Should the Feeding Tube be Removed? Share Your Vote and Reasoning.

[lawtonfogle]

Should it be removed. Please tell why you voted. I think no because she is not on life support. She is just like a baby who needs feeding.

 

[russ_watters]

I voted "yes", but you do know it was removed last week, right?

 

[lawtonfogle]

yes i do, maybe it should be 'Was it right that it was removed?'?

 

[matthyaouw]

Whut? I have no idea what you are on about.

 

[lawtonfogle]

why yes? Let's discuss this peacefully

 

[lawtonfogle]

i must leave for a while, let's see what happens :)

 

[kaos]

I ve seen the case on cnn. Her eyes are still moving. Is that a reflex or something?

 

[gnome]

There's already an extensive discussion here:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=67115

 

[russ_watters]

I ve seen the case on cnn. Her eyes are still moving. Is that a reflex or something?

Yes. Your eyes will even track objects without conscious thought.

Its discussed in several other threads, but in short, I voted yes because with no higher brain functions and no hope of ever getting them back (that part of her brain is physically gone), she is, for all intents and purposes, already dead.

 

[Monique]

It makes me sick to the stomach to think they would starve and dehydrate someone to death. There are better ways to handle euthanasia, this is downright barbaric.

 

[Math Is Hard]

I agree with Monique - I just think about her parents having to watch this and how horrific and agonizing it must be for them. If she could be euthanized quickly I would be fine with that, but this long, drawn-out process of her death and the whole media circus and the politics/politicians surrounding it is just such a sad and undignified way for a human being's life to end.

 

[Zantra]

I think she should die, but I agree with Monique. They could use give her a drug and end it quickly. But the same people who don't think she should have her suffering ended, also think that it's wrong to kill someone outright, and instead insist on a painful death through inaction.

Kevorkian, where art thou?

I happen to agree that a person who is in suffering and wants to end their own life, should have the right to.

 

[hypatia]

Funny how we can be so humane to our animals and mass murderers, by giving them injections to kill them..yet make others die of thirst.



ps Kevorkian is still sitting in a Michigan jail.

write a note to Dr Jack

 

[Evo]

Lawtonfogle, is your question whether she should be allowed to die or if there should be a more humane way to do it?

I agree she should be allowed to die, I also wish that euthanasia in a case like this would be allowed.

 

[mapper]

Her starving of food or water is fine way for her to go. You could drop her out of a plane and she wouldn't know wtf is going on.

 

[Monique]

you could drop her out of a plane and she would have no clue, not giving her food or water is good enough.

No respect for life.

 

[mapper]

I didnt mean it like that. I have a high respect for life. I was just saying she does not comprehend anything and wouldn't know the difference or what's happening. According to the doc's and her level of brain deadness. Starving her is more hard on the family then her.

 

[Monique]

I understand, but does suffering of family not count? And really I'm not sure how you determine whether someone can comprehend anything, simply by looking whether they can respond. There are instances where people are sedated with muscle relaxers, but are still contious. Doctors are cutting into them while they experience every little bit but they're left powerless to respond.

I am not all that familiar with the specifics of the case, I've seen footage of her state of being, but I'd be careful about drawing conclusions on suffering and contiousness.

 

[russ_watters]

She has no cerebral cortex. Its pretty clear-cut, medically. All this 'err on the side of life' (from Bush) and 'what if she suffers while she dies' stuff is pretty much moot. She can't possibly suffer: for all intents and purposes, she's already dead.

As far as her family goes, sorry, but its not the family that had the heart attack 15 years ago, its Theresa. How this hurts her family is irrelevant.

 

[Monique]

What I find confronting is that it apparently is legal to neglect someone. What's wrong with giving her an injection?

 

[moose]

she will never be normal...honestly
having her on the feeding tube would just be prolonging nothing...

 

[kaos]

What type of testing is required to determine that she is brain dead?

Just curious.

 

[Danger]

I understand, but does suffering of family not count?

I've been steadfastly ignoring this whole case, so the only facts that I really have are the ones that I read here. I'd offered no opinion because I didn't actually know her mental condition. The way I see it, if her cortex is indeed gone, then the effect on her is irrelevant. She has no knowledge of her condition. Her parents deserve to suffer for being so unforgivably selfish in the matter. It's her own family and friends who are being put through unnecessary pain. Give her a needle and let them get on with their own lives.

