FL - Terri Schiavo Court Case

[vanillasky]

I can't call it adultery - Terri was dead. Everything that made Terri who she was, everything that made her human was dead. No brain, no memory, no personality, no communication. The scans while she was breathing showed it, the autopsy after she was dead showed it. "Until Death do we part".

I wasn't aware that "Until death do we part" was a vow open to interpretation.

 

[mjak]

As I stated in my earlier post how can be pass judgment at all ???
We can never know, nor should we no the angusih both Terri's husband and parents felt. In my opinion what happened to Terri is not for us to pass judgment on but instaed we should pass our sympathies on to her love ones.
Everyone of is in an individual with unique situations. There is no way for us to ascribe our believes, views or reference frame on to this terrible tragedy and draw any conclusions from it. In my opinion the legal impications of this siatuion should be stuided and written up in the appropriate legal journals and briefs. To be used as learning tools. Other then that the family should be given the privacy they deserved all along. May Terri rest in peace.

mjak

 

[SewingDeb]

As I stated in my earlier post how can be pass judgment at all ???
We can never know, nor should we no the angusih both Terri's husband and parents felt. In my opinion what happened to Terri is not for us to pass judgment on but instaed we should pass our sympathies on to her love ones.
Everyone of is in an individual with unique situations. There is no way for us to ascribe our believes, views or reference frame on to this terrible tragedy and draw any conclusions from it. In my opinion the legal impications of this siatuion should be stuided and written up in the appropriate legal journals and briefs. To be used as learning tools. Other then that the family should be given the privacy they deserved all along. May Terri rest in peace.

mjak

Amen. And living wills should be written now.

 

[Details]

Having said that, I would not want to be kept alive in Terri's condition if there was no hope of recovery. However, my health directive states that under no circumstances should water be withheld to end my life. That's just a barbaric way to go. If you're going to kill me, please do it as quickly and painlessly as possible.

From what I hear, it is supposed to be painless - conscious and aware patients have used it to end their lives - I think you can trust them. With that said - I agree - there should be a way to end someone's life without having to wait for dehydration, with all of the emotional strain on the family that causes. But right now, the courts don't give that option to families or patients. It's sad that you can be more humane to your pet at the end of it's life than you can to a human.

 

[Hbgchick]

From what I hear, it is supposed to be painless - conscious and aware patients have used it to end their lives - I think you can trust them. With that said - I agree - there should be a way to end someone's life without having to wait for dehydration, with all of the emotional strain on the family that causes. But right now, the courts don't give that option to families or patients. It's sad that you can be more humane to your pet at the end of it's life than you can to a human.

Or yourself, for that matter.

 

[BirdieBoo]

From what I hear, it is supposed to be painless - conscious and aware patients have used it to end their lives - I think you can trust them. With that said - I agree - there should be a way to end someone's life without having to wait for dehydration, with all of the emotional strain on the family that causes. But right now, the courts don't give that option to families or patients. It's sad that you can be more humane to your pet at the end of it's life than you can to a human.

Unfortunately, people can't come back and tell us what it's like to die from dehydration. I know I get miserable if I am without water even a short amount of time, a few hours, I usually have a bottle handy. Although I did not agree with the manner of Terri's death and how long the fight went on, and personally I don't care for Michael's personality, apparently no one has found him guilty of anything, so in the spirit of justice, I will go along with that right now. Terri is truly at peace now, and that's all that can happen.

I am personally confused though by the videos that showed her interaction with people, when she was vegitative. Perhaps some explanation that is reasonable to me will take place in the future, but the mysteries of medicine, and the human body and spirit are something I cannot understand for anyone's situation except my own.

 

[Gabby]

No...what I asked was "Would you want to stay in a vegitative state for years upon years, have your poor drooling face that used to be so beautiful plastered all over the news?"

THAT was the question.

Technically, you could argue that there was also this question:

"And if he did [have something to do with her death], why in the world would he stand by her so long?"

Nothing about adultry, or another woman, or anyone's parents.

well excuse me............

