm making a distinction without a real differnce.

Re: Prior to the withdrawal of food and water, Schiavo was not dead.

Food and water were NOT withdrawn. A feeding tube was. Her condition was such that she could not ingest food and water orally.

This is exactly the same as turning of a ventilator. Oxygen is not withdrawn (the person is still surrounded by it!) but they have lost the autonomic functions which enable them ingest it. In both cases somatic death is due to the fact that the body has lost, permanently, some autonomic functionality enabling them to perform the regular and necessary functions of a living organism.

Between superstition and sentiment if there is no rational basis for the latter -- indeed, in the former case, there's usually a (twisted) logic at work.

I see, on its face, no reason why the relationship and intelligence a thing had when it was alive matters when the bacteria can run unchecked across its flesh. I have all sorts of reasons, some rational, some not, but what a thing was when it was alive -- working under your framework above -- shouldn't concern us at all if we have rational uses for the tissue.

Which kinda goes to my larger point: If you won't eat those animals or dead people, there must be some reason undergirding that decision. I'm at something of a loss why you'd accord more respect to the flesh of a dead thing than to a living thing with the same brain capacity.

That was based on her brain shrinkage. Brain shrinkage is a result of lack of blood flow. It wouldn't happen that fast.

Minor nit...The coroner said she died of dehydration, not starvation.

We have many problems in this house we call America.  Trevino's post is excellent at drawing academic philosophical lines, but I want to make a pragmatic point that concerns this case in the context of popular politics:

I know a family of expatriates from a country that is very much of interest to people in the United States right now.  They followed the Schiavo case fairly closely through the media, and Trevino's argument notwithstanding, their analysis of the case was exceptionally pragmatic.  Among the members of the family I know, it was the women who were most outspoken that Terri Schiavo had the right to die.  Why?  In their view, because she had lived in that state for so long and no woman would ever want to live that way, for years and years, under that kind of care.  To them it seemed silly and a little repugnant that Americans would argue so much about it -- and they didn't care too much about larger political forces, there wasn't any calculation at work for them in that regard.  They simply didn't understand why anyone would fight so tenaciously to preserve the life of a woman who was obviously incurable.  

In other words, they looked at the situation from the perspective of laypeople (from the Middle East) and as liberated women in America, helping to run a business here, and simply thought:  "I would not want to be in that situation.  I would never wish it on any woman, and she isn't living the life of a woman.  Everyone should back off and let her go."

I'm posting this because not only are these women Iraqi expatriates, they're Christians, and they're 'liberated' women who do not want to be identified in any way, shape, or form with religious extremism.  They avoid it like the proverbial plague, and I believe their assessment was grounded in a pragmatic sympathy for Terri Schiavo herself and a genuine fear of religious and extermism -- separate from all of the other political machinations this case connoted to "real" Americans.

any argument that addressed my poiint at all, let alone refuted it.

Well, at least you're consistent.

I think that is a dangerous power to give the government.

Sorry, I should have said keep her alive, not keeping her breathing though, technically, the feeding tube WAS needed to keep her breathing in the sense that you don't breathe when you are dead.

to pull the plug of Christopher Reeve's ventilator?

and argue that the premise of this post is extremely dubious.

My opposition to the starvation of Terri Schiavo had really to do with the point that ChiMod made just moments ago - potentiality. Did she have the potential to recover? If she did not, why should it be mandatory that her family keep her alive?

I ask this, because in my capacity as a minister, I have within the past year sat with two families who were caring for aged relatives who were being fed by feeding tubes. Both were in their 90s, and were in such constant pain from their various physical ailments that they were spending all their time in a morphine-induced coma. So, they spent literally all their time unconscious and unaware of their surroundings, or in extreme pain.

I sat with these two families as they both made the agonizing decision to pull the feeding tube, and I thought, despite my very strong pro-life leanings, that they both did the right thing. There was absolutely nothing more that could have been done for either of the ladies in question besides prolong the inevitable at the cost of a crippling financial and emotional burden. I believe the families did the right thing. I don't believe that we should require others to use extraordinary medicinal measures to keep a person technically alive indefinitely. This is really just not something that I can sign on for.

Now, in this particular case, I joined in Terri's fight because her parents were willing to care for her, and because I had strong suspicions that therapy could make her better again. If neither of those are true, I fail to see a compelling reason to force a person to remain alive, especially considering that the technology to live up to this supposed moral burden has only been available to the last couple generations of humanity.

Rick Perry.

these things were not so then (or so I remember). At the time the feeding tube was withdrawn, food and water were also withdrawn, and no one was allowed to feed (or attempt to feed) her, or to provide her with water. If she could not swallow, why deny her food and water completely?

I didn't throw the law here or there. Nevertheless, much like the abortion debate, I can certainly theorize as to what would be a better way. A better way would be to err on the side of life. No living will, no die. The commenter I was replying to was talking about a hypothetical erring on the side of caution regarding her potential for future life. That's not the law either unless I am mistaken.

there are instances where people who have trouble swallowing but are still alive

Would you have denied Christopher Reeve a respirator and food/water just because those functions weren't up-to-snuff?

In all my arguments over Terri, I never made her condition my core argument. For me, it was irrelevant because

1)she left no clear instructions

2)she had family willing to render her care

I was (and still am) alarmed at the thought that there should be a "death default" in such a dispute.

If err is to be made, make it for life. Certainly Terri wasn't in any pain, but I guess for some her living constituted an embarrassment.

that someone born in PVS (say a baby with anencephaly) should be kept alive as long as humanly possible.  Because isn't a baby with anencephaly basically in a state of PVS?

I will go to my grave believing that Congress did absolutely the right thing in giving the federal court jurisdiction to grant a de novo hearing to the parents of Terri Schiavo.

The reason has to do with the quality of lawyering provided to the Schindlers by a succession of pro bono buffoons. Had a criminal defendant facing the death penalty been represented this badly, an appeals court would overturn the conviction and send it back for a new trial.

It is a fact that under our legal system, people are out-gunned from an attorney standpoint every day. That happens. It is not, however, normally considered a reason for someone to die.

Neither is 'clear and convincing evidence.' That is not our standard for putting even the worst criminal to death. For such an extreme step, we require proof beyond reasonable doubt. But that is not the standard in Judge Greer's probate court. A human being was killed here because of two findings of fact by a county probate judge acting under the standard of "clear and convincing evidence."

Finding of Fact #1 is that Ms. Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state. Judge Greer did not have available the autopsy results when he made that decision, nor did the doctors testifying for either side have benefit of any recent or modern tests of brain activity, such a PET or MRI scan. (An MRI scan might have been problematic because of a shunt that had been inserted surgically to deal with bleeding; that would have to have been removed first). Mr. Schiavo would not permit such tests, and so doctors on both sides had to rely on a CAT scan from years before, and such observational evidence as they could obtain.

So basically we have a county probate judge who has no medical expertise himself, deciding to believe this group of doctors instead of that group of doctors, and as soon as he does so it becomes a Fact of Law that Terri Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state.

In Judge Greer's defense, it is probably true that the doctors saying "PVS" were probably a better group of doctors, at least on paper, than the ones saying either "not PVS" or "can't say without an MRI." This again is a function of how much money was available to the two sides for expert witnesses. With more money, the Schindlers could almost certainly have produced more and better-credentialed doctors to argue against a diagnosis of PVS.

The second Finding of Fact which must be made before Ms. Schiavo may have her feeding tube removed is that, given she is in this state, what were her wishes concerning whether to be kept alive?

Nobody knows, because she left no written instructions and there is conflicting testimony. Mr. Schiavo says she would not want to be kept alive, her parents say she would. Judge Greer listens to both sides, sees that Mr. Schiavo has a pecuniary interest in the matter, decides that that's OK (which is his right as the judge) and decides to believe the husband. He rules that it is now a Fact of Law that Terri Schiavo does not want to be kept alive in the state which she is in, as a Fact of Law.

To give the lawyers present an early groan as to the sort of thing that was going on here, the judge at one point asks the Schindlers' attorney whether he knows of any precedent that supports the argument he is making. "None that I can think of off the top of my head, Your Honor."

We will now pause for 15 seconds to allow the lawyers in the room to recover.

Yep, that's the kind of slick lawyering the Schindlers were getting from beginning to end in this case.

It is not unreasonable to imagine that a different judge, or even Greer on a different day, might have reached opposite conclusions on either or both of these "facts."

Another judge might have said, "Somebody is going to die here. So if the doctors can't agree on this PVS stuff, let's err on the side of not killing her."

Another judge might have said, "This Schiavo guy got a big bag of money with which to take care of this woman, and every day she's alive that money gets drawn down. Hmmm. I think Ms. Schiavo needs her own attorney to represent her interests in this, not his."

Judge Greer turns out to be a real stickler for rules and procedure, and so despite numerous appeals by the hapless lawyers for the Schindlers, no procedural error could be found which might justify overturning Judge Greer.

This is where the Congress stepped in. The machinery of state government is rolling along inexorably toward killing a human being, a citizen of the United States, as a consequence of a civil lawsuit. This result was produced by two arbitrary findings of fact by a county probate judge, in a trial marked by egregiously bad lawyering on the part of the Schindlers' attorneys.

I applaud the Congress for doing what it did. By all means, let us have at least one other human being take a look at these Findings of Fact before somebody dies here. (Those of you unfamiliar with the court system may believe that this is what appeals courts do. They do not. Appeals rarely re-visit 'findings of fact'. They are about whether the judge erred procedurally, or as a matter of law.)

So the Schindlers get their shot before a federal judge. At last we are going to have a de novo hearing on the facts.

Whoops, wrong. Guess what the Schindler's buffoon lawyer does next? He treats his hearing before Judge Whittemore as an appeal. His plea cites alleged procedural errors by Greer as the basis for his complaint. Whittemore agonizes over this for about 24 hours, finally rendering a verdict that he understood he was supposed to have a de novo hearing here, but he can only rule on the case that Plaintiff brings. This case has already been appealed — literally — to the high heavens, and it is unlikely that Plaintiff can prove a procedual error by Greer, and so the temporary injunction putting the tube back in is denied. Needless to say, the Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court ruled the same way.

All the idiot lawyer had to do was put sufficient doubt in Whittemore's head that he might be able to prove either that (a) Terri Schiavo's wishes are unknown, or that Michael Schiavo has a monetary conflict of interest and should not be Guardian, or (b) the state of Ms. Schiavo's brain cannot be determined without giving her today's standard diagnostic tests, which have not been done.

With either those things, the judge has to grant the preliminary injuction, and we are on our way to a year-long trial on the facts.

But that's not what the idiot lawyer did. And that's how Terri Schiavo died.

but I'm a vegetarian, so maybe my opinion doesn't count :)

I couldn't agree more.  If you allow the government this sort of unfettered power, it is really the end of personal freedom and personal responsibility.

