I originally wasn’t going to blog this because it’s in very bad taste, but given the last entry Brock put up I figure we’ve already crossed that line just a tad so I may as well. Someone out there has taken it upon themselves to create Terri Schiavo’s Blog.
I have to admit that when I first saw it I couldn’t help but giggle a little, but then dark humor has been a means of dealing with painful situations in my family for years so I’m not surprised that it made me giggle. My own grandmother cracked jokes about whether or not my grandfather had pants on as he was laying in state at the funeral.
If you just look at the main page it’s probably not too horrible of a joke, but once you get into the comments left by some of the visitors it quickly goes down hill. A classic example of a if-you-thought-it-couldn’t-get-worse situation. Take that as a fair warning if you decide to check it out especially if you’re one of those types who thinks there are some topics people shouldn’t make fun of. Some of the comments are downright mean-spirited. In a way, though, I can see it as type of backlash against the media circus that has been thrown up around this issue. I’m sure there are some psychologists out there that could have a field day with it.
Anyway, blame Ted if you get upset about it. I found the link through him. 
Lost what, Kristen? She won. She won by finally being able to DIE (which is what she wanted). There was not a thing left in this mortal coil for her, no matter what her wishes were, and I defy you to name exactly what it is she is going to miss out on…bearing in mind, she had no cerebral cortex and as such, no consciousness.
She “died” 15 years ago. She was never going to recover from that amount of brain trauma, do you not understand that? There’s no therapy, no treatment, no amount of time that’s going to reverse or even slightly improve damage that massive.
So tell me what she lost. No, I will…any dignity she had in her final demise.
As for conflict of interest, Terri’s parents sold the list of email addresses of people who had donated them money to a spammer to get more money.
To me, this indicates a much stronger conflict of interest on her parents’ behalf.
Kristen:
You raise a valid point with respect to the damages awarded in the civil malpractice case. Since you said that she “changed her mind,” I’m assuming that there is deposition or trial testimony from the civil malpractice case in which Michael said “Terri wanted rehabilitation ad nauseam.” Please post up the exact quote from the testimony you are relying upon to make that statement and a cite to the source document.
Much Appreciated,
All this wrangling over Michael’s intentions has reminded me of a painful experience many years ago when my father died.
He made me executor of his estate, which was fairly complicated (at least for me) but I found a good attorney (not an oxymoron) and we went to work. I tried so hard… I felt a profound duty to honor my father’s wishes to the very best of my ability. My grief at his passing did not make it any easier.
Oddly, he had once told me, referring to his sister (my aunt), “Watch out for that one.” I didn’t know what he meant at the time as I’d always gotten along fine with her.
She became more and more angry at everything I did. She refused to let my cousins communicate with me. She accused me of every kind of malfeasance and awful intentions. She objected to the attorney’s fees. As the estate closed she wrote me a long, scathing letter saying she never wanted to communicate with me again.
I spiralled down into a dark depression from which I did not emerge for over 5 years. It’s hard to say how long it lasted because recovery was a gradual process. Thank goodness for my brother and sister who were always kind to me.
The lesson here for me is that if someone believes you have bad intentions, nothing you do will convince them otherwise. The worst possible interpretation is assigned: every single thing you do and say is proof positive. “You only did that because…” of some nefarious hidden purpose.
I have a hunch Michael would understand what that feels like. (I’m applying this to Michael and not Terri’s parents only because his role as grieving fiscal agent is more analogous to what I went through. Her parents had their own problems, to be sure.)
Sounds like you went through hell, DOF. Can you imagine what it would’ve been like if it had been made into a media circus and folks like Kristen decided to stick their noses into it? Yikes!
Kristen continues to blow a lot of hot air without backing up her claims with citations. May as well give up on her as she’s just another loon in a long line of them.
Kristen,
DoF- a very touching story, and very apposite. It reminded me of a quote from Stephen Jay Gould:
It’s just that most of us either believe she wanted to die or that it was unclear what she wanted and, as Consi noted,
“I’m not sure how much anybody with a liquid brain can appreciate anything.”
aaahhh. Certain reason for euthenasia. Also, make note to deny people with “liquified brains” representation in court when their starvation and dehydration are ordered. Particularly when discerning their wishes and with holding treatment and therapy. Put all “liquified brain” people in the hospice for years and years – it is just not a big deal.
I think I understand your point now. Thanks for clarifying.
I think you are confusing “being represented” in court with “prevailing” in court.
She was extremely well represented in court.
and you simply either fail to understand the positions or flatly refuse to accept them, either way your wrong.
