Parents Lose Appeal

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jejquade

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What do you think about this case?



The parents of a severely brain damaged woman in the US have lost their appeal to have her feeding tube reinserted.

Terri Schiavo's mother and father filed the appeal with a three-judge court in Atlanta, Georgia.

They say their daughter, whose feeding was halted last Friday under a state court order, was "fading quickly".

The three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 against Bob and Mary Schindler, backing the view of a federal court in Florida.

The court, which issued its ruling in the middle of the night, acknowledged the "absolute tragedy that has befallen Mrs Schiavo".

But it added: "We agree (with the lower court) that the plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate a substantial case on the merits of any of their claims.

"We also conclude that the district court's carefully thought out decision to deny temporary relief in these circumstances is not an abuse of discretion."

Mr and Mrs Schindler's lawyer indicated that another appeal was likely.

Mrs Schiavo's husband Michael does not want her to have the tube reinserted, claiming she told him she never wanted to be kept alive artificially.

She has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years.

Her fight for life is the focus of a bitter family battle which has evolved into a political storm, attracting accusations of Republican electioneering.

On Sunday, Congress passed emergency legislation - signed into law by President Bush - which gave a federal judge the power to reverse a state court decision to remove the 41-year-old's feeding tube.
 
Read this earlier, which sums things up pretty well for me:

"The deep-down, ground-level sentiment on the part of righties who want Terry Schiavo's feeding tube put back in? Anything, even life as a vegetable, is better than death. Human dignity and quality of life is never, it appears, a big concern of the Christian hardcore. The thing that gets their goat in this case is the importance of not sending a helpless, vegetative woman into the void, the black tunnel, the great howling nothingness of death...nothing is more terrible than this. The irony, of course, is that righties are always saying how sold they are on the concept of God and Jesus waiting at the end of that tunnel, waiting to greet the dear and departed, etc."
 
Yes, having sold Christianity to the downtrodden of the world for centuries on the basis of however hellish their life on Earth was, a glorious Divine welcome would await them upon death, I'm surprised that these most rabid of its' adherents aren't positively willing us to depart for those heavenly shores as soon as possible. Words like 'cake' and 'eat it' spring to mind.

The issue here isn't actually a moral one, it's a legal one as to who has the right to continue the artificial preservation of poor Mrs Sciavo's existence.

Folks, if you don't want to be preserved for the enjoyment of others' lives, rather than your own, make sure you make a 'living Will' as soon as you can. If you sustain a terrible head injury in, say, a car smash, you too can look forward to being tube-fed through your navel for eons and being visited by your loved ones, who'll insist that you still have 'some' quality of life. I'm sorry to sound brutal, but that is largely for THEIR comfort. You'll basically be a circulating pump, kept 'alive' by the wonders of medical science, which should have taken a much-needed lesson in Ethics before forcing its' gadgetry upon unconscious, unresponsive, and apparently unwilling patients. If you cannot be returned to some semblance of a CONSCIOUS enjoyment and participation in your own life, you may as well be let go to those welcoming bands of angels.
 
Originally posted by krizon@Mar 23 2005, 03:12 PM
Yes, having sold Christianity to the downtrodden of the world for centuries on the basis of however hellish their life on Earth was, a glorious Divine welcome would await them upon death, I'm surprised that these most rabid of its' adherents aren't positively willing us to depart for those heavenly shores as soon as possible. Words like 'cake' and 'eat it' spring to mind.

The issue here isn't actually a moral one, it's a legal one as to who has the right to continue the artificial preservation of poor Mrs Sciavo's existence.

Folks, if you don't want to be preserved for the enjoyment of others' lives, rather than your own, make sure you make a 'living Will' as soon as you can. If you sustain a terrible head injury in, say, a car smash, you too can look forward to being tube-fed through your navel for eons and being visited by your loved ones, who'll insist that you still have 'some' quality of life. I'm sorry to sound brutal, but that is largely for THEIR comfort. You'll basically be a circulating pump, kept 'alive' by the wonders of medical science, which should have taken a much-needed lesson in Ethics before forcing its' gadgetry upon unconscious, unresponsive, and apparently unwilling patients. If you cannot be returned to some semblance of a CONSCIOUS enjoyment and participation in your own life, you may as well be let go to those welcoming bands of angels.
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I certainly agree with the latter part of your post Kri but I think your opening paragraph (as well as Gareth's pasting) takes a simplistic view of Christianity. I don't think I've ever heard any christian say the sole requirement for entering heaven was death. I think in cases like this the fire & brimstone "righties" act more out of "if we stand back and let her die then we'll go to hell". i.e. They're acting out of self concern as opposed to concern for the woman.
 
Tom, it seems to me that too many fundamentalist Christians take a simplistic view of Christianity.
 
If you believe in God, you believe in miracles and the power of prayer. No matter how hopeless, no matter how expert the views of the doctors and judges, why allow her life to slip away when she might become another miracle herself.

It must be hell for both her husband and her family.
 
