MERGED: Terri Schiavo, Continued + Terri Schiavo (Died 3/31/2005)

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so, like i said before, i think the main issue is if terri is truly brain-dead. if she is, then let her die. if she his not, it is comparable to starving her to death.

i think we can all agree that if her cortex is still functional, and everything else in her body is working fine that she should remain alive. hey the pope is on a feeding tube right now too, because he is having trouble swallowing, no one is suggesting that he be taken off of it.

if her cortex is non-functional (meaning she is brain dead) then let her die peacefully.

i have seen arguments made from both sides regarding her alleged ct scan. both sides make valid arguments. i think this is the level that this issue should be argued on, and we should stay away from villifying those on either side.

i don't think it helps to resort to calling people names, attacking each others morals and values. i think the polls show that people on both sides would want to die if they were truly brain dead (as many believe terri is), however, i think most people would also want to live if there was a definite chance that they could recover.

until we here conclusively from someone who has performed an exam on terri, and determines the state that her brain is in, this issue will never be black and white. i feel that this whole issue could've been resolved if a fresh exam had been performed recently, and the doctors proclaimed her state one way or the other. .

instead, this will be done after her death. we will either find that she truly was brain dead, and letting her die was the right thing to do. or that she had a chance to recover, because her cortex still remained mostly intact (which has been argued by those more learned than i who studied the alleged ct scan), and it will be too late to give her that chance. it is only a shame that this issue cannot be settled until after her death.
 
shrmn8rpoptart said:
so, like i said before, i think the main issue is if terri is truly brain-dead. if she is, then let her die. if she his not, it is comparable to starving her to death.

i think we can all agree that if her cortex is still functional, and everything else in her body is working fine that she should remain alive. hey the pope is on a feeding tube right now too, because he is having trouble swallowing, no one is suggesting that he be taken off of it.

if her cortex is non-functional (meaning she is brain dead) then let her die peacefully.

i have seen arguments made from both sides regarding her alleged ct scan. both sides make valid arguments. i think this is the level that this issue should be argued on, and we should stay away from villifying those on either side.

i don't think it helps to resort to calling people names, attacking each others morals and values. i think the polls show that people on both sides would want to die if they were truly brain dead (as many believe terri is), however, i think most people would also want to live if there was a definite chance that they could recover.

until we here conclusively from someone who has performed an exam on terri, and determines the state that her brain is in, this issue will never be black and white. i feel that this whole issue could've been resolved if a fresh exam had been performed recently, and the doctors proclaimed her state one way or the other. .

instead, this will be done after her death. we will either find that she truly was brain dead, and letting her die was the right thing to do. or that she had a chance to recover, because her cortex still remained mostly intact (which has been argued by those more learned than i who studied the alleged ct scan), and it will be too late to give her that chance. it is only a shame that this issue cannot be settled until after her death.

well said. :up:
 
I'm getting more and more nervous about this case.
And the "let her day" sounds so terrible... I mean, she's been 12 days without any food or drink -- dunno how's possible she's alive.

I just pray she is not suffering...
 
better explain what I meant: I am in part in favour of euthanasia, in certain cases, but I'm not sure this is a case of euthanasia.
I mean, she's been left to die, no one is helping her to pass away.
What do you think?
 
Lady Luck, maybe euthanasia WOULD be kinder. This is not euthanasia, because euthanasia is illegal in the States. That's why the withholding-of-treatment is the route things have gone down.
 
shrmn8rpoptart said:
so, like i said before, i think the main issue is if terri is truly brain-dead. if she is, then let her die. if she his not, it is comparable to starving her to death.

i think we can all agree that if her cortex is still functional, and everything else in her body is working fine that she should remain alive. hey the pope is on a feeding tube right now too, because he is having trouble swallowing, no one is suggesting that he be taken off of it.

if her cortex is non-functional (meaning she is brain dead) then let her die peacefully.

i have seen arguments made from both sides regarding her alleged ct scan. both sides make valid arguments. i think this is the level that this issue should be argued on, and we should stay away from villifying those on either side.

i don't think it helps to resort to calling people names, attacking each others morals and values. i think the polls show that people on both sides would want to die if they were truly brain dead (as many believe terri is), however, i think most people would also want to live if there was a definite chance that they could recover.

until we here conclusively from someone who has performed an exam on terri, and determines the state that her brain is in, this issue will never be black and white. i feel that this whole issue could've been resolved if a fresh exam had been performed recently, and the doctors proclaimed her state one way or the other. .

instead, this will be done after her death. we will either find that she truly was brain dead, and letting her die was the right thing to do. or that she had a chance to recover, because her cortex still remained mostly intact (which has been argued by those more learned than i who studied the alleged ct scan), and it will be too late to give her that chance. it is only a shame that this issue cannot be settled until after her death.

