Science over superstition

here come the excuses from the pro-Terris that after so long such evidence liekly wouldn't exist, blah blah...

No evidence of strangulation -- 15 years after the fact. No evidence that she was given harmful drugs prior to her death this year or 5, 10 or 15 years ago? A brain mass half the normal size -- 12 years after rehabilitative therapy was discontinued. No comment on the broken bones. And when you are dealing with a dead body,all you can do is speculate as to whether she would have been able to eat and drink on her own. Nurses claimed to have fed her orally. This really puts nothing to rest. It creates more questions than answers.

I'm sure Michael Schiavo won't hold his breath waiting for any apologies.

steve... if it had shown evidence of abuse, etc., wouldn't you be treating the report like the gospel?

"This really puts nothing to rest."

Well, except that Steve's a freakin' nut job who couldn't see the truth if it were covered by Fox News.

No, as always the "right to die" crowd misses the point.

Standing for life in the face of death is a long tradition in the Christian walk. History is littered with success stories of people who "couldn't be helped" or "weren't worth wasting your time with." People like Helen Keller would never have been known if the "doctors" wisdom had been taken as all there was. I personally know of several parents who wouldn't be parents today had they listened to the doctors who said their children had "no chance." I also personally know of people whose relatives were called in for the final moments, only to be brought back by the power of prayer and are standing in church today to testify. And if the church followed the culture over history on abandonment, exposure, abortion, and euthanasia, there are a lot of people who never would have made it to adulthood or past the "tender mercies" of a greedy hospital administrator.

If, indeed, Terri was in a PVS, then why not allow her parents to take her and care for her. You may consider that ghoulish, or delusional, but how--if it is the life they are devoted to--is it harmful?

Regardless of her condition, it was cruel of Michael to insist on killing her. And deliberate cruelty is always wrong.

"If, indeed, Terri was in a PVS, then why not allow her parents to take her and care for her."

Because Terri didn't want to be kept alive in a state like that.

People like Helen Keller would never have been known if the "doctors" wisdom had been taken as all there was.

You mean Helen "big time Socialist" Keller?

Regardless of her condition, it was cruel of Michael to insist on killing her.

Other peoples opinion thought it would be cruel to keep her alive, especially considering her wishes.

Kerry - While the Church has been right many times in the past standing for people who needed help, Terri wasn't one of them.

The claim that "Terri wouldn't want to be kept alive in a state like that" is rather hollow, if we accept the notion that she has no KNOWLEDGE of being in a PVS.

Why would anyone mind being in a PVS?

Also, I have no problem saving the life of "big time socialist" Helen Keller, as long as she hadn't committed a capital crime. the principal is unaffected by her politics.

You have a "right to die" if you choose, as do I and Terri Schiavo. I know she didn't have it in writing. You have the right to not believe Michael.

God had 10 plus years(even with all the prayers) to perform a miracle, and chose not to. Terri Schiavo was allowed to die, because it was her wish, AKA:Free will. It's really OK, and not a sin.

Case closed!

It's nice to know the system actually worked to uphold the law in this case, and not a radical right-wing religious person's narrow interpretation of "right and wrong" that is based on ideology rather than actual science and facts.

Steve: you crack me up, man! Methinks you are not seeing the forest through the trees.

Kerry: well, Tom pretty much covered it. Law says spouse has legal authority in this case. Husband says she wouldn't want to live like that. He acts in a manner consistent with her wishes. Most of world sees it as humane. Radical right screams murder.

careful androminos, here comes a slew of reasons why the pro-Terris say michael schiavo is a "husband" rather than a husband....

Kerri- Terri was no longer a "daughter". She was a "wife". Please, for the love of God, be consistent about your views of marriage.

The Schindlers, if they are true Christians, should embrace and ask Michael's forgiveness in light of this autopsy. Instead, they'll camp out at Fox News and bellow for as long as the news cycle will allow.

Also - "Regardless of her condition, it was cruel of Michael to insist on killing her. And deliberate cruelty is always wrong." I do stand up comedy and I'd like your permission to use this line.

