Governor Bush orders feeding tube reinserted into coma victim's body

[Yorick]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: quote: Originally posted by Yorick: quote: Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Sorry, it doesn't matter how you cut it, cleaning up excrement and bathing someone is a burden. Period. Now, it may be offset by value, respect, love, etc., but it IS a burden.

Are there any parents of newborn babies in the house? Anyone care to comment on this? Bathing, nappy changing?

Interesting how the cycles goes. The bathed becomes the bather. The poopscooper get's poopscooped. I love scenes I've seen where theres a woman pushing a baby in her stoller. Next to her, the mothers mother is pushing the great grandmother of the baby in a wheelchair.

Cyclic thing this life. Embrace it. Don't seek an early exist. There's no humilation in returning to dependency. Unless you're proud. But then PRIDE is possibly the ugliest, most self-destructive, vengeful violence-perpetuating, hubris-inducing attribute humans possess.

Look at how we disdain arrogance. Prides cousin. Look at how the overconfident fall, unaware of their own failings. If pride causes a person to seek an early exist rather than live with humility and age, everyone looses. [/QUOTE]Your post totally segregated that statement of mine with those surrounding it. You took me out of context and it is not appreciated. I now see how the quote/rebuttal system can be abused. [/QUOTE]I intentionally quoted what I did to emphasise the action and place it in a different context to show the action itself in a different light. Changing the context was the whole point. The same action performed on a person at the beggining of their life is equally as burdensome and life changing, yet who really feels weighed down by that to the point that they end their life?

That was my point. What is communicated? I believe, if an aged parent feels like a burden, the problem is in the caring childs communication, or in the amount of self damaging pride the person has, not in the persons existence and malady itself.

[Skunk]

Originally posted by Cerek the Barbaric: I'm not sure that his Pro Life convictions would really be a motivating factor in this case, but I agree 100% with everything else you said. No matter how old you are, no matter what accomplishments you may have achieved, and no matter how many children you may have of your own...your parents will ALWAYS consider you to be their "little boy or little girl".

There was a lovely milk advert on Dutch TV not so long ago. It shows an old couple (about 70 years old) driving down country roads. They finally reach their destination, which is a house in the middle of nowhere and sit down to eat in the garden with the occupants who are even older than they are. Then the lady of the house, bent double with age slowly hobbles out to the garden table, sets a glass of milk and a cookie before the 70 year old driver of the car - and pats him on the head: she was his mother.
The selling phrase was something like, "Give your kids milk, it's good for their bones".
I had to smile at that one. [img]smile.gif[/img]

In the end the parents are in a no-win situation. If they lose the case to Michael Schiavo, they will consider their daughters death to be 'murder' - if they win, they will never bury their grief and will continue to nurse her body.
Grim prospects either way. Michael Schiavo on the other hand wins either way. If he wins the case, he will have carried out his wife's last wishes and can finally lay to rest that chapter of his life. If he loses, the possibility of transfering guardianship to the parents and/or divorcing his wife remains. In any event, he has gone through the grieving period and is getting on with his life.

It's a very sad situation.

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by Azred: Perhaps you missed my little story about a choice that Belle had to make, the one where she chose to let her daughter die rather than hold out hope for a medical miracle. I agree with her that her choice showed love because she didn't want her daughter to suffer. However, every person feels love differently so...to each their own. [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img]

No, I didn't miss it Azred. I saw it and thought about how incredibly difficult it must have been to make that decision. I admire and respect the amount of courage it took for Belle to let her daughter go.

I also noted her daughter was on life support and I stated in my opening post that I personally feel there is a fundamental difference between being on life support and being on a feeding tube.

As you said, to each his own.

BTW, I only mentioned your posts to point out that I don't necessarily believe the parents are hoping for a miraculous recovery that will give them their little girl back. I think that - unlike Belle the parents aren't able to let their daughter go - which is very sad for everybody involved. [img]graemlins/verysad.gif[/img]

[Yorick]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: BS, Yorick. No matter how much my children acted like it was not a burden, I would recognize it is. that is the difference between caring for the young and the old. Don't equate them.

