Rep. Sullivan, Sens. Inhofe and Coburn co-sponsor "Terri's Law"

You owe it to yourself to hear the legal facts of the case from a party who does not take sides:

http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/infopage.html

I'm sorry this requires constant repetition, but at this point, Terri has virtually no cerebral cortex, which makes recovery a moot point.

That alone would qualify her for the Planning Commission in Tulsa.

LOL!

Laughing Out Loud? Really?

Actually, guest, you may find that quite a few "pro life" folks aren't basing their decisions on emotions or sketchy data. To date, I have yet to find any evidence proving that Terri has "virtually no cerebral cortex". There is also no definitive proof that the pain of dehydration and muscle spasms (charley horses) during the death process requires a cortex in order to feel pain and/or fear.

Many people wanting Terri to continue to live are basing their opinion on "since we don't know, err on the side of life". Get the latest tests which have been denied for years. Prove that Terri feels no pain (with PET or functional MRI scans). I know the body will respond to pain relexivly, while the brain may not know what's happening. But the MRI tests can show whether any other portion of Terri's brain reacts to pain stimuli other than brain stem. If it does, then the question as to whether she'll suffer or not will be answered.

All we do know, is some doctors say one thing, others have the opposite stance. No new information has been considered of that nature since around 2000. I for one am uncomfortable to say the least with dehydrating someone to death without definitive proof that they won't feel any pain or fear. That has not been *proven* in this case.

The many other reasons to stay her death are also to have more conclusive study done on the evidence rejected in 2002 by Greer. He found that the bone scan data would be curious to follow up on, but didn't see how it affected Terri at that point since the statute of limitations was over. So data that had been buried until 2002 was reburied and has never been followed up on.

So...there ya go. My "facts" are just as real as yours. But to tell the truth, the truth of this story isn't known by either side whether in the court room or outside of it. Our courts are combative and willing to weigh evidence in a tit for tat manner versus demanding hypotheses get tested in an unequivocal objective manner so the truth can be discovered. Instead they accept pitting two biased views against each other. In a case that involved science, there's no reason to do that. Make docs get together to decide how and what tests will be unbiased. Then have them all run the same tests or be there in person at the same time. Poof, questions answered...not subject to one doc questioning another docs methods. They could *work together* to figure out the truth.

Sigh...I've rambled. But this case does look to be lawyer versus lawyer....my "facts" versus your "facts"....and the truth be da**ed. ....to Terri's demise.

Actually, guest, you may find that quite a few "pro life" folks aren't basing their decisions on emotions or sketchy data. To date, I have yet to find any evidence proving that Terri has "virtually no cerebral cortex". There is also no definitive proof that the pain of dehydration and muscle spasms (charley horses) during the death process requires a cortex in order to feel pain and/or fear.

Many people wanting Terri to continue to live are basing their opinion on "since we don't know, err on the side of life". Get the latest tests which have been denied for years. Prove that Terri feels no pain (with PET or functional MRI scans). I know the body will respond to pain relexivly, while the brain may not know what's happening. But the MRI tests can show whether any other portion of Terri's brain reacts to pain stimuli other than brain stem. If it does, then the question as to whether she'll suffer or not will be answered.

All we do know, is some doctors say one thing, others have the opposite stance. No new information has been considered of that nature since around 2000. I for one am uncomfortable to say the least with dehydrating someone to death without definitive proof that they won't feel any pain or fear. That has not been *proven* in this case.

The many other reasons to stay her death are also to have more conclusive study done on the evidence rejected in 2002 by Greer. He found that the bone scan data would be curious to follow up on, but didn't see how it affected Terri at that point since the statute of limitations was over. So data that had been buried until 2002 was reburied and has never been followed up on.

So...there ya go. My "facts" are just as real as yours. But to tell the truth, the truth of this story isn't known by either side whether in the court room or outside of it. Our courts are combative and willing to weigh evidence in a tit for tat manner versus demanding hypotheses get tested in an unequivocal objective manner so the truth can be discovered. Instead they accept pitting two biased views against each other. In a case that involved science, there's no reason to do that. Make docs get together to decide how and what tests will be unbiased. Then have them all run the same tests or be there in person at the same time. Poof, questions answered...not subject to one doc questioning another docs methods. They could *work together* to figure out the truth.

Sigh...I've rambled. But this case does look to be lawyer versus lawyer....my "facts" versus your "facts"....and the truth be da**ed. ....to Terri's demise.

I agree, go ahead and do the MRI and PET scan, but I disagree that any conceivable result would change the minds of a significant number of these fanatics. It's gone way beyond logic and reason, and is now mainly a salient for the right-to-life lobby/right-wing.

Again, check out http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/infopage.html

I did check out the link. I didn't see any data there that was new to me. Nor is the data there any more first hand than what I've been able to find on pro-life sites.