Tom: Where's your evidence Terri Schiavo didn't want to live? Hearsay based on the comments of Michael Schiavo. In the absence of hard fact, this is what we call speculation, which is what the majority of this coroner's report is. Most of the time, they are looking for cause of death, but they weren't here. So what they were doing is looking at a dead body and speculating about what that person's functions were in real life. You can't tell me that the guy can say conclusively that this woman could eat or drink by looking at her dead body. That's speculation on his part.

We've been told for fifteen years that this woman suffered a heart attack due to low potasium levels brought on by and eating disorder. The coroner says this isn't true -- that she neither had an eating disorder nor suffered a heart attack. Again, probably speculation, unless you are willing to accept that the main premise you right to die nuts accepted regarding the way she ended up in the condition she was in is utter bullshit. But if it is, how did she get that way? The coroner doesn't answer that. You right to die wackos have so little practice using your critical thinking skills that you've completely forgotten how to.

Steve - Terri's husband had legal control over her medical care. You can be "OUTRAGED!" all you want, nothing is going to change it. This is what our law is based on, not endless speculation as to what she may or may not have wanted.

The autopsy is performed by a doctor that most likely has several times the amount of post high school education you've had. What are your grounds for questioning him? Yes, he can tell you conclusively whether she could eat or drink.

Yes, the doctor can tell conclusively if she had a heart attack or an eating disorder. They both leave very obvious signs.

...but I'm sure you'll steam on with the conspiracy theories.

Ideally it won't be over, and Michael Schiavo can now go about suing all of the irresponsible, malicious right-wing gas bags (yea, I realize that is redundant) who repeated the canards regardless of the fact that there was no evidence whatsoever to support them.

The Schiavo case made household names out of Tom DeLay, Rick Santorum and Bill Frist

Why would anyone mind being in a PVS?

Because its not what you could really call life.

Id want it ended.

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/us/assisted_suicide

Steve, I think the proper term is cardiac arrest.

Why would anyone mind being in a PVS?

You've certainly shown you don't.

Id want it ended.

Then it is unanimous.

HI Kerry! Nice to have you back! So sad that people posting here don't understand how life is worthwhile even if it isn't "normal". It doesn't matter if Terri couldn't think , or function like normal people. She was ALIVE. You cannot kill an innocent person just because they are "less than" others. They say they wouldn't want to live that way themselves, well, that is sad also. Are they so fixated on a so called quality of life that anything less is useless? This autopsy proves very little. Oh, and Epoch, it is very telling that you catagorize people disagreeing with you as "pro-Terri". That makes you "anti-Terri".

Lisa my pitbulls show more response to stimuli to than Terri did.

But my pitbulls also seem to be smarter than you, so hey who knows?

Lisa - She wasn't alive. She did not have a functioning brain. Terri was not inside that body.

Lisa my pitbulls show more response to stimuli to than Terri did.

Christ, as if we didn't already know you are white trash, you have to scream it out by having a pack of those feral beasts.

All the cool drug dealers in your neighborhood have them? You have to be just like them, eh?

you have to scream it out by having a pack of those feral beasts.

Two, nicest dogs I ever had. What do you have a bichon frise? Pompei?

I didnt crop their ears or cut their tails so I odnt have the thug thing going.

Tom Delay, Rick Santorum, and Bill Frist were "household names" long before this.

Just because you (or I) might not "call it life" doesn't mean she wasn't LIVING. Once again, an artificial notion of "quality" trumps the FACT of life. Sad indeed.

By the way, where did we get the "right to die?" I don't recall which amendment that is. And how come we don't have the "right" to "live" unless we are convicted criminals, but apparently we not only have the "right" to die, but others have an obligation to help us do it?

How does THAT make sense?

but others have an obligation to help us do it?

She was being kept alive artificially against her wishes.

"She was being kept alive artificially against her wishes."

If you are "artificially" alive, you don't HAVE any wishes to worry about.

If you are so concerned about what happens to you after you die (or when you are "artificially" alive, which implies that you are "actually" dead), WRITE IT DOWN. That's how dying wishes are determined--not by hearsay from people who find it inconvenient to continue ministering to living people.

