Terri Schiavo

[ianess]

What views are held regarding this poor woman's intolerable situation......particularly in regard to her being legally starved to death?   I hold strong views and would welcome a debate.

[butter1]

I feel sorry for everyone within this family.  Terri Schiavo has been in this terrible situation since she collapsed at the age of 26.. many years later there has been no change.  In my opinion, if I was in her situation I wouldn't want to be kept alive - there is no point to life.  It seems cruel starving her to death, you would have thought they could think of another way to let her die peacefully.  I do not think that her husband is a cruel man, I think that he is just thinking of his wife and what she would have wanted.  Since she has been in that situation he has cared for her.... I think it's time that they let her go - but that it just my opinion.

[libertie]

Yes, I also have great sympathy for this family, but as a mother I can't for the life of me imagine what it must be like to watch a much loved child suffer like this, I personally feel that it would be much kinder if she was allowed to die. As for the people protesting outside the hospital, they should be thouroughly ashamed of themselves, they can't possible know how traumatic this whole thing is for Terri's family and friends and if they were the ones having to care 24/7 for her I suspect it would be a different story!!

[Bangkok]

I think the right to die with dignity is important and necessary, as long as due process is followed.  In this case, it appears (I use the word carefully as I am reading media reports and am not a doctor) she is in a persistant vegetive state, which, barring a miracle, will not change.

If the concern is the way in which she is allowed to die, perhaps legally providing for the primary carer to assist in a humane manner in private may be a potential solution.

Whatever anyone's view, I don't think anyone can fully understand until they have been there, and it is just a tragic situation made worse by bandwagon jumping politicians, with two in particular showing simply staggering hypocrisy.   I hope this opens up a debate that allows for a mature and humane approach to such situations. 

[netibiza]

This is exactly the same thing that happened to my mother-in-law - only no politicians were involved.  She was in a PVS for 6 months - and starving her was all the hospital could do.  It is cruel when an injection would have let her die with dignity - not that was not allowed.  My mother-in-law took 2 weeks to die and it devastated the family, but we all loved her so much we had to let it happen.  May Terri Schiavo rest in peace. God Bless

[trionam]

I feel for Terrys family there are on winners in a situation like this, I did find it strange that her husband did not allow her parents there at the time of her death,whatever has gone on in the last few weeks surely they had a right to be with her when she died. I agree with libertie the protesters outside could not possibly know what its like and the media circus surrounding this case certainly would have made things harder for all involved.

[ianess]

I have just heard on the 5 o'clock news that Terri has passed away and am thankful that her ordeal and that of her family has reached a conclusion.  As a parent I cannot imagine outliving one of my children and I hope to God that I am never in that position.  What did, and still does, concern me was the manner of her death, ie the deliberate with-holding of food and water.  In any country that considers itself to be civilised this was nothing short of barbarism.  What happened to the "do no harm" ethos of the medical profession?  What was the urgency to end her life?  I feel dreadfully sorry for her parents but less so for her husband, who seemed to be determined that his wife be allowed to die.  Forgive me please if I am wrong but I was of the opinion that he had found a new partner with whom he has a family, and I find it difficult to square that with the view of a loving, caring husband.  Hopefully this debate will continue and that some good will come out of a dreadful situation.

[Hgrove]

Unfortunately, even in the UK, if someone was in PVS, they would not be able to give them a quick death with an injection because the doc. would get into trouble for murder.  There is a difference between an act and an omission in that if a doc. "does" anything, it's murder, if they "don't do anything", it is not murder.  Years ago a judicial decision found that food and water could be classed as treatment and whereas a doc. cannot inject a patient to terminate their life, a doc. is also not obliged to continue to treat a patient where treatment is futile. I am not saying I agree, in fact I think it's a cop out, but I am not making this up either, there is jurisprudence to back this up (anybody remember the Tony Bland case?).  The difference between the T. Schiavo case in the US and the UK I suspect is that in this country, the courts would not have given the order that "treatment (i.e. food and water) could be suspended" in the face of the family's resistence because it would have been too controversial.  From what little I know about this case, it sounds to me like the husband has done it for the money.  He won a medical malpractice case years ago, and he probably wants to keep the money for himself.  He does not want to risk seeing the money whittled away paying for T.'s care in hospital.  And of course now he will not have to.  I do hope I am wrong however.

[netibiza]

Hgrove it is the same in England - you need court permission to withhold food from the patient - but I suspect (as in our own case) the doctors quietly withhold the feeding, but they should have court permission.  An injection would be so much kinder to all concerned.

[slimfandango]

Technology is very advanced. This ain't the middle ages. The way the human body works, (and it's designed to work without technology in mind), after her 'incident' she would have been dead within days. Modern technology allows us to deal with that. But we have to draw some (pretty arbitrary, in my opinion) lines somewhere. You have to let people die. You can't just keep blocking death for the hell of it. This is why I love the american separation of church and state and hate the way the religious right tried to step in because, let's face it, they have a totally different set of principles and 'ethics' accordingly.

