BS: Operation Rescue 'calls millions' to FLA

Subject: BS: Operation Rescue 'calls millions' to FLA
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 03:53 PM

The Miami Herald is reporting that the leader of Operation Rescue (an extremist, right wing national anti-abortion, anti-gay "religious" organization), who is acting as spokesman for Terri Schiavo's parents, has contacted two million people and asked them to come to Florida to stop the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube.

A Florida judge has, thankfully, over-ruled the attempts by US House Republicans and President Bush to make an 11th hour intervention in the removal of the feeding tube.

The Schiavo,speaking through an unnamed spokeswoman, said the hospice had asked them to leave Terri's room, presumably so the feeding tube could be removed.

''It's premature to say this thing is over or it's coming to an end,'' said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. ``I'll have to presume the radical politics in this knows no bounds.''

Subject: RE: BS: Operation Rescue 'calls millions' to FLA
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 05:04 PM

Sorry, a little explaination for those who don't live in Florida?

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Operation Rescue 'calls millions' to FLA
From: PoppaGator
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 05:24 PM

I think this case is well-known thoughtout the US, not just in Florida, but of course folks in other countries need some background.

Without any research or fact-checking, here's what I know off the top of my head:

Terri Schiavo has been in a vegeatative state for years and years, and would not have been able to survive without medical intervention ~ the feeding tube, certainly, and perhaps some other technology as well.

Her husband is on one side, wanting her to be taken off life-support so she can "die with dignity." Her parents (and siblings?) want to keep her alive.

She does have her eyes open and can move her head, neck and facial muscles, and observers differ over whether this indicates any consciousness on her part. Disinterested observers with scientific/medical credentials seem to agree that she is not conscious or in any normal sense "alive." On the other hand, she is not, strictly sp[eaking, "brain dead" either, and the parents take the facial animation as a sign that their daughter is alive and wants to stay alive.

Courts have recently ruled for the husband. I think that he has not divorced her, despite having formed a relationship with another woman, for the specific purpoe of maintaining his position as Terri's closest "next-of-kin." The parents are outraged that an "adulterer" has a stronger legal claim on their daughter's life than they do, and have called for the support that now seems to be coming from well-organized fundamentalists.

Incidentally, I read a recent news report that Terri Schaivo had a history of eating disorders prior to her collapse into the coma or vegetative state or whatever it is. I'm not sure whether bulimia might have been a contributing factor to her current state.

Subject: RE: BS: Operation Rescue 'calls millions' to FLA
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 05:36 PM

According to the Associated Press, the feeding tube was removed. Again.

Subject: RE: BS: Operation Rescue 'calls millions' to FLA
From: Jeri
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 05:43 PM

There's an article at ABC News. It says

"Schiavo has been kept alive since a heart attack starved her brain of oxygen in 1990, leaving her in what the courts declared was a permanent vegetative state."

I can't understand her parents, although I'm sure other folks can. I imagine her husband seeing her like that and trying to remember who his wife was - who he loved and married. Trying to figure out which one is really her. Trying to tell himself it's not the unthinking, unknowing flesh that looks like her, and wondering where her soul is. He's been reminded of this horror while Terri Schiavo has been trapped, or simply gone, for 10 years now.

Subject: RE: BS: Operation Rescue 'calls millions' to FLA
From: PoppaGator
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 05:43 PM

For more complete background on this case, see

this other thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Operation Rescue 'calls millions' to FLA
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 05:46 PM

15 years, not 10.

Subject: RE: BS: Operation Rescue 'calls millions' to FLA
From: Jeri
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 05:53 PM

My mistake. SRS is correct: 15 years.

Subject: RE: BS: Operation Rescue 'calls millions' to FLA
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 05:59 PM

Can you imagine being trapped in a body like that, and being conscious, with no way to communicate? Worse than solitary confinement. I'd want the tubes removed under those circumstances also. Put me out of my misery.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Operation Rescue 'calls millions' to FLA
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 07:08 PM

Well do you know.. if we did this to an animal we'd be accused of cruelty.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Operation Rescue 'calls millions' to FLA
From: Amos
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 07:33 PM

Did which ? Left the tubes in or took them out?

I'd want them out, if it were my body.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Operation Rescue 'calls millions' to FLA
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 07:35 PM

It's the age old struggle between real compassion and religiously driven zeal. God save us from the zealots. God? Are you listening? God????

Subject: RE: BS: Operation Rescue 'calls millions' to FLA
From: open mike
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 08:03 PM

did anyone hear of th case of the woman who came4 OUT of a coma after 19 years? this jsut recently...that is why the family hopes that there may be a chance.....i do not have reference fro this...but it has been jsut a few weeks ago--any one have a link??

Subject: RE: BS: Operation Rescue 'calls millions' to FLA
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 08:37 PM

this is not a 'coma'...this is a poor lady who has no brain function. EKGs show little activity. She is vegetative. This action (removing her from life support) is long overdue.

Subject: RE: BS: Operation Rescue 'calls millions' to FLA
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 09:41 PM

Bill is right. The rare occasions when people come out of comas of long duration are not germane to this discussion. Her parents are grasping at phantom straws and are harming everyone in the process. It comes from desperation and love, but it also comes from an unreasonable misunderstanding of the medical possibilities.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Operation Rescue 'calls millions' to FLA
From: GUEST,marks
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 10:34 PM

Removal of the feeding tube results in a slow, agonizing death from dehydration and starvation. Why not be really compassionate and smother her with a pillow? After, of course, the same judicial reviews which will be accorded to the case of Scott Peterson.

Subject: RE: BS: Operation Rescue 'calls millions' to FLA
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Mar 05 - 09:23 AM

Guest marks doesn't know whereof he speaks.

Ask end of life care providers if removing feeding and hydration tubes causes the patient pain, and they will all say the same thing. Not when the patient is properly sedated, and is provided with proper care of the mouth (swabbing and caring for dry lips). Our bodies actually have a process for natural death, which is precipitated by the person no longer eating and drinking. People on the verge of death just stop doing those things, their body systems begin to shut down, and within days, in an instant, they are gone. Peacefully. It isn't difficult to watch in terms of the patient, because they are ready to die.