Perhpas you're right and folks wouldn't change their minds even if the tests were done....perhaps you're wrong. We'll never know since for some reason our court system doesn't put a high value on the truth, but is content to coast along basing decisions purely on combative lawyer tactics and logic problem round robins where they continually mull over the same data over and over.

I spent 10 years doing research science and I know that sometimes experimental processes and conclusions can be different depending on the lab that runs them. But the true nature of science is *cooperative*. In cases of different results, both parties work *together* to design robust experiments that they both can agree on and they both interpret the same data and/or run the same experiment. If they continue to disagree, then somehow the hypothesis is flawed, not each other. Blame goes nowhere. Their hypothesis may be too general and that's why they're gettig different results, but they don't accuse each other of being wrong.

Nevertheless, until the truth is discovered, folks will rail against each other constantly instead of helping each other out. In a case where science can definitively answer each side's questions, it's a shame to have let it degenerate to the mess we're in now. I put that error squarely in Judge Greer's lap.

So I can't judge anyone in the lay public on either side of this issue. We don't have the real facts; we just think we do. And no one in the courtroom seems to be concerned with getting the facts either. That's why I'm "pro-life" in this case. Once someone is dead, you can't go back and fix things if you made a mistake.

Ceci

Ceci, thanks very much for your thoughtful comments. Guest, I'm glad you think an MRI and PET scan ought to be done. I wonder why Judge Greer disagrees. That one judge should have the power to ignore information in making such an irreversable decision is precisely why this bill, providing for habeas corpus when an incapacitated person has no living will, is so important.

I'm starting to think this is about a war between Judge Greer and Jeb Bush. Perhaps Greer sees the efforts of the legislative branch as not only interference, but as an assalt on the authority of the judicial system. So he's reacting by digging in his heals. ....very small of him. My parents punished me in elementary school when I did stuff like that and admonished me that two wrongs don't make a right.

Greer must be praying that there's really no way Terri will feel fear or pain while she dies because he's h*ll bent to make an example out of this case to "show the legislature" to stop meddling.

....or at least, that's what I *think* might be going on.

Ceci

I will be surprised if the tube removal occurs on schedule. I predict that Terri will be around in body if not spirit for some years to come.

At this point in the macabre circus that the Schiavo case has become, there is nothing to lose by doing an MRI. But it may not be definitive, and if not, will serve right-wing political machinations.

If my prediction is correct, there will be years to do further tests and retests, none of which will offer any real hope of restoring Terri Schiavo's mind.

From Range1MD.com(http://www.rangelmd.com/2005/02/new-study-on-comatose-patients.html)...

"In the case of Ms. Schiavo, CAT scans have shown that ever since her cardiac arrest her cerebral cortex (that outer layer of the brain that allows us to think and to be conscious and self aware) has atrophied so much that little is left and the rest has been replaced by cerebrospinal fluid.

"If one of these functional MRI tests were done on Ms. Schiavo to see if her brain could react to external stimuli there would not be enough of her brain left for the MRI to detect such a reaction. Any reactions that are seen in Ms. Schiavo's brain during such a test (in the deeper autonomic areas) would likely just confuse the issue since we still have no way of knowing if these reactions mean that there is consciousness and would draw attention away from what we do know; that the thinking part of Ms. Schiavo's brain is gone thus making consciousness extremely unlikely."

But as I said, there is nothing to lose except many more millions of dollars that could have helped someone who is helpable. In the final analysis, how "moral" is that?

Hello Guest,

I checked your latest link out. Unfortunately it confirmed what I mentioned earlier. We don't know whether consciousness completely resides in the cortex or not. The article you reference said "may so, maybe not". It also reference the "fact" that Terri has little or no cortex left. Well, that "information" is not firsthand. It's been repeated for years, ....just has the "information" from the other side of the equation. To further confuse things, some doctors state that Terri isn't in a vegetative state, but a minimally conscious state. Those docs have been denied access to test Terri, so there's no way that they can ever really know for sure. But they have a hypothesis and until they get to test it out, they'll stick to their guns and say she's not vegetative. I can't blame them for that.

So...round and round we go...all sides gettin' dizzy.

Ultimately, if we don't know where consciousness lies, or if that shell of a person still feels pain, fear or contentment for that matter, then we should take no action. The monetary award for Terri would have paid her way for many more years and not have been a drain on the system. So if society has a problem with the costs, Terri's cost of upkeep had been paid for ....until Michael got to use it for lawyers fees. Her parents have supposedly dug into their retirement money (to what degree I don't know). So the public didn't have to be out any money to take care of Terri.

