Preznit blasts Supremes over Terri's Law decision

[Dr.Phool]

Brutal Humor from Whitehouse.org


THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Today brings word that the United States Supreme Court has refused to back up "Terri's Law," which was written by my baby brother Jebber in keeping with the GOP philosophy that most advances in medical science (like birth control and geneticles) are unnatural and against God's will – unless they're an expensive machine with lots of blinking lights that transform brain-dead bags of bones into dependable cash cows for America's healthcare conglomerates.

Now I'm not a guy who wastes a lot of time thinking about boring things like stuff, but it's days like this where I have a hard time juggling my love for the astute body of wizened sages who handed me the Presidency on a silver platter, with my acid contempt for uppity "activist judges" from the "intellectual elites" crowd.

The problem here is one of simple consistenceness. Two years ago, the Supreme Court said it was NOT OK to kill retards, even when they're big ugly colored fellas and an all-white Texas jury says they done bad. But today, they say it IS OK to kill retards, er, vegetables– or whatever, even pretty little white ones who never sold a single dimebag of that really crappy cocaine. Now call me dumb as rocks of box here, but that just don't compute.

(snip)

http://www.whitehouse.org/news/2005/012405.asp

[RUDUing2]

1. nobody is killing TS...they are letting a body die in which the person

who once was inside is already gone. Basically they are stopping human interferance and allowing God/Nature to continue the process that should have been finished long ago.

What part of the brain is atrophying and being replaced w/spinal fluid and is incapable of EVER regenerating is so hard to understand?

What part of no brain activity and only minimal brain stem is so hard to understand?

Why do people not understand what her true condition is and that the few minutes out of several hours of video actually prove that she is in a permanent (not persistive) vegetative state?

If you want the complete story and the facts on the case you are not going to get them from her family and other religious websites..instead go to: http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/infopage.html and read the actual court and medical documents. You find very quickly that the info on her parents page is (to say the least) misleading...

also for an understanding of what permanent vegetative state really is: http://www.sclhsc.org/mission_vision_values/ethics/pvs.asp
The term "permanent vegetative state" was coined by neurosurgeons Bryan Jennett and Fred Plum in 1972 to describe a condition resulting from severe brain damage. Using their words, it is described as coma characterized by "wakefulness without awareness." In 1983, the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research accepted the definition of persistent vegetative state as the "inability to experience the environment." It is one type of permanent unconsciousness.

Terri has been gone for several years...it is time to let her body go as well...

The persistent vegetative state may be defined loosely as a condition in which there is no awareness of the self or the surroundings though the patient appears at times to be awake. The condition results primarily from severe cerebral injury and is usually associated with but not limited to functionally complete destruction of the cerebral neocortex. The electroencephalogram (EEG) reading is either very depressed or flat. Under the microscope most patients' brains show extensive cortical destruction, but a small number may have more localized damage. Individuals in PVS are seldom on any life-sustaining equipment other than a feeding tube.{13} The brainstem—the center of vegetative functions (such as heart rate and rhythm, respiration, gastrointestinal activity)—is relatively intact. PVS individuals thus breathe spontaneously, their hearts beat regularly, and they show sleep-wake sequences. They may have a grasp reflex, may exhibit yawning or chewing movements, and may swallow spontaneously. When food and water are supplied the digestive system utilizes the nutrients, the intestines produce waste products, and the kidneys yield urine. Most patients are silent, but some groan at times. The heart, lungs and blood vessels continue to move air and blood. "Personality, memory, purposive action, social interaction, sentience, thought, and even emotional states are gone. Only vegetative functions and reflexes persist.{14} The American Academy of Neurology has concluded that PVS patients do not experience pain or suffering. Ronald Cranford, a leading authority on PVS, states that "from a neurologic standpoint, they simply do not experience pain, suffering, or cognition."{15} (btw Cranford is one of the experts that has been involved with Schiavo's case)

Coma is an "abnormality of brain function characterized by an unconscious sleep-like state with the eyes closed." While several kinds of coma have a high mortality rate, coma is a potentially reversible condition. After the initial injury, usually within days to several weeks, comatose patients who do not recover or die emerge from their coma to periods of apparent wakefulness, While some of these patients show variable degrees of neurologic recovery, the prognosis for those who remain in the vegetative state for one to three months becomes increasingly dismal. At this point, after detailed and repeated examinations by a trained neurologist, the diagnosis of PVS is usually made. Many physicians prefer to wait as much as six months before labeling a case as PVS.{21} Unfortunately, as indicated above, the terms "PVS" and "coma" have been used somewhat loosely, so that comatose patients may be inaccurately referred to as PVS and vice versa. It is important, therefore, that a careful diagnosis be made before designating an individual as PVS. (Terri Schiavo has been in PVS for at least 8 yrs)

My FIL had PVS following a car accident and heart surgery...He looked like he was still there...he moved...his head, his hands..he pursed and licked his lips...he grunted...he was breathing on his own...but ct scans of his brain showed that all that remained was a small portion of his brain stem..
His priest gave his extreme unction...we disconnected him from life support..the hospital added morphine in increased amounts to his IV to stop any convulsions...and we said the prayers for the dying and spoke to him as he went home to God...

My mother on the other hand slipped into a coma following surgery for sepsis after a surgery for a partial bowel blockage due to earlier surgery for ovarian cancer...we chose to also remove her from life support...because she was not going to get better...if she had came out of the coma all she had left was a few weeks to months of extreme pain because the cancer had spread to her liver...Her preacher agreed (She was Southern Baptist)with our decision...we removed her feeding tube and quit giving IV fluids...the only thing she was on was a morphine drip because my father (he is 80, she was 70)worried on an emotional level that she would be in pain...he also worried she would be hungry..even though my sister who is a cardiac ICU nurse and the doctor explained to him that mom could not feel anything any longer...because of this the agreement was made that if she showed any signs of rousing or discomfort the feeding tube would be restarted..mom never roused...after 3 days..she took a deep sigh and went home to God...at peace and out of pain..letting her go was Dad's final and greatest gift he gave my mother in 47 yrs of marriage.

Both priest and preacher said: sometimes it is best for the person to let them go..to let God take over and take them home..if you have fought the fight for life and it is obvious that God has different designs then it is wrong to humanly interfer and that is what it would have been w/both my FIL and my mom and IMO it is what is occurring in Terri's case.

To me the bottom line is that Terri is gone...irretrevably gone...as has been definatively proven by medical science, she is not in a Coma..she is in Permanent Vegatative State, one that she will never come out of......keeping her body alive is IMO evil.

http://www.bethel.edu/~rakrob/files/PVS.html

[aden_nak]

2. God's will be done, unless an HMO can make a buck.