I just wish people would focus on changing the FL law now to what they want it to say rather than arguing over what they wanted it to say a year ago.  

Very good point.  There are thousands of families that must face this decision every year. Most of these cases are not the young women that the media likes to focus on.

Many people find it very scary if such a decision can be taken away from the family.

I think this is a rare moment, but I am in complete agreement with you on this.  I believe this should have stayed a family decision and not made into a media circus like it was.  

Keeping someone technically alive to satisfy yourself, or to try and "fight the good fight" now to make up for past shortcomings is immoral and selfish.  

But I don't think she deserves less consideration than a dead human being, and I'm not sure where you getting the line of reasoning from.

But the CAT scan was sufficient evidence, along with the cognitive tests, of PVS.  In close cases where the physical damage to the brain is not severe, PETs and MRIs are helpful, but in Terri Schiavo's case the brain was so severely damaged the more precise MRI wouldn't have shown anything new.  Her brain was mostly liquified and you didn't need an MRI to see that.

And I don't think living wills have to be complicated or expensive either. There is a system for handling organ donation in place, seems like a PVS contingency or DNR order shouldn't be too hard to manage.

I think if this had been a dispute between a documented "Don't keep me alive in PVS" order and the parents, I would have been on the right to die side.

As it was, I was immensely frustrated for the parents. I have two daughters and I sympathize the position. I also have a sister who is divorcing her lowlife "husband". I can easily see a Schiavo situation where a bad husband lets a good daughter die to get her off his back, against the will of the parents. Legal perhaps, but awful.

Much better to have some type of irrefutable statement from the person in question I think.

You are right though, it is all conjecture now.

And it's still a work in progress.

1. If cannibalism were widespread, CJD or its like would be virtually inevitable (not for a given person, but as a societal problem). It also isn't the only health danger.  All the parasites and microorganisms in a human body find humans to be suitable hosts (of course), so there is a greater health risk than from other meat.  
   
   
2. Most people do, it would seem.  Perhaps it's because if they are seen to respect the wishes of the dead, others are more likely to respect their wishes once they are gone.  Perhaps not.
   
   
3. See my answer to Trevino
   
   
4. Sentiment does not lend itself to rational explanation.  This is, of course, why sentiment should not be the basis for law.
   

Say you were a survivor of a plane crash in the Chilean Andes, and you were required to eat your deceased compatriots to survive.  (You know, that would make a fantastic movie ....)

The eating-dead-people idea is a poor one to try to discredit utilitarism (if that's your goal), for who would argue that it would be better for the living to join the dead than show any disrespect for them.  

I tried to Dowdify a post immediately above mine by omitting the rest of the sentence? I must be slipping.

Yes, he is claiming that a (ridiculous) consequence of Trevino's argument is that the U.S. government is responsible for deaths it could have prevented by mandating universal health care and by not allowing patients to decline treatment.

No, that's actually not the same thing as accusing Trevino of supporting genocide by the U.S. government. Because:

• There is no genocide
• He doesn't suggest Trevino supports it anyway; Trevino might very well feel the U.S. government should be doing more to prevent deaths.

You're over-reacting to an attempted reductio ad absurdum argument and making it needlessly personal.

at east with the idea of telling someone they cannot make a deeply personal (and ultimately scientifically justified) decision?  my guess is that it is because your views are deeply rooted in religious beliefs.  i'm right, aren't i?

and, we should all know, those sorts of religious beliefs have no place in forming government policy...separation of the institutions, right?  why oh why do you feel justified in putting your personal beliefs onto the rest of the nation?  

Maybe I'm mistaken, but the fact that it is not a 1/0 on/off switch indicates to me the ratings can be used for content.

For example, what is the purpose of having a 5 rating. Extra-especially not a troll?

I've been using zero for total troll, a 1 for lying or smearing, a 2 for baiting, and then 3 through 5 for content. Not because I think this is how it is designed, but because it seemed right for me. The existence of the 0-5 indicated to me that it was more than an on-off switch.

But I could be wrong.

Unless you are a medical doctor giving us your personal diagnosis based on your personal reading of the MRI, you are wasting our bandwidth here. We already know that Michael Schiavo hired expert witnesses who testified that Ms. Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state. However, we also know that it was possible to read the MRI quite differently, and in fact there were qualified medical professionals who did so. One judge, who is not qualified to decide this on the basis of his own expertise, chose to believe these doctors and not those doctors. You cannot tell me that every judge in the world would have come down the same way. There is simply no way to know that.

And the one test of that which might have been run was the de novo hearing mandated by Congress, which was totally blown by the incompetence of the Schindler's attorney.

I think he means based on disagreement instead of quality.  I give out 5s for well-written, original, sourced comments.  4s for any 2 of those 3 criteria.  1s for trolls who aren't cursing or breaking official rules (so people can still see them).  2s for those who are on the edge by being condescending or arrogant for example.

But I don't give a 1 for disagreeing nor a 5 for agreeing.  It is quality, not agreement that drives my ratings.

This brings to mind the famous story of Darius and the death customs of the Greeks and Callations. The Greeks honored their dead by burning them, while the Callations found that horrific. Their custom was to eat their dead as a way of showing respect, which the Greeks found disgusting. Of course, both cultures agreed that honoring the dead was a good thing, but had very different ideas of how that was done that made sense within their respective cultural contexts.

We don't eat the dead because we have a history of not doing so, we're taught that doing so would be desecration, and there's no pressing reason to start. There's a lot of ancient literature, for example, that casts consumption of human flesh as a symbolic act of hatred and the ultimate disrespect, possibly because of a belief that destroying someone's corpse prevents them from entering Heaven, which sounds like something ultimately inherited from the Egyptians.

Accusations are frequently made that those who seek to discard the symbols are secretly conspiring to discard what those symbols represent. Hence the term, 'Culture of Death'. It seems to me that the more fundamental conflict is about the importance of symbols, but also between certain groups that have a vested interest in maintaining control over those symbols and enjoying the power that comes with it.

"Let me know which pro-life activists endorsed this monstrosity, and we'll talk"

Well, Bush signed the law.  If Bush isn't prolife, sorry, my mistake.

1. We eat billions of tons of tons of meat every year. None of this is insurmountable.
   
   
2. That begs the question.
   
   
3. I did. Still begs the question.
   
   
4. Then we should begin investing in human meat processing plants. Any protein shortage worldwide could be cured in short order.

I have to have a degree of agreement to consider it 5 quality. Moulitsas writes well, but I doubt I'd high-five him, if you see what I mean. If someone writes something particularly well that I find very offensive and/or flat disagree with, i will typically just not rate it. I only 3-rate it if others are rating it.

My understanding of the system is that content (or maybe point of view) shouldn't be considered.

The mumber is how well reasoned, how good of content, the post contains.  Or maybe it should be considered levels of trolldom -- low numbers being very troll like, higher numbers mean certified troll free.

Therefore it would be wholly consistent to giving a 5 to a well reasoned post that arrives at what I consider an odious conclusion.

Are accusing their political opponents of secretly desiring a return to cannibalism, and using "culture of death" as a proxy for that accusation, then you've read way too much Joseph Campbell.

Is a debating tactic employed by five-year-olds to infuriate their parents. As I am sick of you, I'll come out and bite.

The root of all morality is unfounded, arbitrary, biologically/socially valuable instinct. As has been stated here previously, cannabilism is regressive--besides being unsanitary, it can encourage murder in inevitable periods of famine, which is contrary to human progress, and removes a mind and a pair of working human hands from the race. That's why we don't do it.

If we actually gained a guy's strength by eating his heart, eating Joe Corpse would become acceptable in no time flat. In practice, we only gain his diseases, so it's not.

Why'd you bring this argument into a Schiavo thread again?

"Well, moving on -- you don't understand the preceding exchange"

You're correct, Trevino, I did misread the preceding exchange.  I apologize.

Would it have made a difference to you if the pathologist had used the term 'brain dead' in his report?

They're going to have fun with you.

Your question actually is a valid one, but I suspect you won't get a reasoned response considering your tone. Note that this is a very contentious thread, but note the tone of the posters who are disagreeing.

In fact, although I could answer you and have answers to give, and although I actually also am a dissenter on this topic, the tone of your comment just doesn't warrant an involved reply.

Try this:

"I have a question. This discussion appears to advocate a policy that would violate the separation of church and state. How do you reconcile that?"

my guess is that it is because your views are deeply rooted in religious beliefs.

Certainly it's not for the reasons explicitly stated, eh?

those sorts of religious beliefs have no place in forming government policy...separation of the institutions, right?

It does not mean what you think it means.

why oh why do you feel justified in putting your personal beliefs onto the rest of the nation?

You vote, yes?  Why do you?

because I agree that there is a slippery slope argument to be made, however, I believe that you missed it here.  With Sciavo, she no longer had her frontal lobe through the area of the whatsit that controls sight.  This is a significant percentage of her brain, including all of the portions that control voluntary functions.  If she still had any degree of voluntary function, then a slippery slope would exist and I would say in that case she should be kept alive.  Being functionally stupid and not being functional are not the same.  Cat-level intelligence still allows voluntary (though not reasoned) functioning.  I think this is a consistent argument, but I would like to know how you would respond to this idea.

but it isn't because their human.

Couldn't have said it better

Are advanced directives immoral? Should the federal and state governments outlaw DNR's, living wills and durable powers of attorney?  The determination by the Florida trial court was that Ms. Schiavo had the functional equivalent of a verbal advanced directive - do you advocate outlawing all such directives and invalidating the wishes of the individual because your definition of morality and humanity is inconsistent with theirs?

You might want to share your take on the Socratic method with ever law professor in the country. Have fun.

As to the rest:

I'm impressed that you've managed to reduce morality to the same cliche that's been used to describe it for centuries. Normally, I wouldn't care less, but given that you've chosen to offer that, explain why we shun open infanticide, instead of abortion. There are all sorts of good reasons for it.

It's only unsanitary because unsanitary people practice it. Done correctly, it could be a valuable source of protein and nutrients.

Maybe you'd find it ok to eat someone for his strength; I'd find it ok to lock you in a deep hole for that lifestyle choice.

If the numerous times I've explained why it's here don't do it for you, then it appears that my initial impression of your awesome intellect was correct.

saw her soul struggling to survive.

Isn't this another example of why private medical decisions should be just that, private.  What was the Constitutional/federal/due process/civil rights issue here that caused members of Congress to intervene?  That caused the President to rush back from a much needed vacation to interfere with a painful family decision that was played out on national television?