 

[meteor]

I don't think that she should be euthanized, because even if her brain is irreparable nowadays, perhaps can be repaired in the future with the medical advances that occur day by day. Who thought a century ago that heart transplants could be made until Barnard did the first some decades ago! Even if she declared that she wanted to die, that was only her state of mind caused by the great suffering that she was enduring. There are many people that pass great sufferings and think that they want to die, but they never commit suicide. Is doubtable that if she really had the methods to end with her life with her own hands, she would really do it

 

[Vega]

Her husband is her next of kin. What about his suffering knowing that his wife has been artificially kept alive all these years when she wouldn't have wanted to be? Once she got married, her parents ceased to have the right to direct her affairs. It's not their business.

 

[Norman]

I voted to let her pass away. She has no hope of getting better in the future. What really drives me crazy is the Federal Government stepping into this personal and family issue. I cannot believe they thought it their duty to pass legislation without any discussion between members. If our federal lawmaking body (congress and the president) can be moved to create laws so quickly and without foresight, how easily can they be swayed to pass more unscrupulus laws. I think this is the real danger in this situation. Thanks be to our forefathers for having the foresight to have the overview of the Supreme Court and the whole notion of checks and balances.

 

[Danger]

quickly and without foresight

I'm not going to partake in what is sure to be the following political discussion. It's not my country, and I don't care for politics. (Copyrighted First Thompson Law of Politics: Anyone who is possessed of the sort of mentality that is needed to run for public office is unfit to hold it.) All I want to state from a Canuk perspective is that, with the exception of some malicious manoeuvring, I have yet to see any evidence of foresight on the part of the current administration.

 

[loseyourname]

What I find confronting is that it apparently is legal to neglect someone. What's wrong with giving her an injection?

It's illegal. Taking someone off of life support is not considered euthanasia. Actively taking the life is.

 

[loseyourname]

I don't think that she should be euthanized, because even if her brain is irreparable nowadays, perhaps can be repaired in the future with the medical advances that occur day by day. Who thought a century ago that heart transplants could be made until Barnard did the first some decades ago!

Her cortex is gone. It's not a matter of repairing it; it's been replaced with spinal fluid. The seat of personality that was Terry Schiavo has been gone for years. All that remains is a body with partial brain function and no self. There is no way to restore that. Even if you transplanted a fully functional brain into her head, it would not be Terry.

Even if she declared that she wanted to die, that was only her state of mind caused by the great suffering that she was enduring.

No, it wasn't. She never endured any great suffering. From what the testimony has said, she made the decision after seeing older family members go through long, drawn out deaths. It's undignified and she didn't want that for herself.

 

[meteor]

Her cortex is gone

Not all, most of it, but not all

There's no evidence that she wanted to die, only the word of her husband, a man that possibly abused of her according to this page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schiavo

Her parents want that she live. Morally I think that the persons that gave her life should have more power when it comes to decide her future

There is no way to restore that

.
In the article of wikipedia you can read that there are disputes about her real state. I don't think that you're a neurologist, so I'd be glad if some expert about brain in PF could give a more professional assessment

 

[Norman]

Not all, most of it, but not all

There's no evidence that she wanted to die, only the word of her husband, a man that possibly abused of her according to this page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schiavo

Their parents want that she live. Morally I think that the persons that gave her life should have more power when it comes to decide her future

Really? You cannot choose your parents, but she chose to marry this man. I, as a soon to be married man, would want my wife making these decisions for me, if this were to ever happen to me. I am going to make a solemn vow (and a legally binding one) to her and I think that carries much more weight (both morally and legally) than simply her parents rights. She is a grown adult and is/was married to this man. I am sure he still loves her and is trying to do what he thinks is best, I hope. I am not a parent so I cannot even comprehend what her parents must be going through, but I think they need to come to terms with the fact that she has been in this state for over 10 years and will not improve, that is a very long time. I just cannot believe that this has become such a national issue. I do understand why everyone seems to have an opinion on the matter though.