The courts actually upheld the law very well for once.
Kristen,
Oh come on. Now I have to get involved in this debate. To say that Schiavo didn’t get her chance in court is ridiculous. She got more attention by the courts than most people who have a brain. To say that she slipped through the cracks is the worst kind of bullshit and you know it. If you were making a case that the judgment of the courts were wrong perhaps I would consider your position but to say that Schiavo didn’t receive adequate attention? C’mon she had members of the Senate and the House advocating that her feeding tube be reinserted. If that’s not representation I don’t know what is.
As nunyabiz has stated:
When Mrs. Schiavo’s parents stated, and with straight faces, that after x number of years in a PVS Terri spoke! – Saying, “I want to live!” – I lost all interest in their side of the argument as any credibility they may have had was completely gone.
And DOF, I’m so sorry you had to endure that with your father. For my brother way back in 1986, who was executor, it was much smoother. My mother died at age 47. It was unspoken at the time of my mother’s last hospitalization yet completely understood that she would not want to be kept alive. She was in a similar state as Mrs. Schiavo as her cancer had spread to and taken over her brain. Her feeding tube was removed completely unnoticed by potentially dissenting family members and her morphine drip was increased. She died peacefully, painlessly and precisely how she would have wanted in such a position.
All the credit for this goes to understanding doctors who are savvy and who know how to ask the right questions of the proper people to bring about what would have occurred naturally albeit devastatingly painfully prior to the advances of medical technology.
Though not amusing, it is precisely what Mrs. Schiavo’s parents have been doing for 15 years.
Florida senator’s aide resigns over Schiavo memo
To say that Terri was represented by Congress, her parents, and right-to-lifers is to assume that she wanted to stay alive. As the court found, and is more probable, she was only truly represented by her husband.
“She was extremely well represented in court”
She never had impartial representation. The only impartial representation she had was the guardians ad litem (spelled righte? grammar right?) who both – years apart – recommended further testing, therapy and investigation into Terri Schiavo’s wishes. Those recommendations were ignored.
Politics aside…A disabled individual – regardless of the disability – deserves representation in the event there is dispute as to that persons wishes. Further, a disabled individual deserves to be placed in a facility designed to meet the treatment, care and therapy needs of that individual. Further, a disabled individual who has won a judgement on the basis of funds needed for future care and treatment deserves to have those funds expended to that purpose.
Terri Schiavo was denied all of that.
umm… no.
Sorry guys, I just couldn’t resist.
Bullshit. The trial court order from March 2000 notes that of the 3 doctors weighing in on the question of whether more swallow tests should be done, the 2 who thought so (unsurprisingly, testifying on behalf of the Schindlers) had only spent 25-45 minutes observing Terri Schiavo, and based their opinion on the fact that she didn’t drool. Additionally, the credibility of one of the physicians “was compromised” by his failure to “concede that her treating physician would be in a better position than he” to give a diagnosis as to “when she would stabilize after the 1990 cardiac arrest.”
Of the third doctor:
“The uncontroverted evidence from Dr. Barnhill was that the ward had been administered swallowing tests in 1990, 1991 and 1992 with the earliest test having been done at Bayfront Medical Center. This test resulted in a finding that she would not be a future candidate. The last of these tests was done at Largo Medical Center and resulted in a finding that there was no swallowing reflex initiated and that the liquid went nowhere. Thereafter, and annually from 1993 through 1996 or 1997, the ward had a speech pathologist examine her and the finding was that she could not be rehabilitated in this regard and that there was a high risk of aspiration.”
It goes on to say that Dr. Barnhill physically examined Terri Schiavo several times and thoroughly reviewed her medical records, and “testified that he agreed with the prognosis of the treating physician, Dr. Gambone, that there was no point in doing another swallowing study since she had not changed since the last study.”
If she “failed” the swallowing tests for seven years, from 1990 through 1997, how could anyone possibly expect there to be “passing” results years later? No physician in his right mind would expose a patient with “high risk of aspiration” to more swallowing tests when it’s been proven over and again that the patient cannot properly swallow.
The Schindlers’ denial of Terri’s condition in the face of overwhelming medical evidence was simply not enough to support their case. A slew of judges agreed, and rightly allowed her legal guardian and next of kin to prevail. This is not about improper representation of the disabled; it’s about the Schindler family’s inability to accept the truth that their daughter was as fucked up as she was and that her husband, NOT THEY, as legal next of kin, was responsible for making decisions regarding her care AND in asking the Court to determine what her wishes would be regarding her treatment.