I just don't see giving a 5 to a post that Bush planned 9-11, no matter how well presented. Of course, easy enough not to rate such posts at all I suppose. Anyway, though, like I said, I never troll-rate just for disagreement. For the record.

In any case, I'm happy to rate in whatever way is deemed 'the policy'.

If you believe this is absurd, then why do you believe that?

I say it is the end of personal freedom because the government is now mandating one of the most everyday activities of a persons life.  I say it is the end of personal responsibility because the government is telling you when to eat and when not to.  Feeding yourself is the first thing a person takes responsibility for in their own life.  If I am wrong about this, please tell me how.  I may very well be missing a facet to your argument.

Further, should the government also be allowed to limit the consumption of food of fat people?  Disallow drinking, smoking at all times, rock climbing, canyoning?  Where is the line drawn if the government tells you when to eat of all things?

LOL. With the amount of hyperbole going around, I wouldn't be surprised if someone did make that accusation.

1.  Eventually, the CJD problem might indeed be surmountable.  For now, however, it is not.  The only way to Mad Cow disease is to not feed cows to other cows.  We don't have sufficient knowledge of prions to figure out another way.
   
   
2.  The question was "Who cares?"  My answer was "Most people."  No question was begged in the formation of that answer.
   
   
3. Once again, no.  No question was begged here.  You asked why cannibalism is illegal.  I referred to my answer to Trevino wherein I stated that "I believe that it's primarily illegal because people think it's gross and/or morally wrong under their religious beliefs. "  I did not say that that was a reason it should be illegal. I merely pointed out that that's why (I believe) it is illegal.
   
   
4. Humans make a lousy food stock.  It takes them far too long to reach eating size, and they consume far too many resources in the process.  Just processing those who die otherwise wouldn't make a dent in the hunger situation.  Plus, it's unhealthy (see point one). Lastly, if we consider a dead human body a commodity, logically it becomes the property of the heirs, who are unlikely to go along with this plan, due to their sentimentality.  

low ratings shouldn't be for points you disagree with, but rather, those that are superfluous, needlessly combative/abusive, or generally lower the tone of the debate.  I can see giving a 2 or 3 to someone who has a poorly reasoned comment, but not simply because you don't agree with the conclusion.

I am sure that you and everyone who has carried on the "Frist diagnosis" meme remembers Senator Frist also said the following "By my medical definition, she was not in a vegetative state based on my review of the videos, my talking to the family, and my discussing the case with one of the neurologists who examined her," he said Sunday (emphasis mine) link

or social mores, take your pick on the formulation

You're merely being petulant. As someone with several years of philosophy under his belt, I find any comparison between yourself and the man who drank hemlock to be somewhere between humorous and offensive.

We shun "open infanticide" (as opposed to closed infanticide? is that the new pro-life dysphemism?) because it's graphic. Evolution has a great deal of power over our interpretation of the tangible. Abortion is abstract enough to us that the human mind can come to a purely rational decision based on its advantages and disadvantages.

"It's only unsanitary because unsanitary people practice it" -- Tell that to kuru. I also enjoy the way you dodged my other points. Dance any faster and we might have to put you in the circus.

"Maybe you'd find it ok to eat someone for his strength; I'd find it ok to lock you in a deep hole for that lifestyle choice." -- And I'd find it okay to kick your ass when you tried to lock me up, because I'd have Bob's strength to aid my own. You'd be too feeble to stop me... unless you ate Jill, eh? Social evolution is a beautiful thing.

Why'd you bring this argument into a Schiavo thread again?

The decision to prolong (or not prolong) life with extraordinary measures should be made from the perspective of the individual and family involved, taking into account the specific circumstances of the case at hand.  It is foolish, both as a matter of public policy and justice, to take the power from the individual and family and give it to the State.  And make no mistake:  those who clamor for an inflexible line, rigorously enforced, argue for exactly that.

God is not a calculator, in which we can punch in a few numbers and enjoy the pleasure of knowing for certain that we have achieved the right answer.  Nor is perfect consistency necessarily a mark of perfect morality.

Before they shoved you in a philosophy course. More the pity -- you might have learned something.

Moving along to the only point not addressed or answered before you bothered typing:

That's what guns are for, pilgrim.

But I do.  I've seen MPH's get told that they don't understand medicine on a fairly regular basis since I've been spending more time at the CDC in Atlanta.  Usually it's being done by people with multiple doctorates in medicine/biology/chemistry to their name, but it still never fails to crack me up.  As the great Homer Simpson once said "it's funny because it's true."

An MPH is a very useful and important degree, but by itself the degree doesn't imply deep medical knowledge.  I have no idea how much Trevino knows about medicine; I'm not trying to dig at him.  But arguing that a speed degree confers a higher level of understanding of the medical facts of the case (if that's what you're trying to do) is quite a stretch IMO.

Whether it's slippery or not is a related an important argument.

What determines "human being"? The answer need not be function, although most of us are pretty comfortable defining it that way. Conventional wisdom suggests that human beings must live and "think" at some "human" level. Determining the presence of life as a scientific concept is fairly straight forward--pulse, blood pressure, lung function, certain brain functions, etc.

Identifying thought as human or otherwise is much more difficult. We want to place the locus of thought in the brain, and we can tie specific brain activity to what seems to be "thinking," but we can't prove that brain dead human beings can't think, only that they can't think in any way that we yet measure, much less value.

Moreover, we seem to equate humanity, thought, and consciousness with certain kinds of brain activity. Ergo, consciousness at any level is not possible without certain types of brain function. That also is not provable.

No need to review the long and well developed religious and philosophical arguments about the nature of human beings, but it's important to understand that tremendously competent thinkers have argued that humanity is essential. We are created as human beings regardless of function. Human beings are valuable absent utility. A human "being" is valuable regardless of how we might want to use or otherwise dispose of her.

This argument also need not be religious although I admit that it usually is framed that way. Many are very familiar with the powerful Judaeo-Christina formulation. We derive our being and our dignity from our creator, absent any function whatsoever. One can deny the Creator and still posit that human dignity derives from our being.

Why do we have those norms?

I vote for everyone to have the freedom to do what they believe is the right thing to do not to control everyone's freedoms with my beliefs.  rethink it - you're saying you vote to put in place a policy that dictates what should happen.  i vote to put a policy in place that allows people to decide what happens.

What could it be? Oh, I know! Content!

re: Guns -- Being a being of intelligence at least on par with yours, I'd shoot you in self-defense, but only I would pull through with my superhuman strength. I mean, Bob's strength, plus my strength. That's two human strengths right there, which is, last I checked, more than one. Even if you did manage to kill me off, evolution invariably favors upsides without downsides. You would be little more than a stumbling block in Darwin's inexorably progressive march.

You posed several questions. I answered them. Lacking a rebuttal, you responded as only you or a small child could: with a vague, transparently narcissistic tantrum and an overt threat. You're more condescending than a small child could ever be, though, so I guess you learned something in school.

Come back when you can respond to points raised by your opposition. I derive no pleasure from kicking small dogs in the head.

....difference you think it is.  An action and a philosophy either way.

Not by a long shot.  I don't "understand medicine" in any manner comparable to a physician.  But on the question above, yeah.

But a Hopkins MPH a "speed degree"?  Ow.

I'm not gonna comment cuz i think its sad that all these politicans and everyone got involved in this private matter...

(but then where does that leave me posting this comment?)

About the cat person.  For more severe loss of mental capacity, like this one, we do the same thing we did here.  Determine the individual's wishes and act in accordance with those wishes.  The husband said he knew what her wishes were, the court found that those were her wishes, her wishes were carried out.  Is the court infallible?  No, but they are charged with the responsibility of deciding life and death matters on a daily basis.

You don't have to answer this obviously, but what would you want your wife to do if (God forbid) you were stricken in such a fashion?

I would prefer to end my life in this state.  And I admit I am inclined to believe that most others would as well, so it's easier for me to see the case for withdrawing the tube here.

I have several friends with MPH's from Hopkins... they all refer to them as "speed" degrees.  Something to do with Miles Per Hour and Master of Public Health having the same abbreviations, I think.  

Besides, I found it inherently funny that it only took two years for me to become a master of anything, don't tell me you can't see at least the shadow of something amusing in that... don't make me smack you to get a grin out of you :)

The husband and the attorney were behind this. Their refusal to respect the family by getting a comprehensive medical exam done is exactly why this went the way it did. And the report in WaPo, which extensively quotes the pathologis, leaves a far less than clear impression of how definitive the examiner thinks his autopsy results are. It is notable that what killed Terri was dehydration more extreme than ever seen by the pathologist prior to her atuopsy. She was healthy in body, even if she was apparently severely brian damaged.

The reluctance of the 'husband' to have gotten this information out in front of Terri's family only underscores his bad faith in this.

Perhaps now people will read what the attorney, Felo, actually has written about death and dying and the law.

The fact is a person who was severely brain damaged was starved to death when nothing was wrong with her body other than an inability to eat and drink for herself. And people were willing to take care of her.

And no I am not a doctor but I am repeating what was the finding of the court as the to the scientific evidence presented.  That is that of the five doctors who examined who examined Terri, three (the two selected by Michael Schiavo and one selected by the court) came to the conclusion that she was in PVS.  The two selected by the Schindlers disagreed but the court found that their findings was "substantially anecdotal" and not based on "scientific, case, [or] research based foundations".  I would provide a link, but I know, no matter how many times you read the Guardian Ad Litem's report, you will absolutely refuse to accept its findings, so there is really no point.

Now the autopsy backs up the findings of the court and still you hang on to the fiction that she wasn't in PVS.  Someone in this thread actually raises the possibility that she only went blind because of the withdrawl of the feeding tube.  Talk about grasping at straws!

when people in positions of authority look at someone and say, "I wouldn't want to live like that.  Kill her."

Like it or not, the withdrawal of food and water is killing.  Not mercy.  Just plain old killing.  Cold and slow.  Hard and painful.

There was no written directive that she wanted to be killed.  Just a memory of a conversation that the husband didn't "remember" until 8 or 9 years after the fact.  Coincidentally, he didn't  remember it until he had won a million dollars for her care.

As long as we're at it, the nurses who cared for her said that she sucked and swallowed fluids.  I don't care what the autopsy shows, people who are caring for someone know more about their capability to swallow than the man examining the dead brain.

it was actually an improvement of what they had in Texas.  Basically that was the best bill the legislature could/would give him, so he signed it so there would at least be some consistent policy in place.

There is a difference.

who claimed that Terri Schiavo was able to swallow fluids was actually a nurses aide, in other words had no specialized training.  I would think that trained neuroligists who examined her would be able to assess condition much more competently than a nurses aide.

