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June 15, 2005Terri Schiavo and Deatheater GleeSo, the Terri Schiavo’s autopsy report came out. And it told us very little that was new. She was in a bad way. Her cortex was not “mush” or a “sack of fluid” but her brain was severely damaged. She was blind. Her brain was shrivelled. Hello? The woman was totally dehydrated and yes, when you are dehydrated your brain will shrink. I haven’t read anyone, anywhere, who has written down that simple fact. The autopsy confirmed what no one denied: Terri Schiavo was in bad shape. She was severely brain damaged. The autopsy did NOT tell us many things. It does not explain if the damage to her brain which defined her as “blind” was damage which occured during dehydration. It does not tell us if therapy, denied to her for 12 years, might have helped her maintain what brain function she had been capable of, ‘way back then. The autopsy does not explain why a woman who was not on life support and was capable of breathing on her own and swallowing her own saliva (and if nurses are to be believed, pudding and soft food) was being fed by a tube, in the first place. It does not answer the question of what, exactly happened to Terri Schiavo to cause such massive brain damage. It does not tell us if she was, as conventional wisdom insists, “bulimic.” It doesn’t tell us why broken wheelchairs were never fixed, why nurses who put washcloths into Terri’s hand would have them smacked out of her hand by a husband who would warn, “that is therapy.” The autopsy doesn’t explain why a husband can get away with suddenly “remembering” that his wife “once” mentioned (while watching a sad movie) that she’d never want to be on life support, remembering it some 6 years after the brain accident occured. It does not explain why the absence of written instructions was not compelling, or why written instructions were not needed for courts to rule that a woman who was not dying, was in no danger of dying, had no fatal disease, was apparently not suffering, and who had loving family members willing to care for her NEEDED TO BE DEAD. I have no doubt that the mainstream press, which didn’t go out of its way to make fine distinctions when reporting on Schiavo’s case in April, will again embrace generalities and will repeat (ad nauseum) whatever autopsy statements it deems “most worthy” of reporting, or “most damaging” to those annoying fundy Christians and Catholics (and a few liberals like Ralph Nader and others). And of course, if they can snark about the Bush brothers or any GOP politico in the meantime, they won’t mind doing that. Democrats sympathetic to Terri’s case will not be mentioned or bothered for statements, and the world’s foremost Democrat, Hillary Clinton, who was never asked her opinion of the matter while the story burned its hottest, and who managed to lie very low and stay away from the whole issue, will not be asked anything, either. In other words, the world will go on as usual. Terri Schiavo didn’t have a life you or I would want…but it was her life, and it was taken from her, and not even by the fast, compassionate means by which we execute murderers. A woman who was not brain dead, not fatally injured and not dying is dead, really, for no good reason, and the battle between the Culture of Life and the Deatheaters goes on. What the Autopsy of Terri Schiavo tells us with enormous lucidity is that the Deatheaters appetites have been whetted. With the release of this report which - as I say - tells us almost nothing we didn’t know, the Deatheaters are not simply feeling vindicated, they are feeling victorious…not just victorious but…gleeful. It seems to me that when an innocent life has been snuffed out, that is not, perhaps, a time for glee. Quite possibly it is a normal thing, in some circles, to celebrate the destruction of life and then move on to the next battle or party or “pressing issue.” To my way of thinking, when a world has ended, respectful silence is in order, as are time for remembering, and prayers for regretting where we have fallen short. The news of this woman’s deplorable brain damage makes her death seem right and justified to them, they are all but dancing about it. For them, this is a defeat for the president, for Christians, for pesky right-to-lifers. It is a “win” for…personal autonomy, supposedly. If, by personal autonomy, you mean being unable to speak for yourself and at the mercy of a husband who suddenly recalls what you supposedly wanted…maybe…and is more willing to see you die than err on the side of life and maybe let your family take care of you. If that’s what you mean by personal autonomy and personal choice, well, then…yes, it’s a win. But it is a win by which we all lose. There is little new in Terri Schiavo’s autopsy report. But the salivating, overt, belly-shaking glee of the Deatheaters, that might be new. Or…it might be old as hell. UPDATE: Gateway Pundit has an excellent rant you’ll want to read. WELCOME Michelle Malkin readers. While you are here please look around. Today we’re also discussing Thomas Merton and Boomers, and the meaning of Mother Teresa. We’re also noting how the game of baseball has served the nation in a time of need, the things liberals do (complete with lyrics) and we’re looking into how the prisoners at Gitmo are treated as compared to, say, the folks Islamists take hostage. We’re also telling the press not to take it personally that Hillary closes access when she is rehearsing , and we’re linking to terrific writing regarding both Evolution and Intelligent Design and the Disgraceful Dick Durbin. http://theanchoressonline.com/2005/06/15/the-glee-of-the-deatheaters/trackback/ 40 Responses to “Terri Schiavo and Deatheater Glee” |
June 15th, 2005 at 9:18 pm
Ah yes, the Living Will. The condom of the Right to Die vultures.
