Where do we draw the line? When is a life at its end?

[ScreamingMeemie]

A caller on Springer brought this up today...Although Springer seemed to be more on the side of Schiavo's parents. The caller has worked in end care hospice for quite some time. His basic thought was 100 years ago this would not have been an issue. The decision would have been made...by nature.

So, where do we draw the line? How long should we keep a woman alive who has not had (in my opinion, of course) a productive and fulfilling life for 15 years? Are we supposed to be playing God in this instance (for those who are Christian and against removing her tube)?

For me, it's fairly simple. If I need something artificial plugged into me to keep me alive (with the exception of pacemakers etc) I no longer wish to live. Especially if I cannot hold my husband and tell him that I love him. Nurture my children. Laugh with my friends. What would be the point?

[patrice]

1. "Life" and "Death" are words that we made up.

Don't mistake the words for the phenomena to which they refer.

Here's a though experiment: Try to think of these phenomena before there were words to differentiate them from everything else.

[ScreamingMeemie]

2. That's not what I'm asking. This is the phenomena. When should it end?

[Dookus]

3. The point is that at which

the burdens of treatment outweigh the expected results. that's the way it was put in my living will that I filled out last night and sent to friends to family.

[ScreamingMeemie]

4. Those are my beliefs as well.

How I wish I had lived 100 years ago.

[AngryOldDem]

12. Agreed

The question ultimately becomes, what is the quality of life? What is the dignity of that life? Life sustained by a tube is not life as I think any Creator intended it to be. Even if she were somewhat functioning with the tube removed, and if she would survive, would Schiavo have a good and dignified existence with severe, irreversible brain damage? I think we have to defer to the many experts who have studied this case and conclude that she would not.

For me, it comes down again to quality and dignity.

My only concern here, in this particular case, is what will happen when the tube is removed. How long will it take before she dies? Will she be more or less put in a drug-induced coma so that she will not suffer markedly long from starvation? These are tough questions as well. But what I see right now is not "life" as most of us would define it -- more like bare existence.

[Pirate Smile]

5. Here is a link to a discussion on this subject also.

Terri Schiavo - Doubts. Check out the links, and you decide
by DFWmom


Fri Mar 18th, 2005 at 09:37:35 PST

I am a cautious supporter of the right to die, but I have observed that what seems clearcut in theory becomes a tangled mess in practice. I am inclined to believe that when one person decides that another person must die then the basis for the decision should be "beyond a shadow of a doubt". After all, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" (Lord Acton, 1887). In studying the facts of this case, I find I have some doubts about Terri's actual condition, and the possibility that her condition could improve with emerging treatments.
It's tough for me. The Republicans are siding with the Schindlers, so OF COURSE I want to side with Schiavo. It's really not my call, but I am fascinated with the whole situation. It's like watching a train wreck. Anyway, here's some of what I've been reading, and why I think a cautious approach is the best one.

Terri's doctors say she is in a persistent vegetative and that there is currently no treatment that would improve her condition. After reading the following articles, I wonder...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/18/123735/896

[Warpy]

14. All this stuff is highly speculative and is decades away from being

tried on human beings. Centuries if we don't get the religious wack jobs out of power.

In the meantime, please look at pictures of this person. Look at her hands and wrists. Her wrists are bent like that because of contractures. She will never be able to straighten them again. Other joints are also contracted in this fashion. Her muscles are atrophied.

Decades of waiting for speculative treatment won't improve any of this.

She's dead. Let her go.

[efhmc]

6. Well said. I bet this makes many fill out right to die forms. If no other

good comes from this maddness, maybe that will be something.

[ScreamingMeemie]

7. I did it in January.

After my brush with death, I wasn't going to take any chances. This time there will be no ventilator option for me. :hi:

[Larkspur]

8. After watching my mother vegetate for a few days before she died

she had had a major stroke, I decided to have a will made up. In my state of CT, a living will is also needed. The Living Will states what you want to have happen to you should you be medically incapacitated. I told the lawyer that if I ended up a vegetable, to put me down, as in euthanize me.

[Hoping4Change]

9. For me this case is no different than the fundies attempts to stop

Evolution being taught in school. Neurologists treating brain dead people rely on objective tests to determine the patient's status. Fundies can't stand anything to be determined on the basis of objective measurements.

[Warpy]

10. The problem with all this is that when there's an insult to the brain

you really don't know what you have to work with until you're about six months out. That's the period during which any rapid improvement will occur, although slower improvement will continue for about two years. Then what you see is what you've got, basically. This is for a non comatose patient. Coma is quite different.

During the six months during which improvement may occur, life support is essential to allow it to progress. The problem is that once life support is initiated, it becomes problematic trying to discontinue it.

Schiavo did improve during this period, but only enough to awaken and to maintain the brainstem functions of respiration and circulation.

This whole thing should have been ended when the first films showing the severe atrophy of her entire cerebral cortex and its replacement by cerebrospinal fluid were read.

There is no compassion at work here. There is only a projected terror of death and judgment by a vengeful god. While I feel sorry for the people who live in such an ugly world, I don't think they should be allowed their way in this case. She's dead. Let her go home.

[libertypirate]

11. You draw the line when you realize....

this case is a distraction and ignore it.

[ScreamingMeemie]

13. Sorry, I'm passionate about right to die. You'll have to put up with it

I guess. Hide my thread.

And, on edit: It has massive ramifications upon the end of your life and how you choose to die...Unless you don't have a problem with the government being involved in it.