Of course we had all the emotional, but groundless moanings from people like 'ooh, you see her eyes move, she tracks and scans, there's obviously something there'. This is the 21st Century. We know enough about what brain bits are responsible for what to know that she has no mental awareness, and that seemingly 'aware' responses are basic reflexes.

"It's the slippery slope." No, it's not. There isn't a hidden army of evil men who want to kill off all the sick. It's just that people know how to make informed and educated decisions.

[sandbach99]

It would appear that he was not the loving husband he made out he was. He could have divorced her and married his partner, the mother of his children, but then he would not have had the money. So he went to the court to allow her to die in a most barbaric way, how he could watch the woman he "loved" dying like that I don't know. I believe her parents knew what he planned and how uncaring he had become and thus had to fight to stop him getting all he wanted,
I think the courts should have deferred their decision for 3 or 6 months and requested all involved parties to talk and obtain any further useful evidence they could this would have stopped the publicity and onlookers.          b

[Quizmonster]

"Thou shalt not kill but needst not strive,   Officiously, to keep alive."

These words appear in a poem by the humanist poet Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861). They sum up the rational approach to treating people such as Terri Schiavo. Sadly, she has been "officiously" kept alive for about 15 years, mainly owing to the way the legal system operates in the USA, where the appeals process appears to be endless.

Of course, such situations are desperately sad on a family level, but I don't think her parents were thinking straight in their battle to keep their daughter alive despite the obviously futile continuation of her existence. (I deliberately avoid the word 'life' there.) We would not allow a dog to continue thus and the sooner we apply the same sensible approach to the end of human life the better. Of course means other than starvation should be applied and such means are readily available.

[babyshambles]

i think it's a relief that its over for her, she can't of had much of a life and i strongly think that people should have the right to die with dignity when they want to if they were in that situation, but i can fully understand where her parents were coming from.

[netibiza]

sandbach I don't think you can divorce someone who isn't concious and who is unaware. I think he was stuck between a rock and a hard place.  He was very good to his wife in the first years - but I understand that he had to move on - he never abandoned her. Most of the money went on court fees.

[Oneeyedvic]

sanbach - I also don't think you can love a vegetable - I'm sorry to sound callous but that is all she has been for the last 15 years.

The most amazing thing to come out of all of this is the fact that the US government will go to any length (I believe they introduced a new law at midnight their time) to protect one citizen who has been in a vegative state for 15 years but will attack countries and kill many thousands of innocent people without care (or maybe for oil)!

[El D]

lol I would love to see what you would say about him after hearing he divorced his wife after she became a vegetable. . . looks like a win win situation for him.

Personally I am confused - the Xstian right continues to batter away under the premise that all life is sacred - while at the same time maintaining that death and elevation to paradise is what life is for. Why would anyone wish this poor woman kept alive when eternal paradise supposedly awaits is beyond me . . .

I for one would never wish to live, or perhaps survive is more appropriate, in such conditions, neither I suggest would any other rational being. And yes I know that if someone I loved wished it I would do my best to honour their wishes and kill them. I believe if you truly love them it is the right thing to do.

[slimfandango]

If anyone thinks what El D says is ridiculous about eternal life, then they have to admit that is the logical conclusion of their beliefs...she would be better off dead, this life is but a preparation, etc etc. Now if they retort by saying that Schiavo's case is a question for THIS life, then I retort: well keep your religious assumptions, which are about the NEXT life, out of it. Thank you.

Grrrr. Sorry. I just saw Bush commenting on it on TV. 'We must err on the side of life'. Moron.

[Garriq]

Sandbach, the courts have been issuing decisions for years delay for 3 or 6 months would be pointless. Her husband has been with his partner for years too, so this was not a new situation.

Her parents could not accept that only technology was keeping her alive. The moving eyes that someone mentioned means nothing � David Blunkett�s eyes track around too, but his is just involuntary muscle movement common to many blind people.
Terri Schiavo has now been allowed to live naturally, and sadly died a few hours ago. Now her family can complete the grieving process which machines and politics have delayed for fifteen years.

[netibiza]

Well said Garriq - my views exactly.

[ianess]

Garriq......I started this thread because, while not 100% aware of her actual medical situation, I am totally shocked, amazed, and disgusted that in a country which claims to be the upholder of all that is good in this world, this poor woman was literally starved to death.   I was and still am unaware that any artificial means, mechanical or otherwise, was being used to maintain her existence.  Not wanting to become too emotive but would a mother allow a baby to die because of food deprivation simply because it was unable to feed itself?  That was the situation Terri,s mother was forced to accept and I can readily agree with her view that her daughter was murdered by the State.  Politics is a dirty business but just how low is the human race prepared to stoop allowing rights and beliefs to be ignored?  Certainly a lethal injection would have solved the problem more quickly and more humanely but it would still have been an execution.