June 15th, 2005 at 9:26 pm
Your blog is one of my more enjoyable daily reads, but I thought this post was really exceptional. Thank you for pointing out all the common sense issues the MSM so pointedly ignores.
June 15th, 2005 at 10:02 pm
Yes, our world will go on as usual, but we are less, for we were unable to protect the weakest among us.
Thank you for this post.
June 15th, 2005 at 10:49 pm
Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for her.
St. Michael, Pray for her.
Holy angels of God, Pray for her.
St. Joseph, Pray for her.
St. John the Baptist, Pray for her.
St. Peter and St. Paul, Pray for her.
St. Andrew, Pray for her.
St. John, Pray for her.
St. Mary Magdalene, Pray for her.
St. Stephen, Pray for her.
St. Ignatius, Pray for her.
St. Lawrence, Pray for her.
St. Perpetua and St. Felicity, Pray for her.
St. Agnes, Pray for her.
St. Gregory, Pray for her.
St. Augustine, Pray for her.
St. Athanasius, Pray for her.
St. Basil, Pray for her.
St. Martin, Pray for her.
St. Benedict, Pray for her.
St. Francis and St. Dominic, Pray for her.
St. Francis Xavier, Pray for her.
St. John Vianney, Pray for her.
St. Catherine, Pray for her.
St. Theresa, Pray for her.
Pope John Paul the Great, Pray for her.
All you Saints of God, Pray for her.
+ Amen.
June 15th, 2005 at 10:52 pm
An exceptional post. Thank you.
June 15th, 2005 at 11:21 pm
*Shakes head* There is no data and no proof that you would believe, which is fine. I’m relieved, because I believe the science was valid and large parts of her brain had died long before- as the autopsy indicated. I’m not relieved that she’s dead. I’m relieved that she wasn’t suffering in that state for so many years. I’m relieved b/c it’s as conclusive proof as you can get that nothing would have changed, that she wasn’t denied the opportunity to heal or get better, cause she couldn’t. I’m relieve4d she’s at peace. I pray that her family will find the same.
June 15th, 2005 at 11:35 pm
Watch someone you love die by this means. Stay by their side day after day. Wet their lips as they become cracked. Watch the suffering of the person being murdered and the family asked to witness it.
I will not allow my family to have to suffer in this manner. I watched my mother die in this manner and could do nothing because she feared life in a nursing home. I watched my sister break down in tears after 4 days of this torture. I watched her grandchildren plead that we must do something and could not do anything because of legal issues. I watched my older brother cry in agony after 8 days. I watched my soul grieve day after day until she finally died on the 10th day. I have lived with this grief for four years. That is the living will left to those who love the ones who say withold food and water. They will be dead, but we have to live with these images for the rest of our lives.
We do not allow anyone to kill a dog in this manner.
This just goes to show why Mother Theresa said that America will continue to degrade as long as we value the culture of death over the culture of life.