How is that different?  Should we just head out to starve any and all who are brain damaged?  How much brain damage does one need to be considered a person?  Who gets to draw that line?

both are philosophies but you cannot deny that one allows individuals more freedoms than the other....  the disconnect is truly a conundrum to me....  the party that emphasizes personal responsibility wants to take it away when the stakes are highest.  help me understand.

from several years ago, it is possible the eyesight deteriorated after the ballon but before she was killed.

The nurse, aide, or joe flunky janitor who just gave her a drink doesn't know as much about whether or not she is capable of drinking as the guy who will do the autopsy later.

the contradictions to the view articulated here by many, according to which life should be preserved, and not terminated by action or omission, in the difficult cases, inasmuch as most of the advocates of such a position hold that there is no obligation to prolong life or treatment indefinitely, and at any cost, when doing so causes an undue burden or enormous suffering to the patient.  The cases you cite are tragic, but not really analogous to that of Schiavo, since, in her state, she lacked much of a capacity for suffering; what hardship there was was either not perceived (by her) or willingly undertaken (by her parents).

avoid the media circus to some extent.

Both sides in this case extremely disagreed over the issue of whether or not Terri wanted to live or die, and she had a family that was willing to care for her.

Also the addition of the money has always bothered me.  Had Michael had his way, when he wanted the tube pulled, he would have kept almost the entire settlement from the lawsuit.

I do mostly agree with this position-but I also admit I have some real issues with removing feeding tubes from people because the only thing wrong with them is brain damage-it nudges us oh so closer to eugenics, and it doesn't sit well with me.  I would say where wishes are clear and where family members are in agreement, that pulling feeding tubes should be up to them.

This case wasn't anywhere near that-there was major disagreement between both sides, and the family wanted to care for her-the presumption towards death in this case bothers me a lot.

still you hang on to the fiction that she wasn't in PVS

Don't put words in my mouth. Nowhere in my note does it say that.

Whether an omnisicent being would have known for a fact a year ago that Ms. Schiavo would never recover is not at issue. There were no omnisicient beings in the courtroom when this became a "fact." It became a "fact" when a county probate judge, who wouldn't himself know a synapse from Shinola, decided that these doctors were more believeable than those doctors. And not beyond reasonable doubt mind you... only on the basis of what a probate judge thinks is clear and convincing evidence on a highly technical subject on which he is no expert.

I'm OK with that if the outcome is that so-and-so will get a bag of money. But when a human being is going to die because a county probate judge chose these doctors over those doctors, I would like to see somebody else take a look at this before we pull the plug.

I agree that without cutting her head open to peek, or waiting another twenty years to see if she popped out of it, we would never have been absolutely sure. But we could have gotten closer than we did. And we should have, before we put a human being to death.

There are widely-available tests that could have been run had either Michael Schiavo agreed to them, or had the judge overruled him and ordered the tests, and told the doctors to come back after they'd seen the results.

And you still haven't addressed the issue that the guardian had a financial interest in seeing his charge die sooner rather than later. The fact that this particular judge did not see that as an issue does not mean another judge wouldn't have. That's a totally arbitrary decision. Want to see a court system decide that a human being should die on the basis of a coin flip? You just did.

I can't believe how cavalier people are being about somebody being deprived of food and water, to the point of death, as a consequence of a civil law proceeding, conducted by one judge, no jury, under the evidence standard we use for deciding whether Joe needs to pay Mary $500 because he ran over her dog.

Has anyone ever considered that she was being kept alive ARTIFICIALLY, against the Will of God. When this ARTIFICIAL support was removed, the Will of God came into being.

unequivocal proof of what Terri wanted.

On one side you have the man who was engaged to be married, stood to inheirit almost a million bucks, and a couple of his siblings saying Terri told them she wanted to die.

On the other side you have her parents (who have been accused of also wanting the money) and at least one of her friends who say she never said she wanted to die under these circumstances.

There was a dispute of fact.

Her wishes weren't in writing-and there were people who stood to gain from her death, and a family that wanted to care for her.

I would say in this instance you er on the side of life.

"those sorts of religious beliefs have no place in forming government policy..."

What kind of religious ideas should have a place in government policy and who are you dto decide the difference? And what does that possibly have to do with the Constitution?

The cases you cite are tragic, but not really analogous to that of Schiavo, since, in her state, she lacked much of a capacity for suffering

Capacity (and the potential therefor) seems to me to be a viable distinction between Schiavo and a baby/person with mental disabilities/etc.  If we believe the medical witnesses deemed credible by the Court and the autopsy reports, Schiavo lacked not only the capacity to reason and emote, but also the capacity for consciousness itself -- including the the to feel pleasure or to suffer.  Moreover, she had no potential of ever regaining the capacity to be conscious.  In this way, she is different from the baby or mentally disabled person or a person who is not in a PVC; she lacks that which such either will have, may have, or already has.

Indeed, I fail to see how, under Trevino's logic, we can withhold oxygen and food from a brain dead person.  The brain dead person is still alive:  its cells are still dividing, its organs are still (largely) functioning; it still gives off heat and sweat.  Similarly, the objection that providing "oxygen" and "food" is somehow different than merely providing "food" rings hollow; for, don't we sometimes provide both oxygen and food to premature infants, persons suffering from severe injuries; etc.?  Nor can is it legitimate to object to maintaining a brain dead person's life based on cost -- even to consider weighing life v. money smacks of dirty utilitarianism.  Nor does it matter that the brain dead person will never recover or regain consciousness, for such arguments apparently hold no weight with dealing with the precious commodity of cell life.

The simple truth is that consciousness and the potential for consciousness is the definition of "human life".  No consciousness and no potential for consciousness -- no possibility of taking pleasuring, feeling pain, reasoning, or emoting (at any level) -- and there is no human life.  

To kill this minnow?

... that we "keep alive" the brain dead?  IOW, what's the distinction between a person who lacks everything but a brain stem (e.g., a baby with anencephaly) and a person with a brain that has been suffered such an injury that only the brain stem functions?

PVS is still open to some interpretation-several people who have been diagnosed as PVS did infact recover (granted there wasn't the same amount of time lapse between diagnosis and recovery as Terri), but the fact taht some doctors looked at criteria and still messed up and got it wrong indicates that there is room for disagreement in PVS cases.

Now put Terri aside-and consider PVS alone-considering that there are people out there who have been misdiangosed (and there are documented cases, one of a woman diagnosed PVS who had a feeding tube removed and remembers what it felt like), do we really want to be out there advocating death for them?  Also, just where is the line between PVS and severely brain damaged?  At what point do we decide severe brain damaged people aren't "human" enough to live?  Then where do we go from there?

I think we need to be careful that we aren't turning the medical community into the all knowing God's of life and death.  

This explains why there was no outcry from the pro-life activists on this case?  There were no objects at all to unplugging this kid's respirator in Texas, that I know of.  

Sorry 'bout the typos (above).

I wouldn't want my husband making decisions like this for me, if he was engaged to be married (and later living with and making babies with the fiance).  AT that point, my best interests and his best interests may start to conflict a little too much for my comfort, and I would rather my sister be in charge of those decisions.

The addition of the money also makes it not pass the smell test for me.

Has anyone ever considered that she was being kept alive ARTIFICIALLY

What was being provided to keep her alive was food and water. Chances are, you wouldn't do too well without those yourself. Are you on artificial life support? Ya know, food and water? I am.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it was my understanding that 0's and 1's were pretty much troll ratings, and their was just one, uhh 1.  2's and 3's seem rather apropos for the 'too argumentative' point you make.  Understand the sentiment though, and its good to keep an eye out for these things.
-bro

my eleven-month old son is still on life support, as we have to feed him, given that he has yet to master the art of self-feeding.

it when there is disagreement?  This is why this battle was in the courts for so long, and why generally you don't see it that often (most cases the families do agree on what the patient would have wanted), but I think there were some things about this case that just stank, and it would be nice to see those issues changed so that in the future it doesn't happen again.

this affords everyone equal treatment regardless of their personal beliefs.  you are putting words in my mouth...im not deciding anything...just advocating that our policies should afford the most choice to the most people rather than restricting choice.  in this case, there is no good reason why policy should lean towards the "culture of life".  the "culture of life" is restrictive in that it prohibits choice, it is also founded on a religious basis.  i think that everyone should have realized today that this woman was GONE.  and as a matter of law, her husband was next of kin and had the CHOICE to do what he did.

On a stem cell thread.

It's a very philisophical question about where personhood begins and ends.  Different people propose different standards and unfortunately there's no way to prove many of them right or wrong.

As far as a brain damaged baby-- if most of the baby's brain was liquified, it had no brain activity in the frontal lobe, and after 15 years of care the parents decided to remove life support (or feeding tube or whatever)-- then I don't think I would be in any position to question their judgement.

we should abolish the death penalty, because the judicial system just doesn't provide the necessary safeguards to...wait, she's not a convicted criminal? Well, finish her off, then.

The argument was conflated into whether or not Terri deserved to live.  Had she wanted to, then she would have been maintained in her state until natural causes took her.  The court determined, by the evidence presented, that she did not.  Unless you're prepared to say she didn't have the right to choose her medical treatment, then that was the end to the discussion.

This ridiculous, calculated, manipulative, and cynical drive to turn her tragedy into a political football should be repudiated by anyone with half a heart.  As I've said before, we can disagree with the manner by which the court came to its conclusion, and make our own judgments as to the weight of the evidence.  That does not make what happened wrong.  Attempts to create a pro life call to arms are misplaced, as are efforts on the other side to justify her death based on her quality of life.  None of it mattered - the only thing that mattered was whether her intent had been fairly gauged.  But since that issue seems rather dry and uninteresting, and since various politicians invested quite a bit of capital into her plight, we can't do that.  So instead we get this trite, meaningless waste of time.  Terri would be so happy.  Let her go, folks.  Fight your battles over someone else's corpse.

in the first place, I am neither so confident in the abilities of even the most advanced scientific techniques to define and detect consciousness, nor, what is more, inclined in the least to attempt, in the midst of the inevitable ambiguities, to identify the necessary - necessary because in its absence, we are arbitrarily decreeing that some human beings are or are not "human life") - bright line that separates "mere matter" from "humanity" on the assumption that consciousness, capacity and function define life.  This cannot be done in the case of fetuses, and I rather doubt that it is any more possible to do it in the case of the severly brain-damaged.

Setting aside the obvious questions about a patients wishes, we can well unplug the ventilator of the brain dead person because, in such a case, death really is imminent; it is at the door, so to speak, and the breathing apparatus is the only thing staving it off in desperation.  We might say the same thing about acute renal failure and a whole multitude of other afflictions: there arrives a time when further treatment constitutes nothing more than a holding action against the inevitable.  I cannot accept that this circumstance obtained in the Schiavo case, since merely requiring a feeding tube is not a terminal condition indicative of impending death: only supply the food, and the patient will continue to live.  The difference lies not in what is provided but what is accomplished by the provision: is life sustained, or is death merely staved off momentarily?  The difference is that Schiavo would have continued to live in her PVS/minimally-conscious/I-really-don't-know-what state indefinitely; the suffering persons Leon writes about were at the end, and the tubes were only prolonging the mortal agony.  