Tommo - I don't think you get to Heaven, in any of the Big Three monoreligions, UNLESS you die! (Of course, the Bottomless Pit of Hades awaits unbelievers, but that's another matter.) But your own point's valid, of course - all those people speaking in tongues ('though I speak with the voice of angels') and clutching their Bibles outside the hospital are probably looking for Brownie points. They turn out for everything they find 'against' God, and the hypocrisy is that they accuse the people who would turn off the feeder tube as 'playing God'. Presumably, totally artificial interventions which have endlessly prolonged a biological existence, but not a conscious participation in life, are not considered to be playing the Almighty? Sometimes I think that the older I get, the less I understand about this world!

Joanna - thanks. It's a very sad subject, and I sympathize with both points of view - of the parents, and the husband. It's got to be unimaginably dreadful to have a beautiful, bright, healthy, daughter/wife one minute, and then someone who's transformed into an uncomprehending, helpless, artificially-maintained shell. The thing here is, that unlike many people who suffer terrible brain injuries, Mrs Sciavo has no CONSCIOUS sensations. I worked for a wonderful charity called Headway for a while, which provides day centres for head-injured adults (the Stroke Association provides its' own). The people who attended might have lost some of their functioning, such as sight in an eye, speech, or motor skills, but they were entirely conscious of their surroundings, other people, what was going on, etc. Our most severely-damaged attendee was partially blind, partially paralysed, and entirely speech-deficient, but could still play the piano beautifully with his working hand, and still roar with laughter at jokes, and communicate fluently in his own version of sign-and-sound language. So there are loads of people who can ENJOY a reduced, or restricted, life very well. But Mrs Sciavo's never going to improve out of her PVS to anything like that, and that's why I think it's wrong for her to be kept in this limbo of neither being alive, in any sentient way, or peacefully dead.
 
What I can never understand about most religious people (any religion) is the way they think God views people of other religions. The Jewish God wants to take all the Palestinian and Iraqi land for the Israelis. The Catholic God has no place in heaven for Protestants or anyone else. The Muslim God considers all non-Muslims to be infidels. I mean, if it was your Dad you'd think "what an old bigot / racist". Surely common sense tells them that if they were born into another religion then they'd be unlikely to change to another. I suspect they all fear their God but find it hard to believe they love him. The most terrifying words in the bible are "God made man in his own image".


Tommo - I don't think you get to Heaven, in any of the Big Three monoreligions, UNLESS you die!
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Incorrect Kri. The bible speaks of a generation that would never know death and your fundamentallists await "the rapture".
 
Originally posted by Honest Tom@Mar 23 2005, 09:34 PM
The Catholic God has no place in heaven for Protestants or anyone else.
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Where on earth did you get that idea, Tom :what:

It was never ever taught to me and I never ever taught in the days I taught RE.
 
Maurice, Jesus's words "I am the way, the truth and the light. No one goes to the father but through me" is usually quoted as the justification.
 
Oh, must've missed that out during my days of trying To Be Good, HT - what IS the generation that will never know death? Everyone who's been cryogenized? :blink:

I must admit (we're wandering off-topic into dark woods again) I have a problem with every religion being the 'true' religion, and every offshoot or sect within a main religion also claiming itself to be the True Path. I've given up on it all, not at once, but over the years of seeing so much intra- and inter-religious savagery towards one's fellow human being. If there was a 'God', who made mankind in its' image, then we are all its' fellow travellers through our brief lives, and should be doing whatever we can to facilitate the best for each other, not murdering each other. Presumably, every time we kill, we kill the One who made us in that image, and utterly fail to honour it. That alone makes all religion-based hatred into God-hating, doesn't it?

(It would help if I believed in a Divine Architect, of course, but as I don't, I just think we should get on with being halfway decent to each other. If the tsunami did anything, it was to bring out the best in people, regardless of the presence or absence of belief, in an outpouring of common sympathy and the desire to help stricken fellow humans.)
 
Originally posted by krizon@Mar 24 2005, 02:35 PM
Presumably, every time we kill, we kill the One who made us in that image, and utterly fail to honour it.
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...which is probably why it's in there with the other nine.
 
There is something about this case that makes me sick to the pit of my stomach.

It wouldn't surprise me if there was an insurance company behind the scenes somewhere who see this as a way to increase profits, not just now but, with precedent, in the future.

Also, I'd like to know where the religious right who claim to be "pro-life" have disappeared to. They are happy to go round terrorising those who perform abortions, but if ever there was a life to fight for, it was this one.
 
Firstly, cricketfan, I don't know whether you've been getting the news out there but the religious right have been more active in this instance than any other I can recall.

Secondly, you are obviously unaware that Terri Schiavo had told her husband that in such circumstances she would not want to be kept alive artificially
 
Alistair, what are you on about? The poor woman had no quality of life whatsoever and it was cruel to keep her alive on machines just for the sake of keeping her alive. What life was there to fight for? Would you like to be kept alive in such an instance? What about the poor woman's dignity? Brian is right too, the religious pro-life movement came out in force, they were picketing in public & allsorts. God rest her soul, I hope she can rest in peace now.
 
I find the entire case deeply dusturbing.

My understanding - perhaps I'm wrong - is that she was not on life support machines to keep her 'artificially' alive. She was 'just' (if I can put it like that without causing offence) seriously brain damaged.

Ultimately she was starved to death.
 
I know which I'd prefer if I was in the same state Maurice, and it wouldn't be to be kept alive in a vegetative state, totally dependant on other people for such basics as to be fed, washed or relieve myself.
 
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