Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 03/29/05 9:21 am:

Societies that starve the disabled are not civilized.

Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 03/29/05 9:30 am:
to further bolster Elliot's argument that this issue has divided both sides of the American political spectrum Jesse Jackson spoke out yesterday about the issue. according to NewsMax :Rev. Jesse Jackson has broken with his fellow Democrats to blast what he said was the "violent" execution of Terri Schiavo, calling it "a great moral and ethical crisis that we should address."

Appearing on MSNBC's "Scarborough Country" Monday night, Jackson said the mistreatment of Schiavo is "worse - more violent and wrong than the convicted's executions."

This woman's being starved and dehydrated to death," he complained. "Eleven days - no food and no water. This is not right."

"She is not brain dead," noted the man regarded by many as the Democratic Party's conscience. "She is brain impaired. All her vital signs are working."

"And to cut off her food and water his heartless," he admonished.

He said he'd been asked to intervene in the case by Terri's family, and planned to travel to Florida today to keep vigil outside her hospice.

Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 03/29/05 9:36 am:
Tom,

I'm not sure that I'm happy being on the same side of any issue as Jesse Jackson. Any time I end up agreein with him, I find myself forced to re-evaluate my position.

In this case, though, I think that I'm still in the right, even though Rev. Jesse agrees with me.

Thanks for the support.

Elliot

Clarification/Follow-up by powderpuff on 03/29/05 9:51 am:


She is about as "brain impaired" as a quadruple amputee is "limb impaired".

Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 03/29/05 10:30 am:
PP,

>>>why did he make the law in TX that allows the removal of medical treatment for similar patients even when the family is against ending treatment?<<<

This is the first time I am hearing of such a law or that Bush is connected to the writting of such a law. Can you find me a source for this and I will do some research into it?

Elliot

Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 03/29/05 10:33 am:
One more thing, Powderpuff,

>>>Thanks Tomder, I hope the autopsy will clear up some of the misconceptions about Terri Schiavo's condition.<<<

The thing about autopsies is that they can only be done after the patient is dead. If it turns out that she was misdiagnosed, Terri's pretty much SOL, isn't she. But if she was correctly diagnosed, then why does waiting a little longer to be sure hurt anything? That's why I'm in favor of erring on the side of life.

Elliot

Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 03/29/05 10:55 am:
In August 1996 the Journal of the American Medical Association published an article describing procedures then in effect in Houston hospitals. Under these procedures, if a doctor wished to deny a patient lifesaving medical treatment and the patient or the patient's surrogate instead steadfastly expressed a desire for life, the doctor would submit the case to the hospital ethics committee. The patient or surrogate would be given 72 hours notice of the committee meeting would be allowed to plead for the patient's life at it. During that short 72 hour period, the patient or surrogate, while preparing to argue for life, could also try to find another health care provider willing to give the lifesaving treatment, food or fluids.

If the ethics committee decided for death, under these procedures there was no appeal. There was no provision that the food, fluids, or lifesaving treatment be provided after the decision while the patient or family tried to find another hospital willing to keep the patient alive.

So under these procedures, the hospitals in Houston were denying life-saving treatment, food and fluids against the wishes of patients and their families, when the hospital ethics committees said their quality of life was too poor. Patients and families were being given only 72 hours after being notified of the proposed denial to find another health care provider.

In 1997 there was an advance directives bill going through the Texas legislature that would have given specific legal sanction to such involuntary denial of life-saving treatment. An effort in the Texas legislature to amend the bill to require treatment pending transfer to a health care provider willing to provide the life-saving treatment had been defeated. When that bill reached Governor George Bush’s desk, he vetoed it, and said he was vetoing it precisely because it authorized hospitals to deny lifesaving medical treatment, food, and fluids against the will of the patients.

But even without that bill, these procedures were still going on. So there was an effort in the next sitting of the legislature, in 1999, to pass protective legislation. Unfortunately, the votes just weren’t there to require lifesaving treatment, food, or fluids be provided by unwilling hospitals. So there were negotiations that resulted in a bill that gave partial protection. This was the best protection that Bush could get the patient at the time .
The 1999 Advanced Directive Act,...allows for a patient's surrogate to make end-of-life decisions and spells out how to proceed if a hospital or other health provider disagrees with a decision to maintain or halt life-sustaining treatment.


