Terri Schiavo's Autopsy

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So, the autopsy was finally released:

But isn't the notion that Terri was in an irrecoverable PVS a myth of the godless far-left relativists?

But what about the videos of Terri's "alert eyes" "watching a balloon"?

But what about all the trauma Terri suffered, all the domestic abuse at the hands of her husband, or even the attempted murder?

Could it be that all these people on the save Terri bandwagon were full of ****?

Could it be that the Schiavo Bill, pushed by the good doctor and Senate majority leader Bill Frist and ex-exterminator House majority leader Tom "The Hammer" DeLay was one big gross example government interferance in personal affairs for the sake of political pandering to the religious right?

[ June 15, 2005, 22:24: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

Wow Bion!!! I never knew you could be so cynical. Way to go! I agree with most of your points though. I especially thought it was interesting that she was functionally blind when I read that article this morning. It really puts to rest any of that "follow the balloon" stuff. Of course, I'm one of the godless far-left relativists, who thought she died 15 years ago, not two and a half months ago.

 

Excellent post, Bion.

What's sad is that this evidence - credible and conclusive as it is - won't even make a dent in the minds of some of these people. Somehow someone will come out with something saying this doctor is a liberal elitist huckster or something and won't let the issue rest until James Dobson gets a crack at her.

I also found it funny (not in a "ha-ha" way) that these are the very people who are usually the ones bitching about too much government interference in their lives, yet they're responsible for driving the fervor behind the biggest example of presicely what they "claim" to be against in recent memory.

 

I don't know if I'd describe it as cynicism, maybe more like a hightened state of annoyance. The funny thing is, this story has almost been buried. I've checked out a number of right and left wing blogs and news sites on this issue today. Predictably, the right has tried to ignore it; Drudge, who gave Schiavo headline billing for what seemed like weeks on end, buried one link to the autopsy. On the other hand, the lefties have, mostly somewhat feebly, tried to make hay out of the issue; DailyKos slaps Frist around for his video diagnosis, but doesn't really go into the full sordid detail of the Schiavo affair.

But after some quick googling (try it, you'll see, the above links are but a drop in the ocean), it all came back to me, all the innuendo and outrageous statements, all the left-baiting, all the hypocritical and sanctimonious "concern for human life" and "traditional values", with the Schiavo tragedy wielded as lever to foist government control over decisions on death and dying that had previously been seen as personal.

I mean, the Repubs engineered and precipitated a huge media spectacle around this thing, and now that they're proved wrong, they pretend it didn't happen. Yet, as seems to happen oh so frequently these days, the Repubs aren't so inconvenienced when the facts are against them; pretend those facts aren't there and invent new ones, everythings OK as long as the script (here: godless lefty anti-lifers in league with the judiciary vs. the heroic saviours of traditional values) stays the same.

 

Schiavo's Autopsy is published.

The verdict is, that she's still dead.

 

100 years prior, she would have died. End of arguement. There would have been no fight to save her. The autopsy just went to show that she would have dies anyway. She suffered 15 years because of people trying to speak for God. If there's no hope of Recovery, then god has already decided...

 

Speaking of which, Schaivo's parents released a statement yesterday in which they stated that they still do not believe that Terri was in PVS, regardless of the results of the autopsy. Talk about serious denial issues.

 

Bravo Bion. Excellent post. Further proof of why government should stay the hell out of our lives.

 

One of the best posts I have read all month Bion.

Now I await, with baited breath, the arrival of Chevalier...

Gnarlflinger:

You guys were wrong. Period. Don't waste time trying to rationalize it away. No one was fighting to save Terri's life. Right-wing Christians/Catholics were fighting to legislate/mandate their religious views and they were engaging in sick necrophilic acts of using Terri's corpse as a sock-puppet to speak for their cause. They took a dead woman who, when alive did not support their nonsense, and they FORCED her to be a marionette in their bizarre production.
It is no different than Charlton heston dying and some liberal shoving his hand up the corpse's rear and making him move his mouth while the liberal puppeteer went on about "Hi, I am Charlton Heston. I was wrong about the whole gun thing and the Bible is a load of crap. Don't let conservatives murder me for speaking out *sob*".

The latest I am hearing now from the parents of Terri and the Christian/Catholic button-pushers is "so the science says we were wrong...she could have still been miraculously healed through divine intervention! Science can't touch that!".

Too funny. The next time someone is found guilty of a crime because of scientific evidence like DNA and such, let's try the "Some God/Satan/Extra-terrestrials may have used mind control/planted the evidence/whatever." defense.

"Miracles" are just great! We have no evidence that a single one has ever happened and yet they are the basis for so much rationalization!

 

RQ -- I didn't gather that sentiment from Garlflinger's comment. It sounded like he felt she should have been allowed to die with dignity 15 years ago....

 

Yeah, I was mostly refering to the exchanges that were going on between everyone here several months ago(before she finally passed on(AGAIN!) through dehydration). I may be 'misremembering Gnarlflinger's position but I thought that he was with Chev' and a few others on the whole "let her live!" crusade.

If I was wrong about this then my apologies to Gnarl' then.

The rest of what I said(which was not directed at Gnarlflinger) stands.

 

Speaking as a right winger, I'm ashamed of what the Republicans did -- I was fully in favour of letting her die with dignity, and disgusted at the fact that they merely let her starve to death instead of doing something to help her along. As I believe I said in the other thread, you would go to jail for letting an animal suffer like that, but for the sake of some dogma, you'd let a human suffer? Ridiculous.