I just read about a 68 year old man in houston who's getting ready to get pulled off the machines helping him live. He's conscious, but unable to talk, move or eat on his own. He's outta money (medicare I think), so the hospital is shutting him down. Imagine being his wife. He's got to suffer to die and she's gotta watch. At what age, cost, chance of recovery, level of suffering do we draw the line that it's ok to kill someone? That's quite a slippery slope.

Ceci: "We don't know whether consciousness completely resides in the cortex or not...if we don't know where consciousness lies, or if that shell of a person still feels pain, fear or contentment for that matter, then we should take no action."

Well, we do know where it lies, which is in the cerebral cortex. But no action is exactly what will be taken in the coming years.

"I just read about a 68 year old man in houston who's getting ready to get pulled off the machines helping him live. He's conscious, but unable to talk, move or eat on his own. He's outta money (medicare I think), so the hospital is shutting him down. Imagine being his wife. He's got to suffer to die and she's gotta watch. At what age, cost, chance of recovery, level of suffering do we draw the line that it's ok to kill someone? That's quite a slippery slope."

If this man could somehow bring the right-wing machine into play, he would be fine. But their focus and resources remain on the Schiavo case, where it's clear that no improvement will occur. Too bad for the Houston man.

Well, he wouldn't be "fine," he would be alive. Whether that would be his wish, he might be able to communicate.

Ok, I'm going to try a repost since my wireless connection keeps dropping signal and it appears that my reply hasn't posted yet. Sorry if it has and this is a dupe.

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Ok...last post on this 'cause we're kinda cluttering up Michael's site with this. So I'll stop...just one more though.

From your last link ...the ranglmd one... he stated and I quote:

"Are brain injured, comatose patients aware? - Using MRI scans of the brain, a new study in the journal Neurology found that patients who are brain damaged and minimally responsive may be capable of displaying the same type of brain activity to various external stimuli as healthy patients. Does this mean that they are aware? Maybe. Maybe not. We still don't know enough about consciousness to understand if certain brain activity equates to awareness."

He's stating very clearly that we don't know where awareness/consciousness resides. He doesn't mention cortex specifically, but he does state that medicine does not yet know what type of brain activity shows consciousness. Yet you seem to be sure that we do.

This tells me that the usual polarization has occurred where many people who don't have the training are drawing conclusions based on either emotion or because they've heard so much "data" that surely they have all the "facts". In science the "facts" change all the time. As we discover more, often times we find out that we made grievous mistakes in the past. We *must* be willing to change and willing to pose the scenario that we may not really know the answer yet or, heaven forbid, be wrong.

My opinion of letting people live who are like Terri is because if we're wrong, these people are going to suffer horribly. Dying like this is like something out of a Stephen King novel where someone is buried alive. It has nothing to do with right wing or left wing leanings. (FWIW, I'm usually branded as a far left wing liberal. It's been enlightning to be on the other side of the fence on an issue. Now I see first hand what each "side" is doing to the other.)

Judgement and blame help no one. Yet I can't shake the opinion that making life and death decisions based on money, age, opinion of recovery chances, or popularity in the media is horrifyingly on the edge of societally approved murder. If you're interested, read "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" by Jean-Dominique Bauby. He was the editor in chief of the french ELLE magazine before he had a brainstem stroke. He couldn't move, eat, even swallow his own spit, yet he wrote a book by blinking his left eye when a caregiver got to the correct letter. Not once did he mention that he wanted to die. He eventually moved on to a different way of existing and let go of his former life. (though he did eventually die...2 days after the publication of his book)

I don't see how I can judge how someone else will feel in the circumstance of being as brain damaged as Terri or locked in like Bauby. If I try, all I'm doing is projecting my ego onto someone else. Unless they took the time to tell me in a living will that they're willing to dehydrate to death if need be, I'm not going to assume that they're suffering and wouldn't want to live like that.

Ceci

Ceci, I don't think you read far enough into that article.

The very next sentence after your quote is, "But this didn't stop the New York Times from taking an apple and trying to convince its readers that it's an orange!", in relating MRI findings to the Schaivo case.

The author then went on say as quoted previously, "If one of these functional MRI tests were done on Ms. Schiavo to see if her brain could react to external stimuli there would not be enough of her brain left for the MRI to detect such a reaction."

The article ended with this:

"...the study in question used patients who were in a minimally conscious state and by definition, patients in such a state are still capable of awareness. Terry Schiavo is in what is clinically described as a Persistent Vegetative State in which the brain damage is so severe that there is no conscious self-awareness."

Terri Schaivo's mental status is incomparably worse than that of your ELLE editor or the Houston man you cited earlier.

Guest, you're begging the question. Because the judge has decreed that she is PVS, ignoring evidence and expert testimony to the contrary, you begin with the assumption that the judge's diagnosis is true, and therefore the experiences of Bauby and others are inapplicable to Terri's case. The point of the examples that Ceci cites is that external appearances can't always tell you what's going on in the mind. Behind the inability to speak, eat, or move there may be no consciousness at all or there may be a mind trying to write a book. If someone begins with the assumption that Terri has no cerebral cortex, then of course you'd predict that an MRI would show no activity.

