Text 10891, 72 rader
Skriven 2005-04-02 00:01:14 av EARL CROASMUN (1:275/311)
     Kommentar till en text av ED HULETT
Ärende: Bo Gritz
================
->  EC> HIS answer is that he is keeping a promise made to her in 1988.  He has
->  EC> been with her for the last fifteen years, even though doctors were
->  EC> telling him TWELVE years ago that she would never gain consciousness
->  EC> again.  He oversaw her care.  He visited her.  He even got the hospice
->  EC> workers mad at him because he was so protective of her condition and
->  EC> care.

-> Then, why did he insist that she die such a horrible death? Starvation and
-> dehydration is not a mercy killing. It is something only a very vendictive
-> person would wish on even their most hated enemy.

To repeat what has already been discussed, she was unable to feel pain.
That part of the brain is no longer there!  And you no doubt have seen
the various stories about the relative lack of pain and suffering from
the removal of a feeding tube even when the patient HAS a cortex.  This
is a nonsense claim that keeps getting tossed out with no backing, and
in the face of all expert indications on the subject.  One news story,
looking at the experiences of people who actually have to deal with the
matter: " In a recent New England Journal of Medicine study, hospice
nurses rated the deaths of terminally ill people who voluntarily stopped
eating and drinking. On a scale of zero to nine, with the highest number
being "a very good death," their average rating was eight.  "Voluntary
dehydration is a very peaceful dying experience," said Teno. "You drift
off slowly into a coma.""

The casual suggestion of killing someone "mercifully" with a drug
overdose is equally absurd.  The reaction of a given person's body to a
given drug dose is unpredictable.  Take too little and you can be
nauseated, sick, and in serious pain for a period of time, but not die.
Take too much and you can have extreme and possibly violent psychosis,
pain, and nausea for a time before dying.  That wouldn't apply to people
in a PVS, of course, but neither would pain.

In the last two weeks there has been hysteria on the subject, but the
fact is that withdrawl of food and water is a routine means of cutting
off life support, it is done every day, and it is done voluntarily by
terminally ill patients even when they HAVE a functioning cortex and are
NOT in a coma or a PVS.


-> If Terri felt no pain, as the "experts" claimed, why did they need to
-> constantly inject morphine?

That, like everything else, is in dispute.  From one of the AP stories:
"Felos disputed that, saying that hospice records show Schiavo was given
two low doses of morphine  one on March 19 and another on March 26  and
that she was not on a morphine drip."

One explanation I've heard in a local interview is that morphine has
effects other than reducing pain, such as slowing down bodily secretions
and reducing reflex actions of the type that she was capable of even
without a cortex.  Another explanation was that it was simply
bureaucratic SOP whether needed or not: "According to medical experts,
when a feeding tube is removed, it is standard procedure to start a
patient on morphine. The extent of Schiavos brain damage means she is
not conscious of pain, but the customary procedure would probably be
followed anyway, the experts said."


The fact remains, IF he is correct in testifying that she told him she
didn't want to be sustained, IF he is correct that he promised her that
he would see to it, then everything he has done since then makes perfect
sense.  He did EXACTLY what any husband SHOULD have done.  And it is the
only answer to your "why did he do it" question that makes any sense at
all.  He could have stepped aside, taken the ten million, move to
another state, not spend years visiting a hospice, and not have death
threats coming in from all across the country.



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