By the way, you really ought to post more frequently.  

The only rating was the 1. That was the object of the comment.

The rest came later.

Why don't I think you move in pro-life circles?

Intent is all that mattered.

O ye god Autonomy, hail in thy victory.

Understand now?

To define the value of an opinion by the degrees held seems a tad stringent.  Virtually every post in this thread is regurgitating what has already been said in other forums. Folks here tend to read, analyze, adopt or reject, and possibly post. None of which requires a MD, but some is occasionally thought provoking and interesting.

Indeed by restricting comments to those holding relavent degrees would allow RedState to fall under the bandwith rules of the Yahoo free sites.

she lacked much of a capacity for suffering; what hardship there was was either not perceived (by her) or willingly undertaken (by her parents).

I tried to make it clear that this was one of the fundamental reasons that I opposed the starvation of Terri Schiavo.

What I opposed was the underlying assumption of Trevino's article that no matter the mental or physical state of a person, or the extenuating circumstances, a feeding tube should not be removed. If that was not an underlying assumption, then I was merely trying to offer a clarification.

By the way, you really ought to post more frequently.

Amen.

My comments, for whatever reason, seem to provoke responses from von. Otherwise, it seems that he goes days inbetween posting.

Which is to say that he should quit his job immediately and dedicate his life to posting at RedState.

profoundly, utterly and perhaps deliberately wrong.

We are a free society. We are not run by fascists who would tell us what ideas we can and cannot have influencing government.

You are simply parroting, or attempting to parrot, ideas that have no connection to our constiution, our history, or even the history of any society that  has existed that had anything like freedom.

There is nothing in the Constituion that assures a 'religious-free-content' government, or society.

What the Constitution does assure, and something that is all too often ignored by the ill-liberals of today, is society where freedom of religion is unfettered. And that, my historically illiterate friend, means freedom for people with religious ideas, thoughts, ideals, motives and wishes to participate freely in the public square.

It means we will have every president in the future, as every President has in the past, openly pray to God for help and guidance for this country. It means that every session of Congress shall continue to open with a prayer. it means that in the future religously motivated people, whom history will consider as religiously motivated as G Washington, A Lincoln, FDR, as well as private citizens, like MLK, like the great Abolitionists, and like countless others, to enter into the public square and with their religious ideals, motivations and desires to excercise their liberty as they see fit to influence public policy in this country.

Unless fascists like you find a way to censor and suppress their freedom, of course.

when they are in less hopeless states than Mrs. Schiavo's.  So at least I am consistent.

I afford both the members of my species and the members of my household (I no longer allow cats anymore after the last one) some of the bare minimums of courtesy.

Oh, and no I don't like it.  But I would expect the same from them.  (Except for the aforementioned cat, she would have jumped the gun a bit I'm glad her time came first.)

I know, but just telling him to shut up seemed a bit abrupt. I thought I'd dress it up in some tissue paper. Maybe I could have picked different packing material... foam peanuts or something.

Here was an 800-word post that was about process, process failures, and what looks like some pretty dangerous lack of controls on a process that's remarkably loose for one that can end in the death of human being. And this guy comes back wanting to re-argue the case. I mean, what am I to do with that? Throw my ashtray through the monitor? Run outside and scream? Count to ten and then tell him to go away?

It's interesting that reform of end-of-life issues is nowhere to be found on the any Conservative group agenda today. I'm on the email list of 7 (?) different Republican and/or conservative groups.  I get an average of probably 3 emails per day about their legislative priorities. Interestingly I don't think a single one since March have mentioned legislative actions concerning end-of-life issues.

As this issue is faced by thousands of families each year, if Schiavo was decided so wrongly, then it would seem there would be a move afoot to restrict what a family can and can't decide when a life is at stake. But the fact is legislators are extremely hesitant to wade further into this issue for the reason you allude:  it is so common. This is an intensely personal subject. The families you counseled nor virtually any one else wants government attention at that time.

Unfortunately Michael Schiavo didn't have the choice to avoid that attention. It's interesting that the death of a single person has negated the need for government intervention that was once considered so vital.

Three excellent posts.  

I hereby take back a whole bunch of the lawyer jokes I have told.  (Only on account of you, of course, not the buffoon that represented Terri's parents.)

visual function for tracking.  This is coorinated by neurons below the level of the visual cortex.  Visual tracking  is possible without seeing.  This illustrates the importance of professional, as opposed to lay opinion in evaluating cases like this.

Not sure I buy that.  References as to tracking an object visually when part of brain controlling vision is kaput?

That's not the type of assertion taken easily without attribution.

could have been lying.  Did you consider that?  Especially since she never actually testified in court and only came up with her story years later.

way away.  

The neurologist may have been lying.  Did you ever think of that?  

In the interview that I saw, there were two nurses (or nurse aides) who had provided care for Terri over several years between the two of them.  Their care for her did not overlap.  They were each professionals and neither had any vested interest or profit motive.  They have not written a book, and there was no settlement money for them.  

They each had similar experiences in which Terri sucked on a wet washcloth and sipped fluids.  There is no reason to doubt their veracity, but there are many, many, many (about a million, plus a girlfriend and two kids) reasons to doubt the veracity of her "husband".

As to their lack of court testimony, it is entirely likely that they were unaware there was even a court case.  The relevant decision (by Judge Greer) was made before there was any media attention.  I'm sure they aren't currently aware of the circumstances of many of their other patients as well.

Nice try though.

This is not the Dark Ages, and we do not need the equivalent of drawing lots to determine God's will. He gave us minds with which to reason and an awful lot of source material from which to start.

To be perfectly frank, if it was artificial means that was keeping Schiavo alive, it was artificial means that let me live past my first few weeks (I couldn't keep down anything due to some problems with my GI tract when I was born; it required surgery to correct).

If the agency of divine will is limited to that which grows, I should think, then, that God is far more limited than we normally imagine.

"[...]you have no idea how funny it is to see someone tell someone on the cusp of a Masters of Public Health that they don't understand medicine."

Not as funny as that remark was.

"Prime value" or not, it's way more appealing than whatever value you think there is in dead bodies.

 If we believe in the idea of 'last requests' or the ability of a person to ask for such things to be done, then why do we rail when it happens?

 This was a case of bad law. The law can and should be rewritten to provide a clearly written boundary. Everything else, leave up to God - he's much better with moral questions than anyone I've met.

is a ventilator life support?  Air is pretty normal.  So is purified blood, couldn't live without it, so is a dialysis machine not life support.  Your argument doesn't hold water my friend.  A tube surgically implanted in one's abdomen is life support no matter how you slice it.

I don't wanna get much into this, but a ventilator is one thing my father as explicitly stated he does not want to be put on.  And yes, its life support.
-bro

Surely it isn't because they have souls or anything.  As americans there is only a tiny portion of the world's animals that we find fit for consumption.  No rats, no cats, no horses, no people, no monkeys, no seagulls etc.  

And how long have you been for socialized medicine?

Welcome to Canada, eh.

the autopsy kinda vindicates the doctors who said she was already gone rather than the hacks who claimed she wasn't?  Or are you still undeterred?

This appears to be the most over litigated case of all time.  Sure the Schindler's lawyer lost.  He didn't have the facts or the law on his side.  It is tough to fight a losing battle.  Somehow they managed to continue this case for years on end.  Years!

When your witnesses' stories don't add up.  When the impartial expert agrees with the opposition's experts, when your experts don't even agree with each other, no amount of fancy pants lawyering is going to do the trick.  

You can be influenced by whatever you want in making your value judgments.  However, you are crossing the line when you are citing to your sacred text or magic beans when you are justifying your decisions.  

If President Tom Cruise wants to outlaw anti-depressants, he better pull out something better than Dianetics to make the case.

Forgive us for treating that preference as it deserves.

Don't accept the legitimacy of assisted suicide.

I am not too keen on the idea of killing people who are brain damaged.  She was not in the dying proccess-her organs functioned (and the autopsy indicated that her other organs were healthy, also that she didn't have a heart attack and didn't show signs of an eating disorder-which actually eliminates every proposed reason for her collapse), she was brain damaged.

Had she had something in writing, or had the family members agreed on her wishes, I wouldn't feel so uncomfortable with the idea of killing her, but the facts of these case just seemed to always presume death, and that smacks too much of eugenics to me.  The slippery slope of deciding who is human enough to live and who should die is one I really don't want to head down.

I did notice that.  I only wanted to argue that it was not necessarily a glaring contradiction to an ethic of life; for most Christian/natural law bioethicists, the preservation of life, regardless of the suffering that may be involved, is not an objective.  There is some nuance, just not nuance of a functionalist or utilitarian sort.

May you never need a colostomy.

But if someday it should happen that you do, you'll find folks who don't want you dead here.

Somehow they managed to continue this case for years on end. Years!

Yes. The Schindlers may now go to their graves knowing that, if nothing else, they made Michael spend all the money.

That you like kicking large dogs in the head between the injection and the collapse.

However, as you feel I've wronged you:

Being a being of intelligence at least on par with yours

Actually, it's extraordinarily rare that I can honestly say this, but I'm pretty sure that's objectively incorrect. Here's why:

You're merely being petulant. As someone with several years of philosophy under his belt, I find any comparison between yourself and the man who drank hemlock to be somewhere between humorous and offensive.

Let's -- briefly, for your sake -- rehash what I said, in response to your "why" comment:

You might want to share your take on the Socratic method with ever(sic) law professor in the country. Have fun.

Nowhere in there did I compare myself to Socrates, because, first, I'm not that much of a jerk, second, he was possibly brighter than I, and, third, it never struck me to do so. What I did do -- but down the Bazooka bubble gum joke for a second and pay attention -- was to say I was employing the Socratic method. Because that's probably a little advanced for you, let me summarize: I was asking questions in response to answers to drive at a deeper (read: more complex, or hidden) point. I was suggesting -- sometimes explicitly (not hiding it), but that was clearly lost on you -- that there are underlying reasons for according even dead humans, let alone "brain dead" ones, a certain level of respect.

Now, I know that paragraph is twice as long as the Weekly Reader passages you're used to, but try to slog through it, mm-kay?

We shun "open infanticide" (as opposed to closed infanticide? is that the new pro-life dysphemism?) because it's graphic. Evolution has a great deal of power over our interpretation of the tangible. Abortion is abstract enough to us that the human mind can come to a purely rational decision based on its advantages and disadvantages.

