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thetrue
New Member
9 Posts |
 Posted - 03/18/2005 : 17:19:27 [Permalink]
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It's true the terrisfight.org website is not without slant. But surely all good skeptics can watch the videos of Terri as well as read the testimony of an unrelated visitor posted there and ponder it for themselves.
"Critically examine everything. Hold on to the good." 1 Thess. 5:21 |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 03/18/2005 : 18:03:35 [Permalink]
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What I have a hard time figuring out is why so many doctors, who have taken Hippocrate's Oath, agree that "pulling the plug" is the right thing to do, if there is still a decent chance of recovery?
To me it makes no sense. If the light is on, but so many impartial doctors agree noone is ever coming home, what's the point of forcingly keep her alive? |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 03/18/2005 : 22:40:20 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by thetrue
It's true the terrisfight.org website is not without slant. But surely all good skeptics can watch the videos of Terri as well as read the testimony of an unrelated visitor posted there and ponder it for themselves.
I have pondered it, and my conclusion is that the religious are blind to facts. I have no reason to consider this a special case.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 03/19/2005 : 03:38:48 [Permalink]
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Look what I found.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1361145/posts
quote:
Michael Schiavo
rejects $1 million
Businessman had offered cash
to give up guardianship of wife
Michael Schiavo rejected an offer of $1 million to give up guardianship of his brain-damaged wife – an attempt by a California businessman to save her from court-ordered starvation set to begin next Friday.
George Felos, attorney for the estranged husband, called the offer "offensive," and said other offers, including one for $10 million, already had been made and rejected.
"Michael has said over and over again that this case is not about money for him," Felos said, according to the Associated Press. "It's about carrying out his wife's wishes. There is no amount of money anyone can offer that will cause him to turn his back on his wife."
Gives you a little different picture of the husband, doesn't it?
Apparently he has been fighting this fight with the parents for many years so it also wasn't that he recently started all this.
On another note, apparently the "activist legislators" are trying to circumvent the judiciary branch. Hypocrisy is such a common trait among politicians. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 03/19/2005 : 03:46:15 [Permalink]
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I don't think religion per se has anything to do with it beyond the scattering of protesters and those praying elsewhere. It's politics. It's polititions trying appear noble and merciful and righteous, and suck up some more to those who have religion -- look at how many of them have jumped on this macaber bandwagon.
If Terri were black or poor, how many of these hypocritical blackguards do you think might be wringing their hands and shedding tears of piety then?
The plain, hard fact is, that this woman is already dead and has been for 15 years; a warm, breathing, aging corpse. Short of an act of God, she will never recover, and we know about how reliable acts of God are. She will continue in her vegetative state, wearing that horrid rictus they're calling a smile and twiching occasionally, until her heart finally wears out; a once lovely lady reduced to the indignity of being a sick rallying point for those not worthy to even carry her luggage.
May her body pass quickly and the genuine grief for all concerned be brief.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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trishran
Skeptic Friend
USA
196 Posts |
Posted - 03/19/2005 : 15:28:43 [Permalink]
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| I've seen a lot of photos and videos of Terry Schiavo on TV the past couple of days - both before and after her tragic seizure. Before, she was a very fashionable dresser, afterwards, she is dressed in 1950s styles, with lots of pink and Peter Pan collars. Now, if it's true, as her parents and brother state, that Ms. Schiavo retains some awareness and ability to communicate, wouldn't she have fought being dressed and photographed in those awful shirts? If it is her self-awareness that's the issue, why not dress her in the kind of clothes she would have chosen for herself? Or have her parents just acquired a "Terry" doll that they can dress as the Terry they wanted, instead of the Terry that was and is? |
trish |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 03/19/2005 : 18:27:30 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by thetrue
It's true the terrisfight.org website is not without slant. But surely all good skeptics can watch the videos of Terri as well as read the testimony of an unrelated visitor posted there and ponder it for themselves.
I think the 'Terri doll' is a good description. People are taking what looks like a smile as representing a smile. What is fooling people when they see what looks like a picture of a smiling face is that it is not a smiling face. It is only contractured facial muscles.
If you were in the room with her you would have a very different perception of what you were seeing. The sad thing is so many people see those pictures and have a completely invalid perception about what they are seeing. They are not familiar with what a vegetative state looks like. You could hold a burning match up to that woman's eyes and at most you might induce a blink reflex. The facial expression would not change. The facial expression does not change, day or night. The eyes open and close. The mouth stays open and in that fixed position even while she sleeps. She probably has a swallow reflex or she may just drool continually. She may make chewing motions on occasion.
But the majority of persons seeing those pictures don't understand it isn't a smiling woman. It is a Terri doll.
