Saving Schiavo
I'm getting a little sick of all the uninformed opinions people seem to be throwing around these days. If you don't know what you're talking about, shut up. Check the subtitle of this blog...
Now let me say, I think that people should have and defend their opinions. BUT only informed opinions. We need to research our opinions, from multiple sources. NOT just the one or two sources that agree with what you want to believe. Then you can have an opinion.
A perfect example of this is the Terry Schiavo case. People are forming what is equivalent to the new Spanish Inquisition. I certainly believe that a person should be given every possible treatment, therapy, etc. However, the arguments being put forth by her so called defenders range from misguided and ignorant to outright lies and deceptions.
They paint her husband as some kind of money grubbing, heartless, uncaring killer who is bent on killing his wife without any effort to help her recover. The facts point to nothing of the sort.
The man spent years trying to help her recover. He tried dozens of therapies and treatments, including experimental neural stimulator implant surgery, various rehabilitative therapies, medicaitons etc.
He even went to medical school and became a licensed, registered nurse so he could care for her and better understand her diagnosis and treatment.
After _YEARS_ of trying everything, he realized that there IS NO HOPE OF RECOVERY!
The so called defenders want to make false comparisons to other persons who have recovered from comas, vegetative states, brain injuries, etc. However these comparisons are completely and utterly without basis. She is NOT in a coma, she is not suffering an illness, she has permanant, irrepairable, irreversible brain damage.
When you cut your finger, or arm or other tissue, the wounded tissue, if treated properly can heal, and grow back and repair itself to some degree. This is NOT the case with brain tissue. Brain cells that die are not replaced. They are gone forever. In fact they dissolve and are absorbed by the body, leaving a hole in their place. Another unique weakness of brain tissue is that it is damaged when exposed to blood and other body fluids like spinal fluid. This is what makes strokes and burst aneurisms so devastating. The blood from these events passes the brains protective membrane that acts as a blood/brain barrier and makes contact with brain tissue, damaging and killing it. Normally oxygen, nutrients and waste pass back and forth from the blood vessels in the skull to the brain through this membrane. This keeps blood out of the brain tissue.
In Terry Schiavo's case, spinal fluid has flooded into the centre portion of the brain cavity and killed the brain tissue in that area. While the uninformed, uneducated among her so called defenders stupidly think that somehow some kind of therapy will magicaly make this tissue heal, they are utterly wrong. This tissue will not heal. In fact it no longer even exists. In the affected areas where the spinal fluid has invaded the brain cavity, the brain tissue has been killed and dissolved. There is only a gaping cavity where the brain tissue was. The cavity is now filled with spinal fluid.
You can't heal what doesn't exist. It's as naive and ignorant as waiting for your arm to grow back after being cut off. It can't and won't happen.
(See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7328639/ and look at the CT scan photo yourself, or Google it and find other pics of the CT)
Schiavo's family has been very manipulative in their dealings with the public and the press. They show edited together videos that seem to show her reacting and interacting to stimuli from her family. They don't show or tell that these so called reactions are purely random, inconsistent, and rare.
It's very clear to anyone who cares to investigate the truth that Schiavo's condition is final, irreversible, and if not for mechanical intervention, would be fatal.
I'm for life. I don't ever call myself 'Pro-life' as that's a political term for a movement mostly consisting of people more full of emotion than knowledge, or compassion. I have no desire to lump myself in with the kind of moronic bastards that think it's a good idea to bomb an abortion clinic and kill doctors to 'save lives'. They're no better than those they hate.
However, I believe that, in general, every life deserves a chance. And that people have a right to decide their own lives. If you want your plug pulled when there's no chance of recovery, that wish should be honoured.
The reality is that Terry is already dead. Just her shell is left with it's poor confused brain stem dutifully making her heart beat and organs operate.
The rightous, compassionate thing to do is let her poor empty shell join her departed soul.
Now let me say, I think that people should have and defend their opinions. BUT only informed opinions. We need to research our opinions, from multiple sources. NOT just the one or two sources that agree with what you want to believe. Then you can have an opinion.
A perfect example of this is the Terry Schiavo case. People are forming what is equivalent to the new Spanish Inquisition. I certainly believe that a person should be given every possible treatment, therapy, etc. However, the arguments being put forth by her so called defenders range from misguided and ignorant to outright lies and deceptions.
They paint her husband as some kind of money grubbing, heartless, uncaring killer who is bent on killing his wife without any effort to help her recover. The facts point to nothing of the sort.
The man spent years trying to help her recover. He tried dozens of therapies and treatments, including experimental neural stimulator implant surgery, various rehabilitative therapies, medicaitons etc.
He even went to medical school and became a licensed, registered nurse so he could care for her and better understand her diagnosis and treatment.
After _YEARS_ of trying everything, he realized that there IS NO HOPE OF RECOVERY!
The so called defenders want to make false comparisons to other persons who have recovered from comas, vegetative states, brain injuries, etc. However these comparisons are completely and utterly without basis. She is NOT in a coma, she is not suffering an illness, she has permanant, irrepairable, irreversible brain damage.
When you cut your finger, or arm or other tissue, the wounded tissue, if treated properly can heal, and grow back and repair itself to some degree. This is NOT the case with brain tissue. Brain cells that die are not replaced. They are gone forever. In fact they dissolve and are absorbed by the body, leaving a hole in their place. Another unique weakness of brain tissue is that it is damaged when exposed to blood and other body fluids like spinal fluid. This is what makes strokes and burst aneurisms so devastating. The blood from these events passes the brains protective membrane that acts as a blood/brain barrier and makes contact with brain tissue, damaging and killing it. Normally oxygen, nutrients and waste pass back and forth from the blood vessels in the skull to the brain through this membrane. This keeps blood out of the brain tissue.
In Terry Schiavo's case, spinal fluid has flooded into the centre portion of the brain cavity and killed the brain tissue in that area. While the uninformed, uneducated among her so called defenders stupidly think that somehow some kind of therapy will magicaly make this tissue heal, they are utterly wrong. This tissue will not heal. In fact it no longer even exists. In the affected areas where the spinal fluid has invaded the brain cavity, the brain tissue has been killed and dissolved. There is only a gaping cavity where the brain tissue was. The cavity is now filled with spinal fluid.
You can't heal what doesn't exist. It's as naive and ignorant as waiting for your arm to grow back after being cut off. It can't and won't happen.
(See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7328639/ and look at the CT scan photo yourself, or Google it and find other pics of the CT)
Schiavo's family has been very manipulative in their dealings with the public and the press. They show edited together videos that seem to show her reacting and interacting to stimuli from her family. They don't show or tell that these so called reactions are purely random, inconsistent, and rare.
It's very clear to anyone who cares to investigate the truth that Schiavo's condition is final, irreversible, and if not for mechanical intervention, would be fatal.
I'm for life. I don't ever call myself 'Pro-life' as that's a political term for a movement mostly consisting of people more full of emotion than knowledge, or compassion. I have no desire to lump myself in with the kind of moronic bastards that think it's a good idea to bomb an abortion clinic and kill doctors to 'save lives'. They're no better than those they hate.
However, I believe that, in general, every life deserves a chance. And that people have a right to decide their own lives. If you want your plug pulled when there's no chance of recovery, that wish should be honoured.
The reality is that Terry is already dead. Just her shell is left with it's poor confused brain stem dutifully making her heart beat and organs operate.
The rightous, compassionate thing to do is let her poor empty shell join her departed soul.
posted by Tachyon at 21:36
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