Comments on: Terri Schiavo's Autopsy Results

By: kadamson

kadamson — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 22:55:49 +0000

I worked for a couple of years at a state school for the mentally retarded (what it was called then). There were many non-responsive patients who received direct care that included feeding tubes and physical therapy. I’m sure they had no living will. They definitely had no money - no future - only the present. I can’t imagine at the time someone taking a look at them and deciding that these people probably preferred death and therefore food and water would be withheld so that they could die by starvation and dehydration.
How times have changed in twenty years.
By the way, it is not legal to do this to puppies. It is considered inhumane.
oh, yes…Michael has been vindicated.
woo hoo - high five.
Stay healthy. Don’t become disabled and unable to speak for yourself. Someone will speak for you. You do prefer to die, right?

By: Ales Rarus - A Rare Bird, A Strange Duck, One Funky Blog » Ask the Right Questions

Sun, 09 Apr 2006 22:01:02 +0000

[...] WordPress Prev/Next Posts « Terri Schiavo's Autopsy Results | Home | A Blog is Born! » Tuesday, June 21st, 2005 [...]

By: theomorph

theomorph — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

"Now, we find out that ALLEGED bulimia was probably NOT a factor in her collapse, and the observed electrolyte imbalance must have been caused by something else."

Not that I'm quibbling with established facts here (because I'm not sure of them myself), but that sentence, regardless of the facts, contains a logical flaw:

If bulimia was probably not a factor, then it does not follow to say that "the observed electrolyte imbalance must have been caused by something else" [emphasis added]. Rather, if bulimia was probably not a factor, it follows that the electrolyte imbalance was probably caused by something else.

Also, this sentence suffers from problems, too:

"This last set of facts proves that MRS probably perjured himself on many occasions, claiming that his wife was bulimic, when the postmortem showed she was not."

First, you don't "prove" a "probably."

Second, the postmortem showing that Terri Schiavo was not bulimic does not automatically mean that Michael Schiavo perjured himself. It is possible that he genuinely believed she was bulimic. An autopsy (or any medical procedure, for that matter) is a scientific experiment, which may prove a hypothesis wrong. That does not mean, however, that the person holding the hypothesis was deceitful in doing so.

By: Jerry

Jerry — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

"As I recall, I accepted the medical examiner's assertion that her collapse was not caused by bullemia without question."

The autopsy did not provide any conclusive evidence for why Terri collapsed, Funky. Again, per the article I sent you, the real issue at hand with Terri is due process and patients' rights.

Bringing up the issue of personhood at the end of life is quite relevant, but you are erring in using Terri as your test case, not only is the case quite inflammatory, but the data are rather poor, to put it delicately. Thus, folks are going to get riled up without good evidence to put things to rest one way or another. I'd strongly recommend starting some general posts, perhaps using some relevant sections of the Catechism as a starting point, and then working through what the issues mean ourselves. You can keep this furball of attack and counterattack with the Christian blogdom (you've already revised this post at least twice to accomodate attacks against you), and I'm already beginning to lose track of the original point!

By: EmilyE

EmilyE — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

"No Left Turns," the blog of the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University (a center for conservative politics) has had an interesting exchange on it, in which the autopsy results have been quite a subject of discussion. Unfortunately, around comment #38 it disintegrated into a bunch of partisan name-calling. Still, though, it's the most discussion I've seen of the autopsy results.

You can read it here:
http://noleftturns.ashbrook.org/comment.asp?blogID=6875#comments

The retort I've heard brought up most often is that the dehydration could have caused some of her brain's shrinkage, as well as the blindness. I have no idea if that's even possible, but it's what I've heard… I'd like to hear someone with a little more medical knowledge (Jerry, perhaps?) weigh in on that.

By: theomorph

theomorph — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Brain scans can detect a brain that's probably capable of consciousness. But the only way to detect real consciousness is for another conscious being to see it in action and then say, "Hey, that thing is like me!"

Terri Schiavo's parents were (allegedly) looking at her and saying, "Hey, she's like us!"

Michael Schiavo was (allegedly) looking at her and saying, "Nope, don't see it."

I've seen those famous videos, and I didn't see any consciousness, either.

Personally, I think what throws most people for a loop on this one is that she still looked like a person, that she had eyes and a nose and a mouth and ears and arms and legs and all those things, that there was still life-like motion (i.e., she wasn't just a really nice statue or inanimate object), so people were a little creeped out at the thought that this body could still be considered dead, or at least brain-dead, or a "vegetable."

But studies have shown people get creeped out when CG animated characters, which clearly are not alive and have no consciousness (i.e., they are like nice statues or inanimate objects), look like living humans, too.

I really think this whole thing boils down to natural, unconscious species recognition wiring in the brain, and whether people are willing to go with their "gut" ("She sure looks alive to me!") or with rationality ("She hasn't communicated or done anything meaningful for fifteen years; how is that living?")

By: Emily T

Emily T — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Good suggestion, Jerry!

By: tim

tim — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I don't think it is much of reach to say that euthanasia activists will attempt to do exactly what you've suggested (actively end life). In the end, there is not an ethical difference between this and what was done to Terri passively.

Regarding the "right" scan, no medical device is capable of determining consciousness, despite the claims of some.

By: EmilyE

EmilyE — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

P.S. Never mind. I apologize for not reading all the comments on your previous post before I posted that.

By: John

John — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

The whole autopsy thing brings up another point which has a tremendous amount of relevance to the preservation of life in the country. Autopsy are now performed in a very small percentage of deaths.
It may be thought that all the improvements in scanning technologies have rendered them irrelevant, however in a very large number of cases (somewhere between 30 and 50 percent, I don't remember the exact number) the autopsy shows that the cause of death was not what the doctor treating the patient thought.
And that number is the same as it was fifty years ago. We're making a lot of mistakes that aren't getting caught.
The medical profesion can't be perfect, it's always going to lose patients (that it saves so many is amazing). But we shouldn't let people die in our care without at least trying to learn from what we did wrong so that we can help the next person better.