Now we have, no heart attack, no starvation, no physical injuries, hey we have a real live person. Give me a break, I posted what the result would be the day the so called expert in Fl. refused to allow any independent Doctors to assist or view the autopsy. Doctors are like lawyers, they cover for each other until the hand goes on the bible.

Steve - Terri's husband had legal control over her medical care. You can be "OUTRAGED!" all you want, nothing is going to change it. This is what our law is based on, not endless speculation as to what she may or may not have wanted.

The autopsy is performed by a doctor that most likely has several times the amount of post high school education you've had. What are your grounds for questioning him? Yes, he can tell you conclusively whether she could eat or drink.

Matt boy: When did I claim to be outraged in this thread? You folks are the irrational ones and you are just too dense or too blinded by your right to die bent to see it. For example:

1. How does this guy know she couldn't eat? Answer: He may be Jesus Christ of the coroner world and walk on water but he still doesn't know conclusively whether or not she could eat -- it's speculation. If she were alive and he attempted to feed her and she couldn't eat, that would be conclusive proof that she couldn't eat. By the time she got to him, she was a starved corpse.

2. He said she was blind. When did this happen? Wouldn't it have been better (and more conclusive) if she were ALIVE to determine whether or not she could see? I'm not questioning his conclusion that she was blind but WHEN did it happen? If the rehabilitation that by all accounts was working hadn't stopped 12 years ago, maybe she would have been in better shape at the time she was stsrved and dehydrated to death.

3. The brain didn't shrivel up the second she became unconscious -- it happened over a period of years. Why did it happen and when did it happen? We don't know because she was shoved into the corner of a room in a nursing home for the past 12 years. Perhaps the brain wouldn't have atrophied so badly if there had been some stimulation. And how much of this brain shrinkage was caused by dehydration? The body is 75% water, as is the brain and her brain was half the normal weight.

4. Finally, no one has answered the question of how she got in the state she was in. All they did was answer the question of how she DIDN'T get in the state she was in before she was starved to death.

5. The big question here is why couldn't these questions have been conclusively answered while the woman was alive?

This autopsy didn't answer a hell of a lot of questions at all and the ones that it does answer it replaces with others. I really can't conceive of how you people can be so impossibly dense and unthinking. "The coroner spoke, it's cool. No further questions are necessary. Who am I to question the coroner?" How moronic. "Experts" are routinely wrong, especially in the medical profession. You see it all the time. All he had to go on were his own hunches about what he thought happened based on his analysis of a dehydrated corpse.

They were conclusively answered.

To anyone who wasnt ignoring every fact that went against what they already decided.

1. The portion of her brain responsible for purposeful action was severly damaged.

2. The portion of her brain responsible for vision was severly damaged.

3. Her brain atrophied because large portions of it were dead. Therapy doesn't stop atrophy.

3. Stop making up variables that the doctor is already aware of. People die from alzheimer's with far, far more brain mass than she had.

4. So? The results aren't always conclusive. Would you rather that they made something up?

5. It didn't matter. She was in a PVS for long enough.

---

Yes, experts are often wrong, but they're right _far_more_often_ then some idiot sitting at his computer thinking he knows everything.

Steve FACTS:

1. Her brain was half the size of a normal woman's her age. Every neurological expert I've seen comment on this case say recovery from that amount of severe brain damage is impossible.

This is from the county coronor, who had nothing to do with the case, and therefore is an INDEPENDENT OPINION:

"This damage was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons," said Jon Thogmartin, the Pinellas-Pasco, Fla., medical examiner who led the autopsy."

I suppose you're going to discount his opinion too because it differs from your expert opinion.

You pro-death people here are fond of quoting the autopsy results, well, check out Michelle Malkins blog on this, and consider yourselves enlightened.

Unless its an apology for being wrong I really do not care.