(1) No, it's an accurate description. No need for any appellation other than that.

(2) Gee, that's utterly ridiculous, considering that some societies even now practice it, and I wasn't aware we'd undergone significant evolution any time recently. Or have you grown a set of toes and are finally reaching dry land?

(3) One might note that not seeing a thing possibly renders any analysis of the thing's costs and benefits less than rational, in the sense that vital information may be rendered graphically. One might. However, I suspect that's a bit much for you, so let's move on.

"It's only unsanitary because unsanitary people practice it" -- Tell that to kuru. I also enjoy the way you dodged my other points. Dance any faster and we might have to put you in the circus.

Actually, the spread of kuru rather makes my point -- hand-worked meat processing is significantly less sanitary than an automated process. Keep trying.

And I can't dance. I can't talk. The only thing about me is the way I walk.

And I'd find it okay to kick your ass when you tried to lock me up, because I'd have Bob's strength to aid my own. You'd be too feeble to stop me... unless you ate Jill, eh? Social evolution is a beautiful thing.

This was, first, a posting rules violation, and, second, mindless. I'm sorry that you feel a more thorough response was needed; make one up. You seem rather good at imagining.

Why'd you bring this argument into a Schiavo thread again?

Read.

The Court did not determine her live was unfit to live.  Had it, all this shrieking about the quality and value of human life would be legitimate.  Not that I need to remind you, Trevino, but the Court only determined from the evidence whether Ms. Schiavo had already declared her wishes.  Period.  All the rest of this three-ring circus was created by a desire to advance other agendas beyond Schiavo's life.  If you cannot see this particular forest for the trees of your ideology, so be it, but the abuse of this woman's final days for political victories is only moderately more dignified than Somalians dragging our soldier's corpses through the street.  If life is do sacred, why do we trample on it on the way to some supposed triumph of our agendas?

... you know, like "the meaning of life."  And, though we disagree on a host of political issues,* I like your approach to spiritual matters (even though I may disagree with some of your conclusions).

von

*I'm pretty close to a "classic" liberal, and sometimes describe myself as a liberal Republican.

Why religion but not philosophy, other than some sort of deiphobia?

... this distinction:

The difference lies not in what is provided but what is accomplished by the provision: is life sustained, or is death merely staved off momentarily?

I just put in an order for a new car, so I'll analogize to personal experience.  In putting down the deposit, I signed a statement of intent that included (roughly) the following thought:

Your deposit is refundable for lack of availability, but not for lack of timely delivery.

I asked the saleslady what the distinction was between lack of availability and lack of timely delivery.  She indicated that the difference was obvious.  I responded that, well, assume that there's a strike and you can't tell me when -- or even if -- my car will be built.  Is the car unavailable, or is do we assume that the delivery simply won't be "timely"?  Silence followed.  [Note:  do no sell cars or houses to me; it's not worth the effort because I will ask all kinds of hypothetical questions and read everything that's handed to me.  W/r/t every other product or service, however, I'm a complete sucker.]

Thus, regarding the withholding of oxygen or food to a brain-dead (or PVS) individual with no hope of recovery, it seems that in both cases all we're doing is staving off "death" momentarily.  One moment is shorter than the other, true.  But that's a difference in degree, not type.

She was not dead or dying.  They said she was brain damaged to such an extent that she wasn't able to function normally, interact, and that she wouldn't recover.

I don't believe we should kill people just because we don't believe they have a sufficient quality of life, absent clear evidence of their prior directives.  Regardless of the "finding of fact" of Judge Greer, I wasn't and am not convinced that she had left a directive.

There are literally thousands of people in America who are nonresponsive, but functioning.  Their lives are not worthless just because we wouldn't want to see ourselves in that position.  (I would rather be dead than married to Chris Matthews, but I don't think we should kill his wife.)

In these circumstances, I would not withhold food and water.  However, I would be inclined to remove artificial life support (respirator, etc.)

To feed me. And definitely not to dehydrate me. And for the love of God, to divorce me before shacking up with someone else.

Why does the cat person get to live?

farther down this thread.  If you think we will be persuaded that the case was definitive by the fact that there was a "finding of fact" you have not been paying attention.

And I would suggest that you refrain from comparing us to evil, murderous terrorists.

You leaped from "we should not kill people," to "we should pay for mole removals." Bravo.

If a person's body is dehydrated (even slightly) and water is presented to them, attempting to suck the water is an involuntary reflex.  No one is arguing that the part of Sciavo's brain controlling such reflex was damaged, but this is unimportant.  This says nothing about her brain functioning in the frontal lobe, which is the issue at hand.  She clearly was unable to feed herself or provide herself with water.  As evidenced by the fact that she is not alive now.

At the very least, there should be safeguards in place -- better than the ones at work here -- to be absolutely sure that the object of our discussion would want to die in those circumstances.

Because the essential worldviews at issue here -- putting aside the "choicers," if you will -- are those who believe that humans are human by dint of some essential quality that is not dependent on brain function, and those who believe that humanity is dependent on some mechanistic process. If we say, well, she has no brain function, therefore we may kill her, why not make the step to, well, her mind no longer functions as a human's does, why not kill her? She's mentally no better than a cat, and we put down cats all the time.

And maybe I haven't expressed this adequately, is that there is an underlying reason for that "sentiment," and it should not be lightly disregarded.

1. And we may find a way around similar problems in humans.
   
   
2. Actually, it does. Why do most people?
   
   
3. Once again, why do people think it's gross, or have moral or religious problems with it?
   
   
4. Once grown and ready for death, not an issue. No need to breed humans for food. Just use the ones dying around us.
   

4a. Law is mutable.

For humans onto lesser animals.

And rats and seagulls taste bad.

more than your prejudice and ignorance.

Possibly you are a victim of PC education, possibly you are simply bigoted against religious people, possibly you are just anti-democratic and want to see a dictatorship imposed.

But comes across for sure is that you know nothing of history or of the Constitution.

maybe the "involuntary reflex" would have kicked in and she would yet be alive.  How then would people defend her killing?  That it just wasn't a good enough life to live?

You have just made my first point.  The issue was that people in positions of authority couldn't imagine wanting to be alive in that condition, so they determined that she should be starved/dehydrated to death.  That is wrong.

I am related to a young man that was damaged soon after birth by meningitis.  No one knows the full extent of the damage, but in 15 years, he has not spoken, is blind, possibly deaf, unable to move himself, other than flopping motions, and unable to feed himself.

His mother puts baby food (or other blended, watered down food) in a syringe (no needle) and oozes it into the back of his mouth.  He then swallows, probably reflexively.  When he was a baby, the doctors tried to get his mother to take him off the ventilator to die, but she only allowed them to wean him slowly.  He adjusted to the air shortage and began to breath on his own.

For 15 years, his mother has cared for him.  The doctors say he is deaf and blind, so he can't know it is her, but when she coos at him and wobbles his tummy, he smiles and wobbles around.

It may not be the quality of life that you wish for your child, and I can assure you, she didn't want it for hers.  But his mother loves that boy and if she could, she would kill anyone who tried to force her to starve him to death.

between the case of a PVS patient who requires only a feeding tube for life to be sustained and a brain dead patient whose dying process will conclude upon removal of the ventilator apparatus is simply that between refusing to impede death, in the latter case, and actively hastening it, in the former.  It is the difference between allowing an imminent death to occur and willing the death of someone who would not otherwise die.

We are bottoming out on the fact that Schiavo was PVS or minimally conscious, so it would be well, counterintuitive though it may seem, to suppose that her case was a right-to-die crusade involving a conscious person who simply did not wish to live in a bed, fed via a tube.  She is not dying.  She is living, albeit a life no one would choose.  We would have to will her death, whereas we would not have to will the death of the brain dead person on the ventilator; in that case we would only be standing in the way.

Lastly, if we consider a dead human body a commodity, logically it becomes the property of the heirs, who are unlikely to go along with this plan, due to their sentimentality.

That's true, but you don't get to use that argument. That's because you're the guy who said that sentiment should not be the basis for law. Under Ballard's Rule, we may pass a law that the heirs' wishes be disregarded.

live even on life support (I admit I don't know).

I had a friend whose son passed away from meningitis, he was found to be brain dead, and although he was on the respirator, his other organ systems were failing him-and his kidney's had ceased to funciton by the time they removed the respirator.  

Had they opted to keep him on the respirator, it is likely his other organs wouldn't have lasted much longer, and he was going to go anyway.

...are you insinuating a politically correct education is wrong?  what is wrong with an education founded on the idea that everyone's beliefs and backgrounds should be respected?

I don't care one bit what religiously motivated people do in their homes, in their churches or in their community centers.  What I do care about is that beliefs that evangelicans, in particular, have are dictating the way that the government treats me.  Does this distinction register?  

As based on your "logic," we'd be able to keep you from having any say in the governance of the nation, and instead turn it over to the evangelicans(sic).

So good to see you're your old self.

That is a good example.  The reason our laws are not based on Freud or Kant is that lots of people won't buy a law based on the writings of some long-dead guy.  You show me a law that begins; "Because Socrates says so . . ."

Your comment about Act of Congress is cute, and wrong.  1) The President has as much power to compel the FDA, through appointment and recommendation, as does Congress, to ban the sale of a particular type of drug.  Banning possession is for Congress to do, but the FDA, which is a part of the executive controls the sale, last I checked; and 2) I merely said Cruise wants to, not that he unilaterally did.  

Please show up with something besides personal animus and I might show you how much about history and the constitution I actually do know.

Why is it when someone has the temerity to suggest that the teachings of Jesus Christ should not be used to justify the actions of the United States Government, all of a sudden, that person is heading up a pogrom of anti-religious hate mongering?  I don't care what you use to guide your life with.  I just take offense when someone tries to guide mine as well.

We are not a Christian Country.  In fact, the founders explicitly said the opposite.  

In other words, sentiment is not reliable as a guide to morality so this particular approach is quite moot.

Right over my point.  I am shocked I tell you.  Shocked!

I will spell it out for you.  If you are suggesting that we have a duty to keep brain dead/PSV people alive, you must be suggesting a way to pay for the years and years of invasive medical treatment this would entail.

No?

Does not make that thing latentae wrong.

Re: have all sorts of reasons, some rational, some not, but what a thing was when it was alive -- working under your framework above -- shouldn't concern us at all if we have rational uses for the tissue.

Nor does it: transplanting organs from cadavers to living people is quite routine these days. Also, the use of human corpses for learning and teaching purposes is quite accepted as well. The fact that these bodies were once living, breathing, thinking, feeling human beings does not prevent us from using them thus. So why don't we also eat human flesh? Because it's not particularly nutritious compared to those animals we do raise for meat. A very few cultures, lacking both large game animals and domesticates, have made a choice to use human flesh as a source of protein for lack of any better alternative, and in very extreme situations small groups of other people have done as an alternative to outright starvation.