If a doctor refuses to honor a decision, the case goes before a medical committee. If the committee agrees with the doctor, the guardian or surrogate has 10 days to agree or seek treatment elsewhere.


Thomas Mayo, an associate law professor at Southern Methodist University who helped draft the Texas law, said that if the Schiavo case had happened in Texas, her husband would have been her surrogate decision-maker. Because both he and her doctors were in agreement, life support would have been discontinued.


The Texas law does not include a provision for dealing with conflicts among family members who disagree with the surrogate decision-maker as has happened in the Schiavo case .

Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 03/29/05 12:33 pm:
Well now, that's a horse of a different feather than the one that PP put before me.

It seems that Bush was trying for a law that would force doctors to treat a patient even if the doctor thought it wrong to do so, as long as the patient or his surrogate said so. The law that Bush shot down was one that would have allowed doctors to remove treatement even against the will of the patient or the surrogate. What resulted was an ABSENCE of a law in which doctors were going before ethics committees and doing whatever they wanted anyway. It seems that the law that was passed was the best compromise that Bush could come up with, and it allows a 10-day appeal process, and for the surrogate to find alternative sources of treatment.

That's a whole lot different, powderpuff, than saying that Bush passed a law allowing removal of medical treatment for cases similar to Terri Schiavo's. Bush was fighting for the same thing he's fighting for now: for the life of the patient in the absence of clear instructions. What he got was a compromise that was better than what he had before, but not what he would have really hoped for.

Thanks for clearing it up Tom.

Elliot

Clarification/Follow-up by powderpuff on 03/29/05 1:25 pm:
Elliot: Waiting a little longer is hurting because 15 years is 15 years longer than Terri would have wanted to continue in this condition! She was not misdiagnosed. She received some of the best care money could by. She had told several people, who testified in court, that she did not want to be kept alive like this. She has been being violated by those who refuse to let her go!

Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 03/29/05 1:43 pm:
>>>15 years is 15 years longer than Terri would have wanted to continue in this condition<<<

We don't know that. We only know what her husband says about that, and what the judge's opinion on that was. But NOBODY knows for sure what Terri would have wanted.

>>>She had told several people, who testified in court, that she did not want to be kept alive like this<<<

They testified about hypothetical conversations, not actual plans that Terri might have had. Furthermore, there was testimony that Michael Schiavo himself didn't know what Terri would have wanted and said so publicly. How did he suddenly remember such a conversation that Terri had with some friends years later, but not before he got a settlement check?

The bottom line is that we DON'T know what she would have wanted. Not one single MRI has been performed to confirm her condition. And doctors have conflicting diagnoses of Terri's condition, ranging from coma to PVS to conscious and aware. The sole testimony that Greer relied on when making his decision was by ONE physician who examined Terri for a total of 45 minutes and who has a history as a pro-death professional witness. Greer totally ignored testimony from physicians and nurses who spent tens of hours with her and who diagnosed her completely differently.

Again, what is the rush for Terri to die when so many issues remain open? If we are so sure of the diagnoses, then one or two days to examine her shouldn't hurt anything, and will only confirm the diagnosis.

But what if you're wrong?

Elliot

Clarification/Follow-up by powderpuff on 03/29/05 2:12 pm:
Hello again Elliot:

As one of the court rulings put it, in response to appeal of an earlier decision to allow the feeding tube to be removed:

"In the final analysis, the difficult question that faced the trial court was whether Theresa Marie Schindler Schiavo, not after a few weeks in a coma, but after ten years in a persistent vegetative state that has robbed her of most of her cerebrum and all but the most instinctive of neurological functions, with no hope of a medical cure but with sufficient money and strength of body to live indefinitely, would choose to continue the constant nursing care and the supporting tubes in hopes that a miracle would somehow recreate her missing brain tissue, or whether she would wish to permit a natural death process to take its course and for her family members and loved ones to be free to continue their lives. After due consideration, we conclude that the trial judge had clear and convincing evidence to answer this question as he did."