Exactly, GeekMom. Her parents and their supporters represented only their own shameless selves and interests.
As a parent, I cannot begin to imagine what her parents’ ultimate motive was in hawking their damaged daughter’s body and image to the lunatics. Their behavior is contemptible. They squandered any sympathy or compassion one may have felt for them early on in this spectacle.
The whole fiasco was the worst display of FundyNutjobism Iv personally ever witnessed.
What these lunatics have done to Michael Schiavo & family is criminal to say the least, horrible disgusting & macabre.
Every damn one of them should be institutionalized, netted, Jacketed, & thrown into a padded room with a 24/7 fog of Thorozine.
There is no way people this delusional should be allowed to walk the streets freely.
As carefully and plainly as Kristen has been told the facts of this case backed up with verifiable evidence she still is utterly incapable of understanding & or accepting it.
This can only be classified as Cognitive Dissonance. Which is a classic symptom of a Fundy.
“Until and unless there is objective, fresh, mutually agreed upon closure regarding measurable and well accepted scientific bases for deducing Theresa’s clinical state, Theresa will not be done justice. There must be at least a degree of trust with respect to a process that the factions competing for Theresa’s best interest can agree. To benefit Theresa, and in the overall interests of justice, good science, and public policy, there needs to be a fresh, clean-hands start. The Schindlers and the Schiavos are normal, decent people who have found themselves within the construct of an exceptional circumstance which none of them, indeed, few reasonable and normal people could have imagined. As a consequence of this circumstance, extensive urban mythology has created toxic clouds, causing the parties and others to behave in ways that may not, in the order of things, serve the bestinterests of the ward.In Re: Theresa Marie Schiavo, Incapacitated Report to Gov. Jeb Bush and the 6thFlorida Judicial Circuit 1 December 2003 Jay Wolfson, as Guardian Ad Litem to Theresa Marie Schiavo Page 34 of 38”
The report
ORGANIZATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS
JOINING AS AMICI CURIAE
NOT DEAD YET
ADAPT
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
CENTER FOR SELF-DETERMINATION
CENTER ON HUMAN POLICY AT SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY
REV. RUS COOPER-DAWDA
DISABILITY RIGHTS EDUCATION & DEFENSE FUND
HALF THE PLANET FOUNDATION
HOSPICE PATIENTS? ALLIANCE
DR. JAMES HALL
NATIONAL COUNCIL ON INDEPENDENT LIVING
NATIONAL SPINAL CORD INJURY ASSOCIATION
SELF-ADVOCATES BECOMING EMPOWERED
TASH
(formerly The Association for the Severely Handicapped)
WORLD ASSOCIATION OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES
WORLD INSTITUTE ON DISABILITY
BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE
First GAL report
Read the conclusion.
The religous right was represented. The “right to die” people were represented.
Wow, when Kristen gets a hold of a bit of bullshit she clings to it tightly. Let’s take a closer look at her claims. First she says:
Then she turns around and immediately contradicts herself:
This pretty much destroys any credibility for constructing a logical argument that Kristen might have had. First she claims Terri never had impartial representation and then turns around and admits that she did have it, but the recommendations were ignored.
Let’s take a look at just what is said in the reports(pdf) from the guardians ad litem. According to the report file by Jay Wolfson on October 31, 2003 the first guardian ad litem was appointed by the courts in May of 1998 as soon as Michael Schiavo petitioned to have Terri’s feeding tube removed.
Oh look, Kristen managed to post while I was doing up my reply. Not surprising considering the length of mine. Looks like she’s managed to do some selective reading of Wolfson’s report after all. Apparently she missed the bits where Wolfson states that two issues he’s making his report on have nothing to do with Terri’s wishes as he was satisfied that the courts had established what those would have been. Rather he bases his recommendation completely on medical questions.
The court ruled that Michael Schiavo had produced convincing evidence of what her wishes would have been which was upheld over several appeals and it was never argued as a point of contention in court by the Schindlers.
Um, Les. Confronting Kristen with facts isn’t going to make any difference. Even though she alluded to her law school education many posts ago (and still dances around my questions about that obvious tall tale), I’m not totally convinced she can even read. I am completely convinced, however, that she has no cognative reasoning skills. In other words, she may be brain dead.