 

[Details]

I am personally confused though by the videos that showed her interaction with people, when she was vegitative. Perhaps some explanation that is reasonable to me will take place in the future, but the mysteries of medicine, and the human body and spirit are something I cannot understand for anyone's situation except my own.

I can make a video of the world's smartest goldfish - when I say left, he turns left. When I say right, he turns right. When I say jump up and get some air, he does it. Wanna buy my intelligent goldfish?

OK, well actually I recorded my goldfish for several hours, kept repeating commands which he paid no attention to, then edited the tape down to just the occasions where his random motion happened to agree with my commands - the times he happened to go left when I said left. Maybe, I'm even sincere and honest, I believe that the goldfish is understanding me because I want so badly for it to be true. Still wanna buy my intelligent goldfish?

That's all the videos were - clips from much longer videos where Terri appears to be interacting, responding, out of hours of tape of her doing what PVS people always do, what the brainstem does when there is no brain to make meaningful motions - it just moves things around, blinks automatically, twitches the face into random expressions. When the random expression, when the random eye movement happens to match something the family is saying or doing, it goes into the video, when it doesn't, it's cut out - several hours of video went into that short clip they created. How much her family believed because they so much wanted to believe she was responding is impossible to know - but from the scans from that time and from the autopsy, they know she was blind, and her brain was gone, so she wasn't responding.

The real doctors who examined her, the independent doctors who reported to the judge - they saw her doing these things whether anyone was in the room or not, and no response to any commands, any voices, whether her mother or a random stranger. Terri wasn't really any kind of borderline case - the doctors knew for years before Michael accepted it that she wasn't ever coming back.

 

[Tricia]

Unfortunately, people can't come back and tell us what it's like to die from dehydration. I know I get miserable if I am without water even a short amount of time, a few hours, I usually have a bottle handy. Although I did not agree with the manner of Terri's death and how long the fight went on, and personally I don't care for Michael's personality, apparently no one has found him guilty of anything, so in the spirit of justice, I will go along with that right now. Terri is truly at peace now, and that's all that can happen.

I am personally confused though by the videos that showed her interaction with people, when she was vegitative. Perhaps some explanation that is reasonable to me will take place in the future, but the mysteries of medicine, and the human body and spirit are something I cannot understand for anyone's situation except my own.

BirdieBoo, what you described is what made me think Terri had more than a functioning brain stem. How could someone look at you and smile when you say, I Love You" unless they knew what you were saying was kind? How could someone laugh at a joke like Terri did unless she was somewhat aware.

I learned later that what we saw from the family happened so rarely that the footage was years old. Add to that the information provided by a well respected expert in the field of PVS who said these types of reactions are just reflexes really. According to him these reactions might happen at a time when you do say I love you or you do say something funny. Just basic luck.

What we also didn't see but was finally shown later was the hundreds of times Terri never responded to the ballon, never responded to the voice. In other words, according to the experts, it was the law of averages that played out here. They did it enough times to finally get what looked like a response but was really just a reaction of the brain stem. Making noise and moving the eyes.

As far as the dying I sure as hell wouldn't want to die of dehydration. I do remember reading about the I.R.A. prisoners who refused food and water as a protest. They all died peacefully, without pain, and were very calm. The pain came in the first day or two. After that it was, if I remember correctly, very peaceful and pain free. They were still talking right up until almost the end. Very valuable research information. One heck of a way to get it though.

 

[Tricia]

I would like to add that I was very open to either side of this. I really read up on it and researched it. I flat out didn't know what to think. It was only after the research and before the autopsy I might add, that I came to my conclusions.

I am certainly willing to rethink this situation if any new information is made available.

 

[Norma]

From what I understand, the video's were made many years ago. She was nothing close to those the last year of her life.

 

[BirdieBoo]

I can make a video of the world's smartest goldfish - when I say left, he turns left. When I say right, he turns right. When I say jump up and get some air, he does it. Wanna buy my intelligent goldfish?