But I thought, from reading this thread, it was proven fact that her brain was "liquid"?

I also tried to argue the merits of a new look at the facts, a trial de novo if you will, and I still haven't heard a good argument against this.
Remember, one judge, many years ago, decided she was in a persistent vegetative state.

One judge, many years ago, decided that she would have wished to die.

Something is just not right in this case.
 
Why oh why are the Schindlers bothering at this point?

12 days without food or water.

She hasn't urinated since Sunday. You know what that means? That means renal failure. Her kidneys are dead.

She's too far gone at this point, and putting the feeding tube back in now will either completely shock her system into death or it will have little to no effect and kill her anyways. So says one of the Dal Med profs.

So why the hell are they still fighting this in the courts?

Save your money from the legal fees and use it to buy Terri a really nice funeral that celebrates the life she had. It's futile at this point to think she can be saved, as hard as that sounds.
 
DaveC said:
Why oh why are the Schindlers bothering at this point?

12 days without food or water.

She hasn't urinated since Sunday. You know what that means? That means renal failure. Her kidneys are dead.

She's too far gone at this point, and putting the feeding tube back in now will either completely shock her system into death or it will have little to no effect and kill her anyways. So says one of the Dal Med profs.

indeed. this debate is pretty much over. for better or for worse.
 
BonoVoxSupastar said:


And how many doctors and/ or judges have come out and said she's not brain dead?

Only one judge has been allowed to rule on this.

There are doctors that disagree that she's brain dead.

One has to assume one isn't brain dead until proven brain dead.

There are many who don't believe it's been proven.

I don't know all the facts and you don't know all the facts.

What we do know is what one judge, without all the evidence, decided the facts would be.
 
drhark said:


Only one judge has been allowed to rule on this.

There are doctors that disagree that she's brain dead.

One has to assume one isn't brain dead until proven brain dead.

There are many who don't believe it's been proven.

I don't know all the facts and you don't know all the facts.

What we do know is what one judge, without all the evidence, decided the facts would be.

When your cortex is liquid, and your EEG registers no activity whatsoever, you're brain dead.
 
How do you know the cortex is liquid? You don't. Someone told you it was.

I'm not familiar with the sensitivity of EEG tests or their ability to detect mimimal activity.

What is your opposition to a new finding of fact?
 
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i :heart: deep.

through all the hysterics, fact will find it's way.

and poor terri ... if she were able to think, what would she think about all this?
 
All I know is....Terri is one strong individual. When she finally departs this earth, and is finally granted peace, she will shine the brighter in Heaven for all her sufferings.

She is like Andersen's Little Mermaid, whose spirit ascended from the foam and kissed both the Prince who had betrayed her and his new bride, which she had hoped to be, and forgave all. The "daughters of the air" are waiting to take her away. (Don't know what I'm talking about? Find a copy of the origional fairy tale, the REAL version, which Disney massacred. You will weep through the last 5 pages.)

A silent, smiling, small army of angels is hovering over the bed and around that hospice, waiting, waiting, to take her and lead her up and away to her Heavenly reward. They will say, Be at peace. Your suffering is over, you are in grace. Let all the murmering cease, let this be your eternal release. And she will ascend, away and above all the the lamentations and the sorrows of this divided Earth, with nothing but a gentle smile for all of us left in this Vale of Tears. She will pass through the Light and the Grey Rain Curtain will be turned back, and she will hear a sweet singing coming over the water. (Tolkien's words, that last, not mine.) And when she stands before the Throne, young and beautiful again, I have no doubt that the Master Himself might even descend and envelop her in His arms. And He will say: "Welcome Home at last. It is not for you to right the wrongs. It is not for you, to fault them. Here is your rest. Be at peace."
 
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Hey, I'm Irish. We get carried away at times.:wink:

And FYI, in case you're wondering, I'm drinking only iced tea right now.

IF you HAVE to be technical about it!!!

(Yes, I believe He sits on a throne..and the singing is standard, to me, for all souls entering Heaven....b/c that will be the greatest thing about Heaven for me: the beautiful music. And IMO, all kinds of music have beauty in them. It isn't going to be a special song in her honor!!

I can't believe I'm talking about this!! I mean, I was trying to write something beautiful about a poor woman who has been wrongly used as a political pawn, by EVERYBODY. I'm literal in what I hope for her, but geez, if you want a discussion on what Heaven looks like, go to "the Goal Is Soul"...I wasn't going to elaborate!!!!!

