From Olbermann:
OLBERMANN: And there was one more statement from the attorney for Terri Schiavo
by John Cole| 18 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics
From Olbermann:
OLBERMANN: And there was one more statement from the attorney for Terri Schiavo
Comments are closed.
Rick
“Additional thoughts can be found here, since, as I said above, I have nothing more to say.
Filed under Domestic Affairs by John Cole at 09:49 PM”
Like a dog returning to its vomit.
Well, *I* won’t call you a liar.
Cordially…
Brad R.
Wasn’t Gibbs the same attorney who told the judge that God might send Terri to hell if they pulled her feeding tube?
Nash
Hey, Rick, sometimes it’s the tastiest thing going.
Blind people? So now it’s blind people who are threatened by the culture-of-death’ers? Stevie Wonder, watch your back…ooh, sorry, that was in doubly poor taste.
Rick
Nash,
Hyperbole. But that’s the foundation of “slippery slope” arguments.
I believe the consequences of having stepped out onto this slick incline are that we are more headed toward, rather than away, from that hyperbolic scenario.
There’ll be way stations on the downhill slide, and the same arguments will be recycled. And death/euthanasia will be more and more the default position.
Another poster here on another thread has stated comfort with such, it being all based on science.
As was eugenics.
Cordially…
Levi
Anybody see Gibbs on Dan Abrams??? He was opposite Werner Spitz, a renowned pathologist. Dan Abrams, like Keith Olberman, asked tough questions and confronted Gibbs with his past nonsensical arguments about Terri. Gibbs was astounded that anyone could talk to him like that. Werner Spitz said Gibbs was crazy and had magical thinking (what schizophrenics have)if he believed what the Schindlers said! The best part was when Spitz told Gibbs that “this woman, in all actuality, died 15 years ago when she collapsed!” Gibbs was almost speechless and left the show blubbering. It was great
Sojourner
Rick:
It’s a shame that you’re unwilling to take a concrete stand. It may allow you to pretend to have the moral ground but you’re ducking the tough questions that people living in the real world have to address. So come off your mountain top of superiority and answer the following…
Are you aruging that every person who is on life support should remain permanently on life support until their bodies give out?
Yes or no?
If not, what is the basis for determining who remains on life support and who doesn’t?
ppgaz
I think I see the pattern here.
These people are talking about “blind people being starved to death.”
Naturally, they’d fear such a thing. If blind people can be starved to death, stupid people might be next.
It’s all just about self-preservation, after all.
Sojourner
Thanks ppgaz!
At last, it makes sense.
CaseyL
There was an infamous case in Florida about 30 years ago of a man who became besotted with, obsessed with, a young woman dying of tuberculosis.
He somehow managed to get hold of her body soon after her death. He took it to his house and set it up in a preservative solution that kept the flesh from decomposing. He also installed a tube in her vagina, so he could have sex with the corpse.
When arrested, he insisted that she wasn’t dead, that they loved each other, and that he had “only” meant to protect and cherish her for all his days.
Those who insist Terri Schiavo was still “alive” in any meaningful sense of the word – who still insist she was “murdered” – who concoct fantasies of her awareness – who still say she was conscious and wanted to remain so – are fetishizing a body, in a way that reminds me of that necrophiliac.
Changing the rhetoric to say “Oh, so now we’re in favor of starving blind people to death” is a statement that goes beyond intellectual dishonesty, into the kind of willful stupidity that begs the question of whether they are capable of making any meaningful, competent ethical decisions at all.
Sojourner
Don’t let Rick hear you say this, Casey. He’ll accuse you of all sorts of evils. It’s just a slippery slope to killing off… everybody!
I agree. I think this obsession with keeping a body alive long after the human inhabitant has left it is creepy. And sadly, these same folks scream bloody murder when it comes to issues like universal health insurance, which would benefit people who are very much alive.
Very odd and very sad.
CadillaqJaq
Getting to the point where dumb or stupid people might be euthanized gives me pause: God! We might lose 80-90% of Congress!
Pug
I see now that Jeb has called for an investigation as to whether Michael Schiavo waited some 70 minutes before he called paramedics the night his wife collapsed.
Sean Hannity has been vindicated and Mr. Schiavo probably is a murderer. Thank God for Jeb Bush!
scs
Yes the autopsy showed Terri had severe brain damage. We knew that. Any idiot knows that a precise picture of her brain capabilities can not be determined by an autospy. A current EEG and an MRI before her death would have been superiour. And even those tests cannot tell the whole picture. We are not medically advanced enough to make precise determinations on brain functions yet. Until we are, why wait until after we kill someone to determine in an autopsy whether our guess was right ot not?
I agree with Hannity. Potassium imbalances causing death is rare, even in bulimics. Can an autospy show smothering? And where are those bone scans from years ago?
dylan
scs,
keep the hope alive!
Hannity says..
bone scans…
bulimia expertise…
sheesh
Jon H
scs writes: ” We are not medically advanced enough to make precise determinations on brain functions yet”
Especially when no evidence would ever suffice, no matter how advanced.
Jon H
“I see now that Jeb has called for an investigation as to whether Michael Schiavo waited some 70 minutes before he called paramedics the night his wife collapsed.”
Yeah, because as we all know, when your heart stops you have at least two hours to get it started again.
Er, not.
scs
Facts are facts Jon. I know you want to believe in the advanced state of our medicine, but unfortunately we are not there yet. Ask any neurologist and I am sure he or she would say the same thing. I don’t know why you want to make this my fantasy when it is obviously yours.
Of course we have broad ideas of brain function, and which general areas of the brain corresponds with which types of funtions. But if you have learned nothing else about this science in the last few months this discussion came up, you should realize that brain science is still a developing science. One of the last great medical frontiers I believe. I really hope we soon get to the point when we can give a brain injured patient a few tests and determine -“oh yes, they have 30% vision left and 40% awareness with a slight damage to their hearing centers, and a 60% chance to regrow their neurons”, etc..
Until that day comes, why guess?
Sojourner
scs:
So you’re arguing that losing half of your brain, including virtually of the cerebral cortex, may not cause significant loss of functionality, including consciousness?
Contrary to your claims, yes, science does know the consequences of loss of the cerebral cortex. I learned that in grad school several decades ago. That’s old news.
You are correct that there’s still a lot to be learned about how the brain functions but after centuries of war, among other things, a great deal is known about the consequences of gross damage to the brain. Schiavo’s case certainly falls into this category.
It’s disingenuous to argue that just because we don’t know everything about the brain, then all claims are up for grabs. That is only the case in the belief-based part of the universe.