June 17, 2005

A genuine fuck-up by the religious right who fueled the fire in this case. The only apology I have ever heard from the religious right was from Falwell who got caught with his pants down. And, I think the only thing he was sorry about was that he got caught!

You got it nailed, now I just wish some of my favorite webbloggers were as smart as you.

Yep. I agree with you on #1, #2 and #3 Acidman. This whole thing should never have been an issue. I wonder if anyone thought about what it feels like to be trapped in what amounted to a living corpse for 15 years?

Acidman, you and a bunch of other folks seem to keep forgetting one thing: Terri was in the condition she was in BECAUSE HER HUSBAND WAS THE ONE WHO BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF HER TO PUT HER IN THAT CONDITION! She *didn't* just "collapse" and end up in that condition. Or are you igoring her long-ago broken bones, or why her "husband" tried so hard to keep her from any therapy? He knew that if she recovered enough to talk that his goose was cooked.

To think that he'll get away with murdering his wife smells more than a fish processing plant.

And yes, she was responsive to seeing and hearing others at one time, but when you keep an injured person on inadequate nutrition and no therapy for a long enough time, of course their brain will atrophy. Forget about her condition at the end, think about her earlier on. And go find some of the videos that are still out there that show conslusively that she was NOT a vegetable! Oh, but you wouldn't want to do that and have your thoughts challenged, right?

for once, acidman, you and i are in 110% complete, exceptionless, unadulterated agreement.

//BECAUSE HER HUSBAND WAS THE ONE WHO BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF HER TO PUT HER IN THAT CONDITION//

were you there? how do you know this. the autopsy showed no evidence of physical trauma or abuse to her body, either recent to her death or at the time of her collapse.

try again, doctor.

I'm torn between my sympathy for her and my disgust at her husband. However, I thought she should've been kept alive at the time. Now, I think they were right to let her die. However, like you, I do think they should've gone about it in a more humane way.

Usually I agree with your take on things, A-man, and in this case I think you've got it pretty much nailed, especially on #2.

But.

She was starved to death. And you can qualify it all you want - "she probably didn't have enough brain left to feel anything before she died" - but she was deliberately, purposefully and slowly starved to death. We have to make sure Muslim scum in Gitmo get rice pilaf and a urine-free Koran, but by God (whoops, there's that nasty theocrat in me) we can't interfere with a man's right to put his woman down like a dog. Or, in this case, worse than a dog.

Was she really living? Of course not, if we use that cliche phrase "quality of life." But she was starved to death. I can see why people would rather gloss over that uncomfortable fact and instead chuckle over how the "religious right" took it in the shorts.

But that's one ignorant Yankee's opinion.

GARRY K,, damn fine example of the town idiot. You fill the job well.

Re: # 1 - "Existing law" (something against which you yourself rail incessantly), as justification in state sponsored murder (willful intent to put a citizen to death without charge) is as baseless now as it was during the controversy. And had all of you and the press spent as much time investigating Ole Mikey Boy's background and dealings as you did advocating euthanasia, you would have had little respect for a law that permits what happened. In effect, one part of government tried to kill her by law, and another part of government tried to save her by law, when all that was necessary was to permit her to do what we all do: LIVE.

Re: # 2 - Since the Civil War, states rights is a dead issue, and as the recent Supreme Court decision involving medical marijuana made abundantly clear, the Fed can intrude wherever and whenver it wishes. But be it state or fed, it was government edicts from government courts that ordered a citizen to be deprived of her life, and taken from her family, on ZERO physical or written proof from a man so devoted to Terry that he already had two children by his mistress. But he had a great shark who likewise advocates euthanasia, and who made great use of the precedents of "government" law to legally force the governmental execution of an innocent..

Re: # 3 - The truth about #'s 1 and 2 above render moot the manner of execution. But the state was as brutish in carrying out its execution as it was in conceiving its anti-life laws to begin with.