Actually whether or not Kristen has a law degree is irrelevant. It doesn’t take a law degree to read the facts as presented in the documents made public on this case including the reports from the guardians ad litem. Mr. Wolfson’s report repeatedly states that the courts competently and properly applied the rule of Florida law in the decisions they made in regards to this case so from a legal standpoint there’s not much to debate. In fact he points out that several courts bent over backwards to allow the Schindlers to argue their case based on the flimsiest of evidence and still ruled against them in the end because their case was so weak. His recommendations were based on the idea of getting both sides to agree to letting him do one more round of testing of Terri’s medical condition and abiding by the outcome and had nothing to do with investigating further what Terri’s wishes might have been because he felt they had been adequately established.
Kristen is reality immune which is, as Nunya points out, typically found in the Fundys, but I don’t think she’s a Fundy herself. She does share many similar traits, however, of selective reading to confirm her own opinions and only seeing what she wants to see. She’s probably not beyond help yet though, unlike Terri Schiavo was, so it’s probably best not to pull her feeding tube just yet.
“Until and unless there is objective, fresh, mutually agreed upon closure regarding measurable and well accepted scientific bases for deducing Theresa’s clinical state, Theresa will not be done justice.
From the the recommendation of the Guardian Ad Litem – Jay Wolfson.
Mine is selective reading and yours is not?
“Being “disabled
Mr. Wolfson said it. I bet there would not have been any fuss at all, if Terri hadn’t had her eyes open.
Many comatose people who seem worse off than Terri- eyes closed, no noises, no waking- recover and get back their lives. There was someone there the whole time, after all. Thus, how easy it is to assume that Terri, who slept and woke and opened her eyes, must be at least as well off, and might yet recover at least partially. How human it is to hold on to hope for a beloved daughter, a
beloved wife.
Having to make decisions about life and death is always going to be hard, and I don’t envy anyone in that position. There is simply no logical line we can consistently draw, and say “on this side, life; on this side, death”.
That said, considering Terri’s condition, and what was said and done by her husband and parents, that she deserved a dignified end. The one bright spot in the circus that evolved around her is that she was oblivious to it all.
No, mine isn’t. Note the key phrase in that statement: mutually agreed upon closure regarding measurable and well accepted scientific bases for deducing Theresa’s clinical state. He’s arguing for the idea of getting both parties to abide by the findings of a final round of tests arranged by himself. He doesn’t claim that the previous tests were invalid or inconclusive—in fact he states exactly the opposite in his report which you have decided to ignore—he’s hinging his whole recommendation on getting both parties to agree to allow him to make the final decision on whether or not to yank Terri’s feeding tube.
The same could be asked of you.
“Until and unless there is objective, fresh, mutually agreed upon closure regarding measurable and well accepted scientific bases for deducing Theresa’s clinical state, Theresa will not be done justice.
From the the recommendation of the Guardian Ad Litem – Jay Wolfson.
Mine is selective reading and yours is not?
“Being “disabled
Now she’s repeating herself. But she did tack on some new nonsense. Let’s take a look…
So all the money spent by Michael Schiavo before the lawsuit on over three years of medical treatment and rehabilitation doesn’t count because it’s not from the lawsuit? For that matter, what’s your basis for this claim?
Which implies that you have a much broader range of sources than just the media for the basis of your arguments. If so, what are they? I’ve been using citations from the official reports as well as interviews with the man who wrote the most recent report and they back up my opinions quite well. You’ve made repeated claims without citing your basis and expect us to just roll over and accept you as some form of authority.
Personally, I think you’re a clueless idiot and I base that opinion on the idiotic comments you’ve left to date that clearly demonstrate your inability to grasp the facts of this case. I think together they make for a pretty good argument that your idiocy is factual rather than just my subjective opinion, but then I’m biased in that way.
At least I can admit to my biases…
Here you go
[bunch of links to some message forum elsewhere deleted]
When you finish those I will get some more for you
If you want to flame me that is okay I have thick skin,I will ask Theresa Marie Schiavo and Pope John Paul 2 to pray for you guys:)
Lisa, if you have something to say then say it. If all you’re going to do is post links to someplace else then I’m going to remove them.
That’s all she had to say, Les. Looks like it was a pretty complete brain dump, too. I hope she has enough left to keep breathing.
My bad I thought you might want to do some research on the case instead of making assumptions based on the MSM coverage:( You guys seem awfully angry.What’s up with that?Do you just make assumption anyone who disagrees with you are idiots?Geek mom I went to sleep that is necessary from time to time you know:)In case you haven’t noticed I do not believe someone should be dehydrated and starved to death.My uncle is a Polish Jew that escaped and his whole family were killed out in the camps,it is not a pleasant way to die.Is this a site in which if your opinion is not the same as the rest,you are flammed?
