h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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AFAIK, she can't divorce him, because he is her guardian, and she therefore has no legal rights. He won't divorce her, because the woman he is living with wants to marry him in church, and therefore Terri has to die. You're right, if he has moved on (and it seems he has) someone else should be her guardian.

azahar, what you quote as my words, aren't. I made it plain they were from an article on the disability rights site. The generalisation that Americans would be offended by, was made by an American, the one who wrote the article.

Never having spoken to Ms. Schiavo, I have no opinion on the question of whether or not she should be allowed to die. Hmmm... Noticing my phrasing, it's obvious to me that I DO have an opinion, whether I want to admit it or not. I did say "allowed to die" rather than "killed."

If I were in her situation, I'd want those tubes OUT. NOW!

On the other hand, Stephen Drake, from the group "Not Dead Yet," is a person I've known well and whom I respect.

http://www.notdeadyet.org/docs/schiavostatement032005.html

For politicians to meddle, on either "side," in what is a personal decision, sickens me.

I can only hope that this leads to a ten-fold or more increase in the number of people who have detailed living wills.

NBY

psychocandy, I must point out - again, that azahar quoted the article I pasted an extract from, and claimed that *I* had said what the author of the article said!

I offset the article extract and put "" around it, I don't why azahar made that mistake. Maybe she was just skimming?

So, don't assume you know what I am thinking about Americans. Unfair!

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Don't make me laugh! Her "right" to die, her benefit? There's no evidence that *she* wants to die, just that he wants her to. I just don't understand why you defend his right to have her put down like a sick dog.

This link was posted on the Death with Dignity thread but I think it fits better here as it deals with the politics of this case.

"A confederacy of shamans"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1444587,00.html

"The Republicans have cynical motives for trying to stop Terri Schiavo being taken off life support."


az

>Don't make me laugh! Her "right" to die, her benefit? There's no evidence that *she* wants to die, just that he wants her to. I just don't understand why you defend his right to have her put down like a sick dog.<

What I defend is Terri's right not be forced to exist in a vegetative state. And both of their right not to have the Republicans meddle in this case and tiwst it to their own sick ends.

azahar, are you going to acknowledge misquoting the article I copied as my words? You gave a misleading impression very much to my detriment, and ignored what the article actually said.

Apple, I've seen you around on and off for a few years now, and know enough of you to know that your sweeping aaumptions about Americans are far from a misinterpretation on Az's part. Perhaps the sentence in question was part of a quote, but I've no doubt you quoted it because it's exactly how you feel.

>Governor Jeb Bush of Florida, has campaigned for years on the Schiavo holy crusade and has hired a prominent religious rightwing leader as the lawyer to represent the state in the case.<

What a surprise.


>In their legal battle the agonised Schiavo parents have made themselves financial dependents of two conservative groups, one anti-abortion, the other whose stated mission is to "confront and challenge the radical legal agenda advocating homosexual behaviour".<

One more reason to pity these poor people- being dependent on such morally reprehensible groups for financial support.

>Terri Schiavo cannot speak or gesture, but to true believers, even though she is silent, she is making sounds only they can hear. They see what they want in order to believe, and they believe in order to see. For the first time public policy in the US is being made on the basis of pitting invisible signs versus science.<

Again, not terribly surprising, when you take into consideration that pitting invisible signs against science and logic is the basis of their religion. It's a pity that Terri might be kept alive, an empty shell of her former self, because of the hallucinations of the desperate or delusional.

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Thanks, psychocandy, couldn't have put it better myself.

Similarly, Della/Apple made a reference on my Death with Dignity thread to 'right to kill' groups and then put in brackets that she had heard someone use this term on the radio - as if that makes it okay to use this unfair and insulting term herself, just because she says she heard some idiot use it on the radio?


az

Unfortunately, when it comes to subjects like this, a lot of people wind up quoting idiots and using misinformation to support their case.

I can't believe that anyone could be so stupid and awful as to coin a term like that, it just goes to show how little some people really know!

Earlier in the thread, Apple said something to me about "putting her (Terri Schiavo) down like a dog". I'm appalled that someone who claims to value the "sanctity of life" would argue for the sustenance of a severely brain-damaged woman in a permanent vegetative state, yet think nothing of taking the life of a sick dog. As if, in our arrogance, we should believe that human life is more important than that of other life? This is most certainly not true, and I resent the implication that I don't value all life highly.