OK, well actually I recorded my goldfish for several hours, kept repeating commands which he paid no attention to, then edited the tape down to just the occasions where his random motion happened to agree with my commands - the times he happened to go left when I said left. Maybe, I'm even sincere and honest, I believe that the goldfish is understanding me because I want so badly for it to be true. Still wanna buy my intelligent goldfish?

That's all the videos were - clips from much longer videos where Terri appears to be interacting, responding, out of hours of tape of her doing what PVS people always do, what the brainstem does when there is no brain to make meaningful motions - it just moves things around, blinks automatically, twitches the face into random expressions. When the random expression, when the random eye movement happens to match something the family is saying or doing, it goes into the video, when it doesn't, it's cut out - several hours of video went into that short clip they created. How much her family believed because they so much wanted to believe she was responding is impossible to know - but from the scans from that time and from the autopsy, they know she was blind, and her brain was gone, so she wasn't responding.

The real doctors who examined her, the independent doctors who reported to the judge - they saw her doing these things whether anyone was in the room or not, and no response to any commands, any voices, whether her mother or a random stranger. Terri wasn't really any kind of borderline case - the doctors knew for years before Michael accepted it that she wasn't ever coming back.

I don't think the videos were edited from hours and hours, I do know a bit about videotape editing here and there, It's hard to edit videotape and motion action of someone's face without seeing cuts. Actually it's pretty near impossible, even with today's state of the art equipment. I believe as Tricia and Pook said that they were older videotapes. That makes quite a bit of sense to me.

 

[Hbgchick]

I would like to add that I was very open to either side of this. I really read up on it and researched it. I flat out didn't know what to think. It was only after the research and before the autopsy I might add, that I came to my conclusions.

I am certainly willing to rethink this situation if any new information is made available.

Boy Tricia, are we ever on the same page. I did not come into this with any opinion whatsoever either...in fact if I was leaning any direction I was hoping it was true that she was indeed interacting and if she was, I was wondering why anyone would want to take her off of the life support. But then, I learned the facts, and formed my opinion based on them. Like you, if someone would come up with new information I would be glad to consider it, but IMO the autopsy report sealed it for me, I don't know how you can refute that. It also proves how very delusioned her parents were, when clear, conclusive proof is presented to them they still say it is fabricated. Very sad, if you ask me.

I actually brought this case up to my mother, she's having a little trouble coming to terms with the fact that my step-dad really does have dementia and it's not going away, and in a conversation NOT about Dad I mentioned how sad it was that the people who loved Terri Schiavo so much caused all of this heartache for everyone simply because they loved her TOO much and were not willing to accept that they were loosing her. I told my mom that if they had just taken it in small doses, in stages, realizing over time that she was really gone, it would have been much easier on all of them. My mom's pretty intellegent, and said right away "that's what I'm doing, isn't it?" She had a good, cathartic cry then and felt much better. Sorry about the personal info, but it does make me so sad - and a little angry really - that those parents STILL won't let Terri go, how is that helping anyone?!?!?

 

[englishleigh]

I have no interest in anything Michael Shiavo has to say.

Me, either.

 

[Details]

I don't think the videos were edited from hours and hours, I do know a bit about videotape editing here and there, It's hard to edit videotape and motion action of someone's face without seeing cuts. Actually it's pretty near impossible, even with today's state of the art equipment. I believe as Tricia and Pook said that they were older videotapes. That makes quite a bit of sense to me.

No, from what I recall, there was no debate from the family that they took a much longer videotape and cut it down. I'm not saying that they did a complete chop job - no interscene cuts, no trading faces or whatever - just pulled out the times when she seemed to be responding out of all the times when she had no response at all, or an incorrect response.

Of course, the family portrays it as pulling out clips of Terri's good moments because they want to believe that she understood them and was responding.

The videos are not real, from the simple fact that they claim to show Terri following a balloon with her eyes - and Terri was blind. But if you talk with a blind person long enough, they will sometimes seem to be watching, following something, just through random eye motion. But a video of those times doesn't prove they aren't blind.