June 15th, 2005 at 11:41 pm
Anchoress- Thank you for putting it all down for us. I had to come here tonight to hear your words of comfort. I am amazed also that
“we never heard anyone on the left condemn Michael Schiavo for not allowing Terri’s family to have a memorial service with her remains!
Do you think the Left would be silent if it were a terrorist at Gitmo whose family was not allowed in to view the remains?
Do you really believe they wouldn’t be interrupting every Republican Speech for the next 10 years (they do this already, See Arnold today) if it were a gay partner not allowed a moment alone with the body of their partner after death? (And, I am not condemning homosexuality with that last statement).”
I went on a rant today… ahhh.
June 16th, 2005 at 12:50 am
Commentary on Terri Schiavo’s Autopsy Report
Basically, all I can do is say “amen” to this post by the Anchoress. Some excerpts: So, the Terri Schiavo’s…
June 16th, 2005 at 1:54 am
Hold off until the full reports are in and disregard the Lefists that coincidentally returned to gloat. What final report? The list of tests performed. I suggest you visit CodeBlueBlog or Hyscience when we see the detailed report. You can’t make conclusions if you didn’t run the proper tests. Although that didn’t stop those docs from doing just that. We’ll see what they have to say when the medical community weighs in. Regular x-rays? Given that you had the body for, what, a couple of hours before it was sent to cremation, exactly what tests were performed? Rest assured, a lot of people will be studying this. And those docs may want to go back and add some qualifiers, aka “weasel words”, for the record.
June 16th, 2005 at 3:43 am
Schiavo Autopsy To Be Released Tomorrow
At the risk of re-opening old wounds, I just saw that the Terri Schiavo autopsy report is due to be released tomorrow.
While I hope it answers all the questions, I have a feeling it won’t be the case at all. Nevertheless, I will be blogging about …
June 16th, 2005 at 7:46 am
Terri’s Autopsy
I don’t have much to say about it. I didn’t expect much from it and I wasn’t disappointed.
The Anchoress has a wonderful way with words and some very sobering ones about this. Please be sure you read this.
June 16th, 2005 at 7:59 am
#2, you put that very well.
I am an atheist, and I find it absolutely astonishing that a person is apparently to required to take legal action to keep her life from being removed in the case there is any dispute about her wishes.
I would have thought it correct to err on the side of life.
I will support a Right to Life Amendment.
June 16th, 2005 at 8:04 am
Terri Schiavo’s Autopsy “Conclusions”
From WorldNetDaily: The autopsy report concluding Terri Schiavo suffered no trauma prior to her collapse under disputed circumstances in 1990…
June 16th, 2005 at 9:19 am
[...] ts weren’t convinced. Nor am I surprised that the name calling has started, again. “Death-eaters”. “Zombie-themed”. Easier to make d [...]
June 16th, 2005 at 9:27 am
I was astounded at the spin put on the case during the nightly news. I was especially amazed at the reporters talking about how there was no evidence of abuse that might have brought on the coma. Hello!! She had years for her body to heal from any signs of abuse.
More and more, I think I am living in a world gone mad.
June 16th, 2005 at 10:16 am
Notable Quotes on Terri’s Autopsy
The Anchoress: It is a “win” for…personal autonomy, supposedly. If, by personal autonomy, you mean being unable to speak for yourself and at the mercy of a husband who suddenly recalls what you supposedly wanted…
June 16th, 2005 at 10:36 am
While I read the autopsy as saying that no therapy would have helped, that Terri was blind, could not have swallowed food or drink without choking, and had no cognitive function, I also read it as a matter of her not suffering either. No, she could never get any better (her husband had her given intensive therapy for the first few years), she could not interact with people, she could not see, but she was alive. We don’t know how she got into that state, but she was biologically alive. Alive, that is, until her food and water were discontinued. It is possible to take a middle position, that she could never recover, but that discontinuing care was wrong.
