A different viewpoint on the Terri Schiavo case...

[Cicero]

Although the language used is somewhat inflammatory, I found the following opinion piece interesting:

http://www.thecrimson.com/today/article506716.html

Excerpt:

The reason for this public support of removal from ordinary sustenance, I believe, is not that most people understand or care about Terri Schiavo. Like many others with disabilities, I believe that the American public, to one degree or another, holds that disabled people are better off dead. To put it in a simpler way, many Americans are bigots. A close examination of the facts of the Schiavo case reveals not a case of difficult decisions but a basic test of this country’s decency.

How do the rest of you take this? Personally, I cannot help think the author might be blinded a bit by the massive chip on his shoulder, but some of the points he raised got me to thinking, to say the least.

Later,

[BlueEyedSon]

1. Oh, please.. the "disabled rights" side of this has been beaten to death.

A persistent vegetative state is not "disabled."

[RobertSeattle]

2. Agreed

I don't think anyone referred to her as "disabled" until it became a RW talking point in the past 2 weeks.

[Spazito]

3. Seeing as the Schiavo case is NOT a disabilities issue

his premise is wrong from the beginning and is crap, imo.

[fertilizeonarbusto]

4. Big pile of politically-correct crap

I had read that one also. She's not disabled, she's brain-dead. There is nothing she can do to help herself or make her life better, as a person put in a wheelchair by an accident or blinded by a disease can. In fact she doesn't even have a mind to think positively about her plight. I wonder if the person who wrote that would be willing to trade places with her.

[BlueEyedSon]

5. Exactly: politically correct and factually WRONG.

You'd think at HARVARD, they would know better.

[Gunit_Sangh]

6. Harvard know better?

Didn't they allow * to graduate?

[Warpy]

8. They do. This joker's just looking for a new gimmick

which is his right. However, I'll contrast that with the view of the gastrostomy tube's inventor, who admits the Schiavo case is an example of how his invention has been misused.

It was never meant to keep the bodies of the dead technically alive for decades.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

7. Total complete and utter bullshit.

[onenote]

9. i might agree with one thing the author said

I tend to agree that most people don't really "understand" or "care" about Terri Schiavo. What they do understand and care about is their own situation -- and millions of people have been directly or indirectly involved in situations where a decision had to be made whether to continue or initiate medical treatment (including feeding tubes) to prolong a loved one's life. For most of these people, even in the most extreme fact situations, it is an intensely difficult and personal decision. At some level you wrestle with the issue of whether you are playing "God" if you prolong the person's life with extraordinary measures or whether you are playing "God" if you don't. Many people consult with doctors, friends, clergy, family members, but in the end it is, as stated, a personal decision. For millions who have dealt with this difficult moment, or who anticipate the day when they may have to, the notion that third parties and even the government might second guess your decision is intolerable. The suggestion that people who support keeping Terri Schiavo alive subscribe to the "Culture of LIfe" carries with it the suggestion that those who have made the decision not to prolong someone's life adhere to some other culture -- a culture of death. The labelling of those who oppose the intervention of the government, or even of Terri's parents -- as murderers, barbarians, etc. is a direct attack on millions of decent caring people who have made a difficult choice and should face the judgment of those who are not in their shoes.

So I agree, its not that people necessarily care about Terri -- they care about themselves and what the attacks on Michael Schiavo could portend for any one of us in the future.

onenote

[Inland]

10. Here's the only way that TS is relevant to the handicapped

who are NOT brain dead: when they polled on whether TS should be kept on the feeding tube, they put in the assumption that her parents would pay for it.

Certainly, a lot of conservatives see rights as determined by who pays.

Therefore the issue isn't whether many Americans think the disabled are better off dead. The issue is whether many Americans think that they are better off with other Americans off the books, so to speak. The disabled shouldn't be scared that the liberals are going to kill them. They ashould be scared that nobody is going to have to, because the conservatives will deny them health care.

[BurtWorm]

11. Someone with a disability was just telling me his issue is with

the removal of the tube. He even said he himself would have his own feeding tube removed if he came to that end. But he thinks it's a "cruel and unusual" way to treat a human being to presume to do it to her. At the same time, he recognizes that the Schindlers have been telling whoppers, that the Republicans stepped in a big pile of doo, and that the courts have behaved in perfectly good faith. But he says he is outraged that Terri Schaivo is being allowed to starve--something people wouldn't do to a dog, he said--because in her state she is valued less than a dog.

I report. You decide.

