OK, I have to mention this.

[gridlore]

I've avoided ranting about the Schaivo situation in my journal. I'm sure most of you know, or can guess, my position.

But yesterday, several protestors were arrested for tresspassing at the hospice facility.. they were trying to bring Terri cups of water.

Which would have killed her. See, she hasn't had a swallowing reflex in a decade. Pour water down her throat, and it goes right into the lungs.

This shows the level of idiocy of the "save Terri" people. They don't care about the most basic facts of the case, prefer to believe in flights of fancy that this woman, lacking a cerebral cortex, will someday sit up and speak. It isn't going to happen.

Were I in charge at the hospice, I would have taken the trespassers into a conference room and told them in gloating terms how they almost committed murder, how they were idiots, and that they should all go finish grade school before making medical judgements.

Comments

[karjack.livejournal.com]

That is stupidity on a scale that simply stuns me. I used to work in health care and dealt with patients not unlike this one and... no. You just don't...

No.

Then again, this is proving that people in a persistent vegetative state are capable of at least holding protests and sneaking into hospices with cups of water.

[bunyip.livejournal.com]

I agree

[robertprior.livejournal.com]

It would have been ironic if they'd succeeded in sneaking in and giving her the drink. The religious right would have had to support a charge of homicide, because they're the ones saying Schaivo is alive and can recover...

[cleverthylacine]

Okay, you do realise that five people != the entire side of the equation?

Or perhaps you're using the same sort of logic you used when you decided that I don't respect your marriage because I don't respect Michael Schiavo's?

Anyhow, I personally graduated from grade school some 28 years ago, have a master's degree, work in health care, and agree that that was a stupid thing to do, but...still don't agree with starving this woman to death.

[pompe.livejournal.com]

Can't those protesters be charged with something?

Being an idiot ("Gee, I didn't know she'd drown") can't be a valid defense especially if one claims to know the case, and I believe there is a reason these decisions are being made by family and medical professionals.

Ok, I gotta say

[bunnybutt.livejournal.com]

Am I the only one who sees the irony in a discussion about whether to "starve to death" a woman who is in a PVS because she was starving herself to death?

Why are we having all this angst about whether to let her die or not rather than a public discussion of how our society's standards for women's appearance lead to eating disorders, and how eating disorders contributed to Terry's condition?

As for her parents... they provided the environment that fostered the eating disorder. The time for them to help her was 25 years ago.