[lit-ideas] Re: Right to Life, Right to Die

  • From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 13:05:34 -0500

> [Original Message]
> From: Carol Kirschenbaum <carolkir@xxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 3/25/2005 12:31:33 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Right to Life, Right to Die
>

>
> But as you say, society believes it should have a say in all this 
> technology. However, I doubt that a feeding tube is a very costly piece
of 
> technology.
>

A.A. Not sure I agree about "society".  Law by the majority is known as mob
rule.  We need courts and judges to make these decisions, however
imperfectly they do it.  Witihout law, there is no society.



C.K. > A couple of points in the Schiavo case:
> Terri has been swallowing her own saliva, according to medical reports.
(She 
> doesn't drool.) Swallowing reflex can be increased, with training. Terri 
> didn't have such training, and the courts refused it. Please note: The 
> courts are not medical experts, nor are lawyers trained in interpreting 
> medical information. 


A.A. Lawyers hire experts.  Experts are an industry unto themeselves.  For
every expert who says it's A and only A, another will say it's B and only
B.  The more persuasive one will prevail.



Carol: The courts that have ruled in favor of Michael Shiavo 
> have looked specifically--and almost solely--at the rights and
obligations 
> of a legal guardian. Charges of abuse remained just that--informal
charges 
> to nobody. The documents backing up the family's accusations are part of
the 
> Schindler family's records. Michael Schiavo has not been brought up on 
> domestic violence charges. Btw, Veronica, I'm currently working as a 
> counselor at a shelter for battered women, so don't lecture me.
>


A.A. As hard as the Schindlers fought, one would think they would have
exploited this aspect if there was anything in it.  Personally, I think the
Schindlers don't care about their daughter.  They care about themselves and
how they will feel when she's gone.  Maybe they'll have to look at their
marriage, find something else to do.  Not so easy to do.   If they cared
about her, they'd let her go.  We have to be careful not to project our own
causes onto cases like this.  



Carol: > You may not know that people have become fully conscious years
after being 
> in PVS and minimally-conscious states. Just a couple of weeks ago I
attended 
> a lecture on this by the physician who runs the local "vegetable patch" 
> here--a coma unit. You'd think it'd be a quiet place. Not with this
doctor. 
> He believes in stimulating his comatose and near-comatose patients to the 
> max--anything to wake them up, including flavoring the liquid in their 
> feeding tubes. (What, it's gonna hurt?) His point is, you've gotta try to
DO 
> something with these folks or you might as well put them all to sleep 
> permanently--which he has no intention of doing. So his ward is anything
but 
> quiet. Radios, TV, massages, vibrators, varying lights, families reading
and 
> picnicking...you wouldn't believe it. This ward has an extraordinary
record 
> of wake-ups, compared to others of its ilk.
>


A.A. He can stimulate away.  Doesn't mean they can hear it.  



> And for 15 years, Terri Schiavo has been locked in solitary confinement, 
> with infrequent, monitored visits from her parents. No outdoors, nobody 
> talking next to her or around her. Radio tuned to the same station for 
> years...It's enough to make someone feel brain dead.
>


A..A Does not compute.  Her parents couldn't take her outdoors?  Couldn't
change the radio station?  Couldn't fight for more services?  Something
doesn't add up here.




> But I'm curious: Would you deny feeding tubes in all cases of minimal 
> consciousness? Would you allow a feeding tube for a certain number of
weeks? 
> Months? Years? Never? You've probably read or heard about people being
fully 
> conscious but "locked-in"--the Poe terror. 



A.A. Try the movie The Awakenings (1990).  It's a true story.  Exactly on
this topic.




This can continue for a long 
> while, for years, if nobody's watching that patient very carefully for
signs 
> of alertness. Stinting on the feeding tube would kill them off. Is that
okay 
> in the rationing hierarchy? Should expensive healthcare be reserved for 
> people above a certain IQ level--and withheld for, say, people with
mental 
> retardation living in institutions?  Just curious. Very curious.
> Carol
>
>
>

A.A. Guidelines need to be established.  Not rules, guidelines.  Regarding
rationing of expensive healthcare, it's not rationed by IQ, it's rationed
by ability to pay.  Terry got more healthcare services to date than just
about anyone.


Andy Amago






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