Your argument here is really obscure.

I didn't leap over it; I was pointing out that your response was overbroad.

If we can fund the next Robert C. Byrd project, I have great faith in our ability to fund this little project.

how does extending the freedom of choice to everyone regardless of religious beliefs hamper the governance of our country?  

why does it make sense that a group of people with extreme religious beliefs should dictate social policy?  i guarantee you that if you put the "liberals" in charge of those decisions, they would not hamper any of the individual rights of the religious folks - whereas the religious folks aim to do just that.  you must see this difference?

I presume you have no problem with folks who are avowed humanists, objectivists, materialists, idealists, etc., contributing to the public square. Why Christians? Speaking for the Catholic Church, it's not like the theology there is only the words in the Bible.

I misapprehended what it was that Tom Cruise wanted. You are of course correct; the FDA might ban sales as well.

Because the choices made in the public square are not limited, and, should not be limited, to those affecting only the individual making the choice. Unless you're suggesting we repeal the criminal code.

Given that we do all of these things, why not eat them as a snack? Beef jerky isn't very nutritious, but I eat it.

And it's not like humans came labeled with RDA information now, ever, or really will. We don't abhor the eating of human flesh out of some collective aversion to low-nutrient snacks.

There's a different reason there. It's not obscure.

Thomas Jefferson was a key figure who argued for years against establishment churches in the colonies, especially in his home state of Virginia. Jefferson also wrote the "Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom" which ended the established church in that colony. As president, Jefferson refused to name holidays based on religion, for he believed this would violate the religious freedom.

Are you just egging me on or being serious?

Of course no one is suggesting repealing the criminal code - the criminal code is there to protect people from having harm done to them by others.  Where is the connection here?

and tolerance.

PC limits freedom, dumbs down education, as it apparently has with you, and creates equivancies where there are none.

I notice you could not speak to the other issues in my post.

Come back after you have been educated. Or not.

artificial life support, as much as a respirator or heart lung machine is, and a much newer technology.  Just because it doesn't invlove a machine that makes lots of noises doesn't make it less of an artificial life support.  

The designation of PVS as a clinical state is only thirty years or so old because prior to the late seventies we simply didn't have the technology to keep people alive long enough for them to be in a persistent vegetative state.  They would have slowly starved to death.  We could have kept them hydrated through IV fluids but just didn't have the technology until we developed the feeding tube and the supplements to provide enough nutrition to keep them alive.

Even the Catholic Church recognizes the right to refuse treatment.  Pope John Paul II refused treatment before he died a few months ago.  Now I believe that once a person accepts treatment the Church does not allow it to be removed.  I'm sure if I am wrong about this the Catholics on this site will be all over me ;)

Ain't all of them. Indeed, most were fairly religious folks with no problem with Christianity being the basis for the public square.

I expect a recitation of a particular treaty and a letter by George Washington from you next. This ground is actually well-trod.

The Founders, by the way, are a larger group than I think you're prepared to admit.

Because people decide to impose their values on others. It exists because certain social decisions were made -- with notable dissent -- to place sanctions on behavior. Your problem, unless you're against the idea of a criminal code in the first place, is letting people who take their religious beliefs seriously make those decisions, rather than the act of making decisions itself.

In other words, you're either a bigot or an anarchist. I suspect it's the former.

This back and forth trying to disprove separation of church and state is ridiculous.  This was over 200 years ago when the church was much more influential than it is today and you've got these guys sticking their necks out and saying this.  Have some vision, right?

Every President has openly prayed to God, called on God to help this country, and from G Washington on has recognized days like Thanksgiving as a day to be thankful to God.

That you have to go back to Jefferson's pre-Presidential roles to shore up your cherry picking is not going to work.

What Jefferson rightly did was to disestablish an official, state funded and state mandated church.

what your ilk wants to impose is a state mandated absence of religious freedom, and you don't care that all other freedom goes when religiousn freedom goes.

You are the nitolerant one.

You cannot win at the ballot box, so you look for corrupt judges to impose your will on us.

....the disingenuous line.  And an argument that respecting life demands ending it in the weak and voiceless.  Despicable.

Don't know much about the boy or his times, I take it?

It was hardly sticking one's neck out to say what Jefferson said in the company in which he ran. Are you even aware of the time period, or are you just mouthing platitudes and construing from there? The late 18th and early 19th centuries were hardly Calvin's Geneva.

who would censor us.

I guess I could reply that your team pushes lots of hot buttons to get loads of Christians to vote with their religious views because they are scared of gay people infecting their children with gayness, right?  What decade are you living in man?

As far these "corrupt" judges...Please give me an example of a decision put out by one of them that actively reduces your freedoms.  Im interested to hear.  Thanks.

No one is trying to censor you man.  Why do you think that?  What I am proposing is allowing everyone to live without censorship.  

It's like you are a broken record.  Whats the deal?

That is suppression.

When kids can't have an invocation before a game, that is suppression.

When people with no legal standing get a friendly judge to edit the Pleadge of Allegiance, that is corruption.

When people like you seek to keep chaplains out of the military and Congress, that is attempted censorship.

What part of governemnt shall pass no law don't you understand?

You wish to censor those whom you deem to be operating out of religious motives.

My suggestion is offering choice to do whatever you like and my point is you should extend the same to others.  Treat others as you would like to be treated.  Very simple lesson they teach in kindergarten.  The twist that you are making in your argument is to make exceptions to that rule when it comes to certain topics - abortion, gays and other hot button topics (but not guns -- thank you jesus!).  

Imagine for one second that you are not a Christian with strong religious feelings.  Imagine that you are a jew or a muslim or an atheist.  Imagine you are paying taxes that pay for the public school that your child attends and that the school play is about Christmas and the baby Jesus and all that stuff that you don't believe in.  Imagine how that makes you feel.  Just take one small mental step and think about being in someone else's shoes for a moment.  How do you propose making someone who is not Christian feel equal in the situations you describe?

By the way, there is nothing wrong with PRIVATE Christian schools that you can elect with your FREEDOM to send your child to and they can teach whatever they want and have a Christmas pageant every week.

Why is it when someone has the temerity to suggest that the teachings of Jesus Christ should not be used to justify the actions of the United States Government, all of a sudden, that person is heading up a pogrom of anti-religious hate mongering? I don't care what you use to guide your life with. I just take offense when someone tries to guide mine as well.

But that turns out not to be strictly true. Which makes it difficult for an objective observer to divine what your objection really is.

For example, the Bible has all this "Thou shalt not kill" stuff in it. Come now the religious to propose that we outlaw killing. I hear very little objection to this, in spite of the fact that this is a direct quote from the Bible. No one says, "You guys are just trying to ram your religion down our throats. Get outa here with that."

OK then, how about this one about adultery? Having dispensed with killing, the religious now propose to outlaw adultery. "Whoa! You guys are trying to ram your religion down our throats. Get outa here with that."

So my observation is that this isn't really about religion. It's your basic political tug-of-war. You want to have things your way, the Other Guys want to have things their way, and so there is all this back-and-forth on the subject, with the winners getting to have their preferences embodied in the law.

Once we determine that, it becomes obvious that the noise about not having to suffer the Other Guys' religion is just a handy rhetorical spear. When the Other Guys' religion specifies the same thing we want, we shut up about it. If we disagree, then we're right and the Other Guys are religious nuts trying to cram their religion down our throats.

I find this tactic not just disingenuous, but sleazy. It really is just an anti-religious pogram, if a non-violent one. What you're really after here is to get your way every time (which is fine... no one would expect otherwise). But it is obvious that demonizing your opponents as relgious kookburgers has no basis in principle; it is simply a tactic you use in your political advocacy. And to that extent it is just ugly.

That are honoring or discussing things I am not a part of.

I respect and tolerate these things, because I, unlike you apparently, am respectful and tolerant.

I never had a PC education, you see.

Freedom means being free to do things. Not free to be free of things you claim you don't like.

Apparently more than a few of us are missing it.  

We (the vast majority of Americans) apparently share a revulsion to eating human flesh (among others) based on a combination of logical reasons that you dismiss, and widely held superstitious or irrational reasons based on social custom and taboo.

We (at least a plurality of Americans) do not share the same revulsion to the withdrawal of medical care for loved ones who have been stricken with profound and irremediable brain damage.  There are logical reasons for euthanasia (cost, futility, etc.)(1)   And just like cannibalism there are irrational reasons based on superstition and social customs to prohibit euthanasia.   However, we do not all share these illogical or superstitious reasons for prohibiting euthanasia.  What are the rational reasons against it?

If the reasons for not eating human flesh are at least in part irrational, then aren't the reasons for keeping alive a body which lacks the human portions of a brain just as irrational?  Perhaps more so since it is inevitable that we will all die someday and there is no such imperative with regard to the consumption of human flesh?  If cannibalism were as inevitable as death, why delay?  If you must eat human flesh, why not have it for breakfast rather than dinner?(2)  

To the original point about whether considering functionality to be intrinsic to humanity is monstrous:  If my leg were cut off in an accident and it could not be reattached I would have it incinerated.  As long as my leg functions, I will not burn it, that would be monstrous.  In neither case, functional or nonfunctional, will I eat it.  Nor would I preserve a severed leg by providing it nutrients so that it may continue to be technically "alive".

Trevino's premise may be monstrous to him and to you but it is not monstrous to others of us, clearly we do not all share the same superstitious and irrational beliefs about ending our lives.  

Since that is the case, how does it harm you or society if my wife pulls the plug on me as per my request?  

Since there is disagreement about this shouldn't we all be allowed to decide for ourselves and not have others impose their irrational or superstitious beliefs on us?

1)Which I am happy to dismiss.

2)(Of course you or someone else will say something silly like:  "By that logic why don't we just kill all babies, blind people, people with red hair,...." or something equally vacuous.  But lets say we've eaten all the other courses and the only thing that remains to be eaten without possibility of anything else is the human flesh.  ie there is no life left to be lived for the person there is only a meaningless brainless existence until death.)

You are so complacent, my dear friend.

You are the one who requires agreemnt to your agenda by censoring others.

its a very fundamental point that you are dodging.

That is what you should have titled your last post.  We are not moving forward here at all.  I fear this discussion is over since we aren't communicating.

1. True.  Get back to me when we do.  Until then, the point stands.
   
   
2. No it doesn't*.  The question was "Who cares?"  "Why do most people?" is a separate question.  Nonetheless, I gave one possibility in my answer to Trevino.  I'm also sure that many people care for religious reasons.  For others, it is just a subcategory of sentiment.  Still others have other reasons entirely.
   