Hilarious, coming from someone who clearly prefers to ignore the mounds of legal and medical evidence of Terri Schiavo’s condition, proving she had all the cognitive abilities of a houseplant. While I’ll not disagree that the starving and dehydration of your Polish Jew uncle’s family is indeed tragic, and that it would be a terrible way to die, the fact of the matter is that your relatives had healthy and fully-functioning cerebral cortices, while Terri Schiavo did not. She never felt a thing, because the part of the brain that makes those sensory perceptions possible was GONE.
There were mounds and mounds of evidence to the contrary as well.And coincidentally, no human ever become a carrot or a houseplant regardless of your opinion of what evidence you choose to believe.As far as not feeling anything morphene was given to her,what do you suppose that was for?On top of that when Terri had hger menstral cycle she was given demerol for pain,that is in her medical records as well.So instead of being sarcastic perhaps you might want to research the case,instead of basing it on a repulsion and fear of the severly disabled:(
Fuck you, Lisa. You have no fucking idea how much research any of us might have done on this case. What is it with you religious nuts and all the arrogant assumptions you like to make? And who the fuck made you an authority that I should have everyone reason to believe just because you show up and proudly proclaim yourself being “4Catholics?” If anything that already shows me you have poor judgment to begin with.
I’m angry cause I’m sick of assholes like yourself coming in here and telling me what I know and don’t know and how I might want to do my research. Fuck you.
It’s not how I would’ve ended her life either, but it’s the only legal means available at the moment.
Neither is being burned at the stake, but I believe your precious Catholics made heavy use of that one for awhile. Of the two choices, I’ll take dehydration.
No, this is a site where if you come in and act like an arrogant ass you get flamed.
Bullshit. Provide some. The video tape was 10 minutes of a heavily edited 10 hour session that largely shows an entirely different picture than the edited version depicts. The quacks who claimed to be able to regrow her brain were of questionable backgrounds and without any evidence for their claims. There isn’t any reasonable evidence to the contrary to present as the courts decided over and over and over again.
But you assholes aren’t interested in following the law, you only want to force your particular way of life onto everyone else regardless of what they might want for themselves.
So you’re claiming that there’s no such thing as a persistent vegetative state? That people who have lost nearly 85% of the brain are still able to think clearly and respond beyond a purely reflexive nature? What drugs have you been smoking lately?
Her ability to experience anything cognitively was gone. That doesn’t mean she wouldn’t respond reflexively to pain stimulus. When you touch a hot stove you don’t think about removing your hand, you do so by reflex and that’s controlled by the brain stem which is the only bit of Terri’s brain that wasn’t damaged.
If you’d done your research on the brain, you’d know that.
Once again a great big fuck you for trying to tell us why we thought Terri should be allowed to die and how much research we’ve done. You want to come in and discuss the case, fine. But don’t show up here and proclaim yourself some sort of morally superior authority and assume that none of us have bothered to look beyond what the mainstream media had to say. It makes you look like a stunningly arrogant idiot who, like other recent commenters, thinks she’s got it all figured out and anyone who disagrees obviously MUST think THIS way about the issue and hasn’t done their research.
For the record, I’m not remotely repulsed by the severely disabled. I’ve been friends with many, had some as coworkers, had friends whose relatives were badly disabled, and have gone out of my way to help them when I can. You have no fucking clue how I feel about the severely disabled and it’s insulting to have you come in here and make blanket statements like you do have a clue. My wife’s family has long-time friends that are both physically and mentally retarded, but, unlike Terri, they both still have intact brains and cognitive ability so they are aware of their lives and can participate in them.
If you want to ignore all the medical evidence that shows that Terri had a hole in her brain filled with liquid and lacked any cognitive ability at all then that’s your fucking problem, but don’t try to tell us we’re wrong because we agreed with the folks who actually examined her over some quack who’d never even seen her or because it conflicts with your belief that all life is sacred no matter how lacking in worth it happens to be or what the wishes of that individual might have been.
Wow. You are a very angry person aren’t you?I am not basing my assertions on the video or doctors that had not seen Terri.When humans feel they can judge what the worth of a life is there is plenty of history to show the outcome of that mentality.In your profile you say you are atheist,so what if I am proud of being Catholic.It is rather disinginuous to call me down for that as well as hyprocritical.I am not ignoring evidence I looked at all of it available including case history and the background of the lawyer and the judge in the hospice and the hemlock society.You asked me to put forth evidence and you deleted the links to the forum where the research was posted.So it seems to me you do not care to keep an open mind the same thing you accuse me of.But I have not cussed you out,called you an idiot or anything else.Aparently,you feel entitled to pass judgements on whom is deemed worhty respect.