Not impossible. Improbable. Highly improbable if you like, but not impossible. What degree of recovery are we talking about? Full recovery? The chances of that were so remote as to nearly qualify as impossible. Partial recovery? Much more likely than a full recovery, although, for the sake of retaining my credibility, still highly improbable. Yet, I once saw an x-ray of a boy who'd fallen and become impaled on a rod of concrete rebar. It entered through his groin, severed his femoral artery, pierced several major organs including his lung and heart, severed his corotid artery, and stopped somewhere in the vicinity of the boy's skull. A sure death with almost 99.999999% probability. Yet the boy lived and recovered completely. There is this other story, actually there are a couple of them, about a parachutist whose primary and backup chutes both failed. He plummeted to Earth at maximum velocity, bounced 30ft on impact and walked away nearly unharmed. How do you explain these kinds of things. Impossible? Nothing is impossible.

Much more likely than a full recovery

So what? 20-30 times zero is still zero.

You guys were placing your hopes on miracles.

Read the last sentence on page nine of the autopsy. What it comes down to for me is even if Terri never became one iota different from what we saw, she was a living human being, and shouldn't have been killed. By the way um yeah, miracles DO happen.

What it comes down to for me is even if Terri never became one iota different from what we saw

It is so painful to have to even read your garbage.

Miracles do not happen. They're simply events to which we do not fully comprehend, or events which, at the time, were not fully comprehended. But enough with semantics.

The fact of the matter is that she was dead 15 years ago. Once the cycle began, there was no stopping it. And I'll use the modern-day psuedo-Christian's methodology of "proving it"..."Because it was God's will! If He wanted to save her, He would have!". Extreme cases do exist, but lest we all forget that these are the exeception and NOT the rule. You cannot relate a single extreme case to all cases regardless of their condition...unless you are a media spinster, which automatically discredits everything you say anyways.

New techniques with lithium treatment do show that neural tissue is able to slowly regenerate, despite age-old thinking that nervous damage is permanent. But there's a difference between using lithium treatment to reverse the effects of alzheimer's and bipolar...and regenerating 50% of a woman's destroyed brain matter. It does make me wonder if this was one of the "new treatments" that the Schindlers wanted to try out. From my understanding of lithium treatment, this technique may have stopped the deterioration of her brain but the chance of it ever being able to regenerate enough tissue for her to regain her upper brain functions is so close to zero that it's not even funny. And even if she was able to regain these upper brain functions...the area of her brain which stores memory was completely gone...she wouldn't even know her name, let alone her family members...it'd be like starting life all over again from newborn status. Considering the fact that this has never been done before and the top experts in the world can only speculate on the effects of such a radical treatment...well, I guess the Bible-thumpers are going to have to really dig for the passages about miracles now. :)

When someone dies, you do not have to die with them. Let's celebrate her life and focus on the positive things it brought about and the wisdom gained by it rather than moaning over her death and throwing mud, dirt, and hatred around like it's penny candy.

Although I will say that the Michelle Malkins reference was quite classic...sure, lobby the writings of a well-established nutball...right on. :)

To Nodtveidt: You are absolutely correct. Even the staunchest pro-life conservative would have to admit that human life is more than just breathing, having a heartbeat, and digesting food. To quote Star Trek's Dr. McCoy: "The BRAIN is what life is all about." Terri Schiavo wasn't "handicapped" or "disabled" or "brain-damaged"; she was GONE. Keeping her body alive with a feeding tube was utterly pointless. Nonetheless, had I been in Michael Schiavo's shoes, I would have granted her parents custody if they were willing to care for her in that condition for the next 30 years, if necessary. Perhaps that act of compromise would have defused some of the rhetoric, the hatred, and the demagoguery surrounding this case. Then again, probably not.

Sorry, Scot, but I'm not buying Dr. McCoy's concept of when life ends--or Dr. Kervorkian's either, for that matter.

Human life is in the SOUL. We can't see it, but it's what makes us human--mind, will, and emotions. Did Terri have those things? We can't know. And as long as we can't know, we should err on the side of caution. More to the point, if someone is willing to care for her, killing her should not EVER be an option.

Human life is in the SOUL.

First sentence and you already lose.

Kerry, I agree with you that human life is in the soul, but for it to function in a corporeal sense, it needs the heart, veins, lungs, and most importantly, brain.

Terri did not have the brain to live. Her body failed her. Sure, she could have lied in that bed for a longer period of time with no cognitive reality, but Terri Schiavo for all intents and purposes was dead. At least her earthly manifest.