   
3. Gross? Probably mostly a learned thing.  Moral issues? Various and sundry.  Religious issues?  Well, that depends on the religion, doesn't it?  Does the Bible have a specific prohibition on cannibalism?
   
   
4. Just processing those who are already dead or near death would make no significant impact on global hunger. The health issues still stand, as noted above.
   

     4a. Of course it is.  If this is meant to refute the property claim, please elaborate.

*Not answering a question not asked is not begging the question, but you know that.

But I'm still going to get all over you.  The Catholic Church has specifically addressed this and said that the provision of nutrition through a feeding tube is NOT artificial life support.  It is provision of nutrition using currently available resources.  

Artificial life support in their analysis (and mine) involves the replacement of a bodily function (not the tongue) with a machine.  e.g. heart/lung, respirator, even dialysis.  Therefore, if someone is dying and begins to suffer kidney failure, the Catholic Church (and I concur) does not belief that you are morally required to provide dialysis.  This is the type of life support that the Pope refused.  In his latter days, he did receive nutrition by artificial means.

Shame on you.

I did not propose sentimentality as a basis for law.  I proposed property rights as a basis for law.  The sentimentality is just why most people would be loathe to transfer those property rights in a commercial transaction.

Your eyes are quite closed.

Freedom is about freedom to act, not freedom from seeing things that one disagrees with.

You seem to not like freedom.

Too bad.

answer the question or agree that your position is flawed.  i feel no shame for trying to make this country respect everyone's personal beliefs.

Freedom to act...But not for a woman to make a choice about her body...But not for scientific exploration into a promising new field...But not for certain people to enjoy certain rights because of who they love...

How do you justify that?

You have got serious nerve using the word bigot given the company that you keep...  

Hey, I have an idea.  Let's create a special constitutional amendment that limits the rights of certain people based on who they love.

Explain that.

1. Nothing we eat is completely safe. I presume trials and papers are in order.
   
   
2. Yes it does -- but admittedly, only to the question behind the question.
   
   
3. I'd suggest it's more than that, and at the same time, less. But that's a comment for another time.
   
   
4. Every little bit helps.

4a. Inheritance is by common law or statute. New statutes or rulings could make corpses property of the state. There's law in that direction already, and Lord knows we can come up with compelling reasons.

But I have not.

You falsely claim I say:

"Freedom to act...But not for a woman to make a choice about her body..."

I havenot said that. I have said that for certain choices which involve more than her body, the state has a right to regulate.

"But not for scientific exploration into a promising new field..."

I have not said that. I have said that the state has the obligation to see taht 'promising' does not come at the expense of our ethical considerations.

"But not for certain people to enjoy certain rights because of who they love..."

I have not said that. I have said that marriage is something that was defined long beofre teh USA was founded, and until the last very few years has been agreed as to what it is. I reject the power of a tiny group of extremists to impose a radical redifnition of marriage over the will of the majority who are quite happy witht he way it has been defined for many many centuries.

And I have said that the property rights portion of marriage can be conveyed by other legal structures.

The only way most liberals, you included, can win an argument is to misquote a conservative.

You have got serious nerve using the word bigot given the company that you keep...

Goodbye.

But you don't seem to like the answer.

I thought that was illegal there.  Texas too.

Then we just rounded them up and stuck them where we put all of our undesirables -- Austin.

1. Testing would be in order only if you believed that the eventual benefit (a miniscule addition to the food supply) is the best (or even a good) use of the economic and scientific resources it would take.  This is an unlikely proposition, but I am willing to listen to a case for it.
   
   
2. I feel like I'm in the argument clinic.  It's not begging the question just because you have some "question behind the question" you want answered.  If you have a question you feel is not being answered, you would be well served to ask it.
   
   
3. I agree with the more, at least.
   
   
4. For the same economic and political effort it would take to institute a regime of cannibalism, you could get much better results improving existing food sources, or developing new ones.

     4a. Ah, I see.  Yes, you could work around that.  But you could work around any property laws.  That way lies socialism.

I am a bit confused at your enforcement of the posting rules.  You labeled SC&S as a bigot.  He responds by claiming that you shouldn't be labeling him a bigot given who you associate with. While I understand that his implicit aspersion likely violated the posting rules, is there an exception for  moderators that allows them a double standard?  Given this recent exchange, it seems that moderators can engage in ad hominem attacks but those on the other end of the attacks are not permitted to respond in kind.  

This is your site and you are free to permit whatever content you want. But it seems there is a clear double standard depending upon the ideology of the posters and that only serves to stifle honest debate.

I am glad to see the same energy expended as that used in the days and hours leading up to her death.

Recall if you will that in all the hype of the final hours, everything under the sun was thrown into the argument from the two basic sides.  From the left, hers was a useless life, we were to assume hubby was truthful that her death was her wish, that the parents were over the top. etc.  From the right, let's err on the side of life, no life is useless, the parents are willing to assume responsibility for her care, the husband did this to her, etc.

What we now have is today's discussion ranging from cannibalism to Socrates.  Whichever side you're on here, she still symbolically represents some very unfinished business in our society.  Read here to remind yourselves that this issue will not be buried (or burned) with Terri's death.  

Whatever quality of life SHE did or did not enjoy, or whomever benefitted personally or politically from her story, God (if you believe in that sort of thing) saw to it that the whole world knew her name, discussed her issues,  and had to pick a side.  

Not bad for a useless, meaningless life.

1. As I find the idea profane, I'm probably not the guy to structure the grant application.
   
   
2. Properly, the question-next was the question I was shooting for in my question -- not just "because we find it icky" but "why we find it icky." But this is getting tedious. Even for me.
   
   
3. Ok.
   
   
4. We have a surplus of resources. I see no reason to limit ourselves.

4a. No, that way lies government regulation of property. It's what happens when, say, part of your body is removed in a hospital -- you lose that property right most times. That's hardly socialism.

Had he called me a bigot, I'd ignore it. He called pretty much the whole conservative wing of this site, and one supposes conservatives in general, bigots. Couldn't get much larger on the old rules violation, there.

The reason lefties (but not just lefties) catch the edge of it is because, as here, the ones who get knocked tend to come here just to interrupt debate and make schmucks of themselves. In other words, if they were here for serious purposes, they'd build cred first, then get some slack.

More left than right tends to catch it because we get more lefties popping in to make trouble. Population sample counts, in other words.

Uneven? Maybe. But it tends to produce better behavior.

here this morning as well. Seems to me it is one thing to suggest another person is being bigoted. It is another thing altogether to suggest that one is a bigot because they are republican at a website explicitly dedicated to republicanism.

Insults between users are traded not infrequently here. But to suggest that being a republican is the same as being a bigot seems pretty cut-and-dried grounds for dismissal.

Of course, I only saw what you saw, so I could be wrong.

So, for the second time you've simply made a philosophical assertion and left it at that. I, evidently having a far different frame of reference from you, do not understand your moral precepts and am genuinely a bit curious as to what they are and what they entail. This, I think, is the treatment deserved by others' preferences.

I think choice makes a fine moral value, as it is a prerequisite to people's happiness.

That's not even close to what he said. It's become difficult to believe you are even attempting to argue in good faith here.

Where do you see it that the court declared because of Ms. Schiavo's condition, she must be killed, hmmmmm?  Point that out to me, and I will join you in your denunciations.  You can't, because it never happened.  Get that - it never happened.  How much clearer can I be.  Therefore, all this crap about ending life in the weak and voiceless is moot.  The people who have argued the court's decision was right with regards to Ms. Schiavo because her life was so pitiful are also stupidly wrong.  You mocked my earlier statement, but again, it came down to what Schiavo would have wanted to begin with.  So you think the court was absolutely criminal it it's determination of the facts.  So what.  You aren't the first person to be displeased about court rulings.  Thank God this judge is elected, not appointed, lest we link up with another burning issue for the right.  That doesn't mean the court made it's decision based on her quality of life.

The treatment everyone involved in the Schiavo nightmare infuriates me, and the continued bandying about by either side of whatever issue folks decided to inject into the tragedy is the truly despicable thing here.  

She is not your martyr.

That the Catholic Church says that a feeding tube can be refused but once it is installed it cannot be removed.  

And whether or not the Catholic Church (or you) considers a feeding tube "artificial life support" is not the point--unless of course you are Catholic in which case it should enter into you private decision as to whether to have it withheld or not.  But medical science considers it artificial life support.  Just because we have an obsession with machines that maintain bodily functions that make noises and plug into the wall does not make a feeding tube any less a marvel of modern science than a respirator or dialysis machine.  In fact it is a newer technology than either.  We have been keeping people alive with respirators since the the 1930's and with dialysis since the 1940's.  We have only successfully been keeping people alive with feeding tubes since the late 1970's.

While I disagree with selective enforcement, I do understand your reasons and appreciate your responding to my question.

The default is:  If you can't make decisions about your medical care your spouse makes them.  If someone prefers their parents to make those decisions designate it in writing.

1. And as I find it repugnant, I'm not the guy either.
   
   
2. Well, you could reasonably (if unfairly, in my opinion) accuse me of missing the point, then, but not begging the question.  
   
   
4. Even with a surplus, choices must be made how to apply those resources.  I don't see any evidence that this would be a net-positive application.  If you feel otherwise, you are, of course,  free to start lobbying for those processing plants.

     4a.  But it's all part of the slippery slope.

And I think I'll bow out of this subthread now.  It's lunch-time, and I've thought quite enough about cannibalism to last me the rest of the summer (at least).

Well, it definitely does mean that we cannot rely on sentiment, because we are prone to error when we do! As aside I find your emphasis on sentimentality here quite biazrre. That's a stance usually associated with mushy-head liberal-think ("If it feels good do it"). If there's one thing I appreciate about serious conservative ideology is that it is very hard-headed and based on sober, rational analysis, not cheap kumbiya appeals to emotion. You seem to be headed off in the other direction here.

I will grant you that it's partially a superstition (though one that is sometimes overridable in cases of necessity). Or perhaps the term "taboo" would be better here. Taboos however are not moral issues, and should be confused or cited as such. For example, most people have a mild to extreme aversion to using a toilet in the presence of others even though there's no moral or practical reason for that dread; it's as irrational as if we were ashamed to be seen eating by others. It's just one of those little human quirks that have no significance outside itself. I don't see what any of this discussion has to do with Terri Schiavo or the general case at all. Dead bodies, I'm sure we all agree, have no rights, although the next of kin to the deceased have rights over their disposition.

medical science considers it artificial life support

I wasn't aware there was a dictionary of medical science that had made this determination.  (Not that it really matters, medical scientists will not persuade me that the provision of nutrition is the same as the provision of other life assisting equipment.)