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I think Euthanasia should be legal... Without a doubt... We can put our pets to sleep because we don't want them to suffer, but we can't do the same for a family member? What's up with that?
I think anyone who has ever had a loved one suffer from altzeimers would agree that they would have dealt with it better if the person could have gone peacefully and without suffering...
Well there were many threads about Terri (RIP) but I chose to drag this one up. I just read an interesting account of her autopsy. Perhaps it wasn't murder in the sense of her mind and chances of recovery.Quote:
We might have to hear about the autopsy and the battle over her remains
Her autopsy was made public Weds. This article is heavily slanted liberal but the facts remain. It is VERY interesting that her collapse being attributed to an eating disorder is most likely false. But at the same time, there is no evidence of pre-collapse trauma. More from the text and the source along with my highlights:Quote:
The autopsy found no evidence to support her family's accusations that she suffered broken bones or other injuries as a result of abuse, and also cast doubt on allegations that an eating disorder contributed to her 1990 collapse.
The extensive examination of Schiavo's body found that her brain weighed only about half of what a healthy human brain would, Pinellas County medical examiner Jon Thogmartin, said at a news conference.
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LARGO, Fla. (Reuters) - Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman who died in March after a fierce right-to-die battle that involved the U.S. Congress, was severely brain damaged and had no hope of recovery, said a medical examiner who made the results of an autopsy public on Wednesday.
The autopsy found no evidence to support her family's accusations that she suffered broken bones or other injuries as a result of abuse, and also cast doubt on allegations that an eating disorder contributed to her 1990 collapse.
The extensive examination of Schiavo's body found that her brain weighed only about half of what a healthy human brain would, Pinellas County medical examiner Jon Thogmartin, said at a news conference.
"Her brain was profoundly atrophied," he said. "This damage was irreversible."
Schiavo, who suffered a cardiac arrest in 1990 that deprived her brain of oxygen, died at a Florida hospice on March 31, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed by court order. She was 41.
She had been in what courts ruled was a "persistent vegetative state," which means she was unable to think, feel, or interact with her environment since her collapse 15 years previously.
The courts sided with her husband and legal guardian, Michael Schiavo, in ruling she would not have wanted to live like that. But her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, said she responded to them and could recover with treatment.
The Schindlers waged a seven-year legal battle to keep her alive, a cause that rallied the Christian right and prompted President Bush and the Republican-led Congress to rush through legislation giving the federal courts jurisdiction to intervene in what is normally a matter left to state courts.
Those courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, declined to order the feeding tube be reinserted.
The autopsy found that her brain was so severely damaged that no amount of therapy would have helped to regenerate it. Schiavo's parents had repeatedly said their daughter was responsive to them and could have been helped with therapy.
"She would not have been able to form any cognitive thought," said Dr. Stephen Nelson, a forensic pathologist who assisted in the autopsy. "There was a massive loss of brain tissue."
Thogmartin said Schiavo died of dehydration and did not starve to death. Supporters of Schiavo's parents had loudly complained she was being starved to death when the courts allowed the feeding tube to be removed.
DOUBT CAST ON EATING DISORDER
The medical examiner also said the autopsy cast doubt on claims that Schiavo had suffered from an eating disorder.
She was found to have low potassium levels when she was admitted to a hospital following her collapse, leading to suspicions that she suffered from bulimia. But the medical examiner said the emergency treatment Schiavo received could have affected her potassium levels.
"The original diagnosis of bulimia nervosa is suspect," Thogmartin said.
Schiavo's relatives had said she may have been abused, citing a bone scan that purportedly found broken bones. But the autopsy found that any fractures could be attributed to severe osteoporosis Schiavo suffered during the years after her collapse.
Answering another question that had been raised by her parents' supporters, Thogmartin said Schiavo could not have swallowed if she had been fed by mouth and would have choked.
"Mrs. Schiavo was dependent on nutrition and hydration by her feeding tube and removal of her feeding tube would have resulted in her death, whether she was fed and hydrated by mouth or not," he said.
The autopsy also found no evidence to support allegations that Schiavo had been given poison by her husband or that she had been mysteriously injected with something during or after a visit by her parents to the hospice where she was being cared for.
"No drugs or other substances given to Mrs. Schiavo caused her to die or accelerated the dying process," he said.
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Yahoo
Her brain didn't get oxygen for over an hour back in 1990; Shiavo died in 1990 - a discussion about whether she was "murdered" or not in 2005 seems kinda pointless...
Her parents last name is "Schindler"... aka schindler's list... hmm..
She had been dead for a very long time, at least...her humanity was. Persistant vegitative state may not be dead, but it sure isn't living. More so, she is in a state of undeath if anything.
They can't legally use anything to accelerate death because that is considered assisted suicide or euthenasia--which is illegal. Terry felt no pain because she was not sentient, but morphine is an added security just in case.
People claim that potatos look like Elvis. People say talking to their plants helps them grow, or that a picture can look sad. The picture feels no sadness, but your observation of it gives *you* the impression of sadness. Two different things completely.
It's easy to apply human qualities to things that are not, especially something as subjective and abstract as emotion. The medical experets examined her and gave a conclusion that she was in fact, no longer sentient.
Her husband stood by her for an incredibly long time under a massively difficult circumstance. In fact, many many times more than her parents did. It is only their parental/maternal instincts that refuse to let her die. The man has done more for his wife than many could ever hope to for their own spouse. Let the man move on with LIFE in peace.
Full article here.Quote:
TALLAHASSEE, Fla., July 7 (AP) - A state attorney has found no evidence that Terri Schiavo's collapse 15 years ago involved criminal activity, and Gov. Jeb Bush on Thursday declared an end to Florida's involvement in the matter.
"Based on your conclusions, I will follow your recommendation that the inquiry by the state be closed," Mr. Bush said in a two-sentence letter to the prosecutor, Bernie McCabe of Pinellas and Pasco Counties.
In asking Mr. McCabe to look again into what had caused Ms. Schiavo's persistent vegetative state, the governor had cited what some saw as a gap between the time her husband, Michael, found her and the time he called 911. Mr. Bush had said the issue remained unsettled.
But in a report dated June 30, though not released until Thursday, Mr. McCabe said that while such discrepancies might exist in the record, Mr. Schiavo's statements that he called 911 immediately had been consistent.
"This consistency, coupled with the varying recollections of the precise time offered by other interested parties, lead me to the conclusion that such discrepancies are not indicative of criminal activity and thus not material to any potential investigation," Mr. McCabe wrote the governor in a letter accompanying his report.
I hope that people will leave this poor man alone now. He did what she wanted, he didn't cause her collapse, and now he should be left alone to carry on with his life and leave this tragic mess behind him.