 

[Details]

I actually brought this case up to my mother, she's having a little trouble coming to terms with the fact that my step-dad really does have dementia and it's not going away, and in a conversation NOT about Dad I mentioned how sad it was that the people who loved Terri Schiavo so much caused all of this heartache for everyone simply because they loved her TOO much and were not willing to accept that they were loosing her. I told my mom that if they had just taken it in small doses, in stages, realizing over time that she was really gone, it would have been much easier on all of them. My mom's pretty intellegent, and said right away "that's what I'm doing, isn't it?" She had a good, cathartic cry then and felt much better. Sorry about the personal info, but it does make me so sad - and a little angry really - that those parents STILL won't let Terri go, how is that helping anyone?!?!?

This case, and all of the times like it have lead me to one conclusion - family members should not be asked to make this decision. It's a medical decision, and a lousy thing to do to desperate and non-medical people who just don't understand medicine enough to make the decision, are too emotionally impacted to make the right choice. I'd make it, if I had to - but it shouldn't be required of someone to choose whether or not it is time to end the pain, end the hope, and discontinue life support. It should be something where the family members tell the doctors what the person's general wishes were - what kind of life she'd want to have, would not accept - then a group of doctors make the call - and when the case is hopeless, pull the plug. While I'm very anti-Bush, in that sense, his Texas law about discontinuing medical treatment on hopeless cases - I think it's a good idea. I think that's the right thing to do, and helps family members who just can't let go on their own.

 

[Hbgchick]

This case, and all of the times like it have lead me to one conclusion - family members should not be asked to make this decision. It's a medical decision, and a lousy thing to do to desperate and non-medical people who just don't understand medicine enough to make the decision, are too emotionally impacted to make the right choice. I'd make it, if I had to - but it shouldn't be required of someone to choose whether or not it is time to end the pain, end the hope, and discontinue life support. It should be something where the family members tell the doctors what the person's general wishes were - what kind of life she'd want to have, would not accept - then a group of doctors make the call - and when the case is hopeless, pull the plug. While I'm very anti-Bush, in that sense, his Texas law about discontinuing medical treatment on hopeless cases - I think it's a good idea. I think that's the right thing to do, and helps family members who just can't let go on their own.

Excellent point, Details. I would not like to have to make it either...even though you may know it's the right thing and the right time, there would still always be that "but, what if....?" question that would probably hang over the decision-maker forever. However, there is the possibilty with that scenario where one doctor says yes, one says no. Then what? Back to the drawing board until they are unanamous I guess? I really think it's up to the individual, and that each individual should have in writing EXACTLY what their wishes are, and that the family members and doctors work together to fufill those wishes.

 

[BirdieBoo]

No, from what I recall, there was no debate from the family that they took a much longer videotape and cut it down. I'm not saying that they did a complete chop job - no interscene cuts, no trading faces or whatever - just pulled out the times when she seemed to be responding out of all the times when she had no response at all, or an incorrect response.

Of course, the family portrays it as pulling out clips of Terri's good moments because they want to believe that she understood them and was responding.

The videos are not real, from the simple fact that they claim to show Terri following a balloon with her eyes - and Terri was blind. But if you talk with a blind person long enough, they will sometimes seem to be watching, following something, just through random eye motion. But a video of those times doesn't prove they aren't blind.

No, I understand that they were video clips, I don't believe that the family took a video camera in for twenty seconds a few times and all that stuff just happened to happen during those 20 second time frames. But I also don't believe that is the same as what you were suggesting with the "world's smartest goldfish" analogy, I'm not sure if your intent was to be condescending with that analogy, I don't think it is exactly the same thing. Taking "clips" out of videos is not the same as editing together video "clips" with the intent of deception.

Much the same when exciting sports highlights are shown during a newscast, the great plays are shown but no one shows the parts where nothing is happening and the fans are in line to use the restroom at the game, and they certainly do not edit together video to make it appear as if a great play that did not happen, actually did.