June 16th, 2005 at 11:01 am
JH,
I agree with you the means are hard. So very hard, and we need to find a better way to do this. My grandfather refused treatment as well, though it did not come down withholding food or water. His lungs filled with fluid and he slowly strangled to death. And I sat. And I held his hand. And I cried…and talked, and called the rest of the family to come say goodbye. And fed him crushed pinapple, though he could only eat a few bites. And made him as comfortable as I possibly could. He did it his way, and though it was hard to see him suffer so, I never doubted it was the right thing for him. He did it his way, and there was something beautiful in that.
June 16th, 2005 at 11:14 am
PUTTING THE LID ON TERRI
They’ve finally released Terri Schiavo’s autopsy results, which apparently side with her husband Michael’s side of the story, where Terri was in a PVS, she had no hope of recovery, and she had no cognitive thought processes. The autopsy revealed…
June 16th, 2005 at 11:32 am
THE SCHIAVO AUTOPSY: A SOBER LOOK
Late last night, I took the time to read the 39-page autopsy report of Terri Schiavo–something which, it is clear to me, most of the callous gloaters on the other side of this debate have not bothered to do. And…
June 16th, 2005 at 11:50 am
Deatheaters. Perfect word for pro-abortionists and euthanasists. The legalized murder of Terry Shiavo still makes me ill. Someday, I truly believe, the injured brain will be able to be healed. Then what will the Deatheaters say? How will they then rationalize their desire to kill?
June 16th, 2005 at 12:07 pm
beautifully put, anchoress. thank you.
June 16th, 2005 at 2:03 pm
Terri Schaivo Post Mortem.
The autopsy report on Terri Schaivo came out yesterday. I suppose that I should, since I wrote so freely and vociferously about her while she was being killed, say something now that her body has been examined.
To be honest, though, there isn’t muc…
June 16th, 2005 at 2:07 pm
Of the many things disappearing down the memory hole two stand out.
1. Felos insisted over and over before the court and to the media that Terri’s brain was gone and in its place was fluid.
Truth: Her brain was not gone but was half the normal size.
Given all that we dont know about the brain and consciousness, what exactly does the size and weight of a person’s brain have to do with consciousness?
Didn’t science at one time correlate brain size with intelligence? How does brain size prove that Terri had zero level consciousness?
2. The pro-Terri argument was never dependent on her being fully conscious nor was it based on her ability to recover to function at a greater level. It was about whether Terri could swallow which she could and whether she could have eaten and whether she was conscious of pain and whether it was moral to starve her when there was doubt as to her condition and about her wishes. Her parents may have hoped for her to one day be more responsive and that is natural but for me it never mattered how much she could recover of her lost abilities.
The media is rewriting this story in retrospect in order to create the myth that the autopsy answers all the questions in favor of Michael.
Other points I do not hear mentioned.
1. No word on whether Terri could HEAR or smell, taste or feel touch. I for one felt that there might be a problem with her eyes from the video with her mother. She didn’t try to focus on mom until Mom was close and spoke to her and stroked her hair. Then Terri seems to try and focus her eyes and seems to have some trouble in my opinion. But don’t eyes of a person gone blind retain some of their habitual movement? Don’t blind people move their eyes in the general direction of an object using their other senses to get a general sense of the direction?
2. No word on how much of the brain loss now found was the result of two weeks of dehydration or of the earlier prolonged attempt to withdraw nutrition.
3. Terri was condemened as PVS by a number of doctors all of whom looked into Terri’s EYES for evidence of response. All of them performed tests which relied on visual stimulation. In a BLIND person with little if any conrol of her motor functions and who had erratic sleep wake cycles etc, how in the hell was she supposed to SEE what the doctors were doing and respond on demand?
Of course last but not least,
3. There was no word whatsoever from the autopsy that concluded that Terri did not SUFFER. Why? Was the question even asked? And how does putting a brain on a scale prove that someone did not suffer?
This case in not by any means closed. There are reasonable objections to the conclusions made chiefly by the media. Science is always learning something new about consciousness and if Terri was even minimally conscious it was wrong to kill her. Her parents should never give up and they should continue to bring the new findings about Terri to researchers in the future with each new discovery involving the brain and conciousness.
