The only thing that bugs me is that it’s not like she’s hooked up to a respirator. It’s a feeding tube. Pulling the plug just means that she’ll die by slowly wasting away in agony. And yes, there are people who say she can feel no pain, but there are those who say she can. If you’re going to decide to kill her, why not give her a lethal injection and be done with it rather than starving her to death?
The doctors who claim that she can still feel are those that haven’t yet examined Ms. Shiavo. Of all the doctors who have personally given her an examination, the unanimous opinion is that her mind had degraded to the point where she can no longer feel any more. The fact that she hasn’t shown any signs of pain after 9 days of no food or water is a sign of that. Thus, it seems pretty clear that no agony is involved.
And if we used some sort of lethal injection, then we’re executing her. All of the people who wish for her to be kept “alive” would have far more to argue about if we were simply going to execute her. As it is, we’re letting her go naturally. It’s not really happy, but there just isn’t a more humane way to do it legally.
They should just let her die.Her so called responses to her parents hugging her, is just her gurgling because of motion.They are keeping her hydrated making her slowly drown in her own fluids.They should juust let her die.
God is indifferent. Life and death are the ebb and flow of his perfect universe.
It doesn’t matter whether she “lives” or dies, it has no bearing or consequence on anything whatsoever. My philosophy class had a discussion on this topic last thursday. It was the most pointless 75 minute moral-waving contest I’ve ever witnessed in my life.
Bottom line, we’re not responsible for her state of being.
Hades is right. We have no say on this matter. It’s between the family, not the entire nation.
It’s not even really between her family. She died 15 years ago. She’s been “living” on borrowed time ever since. It’s a fate thing. She’ll go when she goes. What we do or think or decide is completely irrelevant. It was in God’s hands from the beginning. We can’t be held responsible for moral groping. We’re neither killing nor saving her.
When my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he explicitly stated in writing that he was not to be hooked up to a tube, that he was to be allowed to die naturally and not have his life artificially maintained. I was perhaps 12 at the time, and I understood his reasoning. After thinking it over more, I also came to the conclusion that if such a thing were to occur, I would be in favor of letting him die instead of keeping only his body alive.
You can pretty much see my stance on this.
The problem I have with cases like these is the fact that it has to become so blown up. There are many other “vegetables” out there, but are any of them receiving such undue attention? I think not. It’s like the case of the little boy from Cuba whose mother tried to take him with her when she escaped to America and the father was demanding his return. The thing became so blown up I was literally sick of hearing about it. My real grief, though, is that this sort of thing brings out the hypocrite in so many “pro-life” people it’s sickening. People I knew personally were agonizing over the fate of this boy that they didn’t know for no reason except because it was on national television. I threw two of my friends, good friends, out of my home and told them not to come back until they had either stopped bullshitting this sympathy or had gone and done volunteer work in the Middle East. It pisses me off that these people who would normally not lift a finger to help the impaired act charitable and concerned because the person (if the term can be used) they are “helping” is the subject of an international debate and being nice to him (or her) might get attention.
Sorry for the rant. Just had to be said, really.
angsty: she was being fed through a tube because she couldn’t feed herself; you’re making it sound like she was on life support. But Cid already said that. Damn you Cid, being smart n’all!
Kaiser: You are evil. And for that, we will always love you.
Nessie: The quality of life argument is a slippery-slope, something conservatives have never been fond of standing on. At what point are you a hedonist letting someone die because life couldn’t possibly be fun for them? Obviously this doesn’t apply to the Schiavo case, but it’s something to think about.
And I’m not one to give a shit about wether God wants me to die or not. If he’s in any position to care, He knows that he gave me instincts that tell me to survive unless my death accomplishes something worth that much. So fuck Him if he wants me dead. Gimme that feeding tube! I was on one when I was three months old; I can deal with another one any day of the week.
And the moral of this week’s story is: It’s never too early to sign a Do Not Reuscitate order! See ya next week, kiddles!
I say she needs to die. We need something else on the news here, considering THAT’S ALL THAT’S BEEN ON THE NEWS FOR THE LAST FEW YEARS IN FLORIDA.
They are arguing wheather or not to remove the FEEDING tube.Why are her parents arguing wheather or not to keep her fed, when they did not help her with her ANEREXIA when she was conscience and not completeley hopeless?Ifthey had none of this would ever have happened.
What sickens me is that she’s all over the news. She’s one person, who died years ago. I mean
WHO
REALLY
CARES?
What about the dozens of children who die in school shootings? The hundreds of soldiers who die in pointless wars? The hundreds more civilians who are made victims of those wars? The thousands of people who die every year to hunger and disease? All of those could be prevented, we (our countries) have the power to step in and help these people, yet they sit there and do nothing. Why? To concentrate on one dead lady? To follow our own selfish desires?
My biggest question: When will we (mankind) ever learn compassion for each other? When will we learn to stop hating, and start helping? If the media spent even a fraction of the effort they spend on Schiavo on places like Rwanda, Iraq, Ethopia, or countless other places…
I’m somewhat religioius so to me keeping someone alive with a feeding tube or life support who would otherwise be dead just traps their soul. There is a fate worse than death. Congress should of stayed out of it, but what’s done is done. She is dieing now and hopefully she’ll be at peace.
If the media spent even a fraction of the effort they spend on Schiavo on places like Rwanda, <b>Iraq</b>, Ethopia, or countless other places…
The media has spent literally about 50 times longer on Iraq than on Schiavo. It has been nothing but Iraq since Bush invaded. Turn CNN on any day of the week, and unless the President’s plane crashed in Cuba, you’ll probably be swamped with some nameless soldier’s retarded carbon copy report of “how bad it is” “over there” or something. Or even worse, more conflict on the Gaza strip or some shit. I think the entire world just wants to tell the middle east to collectively shut the fuck up for a few years. I mean fuck. Instead of car-bombing the shit out of each other over land (which humans aren’t capable of really posessing anyway) that doesn’t even fucking MATTER, why can’t you just organize flower-planting campaigns and sell each other unpoisoned lemonade? Or camel-spiderade since that’s the only thing your barren, decrepit fucking land (for which you kill each other with hand-me-down AK-47s) has anyway. No wonder they’re still living in the pre-dark ages.
Don’t get me wrong, the Schiavo issue isn’t any better, but shitty news reporting won’t be repaired by placing new issues we’re sick of with old issues we’re even more sick of. If the news could convince wealthy people to fix the world’s problems, the world wouldn’t have any problems. Like an insightful man once said, America spent more money watching the Scooby Doo movie than they spent aiding tsunami victims in Indonnesia.
let her go…
On a somewhat related note, I find it extremely ironic that all of these Republicans are intervening since if I remember correctly, Republican policy is all for leaving family dicussions to the family alone and whatnot.
A commentator on Hardball the other night said that the Republican policy is to keep decisions like these <I>away</I> from the federal government… unless, of course, they’re in charge of the federal government.
Because God told them so. Or, rather, over long periods of time, strange men hear voices in their heads, and they tell other people about them, and the ones that don’t get killed because of it become icons of movements that detach themselves from their original source material within a generation or two and become power-seeking movements with religious facades guided by secular purposes.
So I guess it’s over… I only heard that miss Shiavo passed away, what did the family and their good friend George W. say?
I want to hug you like a 5 yr old girl hugs a new teddy bear.
Yup. It’s over.
Rest in peace, Terri.