The point of the test is to find out whether the judge was correct in his conclusion, which is why he won't allow it. That's why the federal "Terri's Law" is so important -- it won't allow one judge to sentence an innocent person to death without an opportunity for the facts of the case to be reviewed by another court.

The 1996 CAT scan finding of the near-complete atrophy of the cortex is not an assumption, nor is it in question. That's why this entire case would be farcical if it weren't tragic first.

From the Second District court's opinion:

"Although the physicians are not in complete agreement concerning the extent of Mrs. Schiavo's brain damage, they all agree that the brain scans show extensive permanent damage to her brain. The only debate between the doctors is whether she has a small amount of isolated living tissue in her cerebral cortex or whether she has no living tissue in her cerebral cortex."

Some argue that Michael Schiavo, his attorney, Judge Greer, and the physicians involved in this finding are motivated by evil, but this argument certainly taxes credulity when applied so to so many people.

Ok...this is like a lays potato chip...ya just can't stop. Sigh...I did say I was moving on right. Maybe *this* will be my last post. :)

It's apparent that Guest can't change anyone's mind here and we can't change his/her mind either. There's no reason to pursue talking to each other if that is our motive. That's not my motive. I simply feel compelled to let someone know *why* I think Terri should continue to live. Perhaps it's to show that we all should still respect each other and not conclude that a certain side is irrational or reactionary. I don't know, but here I go again. :)

In summary it is thus:

Although she has brain damage, no one knows whether she feels pain or fear. Perhaps she doesn't. But I'm not going to *assume* that she won't be in incredible stress/pain in the process of dying over such a prolonged period of time. Nor am I going to assume that anyone who didn't write a living will is suffering by continuing to live in Terri's state.

Arguing over semantics, who said what, previous legal decisions, various doc reports saying she is/she isn't,and whether either side has embellished the details to aid their cause, won't change those personal facts/interpretations. I don't see *any* doctors agreeing as to what level of brain function is required to feel pain, fear or contentment. Those are subjective states and presently our society is fixataed on quantitative testing which can never adequately address questions like that.

Some people are comfortable drawing the conclusion that there isn't any consciouness inside Terri's body that can suffer while dying. These people may use wasting societies money on hopless cases, and right to die as aids to their "argument", but the bottom line is that they utterly believe that the body in that bed has no consciouness to feel pain or fear.

Other people feel confident that Terri could suffer. They may use other "arguments" to aid their reasoning, but they're utterly convinced that they don't know. So just in case Terri will suffer while dehydrating, they want her to keep on living. If they are making a mistake at least it's one that errs in such a way as to be repairable later. If someone dies, the situation can never be fixed if we find out we made a mistake.

I changed my mind during this last round of Terri's battle, but no one changed it for me by arguing with me. I changed it myself. I did the research off to the side of the whirlwind of the case and found that the right to life people weren't just "Bible thumping conservatives". They really had put a lot of thought into this.

So, I know I'm not going to change your mind, nor will I try to. All I want to say is that the people here are no more likely to be rabidly emotional that people that are "right to die". Their Christian beliefs are often just one data point in their reasoning.

So guest, we know you've thought about it long and hard. You read the same data we did. You just drew a different conclusion than we did. What else is there to say? Surely you can now tell that people here have thought long and hard about this too? Perhaps that was the whole point of this little exercise. Who knows....

with respect,
Ceci

I do appreciate your civility, Ceci. I'll drop out of this thread.

You may be curious what personal connection I have to the Schiavo case. The maybe surprising answer is none.

I noticed all the heat being generated over this case, and assumed it is one of those intractable disputes that admits of no clear-cut solution.

As I got into it, I found that at least the medical side of the issue was surprisingly clear-cut: the woman almost totally lacks higher brain centers, quite a different situation from other
cases recently publicized. There is no realistic hope for recovery. Brains are not like chameleons' tails; they don't regenerate.

The rest of it is about a family divided over control of the woman's situation, and the court's thankless role investigating her medical circumstances and trying to determine her expressed wishes for the tragic and unlikely turn of events that did occur.

And then the political right-wing discovered the polarization value of the case, and that it could serve as another front in the culture wars. That's where I came in: lots of heat, little light.

I think of the massive resources being poured into this, and imagine what they could do for people who have a real chance to recover. That makes me cynical about the people pushing this case. You can bet the Bushes lose no sleep--it's just another token in their game.

With that self-explanation, I will sign out for today.

Sincerely,
Guest

I am astounded that anyone is considering pulling the plug on a woman has not had a PET or MRI scan.

And it's not like there's nobody willing to take care of her.