So, two points:

1: The "Right" can be wrong, and in this case, it's vocal proponents in the US and elsewhere were.

2: Not all "Right" people are knee jerk reactionaries -- I, for example, attempt to get as much data as I can before establishing a position.

 

From what I've heard of the case, it sounds like God decided against that mirable 15 years ago. I've personally experienced a Priesthood blessing when afflicted, and the relief of the pain associated was immediate. It didn't change the condition, but it did enable me to rest and function until the required procedures could be done. The Lord decided that her time had come. What some in the religious community forget sometimes is that they are there to serve God, not to overrule Him.

Thank you.

I was away from the boards for a stretch because of time constraints. The Terry Schaivo thread was about two or three pages in when I did return. In another thread about Euthenasia, I opposed prolonging suffering needlessly, but did not go so far as to advocate actually killing the person. My stance was to make the person comfortable to the end, but when it's time, don't argue with it...

 

And the saga continues...

So exactly what is it supposed to suggest other than wrongdoing on Michael Schiavo's part? Exactly how cowardly is Jeb Bush?

These guys just can't let go...

How many of you conservatives out there are OK with a gov't as eager as this one is to intrude into the private lives of its citizens for percieved political gain, starting an investigation into Michael Schiavo based on a possible time-gap between how he remembered the day in two separate statements and the recorded call to 911. If your spouse died suddenly, would you want to be held accountable to a grand jury based on your memory of what happened that day?

Of course, in the venerable think tank of Scarborough Country, Randall Terry, former head of "Right for Life" and now president of the "Society for Truth and Justice" (as opposed the the librul "Society for Death, Lies and Injustice" I suppose) gets a chance to parade his particular brand of politically-motivated ignorance on the national airwaves. Autopsy, Schmautopsy:

Then again, as dailyhowler points out, ths particular attorney's career is *precisely* about doing these things:

Thankfully, EJ Dionne at the Washington Post has a sensible take on all this:

But hey, Jeb Bush just called for a brand new investigation! These guys aren't about to apologize: it's still business as usual!

Just like Jeb Bush's current insinuations, and couched of course within a cowardly caveat that "of course, we're not accusing Michael Schiavo of anything."

How very caring of the good doctor!

But now that he's confronted with the evidence from the autopsy, does he apologize for his politically-motivated misdiagnosis?

Making cowardly insinuations about Schiavo's husband and backing them up with his professional respectability, and then pretending that he had done nothing of the sort? Classy, real presidential material...

Ahh, of course, the librul MSM, up to its old tricks! Thank you Tom DeLay MD PhD.

Yup, more emotional grandstanding over thought from the administration that brought you "shock and awe", "mission accomplished", "freedom fries", the "Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth", the "Patriot Act," and "you're either with us or with the terrorists." Somehow, I see a pattern here...

[ June 17, 2005, 21:09: Message edited by: Bion ]

 

I'm with you on this on Bion, but disagree with the attack on Frist. He stated her actions did not sound like that of a person in a PVS -- based on family comments. I don't recall him ever saying the doctors in the case were clueless. He did raise questions about having another opinion from recognized experts (basically the top people in the field).

The thing that sets him apart from the rest is he actually did admit that she was beyond help after the autopsy and that this whole issue should be put to rest (saying in a very political way that he was wrong, but that's the nature of his job). I haven't heard any other politician even come close to that -- in fact, I do not believe the religious conservatives will ever admit to being wrong.

Jeb Bush is way off base in this. He's trying to save face when he should really just shut it.

 

I guess I wouldn't want to be so quick to let Frist off the hook here. I mean, as much as he might want it to go away, he stood up in front of the US people, in the most public of public forums, and proclaimed that his training as a medical doctor lead him to believe that Schiavo was not brain dead or in a PVS, regardless of the fact he was basing this on (very selected) video evidence, and regardless of the number of medical opinions that had already been given above and beyond the satisfaction of Florida state law that held otherwise. And he did so at the behest of a defined political movement, with defined political aims. Essentially, he leveraged the respect afforded by the US people to the medical profession for political ends. People watching his speeches probably thought "well, here's an esteemed medical doctor publically saying that Terri Schiavo is responsive to her family, he must have a very good professional reason for saying so." This is very persuasive to many people who have a high degree of trust in the medical profession (tho not to those like me who actually took uni courses with pre-meds, and swore ever after to avoid hospitals at all costs, but that's another story).

He used "the highest pulpit in the land" to dispute the well-established professional consensus of the doctors who actually examined Terri *in person*, and he did so for political ends. So I would expect to see more than, "well, uh, let's put all this behind us, shall we?"

 

This whole thing is surreal. If there were doubts as to a possible time lapse 15 years ago, the bright boys in law enforcement should have investigated it then. Doing it now is weird, to say the least. I hope this ends soon so the people involved with Terri can grieve in peace.

 

This is a little off topic but is it true that although seasoned investigators look for inconsistencies in interviews and testimonies, they say that it would be highly unusual if one person's statements are totally devoid of inconsistency? They expect some margin of error because we are just human. Also they look to collaborative physical evidence as well.

 

Doh. But that is happy food for those on the Chrstian Right for whom he is a murderer, well, post mortem murderer to be precise, anyway.

Whatever will come out, and it'll be probably nothing, except some smear, that won't change.

As I said in the previous thread on Schiavo, the case was never about her but another all emotional trench fight in America's culture war. Schiavo for that fight was exchangable, the excuse for a fight planned all along, but not it's subject or object.