I have no anxiety about being 'wrong' in this situation. I have read numberous medical reports, numberous doctor's opinions, seen the scans, and read court transcripts and viewed the actual medical reports that were submitted in court as evidence. I am confident that the doctorS are right. I am confident that the testimonies I read are in line with the court orders.

I see no "rush" to end treatment. This has dragged out for YEARS. Opportunity to present a reasonable doubt about the futility of keeping her on artificial feedings has been available during the whole time this has been being played out in court.

Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 03/29/05 3:24 pm:
PP,

Note how the appelate court worded their ruling: not that Greer was right in his decision, but that he had enough information to make a decision. The two are not the same. The appelate court didn't rule on whether he was right or wrong, just that he had enough information to make a decision.

That's how our courts work: the appelate division will only overturn a case if there was a PROCEDURAL mistake. Even in cases where the decision is clearly wrong (and I am not saying that this is such a case) they do not overturn a verdict unless the judge was wrong in his PROCEDURE FOR RENDERING THAT DECISION.

So in fact, we don't know that Greer was right in his decision. We only know that he was correct in his proceedure.

>>>I am confident that the doctorS are right<<<

So am I. We just disagree on WHICH doctors are right. That's part of the problem.

>>>Opportunity to present a reasonable doubt about the futility of keeping her on artificial feedings has been available during the whole time this has been being played out in court.<<<

They have been, and they have been routinely ignored by Greer.

Elliot

Clarification/Follow-up by powderpuff on 03/30/05 6:26 am:
Thanks Tomder,

When I was listening to the news about that bill in TX, I was also playing with my grand daughter so I didn't hear the whole story.

But this morning, I read this:

Bush Wants to Cut Programs Aiding Brain-Damaged Kids

President Bush has announced that he supports a "presumption in favor of life" in American society. Tom DeLay has supported the use of more medical treatment and therapy in order to help Terri Schiavo recover from her condition. Why, then, do they both support a budget that cuts a program dedicated to helping kids and adults suffering from brain damage?

The Bush budget entirely eliminates 14 programs for children and families. Tom DeLay pushed the Bush budget to House approval last week. And despite their public pleadings to keep Terri Schiavo connected to a life-supporting tube, Bush and DeLay plan to kill the federal Traumatic Brain Injury program that helps thousands of Terri Schiavos.

Among HHSD programs slated by Bush to be terminated in 2006 are:

Traumatic Brain Injury Program – Benefits children and adults in the same situation as Terri Schiavo by assisting states to expand access to services for brain-injured persons and their families. Since 1997, brain-injury victims in 49 states have been helped through this life-preserving program.

Emergency Medical Services for Children – Is an initiative to reduce child/youth disability and death due to severe illness and injury. Medical personnel, parents, volunteers, community groups and businesses all participate in this joint program.

If Bush, DeLay, and other Republicans are really so serious about the importance of providing care to brain-damaged people so that they don't languish in hospices, why are they cutting these programs? If they really do believe in a "presumption in favor of life," why are they cutting so many life-saving medical programs?

Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 03/30/05 8:36 am:
PP,

Sorry, I meant my answer to be a clarification. I am reposting it here.

The first question that comes to mind is how many other programs are there that do the same thing as these programs? Are they redundant?

The second question is whether these programs work. Are they effective, or are they wasting money for no results?

Unless you know the answers to these questions, criticizing Bush for eliminating "necessary" brain-trauma programs would be a bit premature. My guess is that the programs in question are redundant, and Bush is eliminating them to cut expenses.

But please feel free to do the research to prove me wrong.

Elliot

Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 03/30/05 9:12 am:
PP,

I did just a little bit of research, and I found that there are other programs in place for the treatment of traumatic brain injuries.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the Brain Trauma Foundation are two such government organizations that do the same things as th programs being eliminated by Bush. And I stopped after finding those two. I'm pretty sure there are other government supported brain injury programs as well. As I said, Bush is eliminating redundancy and cutting costs.

Elliot