 

[Norman]

There's no evidence that she wanted to die, only the word of her husband, a man that possibly abused of her according to this page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schiavo

This is not a correct statement. He has been found innocent of any abuse and the charges were ruled by a court to be baseless. Please read the article you site carefully:

The Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) has begun another investigation of the abuse allegations. Previous investigations have found Schiavo innocent, and the charges baseless. ([9] (http://www.miami.edu/ethics2/schiavo/wolfson%27s%20report.pdf ) PDF Report) The doctors who were the defendants in the 1992 malpractice lawsuit made no attempt to introduce any evidence suggesting that Mrs. Schiavo was battered as part of an affirmative defense to mitigate their responsibility for her cardiac arrest.

 

[Monique]

It's illegal [to give an injection]. Taking someone off of life support is not considered euthanasia. Actively taking the life is.

If you take someone off of life support, you are actively taking life when you know they can't live without it. Take late Christopher Reeve: if they would've stopped feeding him, it would not have been euthanasia?

The way I see it, if her cortex is indeed gone, then the effect on her is irrelevant. She has no knowledge of her condition.

Should we not take into consideration that there might be more going on than meets the eye? The brain is known to move the function of damaged areas to other parts of the brain, theoretically it is possible that in her brain things have taken place that we have no knowledge of. I'm not saying that it did, but think about it.

 

[Danger]

If you take someone off of life support, you are actively taking life when you know they can't live without it. Take late Christopher Reeve: if they would've stopped feeding him, it would not have been euthanasia?

Should we not take into consideration that there might be more going on than meets the eye? The brain is known to move the function of damaged areas to other parts of the brain, theoretically it is possible that in her brain things have taken place that we have no knowledge of. I'm not saying that it did, but think about it.

I'm not a neurophysiologist (as I've mentioned before, I never finished high school), but I did research brain structure and function fairly extensively for my own purposes. The brain certainly does rewire itself for the sake of saving function. (Not in the sense of rearranging neurons; just altering use thereof.) Such function transfer is almost exclusively restricted to the lobe or segment thereof which is normally responsible for the missing activity, and only occurs if the damage is within reasonable limits. If the cortex, which is the seat of consciousness, is destroyed, no other brain structure is capable of taking over its duties. It's the most specialized brain structure of all, and what separates us from the lower animals. You could not, for example, train the reptillian hindbrain to write a novel or do math.
I do really wish that a specialist in this area would jump in.

 

[faust9]

If you take someone off of life support, you are actively taking life when you know they can't live without it. Take late Christopher Reeve: if they would've stopped feeding him, it would not have been euthanasia?

Should we not take into consideration that there might be more going on than meets the eye? The brain is known to move the function of damaged areas to other parts of the brain, theoretically it is possible that in her brain things have taken place that we have no knowledge of. I'm not saying that it did, but think about it.

No one, and I mean no one, has every recovered from a labotomy. There is a difference between this situation where a woman who expresed her wishes to more than her husband is in a position where thought as we know it no longer occurs. She is not the daughter the Schindlers claim she is. She is a tube fed shell with no congative faculties. She has only enough basic functions to keep her heart and lungs and kidneys and liver in working order. Other than that, she is not a person. She looks like a person but she is not. She is a shell. A body and a spinal cord. She did not want to be in this condition(she told friends and relatives this--more than just her husband). She is not her parents daughter anymore--she is her husbands wife. She is a lifeless body who just happens to have a heart beat.

Her eyes open and close. She smiles. She twitches. She moves. She does all of this for no real reason. I urge you to go to a nursing home, hospice, or hospital and spend some time with a person is this condition. They are not alive--they are just heart beats. They are not people anymore(though they look that way)--they are hollow minds.

The difference in your analogy and real life is that Superman could think. He could feel love and pain. He didn't want to die. Superman wanted to live. Terrie Schaivo told people she did not want to be this position; unfortunetly, it has taken 15 years for her famaily to follow through on HER wishes. Her parents want you to think they are right; however, they have been told "you have no say, you are wrong" by the courts 23 times now. Terrie let multiple people know her feelings on being kept alive for no real reason other than to let her parents put off the enevitible--mortality. Terrie's mind died 15 years ago and no matter what theropy we do to her body she is never coming back.

The difference between superman and Terrie is "euthenising" Christopher Reeves would have remove a congative person from society. Letting Terrie go is removing a conscience. That happened 15 years ago.