Don't give me that. I've had to unwravel the damage people have had where their parents made them pay for being a burden. I've seen damaged people resultant from that. We are a burden when we enter the world and when we exist the world. We shoulder others burdens in between. Cyclic.

[Night Stalker]

True, everything is cyclic. But, there is also a point of diminishing returns. That may sound very harsh and callous, but that's life. Infants need constant care, but they grow up and become fully functioning adult and have lil itty bitty children of their own. Elders that need constant care have nowhere to go. They are often kept alive way beyond their natural means and the biggest event left in their lives is the day they become fertilizer. Now they do offer the benefit of wisdom from their lives, that is ... if they keep their minds.

So, yes, life is precious. But the pursuit of it or the extension of ot to all means is detrimental. Hope is one thing. Hope against hope is self-destructive. This is a case where medical technology has crippled a couple and not allowed them the time to greive and move on. They are trapped in limbonic tourture.

Skunk made some very good points about persisting vegitative states (I am I agreeing with Skunk?!? [img]tongue.gif[/img] ). It is not the same a coma, where there is still cognitive function (just not consious function). There is no upper brain activity what so ever.

[Yorick]

Originally posted by Night Stalker: True, everything is cyclic. But, there is also a point of diminishing returns. That may sound very harsh and callous, but that's life. Infants need constant care, but they grow up and become fully functioning adult and have lil itty bitty children of their own. Elders that need constant care have nowhere to go. They are often kept alive way beyond their natural means and the biggest event left in their lives is the day they become fertilizer. Now they do offer the benefit of wisdom from their lives, that is ... if they keep their minds. So, yes, life is precious. But the pursuit of it or the extension of ot to all means is detrimental. Hope is one thing. Hope against hope is self-destructive. This is a case where medical technology has crippled a couple and not allowed them the time to greive and move on. They are trapped in limbonic tourture. Skunk made some very good points about persisting vegitative states (I am I agreeing with Skunk?!? [img]tongue.gif[/img] ). It is not the same a coma, where there is still cognitive function (just not consious function). There is no upper brain activity what so ever.

In primal society, age is when you would reeap the return. Just as you cared so would you be cared for. If you never had kids, you died alone.

[Azred]

Originally posted by Cerek the Barbaric: No, I didn't miss it Azred. I saw it and thought about how incredibly difficult it must have been to make that decision. I admire and respect the amount of courage it took for Belle to let her daughter go. I also noted her daughter was on life support and I stated in my opening post that I personally feel there is a fundamental difference between being on life support and being on a feeding tube. As you said, to each his own. BTW, I only mentioned your posts to point out that I don't necessarily believe the parents are hoping for a miraculous recovery that will give them their little girl back. I think that - unlike Belle the parents aren't able to let their daughter go - which is very sad for everybody involved. [img]graemlins/verysad.gif[/img]

Ok, you didn't miss the story. My misunderstanding. [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img]

Well, Belle still feels terrible about having to make that decision; it is simply something she will have to carry for the rest of her life.

Bottom line, no matter how often we pontificate about this particular issue there is no way we may really know what we'll do until--Heaven forbid--we find ourselves in that position. *sigh*

[ 10-27-2003, 01:03 AM: Message edited by: Azred ]

[Timber Loftis]

Originally posted by Yorick: quote: Originally posted by Timber Loftis: BS, Yorick. No matter how much my children acted like it was not a burden, I would recognize it is. that is the difference between caring for the young and the old. Don't equate them.

Don't give me that. I've had to unwravel the damage people have had where their parents made them pay for being a burden. I've seen damaged people resultant from that. We are a burden when we enter the world and when we exist the world. We shoulder others burdens in between. Cyclic. [/QUOTE]Post replies in no way to anything I have stated.

While I feel it is merely mental masturbation at the moment, as some of us just feel the way we do and can never take another point-of-view, I'll begrudginly elaborate.