(There's a great new book out about this very subject, which I've just finished reading. That's why it;s on my mind I guess. Forgot the author but it's a bestseller, simply called 'Heaven". It has a white cover with a little pic of a Japanse-style bridge over a stream on the cover. If you go to Amazon you'll get pics of book covers and find it that way. It has a lot of surprising stuff to say, and will change your mind. Point number one of the book: Heaven is NOT going to be a boring place where people fly around in white robes and sit on clouds all day playing a harp!!

Interesting even for non-Christians to read, and It's a rare book I'd recommend like that.
 
With all those good facts on your side, one wouldn't think you'd be opposed to another review of the case (after all these years) as mandated by the US congress.

That's a nice CT picture. What it tells me is that her brain is severely damaged. It does not prove the brain is 100% "liquid".
In addition, it's only one cross section.

Where's Terri's EEG reading? Compared to the EEG of a severely brain damaged person who's not in a vegetative state?

The CTs are all over the internet, I'm sure someone must have the EEG.
 
Teta040 said:
Hey, I'm Irish. We get carried away at times.:wink:

And FYI, in case you're wondering, I'm drinking only iced tea right now.

IF you HAVE to be technical about it!!!

(Yes, I believe He sits on a throne..and the singing is standard, to me, for all souls entering Heaven....b/c that will be the greatest thing about Heaven for me: the beautiful music. And IMO, all kinds of music have beauty in them. It isn't going to be a special song in her honor!!

I can't believe I'm talking about this!! I mean, I was trying to write something beautiful about a poor woman who has been wrongly used as a political pawn, by EVERYBODY. I'm literal in what I hope for her, but geez, if you want a discussion on what Heaven looks like, go to "the Goal Is Soul"...I wasn't going to elaborate!!!!!

(There's a great new book out about this very subject, which I've just finished reading. That's why it;s on my mind I guess. Forgot the author but it's a bestseller, simply called 'Heaven". It has a white cover with a little pic of a Japanse-style bridge over a stream on the cover. If you go to Amazon you'll get pics of book covers and find it that way. It has a lot of surprising stuff to say, and will change your mind. Point number one of the book: Heaven is NOT going to be a boring place where people fly around in white robes and sit on clouds all day playing a harp!!

Interesting even for non-Christians to read, and It's a rare book I'd recommend like that.


you answered my question -- much thanks.

it was beautifully written, which is why i was wondering if it was prose or poetry or journalism.
 
may she rest in peace :sad:

Brother Paul O'Donnell, a spokesman for Bob and Mary Schindler, Schiavo's parents, said the couple was with their daughter's body and praying.

Thursday morning, O' Donnell said that Schiavo was in her final hours of life, and police have prohibited her blood relatives from spending time with her.

O'Donnell, one of the family's spiritual advisers, said that her parents and siblings were "begging to be at her bedside...but are being denied."

Michael Schiavo was Terri's guardian and controlled who may visit her and when.


Apparently they were even willing to be in the room with him so they could be with her when she died, but he denied them permission :| To clarify, this is what is being said NOW, it has not been officially confirmed.
 
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It is hard to imagine the amount of bad blood that must exist between both parties as a result of the last 15 years. Very sad on all sides.
 
Terri Schiavo

Terri Schiavo has died
Thursday, March 31, 2005 Posted: 10:07 AM EST (1507 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Terri Schiavo, the 41-year-old brain-damaged woman who became the centerpiece of a national right-to-die battle, died Thursday morning, nearly two weeks after doctors removed the feeding tube that had sustained her for more than a decade.

Brother Paul O'Donnell, a spokesman for Bob and Mary Schindler, Schiavo's parents, said the couple was with their daughter's body and praying.

Wednesday, the Schindlers lost what their lawyer described as their "last meaningful legal appeal" in their desperate battle to have their brain-damaged daughter's feeding tube reinserted.

The U.S. Supreme Court late Wednesday refused once again to hear an emergency appeal from the Schindlers.

Their lawyer, David Gibbs, heard the high court had rejected the appeal during a news conference outside the Pinellas Park, Florida, hospice where Schiavo was receiving care.

"It appears that that will be the last meaningful legal appeal unless something comes up," Gibbs had said. "Fundamentally, the decision of the Florida courts will remain unchanged and the federal courts have declined to get involved."

Thursday morning, O' Donnell said that Schiavo was in her final hours of life, and police have prohibited her blood relatives from spending time with her.

O'Donnell, one of the family's spiritual advisers, said that her parents and siblings were "begging to be at her bedside...but are being denied."

Michael Schiavo was Terri's guardian and controlled who may visit her and when.

