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[choco_orangutan]

Over the years, many people have been kept alive through the use of gastrostomy tubes and nutritional support. At no time did the question of recovery enter into the decision to feed the patient unless their underlying illness would be fatal without mechanical or pharmacological support or they were brain-dead, neither of which applies to Ms

Comments

2 Points

[calisaurus]

1)Your rights are legally protected by having a guardian or power of attorney who will make decisions on your behalf when you can't make them anymore. I think that Schiavo's husband is the best judge of what Terri wanted. Even if it isn't what she wanted, it doesn't matter because he has the legal right to choose for her. She wasn't alive - her brain wasn't working. She wasn't living as an invalid. Living as an invalid would be like having no legs or something like that. When your brain ceases to function - at all - you are not alive. You are a vegetable and lose all reasoning and functioning skills. Terri Schiavo didn't know what dignity was, she didn't know what her own hands were.

I think you are wrong in the first paragraph to compare the Schiavo case with that of down syndrome and mental retardation, because in these cases the people afflicted with these conditions can still make decisions for themselves. Their brains are active and they have the ability to choose. They may not always understand what they are choosing, but that is a lot different from Schiavo, who had no thought or brain activity at all.

What is the point of keeping someone alive when they have no quality of life? It's selfish - especially on the part of her parents who wanted to keep her alive. She was pretty much already dead. To live in a state like that is not living with dignity. It's embarassing and a waste of resources, time and money. When you are dead, dignity does not matter. It doesn't matter what you wanted when you are dead. What happens to your possessions doesn't matter when you are dead. You are dead. There is nothing going on there. Schiavo was dead before she died. Her brain wasn't working. She couldn't think. She just had automatic reactions to light, sound, etc - but that doesn't mean her brain processed any of that stuff.

2) People DIE, you DYE clothes.