The events in the past day or two have been pretty significant. The US Supreme Court has refused to hear the case. I agree with their decision. The federal judges are time and time again ruling to stay out of the case. I agree with their decision. This is NOT a federal issue.

Our very own Bush is doing everything he can to intervene... even attempting to assume custody rights. I agree that there were some significant hiccups in the system... for instance, Mr. is off with another woman, now. Should he still be the decision-maker for Terri? However, at this point, nothing should be done at the federal level, and as much as I sympathize, if it cannot be accomplished at the state level now, end of story. We cannot set a precedent that government can interfere with our personal matters. The government serves the people... even in unusual and chaotic circumstances.

Oh, and the whole conservative argument about doing the "moral" thing is unacceptable. Conservatives aren't the only ones with morals. Many people are ignoring the big picture to concentrate on the small. As representatives of millions of people, those members of congress should be ashamed.

 

Jason,
Your hiccups are one of the reasons it should be examined. Does the decission maker have the best interest of the injured in mind? And since when did the state level not constitute government intervention? State or Federal - they're both government. The federal level looking over the shoulder of the state level is just a form of checks & balance.
I searched this entire thread and did not find "moral" mentioned once outside of your post. If we were to debate your accusation, it should probably be in a new thread. I would not begin to say a liberal has no morals. I have liberal friends who I think a lot of. The difference in a conservative and a liberal is the basis of the morality.

Did you call a congressman? I did. They are there to represent us and need our input on different issues. I've been to Washington and met members of our congress. My father worked with the legislature a considerable amount - even has been in the White House after hours. You would be amazed at how few calls they receive. Because of that, a very few people can have an impact on the way your representative votes.

Admittedly, congress is often blinded by local bias and greed, but in this case, I believe they voted their conscience. Because you didn't agree does not make them wrong. It took a majority - not the one vote of an individual like so many of the court cases. I'll grant the courts have been consistent; therefore I remain *somewhat* content, but sad.
Tink

 

You're right in that government is present at the state and federal level. However, the state courts have already sided with Terri's husband. Everything that's happened in the past few days has been the family's attempt to circumvent the state's decisions by using the federal courts and legislature.

I was not referring to any of your posts when I talked about morals. On the news, however, politicians are consistantly talking about their stance and how it relates to their morals. That's what I'm referring to.

No, I didn't call my congressman. I interned for his office. In fact, I assisted with constituent services and took many calls from residents. I'm definitely no expert, but taking a message and then sending an email off to DC is not going to change my congressman's stance. I'm sure it's just for his weekly report. This, I believe, is besides the issue, however. A representative best serves his people not by voting their opinion on ever issue, but rather by improving their lives as a whole. He ought to take into consideration the reprecussions of his actions and the fact that the American people as a whole are not well educated about government.

Finally, I do not dispute that most politicians and voting their conscience on this issue. But, again, there are sometimes times when consideration of the individual must be put aside for consideration of the population.

 

efusco and lars-ss had very good posts and pretty much covered the bases. I have a few things I want to point out:

- IMVSO (In my very strong opinion), Terri's parents wanted to keep her alive for their own selfish reasons.

- The Repubs just wanted to turn this into a political thing to their advantage.

-Michael Schiavo turned down offers of 1 million and 10 million to keep his wife alive.

-I didn't see anyone speak about what Michael Sciavo was going through. He could have just given up and walked away from all the stress. Instead, he stayed and fought for Terri for many years. That takes money. This, to me, is proof that Mike really loved his wife.

-While George was trying to keep Terri alive, a baby was allowed to die, against his or her mother's wishes, in a Texas hospital because of a law George signed as governor of TX. I don't remember the details of the bill but it essentially forces doctors to give up on medically "hopeless" cases, if I rmember correctly. In other words, if Terri were in a TX hospital, she would have been forced to die years ago.

-Speaking as a disabled man, disabled from birth and well aware of it, I would not have wanted to be forced to live so long. In fact, if my parents forced me to live like that, I'd curse them for their selfishness and lack of love.

-Where's the dignity in lying in bed doing nothing but sleeping and getting bed sores? Terri couldn't even breath.

 

Actually, what you've written is the spin-meisters version.

It relates to the Houston area and regs (prior to Gov. Bush). The loved ones of hopeless cases, at some point, would be required to find another facility (shortage of beds) within a very brief time period -OR- the patient would be removed from life support. The time alloted (and legal) made it difficult for some to find and alternate caregiver.

GWB attempted to have this procedure struck down. The legislature (Dem Controlled) wasn't amenable. A lot of politicking amended the reg to increase the time to (I believe) 45 days and allow for review by an independant medical board affter the time limit (paraphrasing; the exact process?).

The point. GWB signed a bill, the best he could get, to give folx more time to find a suitable alternate medical facility. Far from being a cold hearted killer--forcin' docs to give up on hopeless cases.

 

Further to my previous post; here's a link:

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/hea...pport_sto.html

I messed up the details (# days to find alternate), but the essence is correct. A co-author of the bill explains it much better than my aging memory could ever. Note the line at the end of paragraph 2:

"As one of the laws co-authors (along with a roomful of other drafters, in 1999) let me explain"..........

Link is from THE source.

 

As an emergency physician and member of a large hospital's ethics committee I watched the debate over the Schiavo case with great interest. One thing that was relatively unique about this situation is the divide between the public's opinion and that of the vast majority of physicians.

Physicians come from a wide variety of backgrounds and have a predictably wide variety of opinions on social issues. There are of course ethical principles that all (well, almost all - not everyone's perfect) physicians believe in but despite that fact we find the ability to have a pretty diverse group of opinions about a variety of issues. I have met physicians (not many though) that are against emergency contraception. There are a good number that are opposed to abortion - but that is a little more complicated because that issue can be broken up into many subissues like how far along the fetus is, etc. There are physicians on both sides of the cloning debate - once again there are many gradations of cloning technologies which muddies the waters. Euthanasia is pretty divisive. The list goes on and on.

On the Schiavo case I found in my day to day interactions with other physicians from a variety of specialities and locations very little variation in opinion. This was honestly quite surprising to me - and I am not being sarcastic. I have colleagues that are pretty conservative and quite religious and some that are the opposite or a mixture in between. Almost universally we agree on this case. I wouldn't go so far as to say that the reasons behind each of our opinions were the same but the overall effect was the same. Physicians (at least the ones I know) are constantly debating things. We aren't really always that nice to each other either. That just makes the consensus I have found even more fascinating.

Who's right? Is there truly a right answer? I don't know. Does the fact that physicians deal with more death than most everyone else make them better or worse equipped to have the answers in these situations? I don't really know. You could probably argue either way - we have more experience and are wiser as a result or we are embittered and disillusioned by the exposure to death so frequently.

Regardless of all of that, the most important thing that I have learned in my years as a doctor with end of life issues is that Americans as a whole need to talk about this stuff more. Families need to sit down and talk and make sure everyone knows what grandmother or dad or anyone else wants as far as their end of life care and put it in writing. Then the hard part comes - respect it even if you don't completely agree with it because this is an intensely personal decision and to go against it shows disrespect for a person's autonomy as a human being.

When I was a young medical student I somewhat naively thought that my main job was to grapple with death at every opportunity. As I got more experience I realized that my primary role is to relieve suffering and improve quality of life. I still grapple with death too but only when doing so does not conflict with my primary role.

I was glad to see at least one post where someone said that their family has talked about these issues. I hope everyone else will as well. Remember that you may only be one heartbeat away at any moment no matter how young or healthy you think you are.

Craig