(I decide that I disagree with my friend with a disability. I have to admit his arguments gave me pause, but I believe the doctors who say hunger and thirst cause her no pain. And I always come back to the astonishing fact that only Jerry Falwell, that I've heard of so far, wants to be kept in PVS indefinitely.)

[onenote]

17. the "dog" analogy just doesn't cut it

If a dog suffered a catastrophic brain injury similar to that suffered by Terri Schiavo, it would be permissible to put the dog to sleep with a lethal injection. It is not permissible to do that to a human in most parts of the United States. Does that mean we value human life less than a dog's or more?

onenote

[BurtWorm]

18. That's a damn good point.

And an excellent question.

[onenote]

21. and another thing - you can shoot a dog under florida law

A lot of states don't allow this and even in Florida, stray dogs and cats can be euthanized only be lethal injection (and hey, you can euthanize a dog or a cat even if it isn't sick and doesn't want to die...). However, a domestic animal with an incurable disease can be "destroyed" by being shot,either by a game warden or the animal's owner.

So once again...do people really think that the law gives Terri Schiavo less protection than it gives a dog?

onenote

[salin]

20. The quasi fundie teen daugther of a friend today

rather surprised me with her quick take on things...
that she thought it was a horrible way to die...
and that she thoughtit was horrible way for her to continue living...
then this product of a rr fundie church says...

Isn't there just a pill or something that she could take that would bring the end without the pain and suffering?

I pointed out that she was describing Euthanasia which is illegal - and a complicated issue - especially because of the disability angle. That was another conversation...

I just wanted to share that even a youngster in a fundie church that espouses "culture of life" themes - does not see this as Falwell et al would like it to be seen.

Per Falwell's 'keep me in a permanent vegitative state' comment - it is ironic, isn't it. Though I don't know that it is much different than those who want to be kept "on ice" (cybergenics is it?) to be "woken up later"... "when there is a cure..." for whatever it was that ended their life.

[goodhue]

12. Feeding tube is not ordinary sustenance

Feeding tube is not ordinary sustenance but rather life support.
This is not a case of disability rights but rather a terminal patient's right to remove life support as exercised by guardian.

[Malva Zebrina]

13. placing a brain dead woman in the same class as the disabled

and insisting that she be classified as such, is pure intellectual dishonesty. Apparently, either we have a large group of people whose reading comprehension has never fully developed past the fourth grade, or are so tied into their right winged religious beliefs that they deem any amount of dishonesty is acceptable in order to push those beliefs on others.

Picture those wounded vets arriving from Iraq. Picture them with the prosthesis on one or more of their stumps that used to be a leg or used to be an arm. Picture some whose eyesight is gone, who cannot hear, who are paraplegics and then tell me that a brain dead woman whose brain has long turned to spinal fluid,who cannot think, cannot feel, cannot ever function and who has been for all intents and purposes, dead for fifteen years is in the same catagory.

No one thinks that disabled people are better off dead and no one thinks that they need to be killed because they are disabled.
The problem here is the utter attempt by people to confuse Schiavo with those who are commonly called disabled and that is just a deceit.

[morcatknits]

15. Terri Schiavo is not disabled

She is neurologically devastated. I heard one person say that all she needed is "one of those motorized wheel chairs," and it made me want to vomit. This has nothing to do with disability, which presumes that some abilities remain.

In my work, I read a lot of medical records, and I'm appalled at the amount of money the public spends on people for whom there isn't the faintest glimmer of hope. I say, do everything for comfort and good basic care, but when it comes to the neurologically devastated, especially those who have been in that state long-term, don't do more. My daughter was recently involved in the care of an ancephalic infant, kept "alive" on the ventilator, with no brain function other than brainstem impulses. The care cost the public millions, when all knew that the result was inevitable. We ignore children who could have a bright future with some help, all the while giving endless "therapies" to those with no level of consciousness who will never do more than occasionally open their eyes, if that much. Wish we'd open ours!
morcatknits

[Lugnut]

14. I'm disabled

Terri Schiavo isn't. Apples and oranges.

[peacetalksforall]

16. The majority of the American people recognize that there is no single

perfect answer for life support.

Just so those who care also care about the death penalty and sending kids to fight for corporations. I wonder how many tube and life support stories are coming out of our military hospitals in Germany and Maryland and all our VA hospitals?

[rocktivity]

19. Terri is neither "disabled" or "incapacitated." She's BRAIN DEAD.

Her widower husband is simply trying allow for the death of her body--as is his legal right.

It's funny how the "disabled rights" stuff surfaced in the MSM right after Terri's parents lost their last legal challenges (no Dems to kick around?). By the way, did this guy complain when Baby Sun Hudson died?

:headbang:
rocknation