Was Terri Schaivo more conscious than we thought?

Originally posted by sh76
don't tell me the evil GOP dragged her family through the press... Schaivo's parents were desperately trying to have her continue living. This was not a dispute between the family and the Republicans. It was a dispute between family members that was already in the courts for decades. It was the definition of a political issue.

What on earth have you to gain from from trying airbrush one of the most obscene and utterly dishonourable pieces of Republican instigated political theatre in living memory?

Originally posted by sh76
I guess we'll never know.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091124/ap_on_he_me/eu_belgium_coma_recovery

Would something like this make you more hesitant to pull the plug on a patient who had not given consent and who is not brain dead?

The advocates of euthanasia will interprete this situation as a good additional reason to perform euthanasia on these patients.

Originally posted by telerion
That's true. I can't imagine what a nightmare it must have been for him.

That's what I meant with this "additional reason" ....

Personally. I'm awaiting more information on the specific case in the OP before passing comment on it in particular. (Callous as it may sound, quite specific tests need to be carried out to determine whether this is, in fact, a case of facilitated communication, and the remarkable lucidity with which the patient appears to be communicating after 23 years locked-in has raised a few eyebrows. Note that I'm not at all suggesting this is a hoax, only that we really need more, and more rigorous, testing to take place.)

The idea that MRI scans may have shown the possibility of some degree of consciousness is more interesting (although, again, I'd like more information on this, too: I'm going to try to source the paper by Dr Laureys to have a look).

Of course rare cases like this may happen, but ordinarily it is a close friend or relative who gets to make the decision as to whether or not to 'pull the plug' (agree with the previous poster who finds this phraseology a little distasteful, by the way), and I should think a person making that decision would be basing their decision on greater issues than the small chance of a 'false negative'. Besides, if true this will change the way patients apprently in PVS are assessed before any decision needs to be made.

Certainly, for those few people for whom I could conceivably find myself in the awful situation of making such a decision, I'd like to think I know roughly what their wishes would be - and likewise, I should think they would know my wishes.

Originally posted by FMF
What on earth have you to gain from from trying airbrush one of the most obscene and utterly dishonourable pieces of Republican instigated political theatre in living memory?

Correcting misconceptions is a gain in itself.

Originally posted by FMF
What on earth have you to gain from from trying airbrush one of the most obscene and utterly dishonourable pieces of Republican instigated political theatre in living memory?

Let's play some Jeopardy.

Schaivo mess for $1,000, Alex

<Alex Trebek Jeopardy voice>

"This Reverend went to Florida in early 2005 to assist Terri Schaivo's parents in their attempt to prevent their daughter's feeding tube from being removed."

</Alex Trebek Jeopardy voice>

Who is Reverend Jesse Jackson?

<Alex Trebek Jeopardy voice>

Correct. sh76, you take the lead and control the board.

</Alex Trebek Jeopardy voice>

Republicans indeed. 🙄


As for TerrierJack's assertion that the court case had been "completely decided"

Uh.... WRONG.

http://floridasky.us/terri/022305med.pdf

http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/trialctorder02-05.pdf

http://floridasky.us/terri/022805EmMotionNaturalFeeding.pdf

Court proceedings went well into March, well after the controversy was in the public eye.

Of course, Congress UNANIMOUSLY passed a rule allowing federal court jurisdiction over the controversy.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,151015,00.html

The assenting voters included a rookie Senator from Illinois named Barack Obama, by the way. Of course he later renounced having done so after he saw the way the wind blew on that issue.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23354734/page/17/

Originally posted by ivanhoe
That's what I meant with this "additional reason" ....

Wow, talk about taking things out of context.