So the man wants a Christian marriage but cant have it because although at deaths door she is still in the eyes of the church his wife.

How Ironic

What is also ironic is that the husband is paying for her care whilst still getting on with the normal things any man might.

Does his finacial burden provide a just cause? Surely he could off load that to her loving parents and move on with his compensation money from the malparactice against her.

If the parents "only" motive was her life they'd let happen wouldnt they?

Wouldnt they?

If the church did not have such rigid rules about divorce and re-marriage there would be no situation.

There have been people who have killed so that they can marry someone else, but he doesnt need to he's got the life he wants.

So its either pressure from the new woman to make her an honest woman or just possibly its true that the husband has a genuine wish to let Schiavo go and not have her life artificially dragged out with no purpose.

Of cousre there are two major purposes to her continued life . A political rallying flag for the right wing christians and profits for medical companies

onelove

psychocandy, there is nothing I can do about your assertion. As it happens I work in the disabilities field, and one woman I knew of, very prominent in that area, was an American, and didn't hold such views, so don't accuse me of making such an assumption.

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Please, I beg you, read something on the other side of the argument! On Terri's Foundation's web site is an affadavit from a doctor who examined her. Invisible signs my foot! Desperate and delusional, ditto!

Why are you so het up about this? I know why I am (because she is the victim of an injustice.) But why are you and others so keen for her to die?

azahar, you just stay the same lovable fair-minded woman you've always been, you hear? Don't ever change.

psychocandy, it's precisely the putting down of human beings like dogs, that I object to. It's not loving, or kind, or humane, it's treating people as disposable objects - once they are "useless eaters" as Hitler says, well kill 'em and be done with 'em.

Blinky, your tortured syntax makes it hard to fathom what you're on about, but as far as I can tell from <>
You misunderstand the situation laughably. Her parents would love him to move on and leave 'the burden' to them. They have tried to get him removed as guardian. Instead of paying money for her care that is rightly his, he has gained money from the situation.

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Not one person here has said they were keen for Terri to die. This is an insulting, totally unfair and nasty remark on your part.


az

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Ms Pot, may I introduce Ms Kettle?

That is the general impression I have got, that the loud majority wants Terri dead, as if to prove something to the world.

As I said on another thread, Terri Schiavo could not possibly be a worse poster child for 'euthanasia'. She wasn't dying until last Friday when the feeding tube was removed. She wasn't in intractable pain, and who knows how well she may have recovered if given the chance back in the 1990s when the husband dumped her in a nursing home, and refused her therapy?

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Okey-dokey. Thanks, Della.


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Oh, here we go again. Bringing in Hitler. In fact, often pets are treated far more humanely when they have reached a stage in a terminal illness where there is no quality of life left, only continuous pain and suffering. They are given the option of having their suffering ended. When I made this choice for my cat last year she ended up dying in my arms at home - a far better death than if I had just left her to die 'naturally' with the cancer eating away at at all her organs.

Who has called Terri a 'disposable object', Della? In those exact words?


az

>psychocandy, it's precisely the putting down of human beings like dogs, that I object to. It's not loving, or kind, or humane, it's treating people as disposable objects - once they are "useless eaters" as Hitler says, well kill 'em and be done with 'em.<

Again, Apple, if you read the facts, the poor woman is in a PERMANENT vegetative state with NO CHANCE for recovery. To insinuate that this is her husband's fault is vicious and totally inaccurate. Again, her heart stopped due to her eating disorder.

Yes, it is ironic that his fiance would even WANT a church marriage, when this whole mess is due in part to Terri's parents' Catholic dogma.

I would pray that my family would not be so viscious and inhumane as to prolong my existence in an irreversible, vegetative state against my wishes. I am not keen for Terri to die, I am keen for her wish NOT to be sustained in this condition to be honored.

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Point 1 - Not Della, not now. It's simple really, why don't you get it? (Answer - you don't want to.)

Point 2 - That's a Dirty Angel technique, obsess about the exact wording of something, if you don't have a better argument.

If that's all you can do, forget about it, I am not playing that particular silly game, it's too late at night.