Pasco-Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer in Clearwater, Florida, ordered the feeding tube removed March 18 at Michael Schiavo's request. He has said that his wife wouldn't have wanted to live in her condition -- what Florida courts have deemed a "persistent vegetative state."

The parents felt otherwise and had sought to take guardianship of their daughter from her husband. Their bitter court battles began in 1998.

"I don't understand why Michael Schiavo at some point didn't walk away," Gibbs said.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has jurisdiction over Florida, Georgia and Alabama, and could have ruled on the petition on his own, referred the appeal to the entire Supreme Court at 10:40 p.m. Wednesday.

There was no breakdown of the vote, and the high court issued no explanation for its decision. The petition had been filed earlier in the night.

It was the second time in a week the high court refused to hear the case, and the sixth time since 2001.

The Schindlers "can know they have done everything possible under the law in letting government know that they wanted to fight for the life of their daughter," Gibbs said.

In his Supreme Court filing, Gibbs and other lawyers for the parents wrote that removing the tube represented "an unconstitutional deprivation of Terri Schiavo's constitutional right to life."

The Supreme Court's rejection came hours after the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia, rejected the parents' petition 9-2. That court denied three similar requests from the parents last week.

In a concurring opinion of the Atlanta court's latest ruling, Judge Stanley Birch said Congress "chose to overstep constitutional boundaries" by passing a law to force the Schiavo case into federal courts.

Judges Gerald Tjoflat and Charles Wilson dissented, with Tjoflat writing that the Schindlers deserved a hearing on the merits of their argument.

On March 21, three days after Schiavo's feeding tube was removed, Congress passed a bill transferring jurisdiction of the case from Florida state court to a U.S. District Court, for a federal judge to review. President Bush signed it into law the next day. But federal courts refused to overturn the state courts' decision.

2002 videotapes released
The Pinellas County Probate Court has released nine of 11 videotapes of Terri Schiavo recorded in the summer of 2002 and shown in a Florida appeals court hearing on her medical condition.

The videos show several doctors talking to and examining Schiavo to get ready for their court testimony. The tapes were recorded from July to September 2002.

Family members, including her mother and husband, also appear in the video.

Two of the 11 tapes remain sealed by the court, but it was unclear why.

In October 2002, Florida's 2nd District Court of Appeal heard a week of testimony from five doctors who examined her, including two picked by Michael Schiavo, two by her parents and one picked by the court.

Three doctors, including one appointed by the court, testified that Terri Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery. The two doctors selected by the Schindlers testified they thought she could recover.

The appellate court concurred with a lower court decision that Schiavo had no hope of recovery and that her feeding tube could be removed.

Terri Schiavo collapsed in her home in 1990, suffering from heart failure that led to severe brain damage because of lack of oxygen.

Her husband has said she suffered from bulimia, an eating disorder, that resulted in a potassium deficiency that triggered the heart failure.
 
I know it's wrong to post this now, I apologize, but here is some information about what an autopsy can/cannot determine

Diagnosis will not be verified by autopsy

By Donna Leinwand, USA TODAY

Terri Schiavo's husband hopes an autopsy upon her death will put to rest any questions about whether his wife was in a persistent vegetative state, but doctors say science won't provide a simple answer.

A brain autopsy can catalogue massive cell damage, abnormalities and tumors. But it won't pinpoint a specific spot that proves that Schiavo had lost awareness of the world around her.

George Felos, the attorney for Schiavo's husband, Michael, has said that a Florida medical examiner has agreed to perform an autopsy after Terri Schiavo dies. Florida courts have ruled that she is in a persistent vegetative state.

That condition is a clinical diagnosis and cannot by confirmed by an autopsy, said Curtis Doberstein, associate professor of clinical neurosurgery at Brown Medical School in Providence. The most important test would be a neurological examination before she dies that observes her consciousness, perceptions and reflexes, among other things, he said.

"What the autopsy will show is the extensiveness of the injury," Doberstein said.

An autopsy of the brain could take as long as two months. After an initial visual examination, the brain would be soaked for one to two weeks in a preservative solution. Sections could then be examined under a microscope.

Schiavo has undergone neurological tests and CT scans to diagnose the extent of her brain damage, according to court documents. The doctor who performs the autopsy may be able to identify some areas of the brain most damaged without using a microscope.

Barbara Crain, a neuropathologist and associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said if the damage is severe enough, "it would be bad enough for a pathologist to see with the naked eye."

For a patient in a persistent vegetative state, the critical brain area is the cerebral cortex. When the brain is deprived of oxygen, as Schiavo's was in 1990, massive numbers of brain cells can die in certain parts of the brain. But some functions, including reflexes like blinking, remain intact.
 
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