That article contains a number of misconceptions, primarily that Ms. Schaivo can make progress towards consciousness. The chance of her improving are less than me of making the NBA, and I am short, over 40, and my jump shot left me long ago. If people dont like the US legal system that allows people to refuse food/water/treatment, then work to change the system. If people dont like the fact that surrogates can make decisions for those that cant, then change the system. The reality is even if Ms. Schaivo was awake and talking, she could refuse a feeding tube. And, no one has proven that the husband does not have her best ineterests at heart. However, interfering with the legal system because you dont like how it worked in one particular instance, (with only innuendo, rumors, and false facts to back you up) is not the way our legal system and checks and balances is supposed to work. Worse, the president and congress are pandering to the Christian right, and setting a dangerous precedent for interference. Dont get me wrong, I am opposed to starving the lady, but if that is what the system allows, and it has gone through the courts fairly and squarely, the pres. and congress have to respect the rule of law. By the way, you can see my longer take on it at my site if you wish.
 

Re: Terri is in a persistant vegetative state.

As I read bnc's words, I'm hearing 180 degree contradiction from a nurse who took care of Terri. Responsive, verbally communicative, if at reduced capacity. Nobody is saying that she is going to write a dissertation, but there is much dispute regarding the pvs diagnosis from those who have spent time with her, including medical professionals, family members and 2 of 5 examining neurologists in an appeal several years ago.

If you accept permanent vegetative state as the diagnosis, I can see how it would be easier to come to your conclusion. I am not ready to accept it, having heard more than a few people with firsthand knowledge say otherwise.

Her wishes are unknown. Her condition is very much in doubt.
 

See also this post, which touches on uncertainty issues with Terri's condition.
 

from this article.

Nor is there agreement that Terri is in a vegetative state right now. Her family disputes it, saying she sometimes responds to their loving gestures and words. Their perceptions are dismissed as wishful thinking. But a neurologist who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1999 (and who examined Terri Schiavo several years ago) told BP News (www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=20400) that Terri is not in a vegetative state. She sometimes responds. Terri (he says) has been able to swallow pudding in the past, and can swallow her own saliva right now. With therapy, she might not even need the feeding tube. "They are truly withholding food from a person who is awake, alert, and can eat and swallow."
 

Responsive and able to answer questions of life and death are different things. Nobody's claiming she's cracking jokes. Nobody's claiming she's functioning higher than a severely retarded person would.

But your "oh please" differs from numerous neurologists and caretakers who have actually spent time with and examined Terri.

Arguing that this is about Terri's right to be deprived of food, water and the company of her mother and father until she dies is missing the point. Arguing that, because this happens every day in the country (like abortion) it is right is also missing the point.

You seem convinced of her condition. Some doctors who have examined her agree with you. Others disagree strongly. Bottom line, we aren't sure. We don't know if there's anyone home or not. To presume that we do is dangerously arrogant.

It seems to me that the "rights" that are being honored here are the rights of the husband to be rid of the burden. You may believe that he's acting to fulfill her wishes (and it's possible he is), but it somehow took him 8 years, a new de facto wife and 2 kids to remember those wishes. That nobody else among her family members agrees with his newfound discovery of Terri's wishes should raise your suspicions a little bit, no?

Finally, it's tangential, but letting a woman die at the behest of her husband will in no way further the cause of saving unborn babies from the same fate. Rather, it will strengthen the positions of those who believe in abortion on demand. If a grown woman can be put to death because she can't speak for herself, it's an easy, if not entirely well thought out, leap to permit the same fate for a 7 month old fetus.
 

Ball,

I'm not sure if you've read all of the posts I've put up on Terri. Should a woman on whom neurologists disagree about her condition, be permitted at least an MRI before being sentenced to death? Terri hasn't been allowed one. CT Scan's are nice, but they don't tell nearly what an MRI does. Why put her to death when her condition's in doubt?
 

And, how about a PET Scan? Something that could actually provide some hard evidence as to brain function? She's been denied this as well.

Surely, as a compassionate individual, you'd agree that a person should be given the RIGHT to have all reasonable diagnostic options exhausted before being sentenced to death. Is an MRI or a PET Scan unreasonable? If she were an athelete with a sore elbow, she'd get an MRI with 6 hours notice.

Are you really comfortable letting Terri starve to death in the absense of a diagnosis arrived at using all of the tools available to modern neurologists? Think about that for a second, and think of this case outside of the larger philisophical issue of whether this is an appropriate remedy for the country at large.

Does Terri Schiavo's situation match the minimum moral criteria to allow this death to progress? Over the 15 years of her convalescence, has her official diagnosis been arrived at by exhausting all of the minimally invasive options available? No. Can you be even reasonably sure that her husband's decision (in contradiction to the rest of her family) to sue to have her food and water removed after 8 years, a new de facto wife and 2 children, was a decision based on Terri's wishes? Or, is it at least as likely that the decision was motivated by selfish interests?

As a matter of principle, I'm not ready to abandon the concept of allowing nature to take its course for those who are with out hope, and/or for those who have expressed their wishes to allow it. But, to my eye, there is just no way that Terri Schiavo's case rises to the minimum standard we should be setting as a society.

It is entirely possible that Terri's diagnosis of pvs is wrong. It is entirely likely that her husband is acting not in her interests, but in his own. To believe otherwise is to accept that he ignored those same wishes for 8 long years.

In the absense of a person's known wishes, and of a thorough diagnosis, we shouldn't be condemning people to die.
 

For the sake of defragmenting the conversation about the Schiavo case, please make all further comments on this thread. Thank you.

Move along. Nothing to see here.