You can advocate euthanasia for yourself all you wish, but you have no right to do so for anyone else. "Life" is the first right of all citizens. Therein lies the moral for this whole sordid affair, and your literary jubilance over the autopsy reports is sadly misplaced, and has no bearing on the reality of the matter.

Government courts executed an innocent citizen.

When you can disprove that simple, but terriby inconvenient fact, then you might have an argument with merit. That is the CORE issue. IT won't go away.

Ignore all that stuff JB says, and just think about this: "letting someone die" applies to someone whose body has totally shut down already and is being kept alive by respirators and maybe a blood pump. When someone on that kind of life support has it stopped, they die within minutes, not weeks.

Nobody "let" Terri Schiavo die. They kiilled her. No interpretation of the law, no autopsy report, can change that fact.

Yo, guys...
Just read where they're going to investigate the initial 911 call and the alleged hour or so gap between when he's said to have found her collapsed and called 911.

Found it in "Crimes and Trials", under "US" in Yahoo news.
The whole url is about 5 times too long to post here.

And, I love the last quote from Jeb....
Being verbally challenged must be a "Bush genes" thing, I swear.

I know what he means, but they way he said it... Gawd.

"The unanswered questions may be unanswerable..."

I now have new pinprick hemorrhages in my brain.
Thanks, Jeb.
(As if your Dad and brother aren't enough...)
Jeezus... *lol*

My mother-in-law died two nights ago from cancer. She had barely eaten for months, and for the last week it was a struggle to get her body to drink water from a straw. The last two days we held our fingers over the straw and carefully trickled water in just so she could keep her mouth somewhat moist.

My biggest fear was that they would put her on IV solution and prolong the inevitable. 18 years ago I watched my husband's mom (this was his dad's 2nd wife) suffer a long, drawn out, painful death hooked up to all manner of tubes and machines that did nothing but make it worse for everyone involved. None of us were up to doing that again.

There are worse ways to die than starving. Like being kept alive and losing your dignity while having to watch your loved ones suffer right along with you.

My mother-in-law took the only option available to her and refused all treatments. She should've been allowed quicker, more humane choices.

There are several bloggers talking about this who were on the side of keeping Terri alive. You're just not reading them: Malkin, Barber, Patterico, Esmay.

I haven't blogged about it because what would be the point? She surely is dead now. And the main reason (besides a general pro-life stance) I was against it was because she was put down with more cruelty than a dog would be or that scumbag child-molester, torturer, murderer, John Couey, (sp) will. And now, you're gloating about it.

Yes, we know *now* that she probably didn't feel a thing, but we didn't know it then. What I find disturbing is that too many of us were willing to take that chance.

Now that the precident is set, will we be right about this every other time? Whatever.

Sorry, Rob, for taking up so much space in your comments.

Love is never having to say your sorry ? If you kill em, who you gonna say "sorry" to ?? Sounds kinda like what Ted Kennedy did.. "hey, old gal. Sorry I left ya in the car to drown" !!

To sum up: "Yeah! Kill them fuckin' useless veggies! I know I'd wanna be killed if I was like that, so she must've wanted the same as well."

No, really, let's move on to the severely retarded while we're knee-deep in this shit.

*NOTICE* The above statement in quotes wasn't directed at any particular individual, but the entire crowd of people who were on the bandwagon to starve her to death.

Almost forgot to watch what I say. Might offend somebody. No one's safe any longer.

I didn't like it either. Not a damn bit of it. It wasn't right and the way it was done was the worst part.

I can believe that her brain had atrophied. Years of forced isolation without any rehab or even sunlight and fresh air permitted contributed greatly to that, I'm sure.

Okay, we know NOW that it was all in vain but I'd still take the position that her family, who wanted to care for her, should have been allowed to do so.

No apology here.

I am sorry about your mother-in-law Heather. I offer my condolences. Acidbrain, it might be hard to believe, but I agree with you 1000% on all points regarding this issue. It was Bush that disgusted me when he tried to use the Shaivo case to win political points with the religious right, but it wound up backfiring on him and the rest of the fake Christian Republicans whose only concern was political gain.