Let me add my “Fuck You” to Les’. I have no fear of the severely disabled… the severly religious, however, are quite another story. It’s difficult NOT to fear those who clearly value religious rhetoric, superstition and their own self-proclaimed moral superiority over scientific evidence and rational thought.
As the parent of a disabled (though not “severely” so) child, I think I can reasonably say that I understand and sympathize with supporting their rights. I can also unequivocally state that I’d never be so fucking ghoulish as to prefer her to exist as a living corpse should the very part of her that makes her a person be destroyed. I find it particularly disgusting that the Schindlers allowed their daughter to be used as a poster child for people with a specific political agenda, and even went so far as to trust Randall Terry to speak on their behalf.
Christians have some nerve painting themselves as a “culture of life” when they rally ‘round the symbol of a dead guy on a stick and would use a woman who would’ve been dead 15 years ago if not for medical technology (and was time and again determined in a court of law to NOT have wanted to exist that way) but instead spent those years as nothing more than an insentient, empty husk of flesh, as a political tool to advance the agenda of tearing down the wall between church and state. I won’t even start on the hypocrisy inherent in the calls for Michael Schiavo to renounce his matrimonial vow and divorce Terri, from people who pay lip service to the “sanctity of marriage” when it suits their purposes.
Stay ignorant if you like, but stay the hell out of other people’s marriages and keep your god-bullshit in church or at home where it belongs.
Lisa4C, just for the record, no court ever found that Terri’s life wasn’t worth living or that she’d have been better off not living it. Instead they found credible evidence that she – Terri herself – had not wanted to live that way. They listened to her husband, her parents, and various hangers-on from both sides. Apparently her husband was more convincing. That’s what judges do; they judge.
But the “save Terri” crowd is ready to overturn separation of powers and all jurisprudence to get what they wanted because they didn’t like the outcome.
The court’s findings are hardly an extraordinary claim, given that most people do indeed feel as Terri did. How many people do you know who would insist on being kept alive even when the higher-functioning parts of their brains are gone?
As for why Les is pissed off at you, would you mind if I stop by your living room and yammer on about what you know, think, and feel, even though I clearly have no idea about any of those things? You would? Why, how judgmental of you.
And yet you find them less interested in determining the worth of life than Randall Terry, whose rhetoric drove one of his followers to commit murder in the name of being “pro-life?”
Lisa,
Perhaps you should look at the archives at the University of Miami website they have a ton of material regarding Terri Schiavo. They have information drawn from both sides of the debate. More importantly though they have medical assessments of Terri and include at least one of her CT scans. If you review that material, you would get the chance that there really wasn’t much left of her. Indeed, from the CT scan image I would venture to say that she probably had to cognitive function of a goldfish (and that’s a generous estimate). Much of her brain tissue had atrophied. This is something that no one really can dispute if they have indeed seen any substantial portion of Schiavo’s medical records. As for the suffering, the suffering was entirely on the part of the various members of Schiavo’s family including Michael Schiavo and I feel comfortable asserting that it was more the media circus and America’s obsession with what was a private family matter that was the source of the suffering. There wasn’t enough left of Terri to say that she suffered. All that was left of her was a spinal chord and a hind brain. I would guess that she was capable of little more than breathing and perhaps simple uncoordinated motor function. She definitely would have little idea of what was in fact happening to and around her.
Oddly enough, I’ve spent a couple of hours in an IM conversation with Lisa this afternoon and my anger with her has subsided quite a bit. I was already annoyed by our friend Gjin and Lisa just stepped right into the middle of it and caught the blast. Sometimes a little interactive communication can go a long way to promoting understanding of each other.
I’ve invited her to lay out her argument with links to source material if she chooses to do so as I’m willing to consider what she has to say. Don’t know if she’ll bother, but I thought I’d make the offer just the same. Her opening approach wasn’t handled well, but I feel she’s sincere and not beyond agreeing to disagree.
I will consider it Les but I think I will let you look at my research first,I have friends that are atheists and of every other flavor,but they can see me beyond a Catholic and Christian,and I am making others uncomfortable here,I do not want to do that.So for the time being I will shre it with Les,thankyou for your time and I apologize if I upset you guys it was not my intent.