I have yet to see any reasonable explaination why Terri’s brain size is proof that she wasn’t conscious of anything.
June 16th, 2005 at 3:18 pm
Here’s another thing not mentioned by the deatheaters. Is there not a huge contradiction between their support of smbyonic stem research and their claims of its potentially miraculous healing powers and their belief that Terri was beyond hope of recovery??
Will these same people apologize when some years from now scientists are able to regrow brains damaged like Terri’s was? She was otherwise healthy so who is to say that she wouldnt have lived to see treatments for her condition? But you wont hear it. They will not want anyone to bring her up then. They will be too busy trying to make it look like they were not wrong about embryonic stem cells once the breakthroughs really start coming in from adult stem cells.
June 16th, 2005 at 3:40 pm
[...] enounce the autopsy (or media treatment of it, which amounts to the same thing) tend to be supporters of the scurrilous Intelligent Design movement. I don’t thi [...]
June 16th, 2005 at 5:44 pm
You say: “when you are dehydrated your brain will shrink.”
Is this a medically-based opinion, or a faith-based one? Does the brain shrink more than the rest of the body? Did Terri Schiavo’s body shrink by 50% due to the dehydration? Was half of her blood gone?
Do you have anything vaguely resembling a clue about any of the medical issues in this case?
PS: “Intelligent Design” is a fraud.
June 16th, 2005 at 5:55 pm
The human brain is 80% water. It does shrink upon dehydration. Where do you think hangovers come from?
June 16th, 2005 at 7:45 pm
Terri Schiavo and Deatheater Glee
In some books, they’d might say foolish:…
June 16th, 2005 at 8:12 pm
Anchoress, there’s no reason to fight with these jerks.
I’d rather let them slide down you-know-where…
June 16th, 2005 at 8:22 pm
It does shrink upon dehydration.
Ah yes, but how much?
June 16th, 2005 at 9:23 pm
What Terri is Still Teaching Us
My initial reaction to the release of the autopsy report is “so what?” The media is describing her brain as Irreversibly Atrophied, implying a level of foresight and medical omnipotence that the medical profession simply does not possess. Christ was …
June 16th, 2005 at 10:25 pm
How sad to see people on the other side acting like gleeful ghouls in disrespecting this woman. Thanks for a great post.
June 17th, 2005 at 7:27 am
The brain may have shrunk slightly, but the body protects the brain and the cause of death from dehydration in the manner Schiavo’s body experienced is not loss of fluid but buildup of waste products.
The autopsy of the brain showed that there was massive destruction of the cerebrum due to hypoxia, with occasional single neurons being found among the structural cells that survive. Neurons are extremely energetic and thus die long before the surrounding cells die. The rest of the brain showed systemic damage as well. The remaining brain tissue showed signs that it was failing. The missing brain tissue was replaced by fluid.
There was nothing left where visual information would be taken from the optic nerves and processed into visual images, and this would have been long-standing — relating back to the original hypoxic event.
Mrs. Schiavo was dead long before her body died from dehydration. She was dead the day her body went into cardiac arrest. Sometimes, the body can live on, even when the person is dead.
I do not gloat. I don’t call you names. I do not welcome death — in my years as a paramedic, I fought death every chance I could. But I also learned that there is a time when one must accept that death has already occurred and give up trying to prolong a body where the soul has left.
You call me “deatheater.” Have you done mouth-to-mouth on a 12 day old baby, trying to bring it back to life even when you know the child is gone? I actually tasted death that time — and it wasn’t the first.
There comes a point where you stop the CPR and the ventillations. You do not drive a second intraosseus needle into the shin of the baby to obtain vascular access. You stop administering the medications.
And you decide who will go tell the parents something the parents do not want to hear and will not believe. Part of the healing for them is to accept what has happened to their child.
Terri Schiavo died a long time ago. Her body lived on for much longer.
June 17th, 2005 at 11:27 am
Rob -
I normally do not respond to people who leave me fake email addresses, butI will this once. Did you go to the site I linked to, the FARK site? The people photoshopping “jokes” and gloating about the autopsy report? THOSE are DEATHEATERS.