Edited to add the following: I saw more films of Terri and it isn't contractures that make the smile it's reflexes. Again, it still isn't an emotional smile. The problem is how thorough one's understanding is of reflexive movement and sleep wake cycles despite no cognitive input into the movements. It isn't that there might be thoughts in there we can't tell. We can tell because of studies of brain activity when people are smiling, etc. |
| Edited by - beskeptigal on 03/20/2005 00:38:37 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/19/2005 : 20:34:53 [Permalink]
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Just be prepared for the current congress to pass legislation that will deprive any US citizen of the right to make end of life decisions for themselves or their spouse.
Living will? Tear them all up. These asshole politicians don't think that anyone is capable of making informed decisions pertaining to the extent of effort that should be put forth to artificially extend biological function of you body.
Seriously, what really crack me up, is that it is almost entirely religious people who are protesting the removal of feeding from a person in a vegetative state. Why? Well, because these very same people are the ones who protested against test-tube babies, artificial hearts, genetic engineering of plants and animals and people. They fail to see their self contradictory positions. If it is unnatural to do the above, then how the hell is it natural to artificially extend the biological function of a human body, via synthetic chemicals, percutanious feeding tubes, artificial respiration, and all the rest?
This woman is in a permanent vegitative state. There is, by the VAST majority opinion of doctors who have cared for her, zero chance of any recovery beyond where she is now. She will sit in her own feces and rot until she experiences a septic event that is untreatable by antibiotics. Then the remaining biological functions of her brain-dead body will cease. The ONLY humane option at this point is stop with the artificial support of her body.
The general stupidity and ignorance of the US public is the real story here. How many people can be fooled by a picture and a 30 second internet video is frightening.
I think that any politician that supports the current round of legislation going on in congress should be required to come down here to FL and spend a month doing CPR on all the people they are trying to deny the right to die. A few properly performed chest compressions on a 80 year old and I'm betting they will change their tune.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 03/20/2005 : 00:46:32 [Permalink]
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For the first time I've seen the husband on the news with his lawyer explaining his side. He wants his wife to have a peaceful death, no more intervention. Objecting to his decision really is arbitrary, to say taking the feeding tube out is different than taking a breathing tube out. Terri doesn't eat or drink.
All these people camped out there at the hospice, spending all this effort and time and money. I wonder if the guy who offered the 10 million to buy the husband off donated that money to save any other people instead? I wonder how many other lives the activists have spent this kind of attention helping? |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 03/20/2005 : 02:56:32 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
Look what I found.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1361145/posts
quote:
Michael Schiavo
rejects $1 million
Businessman had offered cash
to give up guardianship of wife
Michael Schiavo rejected an offer of $1 million to give up guardianship of his brain-damaged wife – an attempt by a California businessman to save her from court-ordered starvation set to begin next Friday.
George Felos, attorney for the estranged husband, called the offer "offensive," and said other offers, including one for $10 million, already had been made and rejected.
"Michael has said over and over again that this case is not about money for him," Felos said, according to the Associated Press. "It's about carrying out his wife's wishes. There is no amount of money anyone can offer that will cause him to turn his back on his wife."
Gives you a little different picture of the husband, doesn't it?
Apparently he has been fighting this fight with the parents for many years so it also wasn't that he recently started all this.
On another note, apparently the "activist legislators" are trying to circumvent the judiciary branch. Hypocrisy is such a common trait among politicians.
Yeh. This is the part that struck me:
quote:
The businessman, Robert Herring Sr., founder of electronics firm HERCO Technology and founder of WEALTHTV, secured the services of celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred and announced the million-dollar offer at a press conference yesterday.
"[Terri's] situation has deeply moved and distressed our client Mr. Herring who has been observing the case in the media, as millions of others have, for about a year," Allred told reporters.
"He recognizes that unless something is done immediately, Terri Schiavo is not likely to survive very long after March 18. Knowing that time is of the essence and realizing that he is fortunate enough to be able to help, he has decided to take action."
In a statement, the Schindlers said it was "with tremendous surprise" that they learned yesterday of the offer.
"Written words can simply not express the gratitude our family now feels for Mr. Herring and his most generous offer to save the life of our dear daughter and sister, Terri Schiavo," the statement said.
It seems that few can get involved in this travisty without jumping up and telling the media all about it.
The Freeper's reaction was interesting....
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 03/20/2005 : 10:38:39 [Permalink]
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quote:
Congress Reaches Deal in Schiavo Case
By MITCH STACY
PINELLAS PARK, Fla. (AP) - The bitter feud over Terri Schiavo's fate has made its way to Congress, an answer to pleas from the brain-damaged woman's parents to have her feeding tube reinserted on her third day without food or water.
Congressional leaders from both parties hoped an agreement reached on a bill would allow the tube to be restored while federal courts review her case. The House and Senate were expected to take up the legislation by Sunday or early Monday. If passed, President Bush planned to sign it.
