Terri Schiavo Autopsy is Out

Terri Shiavos autopsy report is out and it says she was in a persistent vegetative state, finding she was severely and irreversibly brain-damaged and blind as well. It also found no evidence that she was strangled or otherwise abused before she collapsed. Yet medical examiners could not say for certain what caused her sudden 1990 collapse, long thought to have been brought on by an eating disorder.

You can see the news article here

And if her 'loving parents' would have gotten their way...she would still be suffering. I am glad she was able to finally find the peace she deserved for so long.

Guess she wasn't following that balloon around the room after all.

Even though the dipshit Republican doctor using her for publicity claimed she was.

It sickens me how the politicians and the media didn't just leave her alone.

More air for me.

I downloaded the videos her parents put on the net to "prove" she was responding. This was more than a year ago. I studied them very carefully, and concluded her motions were random. The parents admitted that these clips were selected from tens of hours of video recordings. They had clearly just chosen those three or four incidents in which her random motions accidentally looked vaguely purposeful.

Very sad, but clearly her husband was braver, and did know best.

The media hype, and religious involvement, were in my view misguided and unacceptable.

I'm going to stick my neck out, and produce a very controversial quote. Who was it said :

"a religious education gives courage to the stupid to resist the authority of educated men"

Edit: I checked - it was Bertrand Russell.

Here's something to make you even more disgusted from today's NYT...

Gov. Bush Seeks Another Inquiry in Schiavo Case

I thought when you were starving and dehydrated your body tissue deteriorated? What would have if you were repeatedly put into cycles of starvation and dehydration?


Western culture is just a culture of death.

But I thought she was damaged beyond repair? How was she suffering? You can't have it both ways, either she feels nothing and knows nothing, thus isnt suffering, or she feels and knows and is suffering. Pick, you can't have both.

Eboni,

No, not quite. As someone who has experienced quite a few hypoglycaemic comas, which indeed mimic brain injury, I know that while you are in a low level of consciousness and incapable of communicating you can still have a degree of self-awareness. You experience, but you cannot influence. And what you experience can be awful.

The idea of someone living for years in that state literally sends shivers down my spine. It would be a living hell.

Wouldn't slow starvation also being a living hell if you have a low level of self awareness?


Also, aren't people, just projecting what they would want or what they think is best in this situation? You are giving your opinion on what you would want or what you think, the person in question never leaglly made their wishes known. Everyone from the parents, the husband, the media, the Drs are all giving their opinions but Terri, never offically gave hers. It seems quite odd how hearsay was allowed to dictate what direction her death would take, but normally such testimony wouldn't stand up in court. If a person has not made their wishes legally known, then society should leans towards life, since death is final and can not be turned back.

I tend to agree. She would have been a living mummy for her parents to fawn over. I wonder if the parents were really that hard headed or they just enjoyed the media attention.

Most likely no one will ever know what she would have wanted.

The case has made me give more thought to what I would want should I ever be in the same situation.... I have instructed my family that there is no way I would want to continue living (if you can call it that) under similar circumstances with no hope of enjoying anything resembling a normal life again.

If nothing else, everyone should have a will and make their wishes known in no uncertain terms to all family members.

The vegetative state was never the issue for me.

The media frenzy and fact we should never, ever legislate someone's life is what bothered me.

Water under the bridge at this point.

For ff@#%'s sake. Jeb has no shame.

Even my conservative dad was horrified at this stunt.

My thoughts exactly. No shame whatsoever. I'm guessing he's desperately trying to save some face and in the process just heaping more misery on someone who's had way more than his fair share already.

Why is so horrible to want to investigate a murder? Although the Gov, shouldn’t have to take the case up, the county prosecutor should.

So our legal system (and by extension, our tax dollars) should be at the beck and call of every parent looking to blame their grief on someone and every politician looking to score points with religious fundamentalists? How many times does this have to go to court?

This is about more than one person. This is about the value of human life and the fact that your life, regardless of how YOU value it, it only wortth the value the next person places on it. You can't put a dollar value on that, ohh wait, this America you can, $350 get you an abortion.


Our taxes dollars are wasted on much sillier things, to me this is worthwhile, but I dont live in Florida, so it is nto my money. My tax dollars go to paying of the all the people who spent years on death row from crimes they didnt commit in the state of Illinois.

The fact everyone forgets in this case is that her parents offered to become her legal guardians many times and told him to just divorce her. Her husband wouldn't do it, instead he rather see her die. Sorry I have to question if there was a motive of money.
I am not talking about the court settlement for malpractice but I wonder if there wasn't a hefty life insurance policy.

I feel for these parents. I don't know what I would do in this case. I have 3 daughters and I will be damned if I will pull the plug to end any of their lives as long as there is one doctor in the world giving me hope. I guess that makes me a "loving parent" too.

Meh. We're used to subsidizing this kind of thing here. We get to pay higher insurance rates down in South Florida to subsidize kickbacks for the rest of the state. And I'm not talking just the cities that were hit by last year's storms - I mean the whole state got subsidies.

Suffice it to say, Jeb is pretty low on my political totem pole.

Regardless, this whole media frenzy has me left with a sour taste in my mouth. When they pulled poor Terri's feeding tube for the second time, the local media played day after day after day of "today is Terri's X day without food or water," constantly reminding us of the drama.

I don't feel any of the spin was about someone's right to life or death. It was about ratings and (initially perceived) boosts to political figures, pure and flat-out simple. And that makes me absolutely sick.

Can we please let this poor girl rest in peace and move on with our lives? There are plenty of more pressing issues to nail Jeb, the Florida system, and Dubya for than this.

Eboni,

<<Wouldn't slow starvation also being a living hell if you have a low level of self awareness?>>

It might be, but at least it would be better than existing for years in that state.

Is that your opinion or Terri's? We don't know for sure what her opinion was. you are projecting your feelings onto the issue, not looking at it objectively.

Interesting... that's exactly what my Father said.

Which is why I have put my wishes (not to be kept alive artifically) in writing, had it notorized and have put the decision in the hands of my husband who I know I can trust to pull the plug. If for some reason he won't I've also given my brother the same power. I feel that strongly about not wanting to be kept alive with feeding tubes and respirators and not wanting to be a physical or financial burden on my family.

Has anyone given any consideration to the possibility that maybe Terry felt that strongly as well but just did not have the foresight to put it in writing? I know that my husband would fight for me if someone in my family tried to go against my wishes and keep me alive.

With regard to the money - Michael Schiavo used all of it for Terry's care and to pay for the attorney he had to hire to fight her parents - that has been documented by the courts and the media.

There was a man in Chicago about 10 or more years ago. He walked in with a shot gun and had the Hospital turn off the machines that were keeping his child alive. The girl at 3 (if I remember right) swallowed a balloon and chocked. They put her on machines and she never woke. She was brain dead. More so then even this case. They Doctors would not turn it off. He took them to court and lost every time. He did what he felt he needed to do so his child could finally rest 5 years later. I would do the same for my child.