A child is not cognizant of how burdensome they are AT THE TIME. They have no present guilt associated with how they "put out" their parents. Later, they often realize, and as adults they will (as I and some of you may have) try to make amends or apologize for the burden that they WERE.

An adult, an elderly adult, on the other hand, usually recognizes the burden they are AT THE TIME. Yorick, you tell me that if you were ill and incompacitated at this moment, you would not feel some guilt at how you burdened your family, and I will tell you that you are (a) fooling yourself, (b) outright lying to continue supporting your arguments, (c) dumb, or (d) truly selfish. Take your pick. However, I think you did (when you were injured) realize the burden you were and would again. There is nothing we can reason to ourselves to keep us from feeling guilty when we burden others.

Thus, there is a difference, in realization of guilt, between caring for the young and the old. At the end of my life, if I become too much of a burden, I will realize it and feel guilty for it. We all will and/or do.

[ 10-27-2003, 01:34 AM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[Timber Loftis]

President Bush sides with his brother, and the article also includes some speculation about abortion laws -- I've added a wee bit of commentary:
Today's NY TIMES:
________________________________________
Bush Backs His Brother's Decision in Feeding Tube Case
By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: October 29, 2003

WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 — President Bush waded into the right-to-die debate for the first time on Tuesday, declaring that his brother Jeb, the governor of Florida, acted correctly this month when he ordered that a brain-damaged woman be placed back on a feeding tube.

"I believe my brother made the right decision," Mr. Bush said, while declining to elaborate on the case, which has become a rallying point for all sides in the question of who should decide when to end life support — a spouse, other family members, the courts or a state governor.

At the same time, Mr. Bush signaled to his conservative supporters that while he remained opposed to abortion, he would not press for a total ban on it.

He reaffirmed that he planned to sign a bill passed by the House and the Senate making it illegal to perform what opponents of abortion call a "partial-birth abortion," a procedure used in the second and third trimesters. The vast majority of abortions take place in the first trimester.

Taken together, Mr. Bush's comments amount to a preview of how he may handle two issues of great concern to social conservatives in the coming campaign. In his standard campaign speeches, Mr. Bush rarely if ever delves into such divisive issues, and until Tuesday he had not publicly spoken about the Florida case. He clearly did not want to go into its details, and he moved on to other questions.

"The president is committed to creating a culture of life at all stages," his press secretary, Scott McClellan, said when asked to elaborate on Mr. Bush's comments. "That means at all stages of life, many different conditions."

Many anti-abortion groups see the ban on the abortion procedure as a starting point for a wider legislative attack on abortion and on Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that recognized a constitutional right to legalized abortion. But repeating a position he took in the 2000 presidential campaign, Mr. Bush made it clear that he did not believe the country was ready to take that step.

"I don't think the culture has changed to the extent that the American people or the Congress would totally ban abortions," Mr. Bush said in his news conference in the Rose Garden. His aides say that they still expect the Republican platform to contain a strong anti-abortion plank, as it has in the past.

Mr. Bush's abortion statement, however, seemed to indicate that his signature on the abortion legislation and his nomination of judges who oppose Roe v. Wade might be as much as social conservatives get out of his first term, though several related issues are pending in Congress.

Richard M. Doerflinger, the deputy director of anti-abortion activities at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in an interview that he believed the president left open the possibility of signing some of those bills if they reached his desk.

"As a statement of fact about where Congress is now on a total ban on abortion, the president assessed the situation correctly," Mr. Doerflinger said. "But there are many other bills out there we think he would support," including legislation that would allow people accused of committing violence against a pregnant woman to be prosecuted for a second offense if the fetus was also injured.
____________________
TL says: This is already the case. Many people who have killed pregnant women or injured them such that the fetus died have been charged with murder. Even Eugine Young on "The Practice" made this point once, noting that from the moment of conception a human is a human. (Note: The Practice probably has the most astute legal writers of all the law shows, despite the fact it ignores the real world where 98% of defendants lose.) The permission of abortion, under the law as it is, does not say that the fetus is not a human, but rather says that the mother's interests outweight the fetus's early on, such that the mother can abort (i.e. kill) the fetus.
__________________

By endorsing his brother's decision to replace the feeding tube of the Florida woman, Terri Schiavo, Mr. Bush also heartened social conservatives — though his statement placed him at odds with most case law outside of Florida, which puts such decisions in the hands of a spouse.