The full story.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 03/20/2005 : 13:47:09 [Permalink]
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A little more....
quote:
PINELLAS PARK, Fla. (AP) - Hanging their hopes on a last-minute compromise in Congress, Terri Schiavo's parents notified her hospice to prepare to have her feeding tube reinserted on Sunday, her third day without food or water.
Yet it now appears that move could not happen before Monday, at the earliest.
A bill aimed at prolonging the severely brain-damaged woman's life was delayed in Washington when House Democrats blocked a voice vote, forcing Republicans to scramble on Palm Sunday for a quorum of 218 members. A roll call vote could be held as early as 12:01 a.m. Monday, House leaders said.
It hasn't been commonly reported, but that vile piece of human offal, Randall Terry has his nose in it.
When will this obscenity end?
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/21/2005 : 03:56:18 [Permalink]
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7212079/
COngress decides they have the right to interfere in your personal life and strip away your right to decide to die with dignity.
Unfreakinbelievable.
And, to demonstrate yet again the moronic thinking of those who want to see this womans shell continue to be atrificially maintained, a small quote from the link above.
quote:
Outside the hospice, a shout of joy when news of the House bill's passage came. Among those cheering was David Bayly, 45, of Toledo, Ohio: “I'm overjoyed to see the vote and see Terri's life extended by whatever amount God gives her.”
....
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 03/21/2005 : 04:46:21 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7212079/
COngress decides they have the right to interfere in your personal life and strip away your right to decide to die with dignity.
Unfreakinbelievable.
And, to demonstrate yet again the moronic thinking of those who want to see this womans shell continue to be atrificially maintained, a small quote from the link above.
quote:
Outside the hospice, a shout of joy when news of the House bill's passage came. Among those cheering was David Bayly, 45, of Toledo, Ohio: “I'm overjoyed to see the vote and see Terri's life extended by whatever amount God gives her.”
....
It is even worse than you think, my friend:
quote:
Sun Hudson, a six-month-old boy with a fatal congenital disease, died Thursday after a Texas hospital, over his mother's objections, withdrew his feeding tube. The child was apparently certain to die, but was conscious. The hospital simply decided that it had better things to do than keeping the child alive, and the Texas courts upheld that decision after the penniless mother failed, during the 10-day window provided for by Texas law, to find another institution willing to take the child .
Where, I would ask, is the outrage? In particular, where is the outrage from those like Tom DeLay, who referred to the withdrawal of Terry Schiavo's life support as "murder"? If it's appropriate to Federalize the Schiavo case, what about the people being terminated simply because their cases are hopeless and their bank accounts empty?
Typical hypocrocy and the making of an earlier point of mine.
There is also a story doing the rounds that a leaked, Rebublican memo spoke of the political advantages of persuing the Schiavo case, but I haven't tracked it down. Yet.
Here's something on that slime mold's stool, Terry, from the same site:
quote:
Randall Terry crawls out from under his rock
Terri Schiavo's parents have asked noted anti-abortion racketeer and gay-baiter Randall Terry to lead the campaign to save their daughter. (I just got this fundraising pitch from NewsMax.)
Forgotten Randall Terry? Operation Rescue? Does "racketeer" seem a rather harsh description? The jury in a RICO civil suit didn't think so. Here's the way he ran his anti-abortion "protests":
One doctor, Dr. Susan Wicklund, was grabbed and slammed against a car as she tried to get through the blockade and into her office. Patients were tripped and pushed to the ground. One clinic administrator was grabbed by her hair and thrown to the ground by an Operation Rescue leader. Another was viciously choked by Operation Rescue protesters, leaving serious bruises on her neck. One patient, who was trying to enter the clinic -- not for an abortion but for post-operative care following cancer surgery -- was beaten with an Operation Rescue protester's sign. The protesters clawed at her and attacked her, causing her sutures to rupture, and she passed out.
So when Randall Terry threatens to "picket" the home and workplace of Michael Schiavo, that's a serious threat.
Here's |
"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 03/21/2005 : 05:32:47 [Permalink]
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Found it, or at least mention of it in a couple of paragraphs about half way down the page:
quote:
As the GOP-dominated Congress scrambled to keep Schiavo alive, it was disclosed that a memo distributed to Republican senators described the Schiavo case as a "great political issue" that could help the GOP with Christian conservatives in the 2006 midterm elections.
"This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue," according to the memo. Some GOP lawmakers decried the fact the memo was leaked. Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) said in a CNN interview the Republican leadership in the House did not want to politicize the issue.
"I hope that we're not making this human tragedy a political issue," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
You are, bro. You are. I would like to read the memo in it's entirity.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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