The whole url is about 5 times too long to post here.

Stevie, check out http://www.tinyurl.com. You can cut and paste a long url on tinyurl.com and it'll compress it for you.

Those of you complaining about the inhumanity of the way she died: I'm sure you wouldn't have been shrieking "Murderer!" at Michael Schiavo if he had wanted to dispatch his wife with a nice big OD of morphine. Oh no. Not y'all.

I agree with the original post. Especially the first two points. For Congress to come back for a "special" session when there was a law clearly in place ws deplorable. Courts were wise to not address the lawsuits.
Terri's brother, I thought, made a point when he pointed out that her collapse to begin with has not been explained.
At least MJ is no longer front page news (hallelujah!)

How few truly prescribe their own death and carry forward with full resolve. Smif--intoning as you have, and despite your own attempt, you did not complete the task once able.

As much as life is natural, so is the preservation of self--two foremost critical points of the parchment under glass in Philly (otherwise known as the Constitution, or the dead letter . . . whichever).

If one wishes to take his/her own life, that is his/her own business. For anyone (state or court or individual) to take the life of another, save in mortal self-defense, is a heinous offense against humanity, and thus, against life. There is no contrary argument.

There you go, Smif--as brief as one can be about a subject so broad as to encompass all of ... well ...

Life..

"If one wishes to take his/her own life, that is his/her own business. For anyone (state or court or individual) to take the life of another, save in mortal self-defense, is a heinous offense against humanity, and thus, against life. There is no contrary argument."

JB,

I agree with your statement, but in THIS case, man did not take her life. Man prolonged her life artificially for many years and when man stopped, it was all in God's hands to decide whether she would recover and live, or die based on HIS will for her. Her body (i.e. the brain was beyond recovery) and she passed away peacefully with no pain. In the end, it was dehydration, and not starvation that resulted in her death according to the autopsy.

Have any of you read the autopsy report? I have, and it contains enough holes through which one can drive large trucks.

It is as much opinion as medical fact, and I believe its release will ultimate result in the conviction of Michael Schiavo for murder.

Yes, dehydration killed her first, but that, as well as nutrition, are hardly "artificial." You, PJ, would die without either in several weeks, despite your perfectly healthy status today. The word you should have used is "assistance"--and if you would check Scripture you will find Jesus' constant dictum for us to assist and love one another--and especially--help those who cannot help themselves.

That is God's will, as Scripture defines it, not trying to justify the state ordering the woman starved, which is what did happen.

You cannot justify an unjustifiable act. Period. To allow the courts to turn an unjustifiable act into a precedent of law (Oh, yes, there is now a "Terri's Law, sports fans--but the courts created it!), is yet one more step toward full state control. Now the courts can determine who lives and dies and when.

Freedom? Life, liberty and the pursuit of happines? Empty words.

"Now the courts can determine who lives and dies and when."

Only if you do not take the steps and prepare your own Physician's Directive and Living Will that states your wishes in writing so the courts don't have to step in and make that decision for you if conflict arises as it did in this case. Plain and simple.

"Jesus' constant dictum for us to assist and love one another--and especially--help those who cannot help themselves."

I believe in this with all my heart JB, but it also can be quite ambiguous at times. It seems to me that her husband loved her and helped carry out her wishes when she couldn't carry them out for herself.

A-man, I got your e-mail on this. I did read your post again, and I stand by what I say. If you want to hear me apologize for thinking Terri was more conscious than she was, sure. I was wrong. A LOT of us are wrong.

BUT - my point was that too many people, left right and center, jumped all over the autopsy report to howl with glee at the ignorant, polyester-wearing, easily-led fundies who protested. "What a bunch of maroons - good think we in the reality-based community aren't dumb religious right hicks!"

Terri was deliberately starved to death by the unstoppable power of the Almighty Imperial Federal Government when there were people who were willing to take care of her. That's all.