 

[Details]

No, I understand that they were video clips, I don't believe that the family took a video camera in for twenty seconds a few times and all that stuff just happened to happen during those 20 second time frames. But I also don't believe that is the same as what you were suggesting with the "world's smartest goldfish" analogy, I'm not sure if your intent was to be condescending with that analogy, I don't think it is exactly the same thing. Taking "clips" out of videos is not the same as editing together video "clips" with the intent of deception.

Much the same when exciting sports highlights are shown during a newscast, the great plays are shown but no one shows the parts where nothing is happening and the fans are in line to use the restroom at the game, and they certainly do not edit together video to make it appear as if a great play that did not happen, actually did.

We've got some real misunderstanding here - I'm not suggesting the family took a video camera in for 20 seconds and all this, nor that they did any editing tricks to create things that did not happen (you don't have to do that for the goldfish, after all).

They took a video camera, and videotaped several hours of them trying to get Terri to interact, talking to her, mom saying I love you, etc. Then, just like your sports highlights or my goldfish, they included every time Terri appeared to respond to what was being said or what was going on. They didn't include the times her mom said I love you, and Terri didn't respond at all, the times the balloon was not tracked in any way by Terri, etc.

It's the exact same thing as the goldfish - and it doesn't mean there was intentional deception (although I've got no doubt that they did use some deception other times, there were several blatant lies about what Terri did - which I'm sure they thought were justified - who wouldn't resort to deception and lies to save their daughter's life?). I can believe the goldfish understands me when I create the tape, and just pull out the examples proving it, while thinking that the goldfish either was sleeping, or just too tired to follow my commands the times he did not. The goldfish analogy isn't meant to be condescending, it is just a useful way of describing the same sort of misleading videotape creation. Maybe I've been told the goldfish is a reincarnation of my beloved father; maybe I've got some charlatan telling me the goldfish is trained and I believe it, and want to prove it to all the doubters.

I don't know what Terri's family thought. I think they believed it was real, and they were taking Terri's good moments to prove she was really in there; but they could have also known she wasn't really responding, but put together the tape to gain time to save her life. I don't see bad motives on their part - just either delusion or false hope. It's so easy to see what you want to be there, to take random actions (like when all the stoplights are red when you are in a hurry) as intentional.

 

[Details]

Excellent point, Details. I would not like to have to make it either...even though you may know it's the right thing and the right time, there would still always be that "but, what if....?" question that would probably hang over the decision-maker forever. However, there is the possibilty with that scenario where one doctor says yes, one says no. Then what? Back to the drawing board until they are unanamous I guess? I really think it's up to the individual, and that each individual should have in writing EXACTLY what their wishes are, and that the family members and doctors work together to fufill those wishes.

That's good, but there are always edge conditions. And young healthy people will always not think about these things, and fail to have living wills. In a living will, there is always a decision maker, because the person writing the living will is also not a doctor, and also doesn't know everything about the conditions and treatments - let alone what new treatments might come along in the decades before the living will is required. The real question is what are you willing to live with, when do you want to quit, and that's a very difficult intention to get down in writing precisely. I've had this conversation, and there are just so many odd cases; if you are probably going to die, but there's a 0.00000001% chance of a full recovery - but if we don't pull the plug now, it won't be possible to pull it later; or you probably won't die, but will be brain dead; or you will have the intelligence of a moron and no memories; or you will have significant brain damage, and will live in constant pain in a hospital room; etc. There are too many cases to enumerate every possibility, and with every single case, there are the probabilities - how likely is each outcome, what percentage chance of a mediocre outcome is worth trying for, etc. I hope I have enough of a feel for what my step-mom wants to execute her wishes if the time ever comes, but somehow, as much as we have discussed this, I don't really think it'll be something we discussed that is what really happens.

The law changes, medicine changes - it's just never going to be as simple as writing down what you want so your family doesn't have any decisions. I think a group of at least 3 doctors who know the case and work in the correct area of medicine, and let's say a 3/4 majority must agree - if it's 50/50, don't do it. Could even go to 90%, or higher. It needs to be managable, but not so easy that too many mistakes are made.