Reasonable people may disagree on matters - you seem very reasonable - I have not done CPR on babies, but I have done many hours of work with brain-accident patients, and I know that the brain is mysterious and things often change without full understanding.
I am not calling YOU a deatheater, sir. But the people who were dancing and joking and carrying on all over the internet…they were eating, and relishing, death.
June 17th, 2005 at 3:55 pm
Rob has informed me that his email addy is not fake. Just odd!
All please be so advised.
June 18th, 2005 at 2:24 pm
Judging from my inbox, I am a “Deatheater,” “Nazi” and “Little Eichmann,” all comments I’ve been bombarded with since the fervor over the Schiavo case errupted. You see I work for hospice, and because I’m subscribed to several hospice listserv’s, newsletters, and bulletin boards, my address has been hijacked by the RTL industry who believe that hospice is just an attempt to “soften” the populace up for a our REAL plan to euthanize everyone we feel is less than human. Mind you I’m not associated with the TS case, or any of the facilities that cared for her. Some of these messages come from “advocacy” groups. Because of my work I read every vile, hateful, filth-filled message that comes my way. If you told me 25 years ago that the mission of hospice would be misrepresented in this way, I never would have believed you. I developed an interest in hospice after reading all of Dr. Kubler Ross’s books, and believed that quality hospice care could help people understand that death and dying was a natural process, and that families could gain much if we stopped insisting that death occur behind closed hospital doors. Yet more and more, I see pleas for more medical intervention, more technology, more desperate interventions even in the most futile of cases. In those instances when I’ve tried to correspond with some of these “advocates” I’m shot down and dismissed as someone who is simply promoting a culture of death.
Most of these advocates don’t want to deal with the complexities of medical care and decision making. Easier to just to make ad hominem attacks.
For example, I’ve heard many arguments that describe artificial nutrition and hydration as being “natural,” “simple,” and “nonmedical,” without any discussion of what is actually involved with the placement and management of feeding tubes, the types of feeding, and the associated risks.
My sister is on a feeding tube — specifically a j-tube or jejunostomy. Believe, nothing about it is “natural.” Because of the high risk of infection, we have to use sterile procedures to clear the lines and clean the stoma. She has an almost chronic infection from the tube, which must be treated with IV antibiotics, requiring daily visits to the outpatient clinic. The lines have to be cleared every two hours, and still her alarm goes off 50 -60 times a day. Because she can only handle a very slow flow rate, her feeding pump must operate 18 hours a day, but because it’s so slow, it gets clogged regularly. Her flow rate needs to be constantly monitored and adjusted. She has violent, uncontrolled diarrhea, regardless of the type of liquid nutrition we use, which embarrasses her. She has bouts of abdominal pain that requires morphine. Because she is in a rural area, where blackouts occur, we need to have a back-up generator. Her tube and the ballon that supports it has become dislodged twice in the last 3 weeks alone. Both times she had to be readmitted and a surgeon and radiologist called in to reposition them. We and her insurance company were charged several thousand dollars for these “nonmedical” procedures.
But read any RTL blog talking about feeding tubes, and you’d think anyone with an X-acto knife and length of garden hose could insert one.
June 18th, 2005 at 4:25 pm
Emma -
One of the things I wish I had written the above post, and which I did not, although I started to get there with Rob, is that not all who supported withdrawing Terri’s feeding tube were “deatheaters.” People can disagree on this issue for many reasons - I have had family members in hospice, taking slow leave from us, and I had a family member who spent more than 30 years, brain damaged, and in a facility. YOu have one feeling about all of that, I have another. Reasonable people can disagree and still be decent people. My “Deatheater” label was being used specifically against those who (as I linked to) were photoshopping, joking and all but “cyberdancing” over the release of her autopsy. And they did the same when she died.
I have a problem with deatheaters, with people who don’t even see the human being - who see only the object or the goal.
June 29th, 2005 at 5:01 am
The Schiavo Tragedy
Continues to break hearts….