"We're delighted that the president supported his brother's position that Terri Schiavo should not be starved," said Burke Balch, the director of the Robert Powell Center for Medical Ethics, which is associated with the National Right to Life Committee here.

Ms. Schiavo has been in a persistent vegetative state for years, and the Florida courts, after extensive litigation, approved her husband's efforts to have her feeding tube removed. Her parents have vigorously opposed that decision, arguing that Ms. Schiavo could improve with the proper therapy.

Mr. Balch added, "Our perspective is that when there has been no indication of the patient's wishes, leaving this to the subjective decision of a surrogate is not appropriate."

The Florida case is a highly unusual one. The State Legislature passed, with little debate, legislation clearly intended to apply only to Ms. Schiavo's case. Jeb Bush signed it, and a feeding tube was reinserted to keep Ms. Schiavo alive. That law is now being challenged.

Critics of the Florida decision saw electoral politics in Governor Bush's action and in the president's endorsement of it.

"You have to remember that she has been like this for 13 years," said Dr. Ron Cranford, a clinical ethicist at the University of Minnesota. "One thread throughout this has been tremendous sympathy for the family, and it was pure politics on the part of the Florida Legislature.

"They did this all in one day," Dr. Cranford said, "with not a shred of thinking about the implications."

Mr. Bush was last deeply involved in this issue as governor of Texas. He vetoed a living will statute there because it did not include a provision that would have guaranteed patients the right to be transferred to a health care facility that promised it would sustain their life even if doctors believed further treatment was futile.

[ 10-29-2003, 12:32 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[Yorick]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: A child is not cognizant of how burdensome they are AT THE TIME. They have no present guilt associated with how they "put out" their parents. Later, they often realize, and as adults they will (as I and some of you may have) try to make amends or apologize for the burden that they WERE. An adult, an elderly adult, on the other hand, usually recognizes the burden they are AT THE TIME. Yorick, you tell me that if you were ill and incompacitated at this moment, you would not feel some guilt at how you burdened your family, and I will tell you that you are (a) fooling yourself, (b) outright lying to continue supporting your arguments, (c) dumb, or (d) truly selfish. Take your pick. However, I think you did (when you were injured) realize the burden you were and would again. There is nothing we can reason to ourselves to keep us from feeling guilty when we burden others. Thus, there is a difference, in realization of guilt, between caring for the young and the old. At the end of my life, if I become too much of a burden, I will realize it and feel guilty for it. We all will and/or do.

It all happens in reverse Timber.
An elderly adult can end up being unaware of the burden they are. It can be childhood in reverse.

As to your rather judgemental options you forgot:
(e)Humble and selfless

It takes humility to recognise you are a burden and yet accept the love and care others provide. It is humbling to be in a position of non-self reliance, and accept that you need others to survive.
It is also selfless, to accept your humbling position, and keep living so that others can get joy even from your diminished position. Which they do. Caring for someone is a burden most humans readily embrace. I used the child example, or even a marriage example, to show that carrying each others burdens is a part of life - a wonderful one at that.

But to have a successful relationship, you need to lose pride, super-independence and selfishness, and be humble, interdependent and selfless.

It is not for you to judge how I would be at the end of my life, or what motives I would have in STAYING ALIVE FOR MY FAMILY. Those options you provided do not allow for a differing worldview, and don't allow for the fact that you and I disagree on just about every issue. You can comment on what YOUR motives would be if you made certain choices, but you cannot comment on what MY motives would be if I made certain choices.

So when you speak about "there is nothing we can reason to ourselves to keep us from feeling guilty when we burden others" speak for YOURSELF. The variables of worldview, vocalisation of family support and levels of humility all make a huge difference.