By Douglas V. Gibbs
The Terri Schiavo case somehow wound up pitting Conservatives against Liberals in a case that basically came down to when, and if, family should be able to pull the plug on a person in a vegetative state, and if a husband's plea outweighed those of the parents and siblings.
Terri Schiavo, under the request of the husband, and by order of the courts, was essentially starved to death. The understanding was that she was in a vegetative state, and was unable to recover.
What amazed me during the entire ordeal, as I followed it on television, was how a group of people (primarily those that consider themselves a part of the liberal left) could continuously proclaim that they were against war, and the death penalty, because life is precious, but then cheer when the life of a young woman was snuffed out because a court, based on erroneous testimony by the medical industry, ruled that she should be starved to death.
Memories of my own struggle to survive in 1985 came to mind. I was found after an automobile accident with zero percent oxygen in my blood, and a left-temporal fracture. Blood and spinal fluid flowed from my fractured skull for three days, draining into a bed pan as I lay lifeless in an intensive care unit. Upon arrival to the hospital, I was unable to breath on my own, and I needed a respirator just to survive. I responded to no commands or stimuli. I was in a deep coma for a week and a half, and in a "the lights are on but nobody is home" state for over two months. The mortality rate for temporal fractures is high, and the risk of severe mental retardation of survivors is even higher. Brain damage was a certainty, according to the doctors, considering the twenty minutes my brain existed without oxygen before I was life-flighted to Palomar Memorial Hospital in Escondido, California. Then, when I finally awakened, I was suffering from a severe traumatic seizure disorder, was unable to walk (much less sit up or stand), was unable to speak in sentences, and did not even remember that I was married, much less had a child. Partial facial paralyses completed an image that convinced my family that my future was going to be indeed dim.
Except my wife. She told everybody I would be okay.
After two years of intense rehabilitation, and a vast array of medications and personal struggles, I now not only function as a normal adult, but went back to college and carried a near 4.0 GPA. I have, since the accident, held jobs as a banker, life insurance salesman, financial advisor, secretary for a collection agency, switchboard operator, Building and Safety/Business License representative for a city, Construction worker, heavy equipment operator, and truck driver (only leaving each position to pursue better income potential). My last seizure was in 1993, and aside from the inability to run, partial deafness in my left ear caused by the accident, tinnitus in that same ear, some short term memory difficulties, and the fact that I am a little older, I am pretty much very similar to how I was before the accident.
I am sure glad that while I was non-responsive, and my chest was rising and falling mechanically due to my dependency upon medical equipment to survive, someone didn't get the bright idea to pull the plug.
As was my wife with me, Terri Schiavo's family was convinced that Terri was not completely vegetative, and that there was hope for her to come out of the state she was in.
The family was convinced that the diagnosis was flawed by the fact that she interacted with her mother, and that she was able to track objects and follow simple commands (something that I, by the way, was unable to do in the first weeks after my accident).
As with me, Terri's attending medical personnel came to different and opposing conclusions about her status.
And now, a recent study published by the New England Journal of Medicine, regarding findings of awareness in patients previously diagnosed in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) reveals that some patients who have been believed to be in a PVS were actually able to understand and communicate in limited ways.
The results of this study tells me that the husband of Terri Schiavo, the courts, and all of the liberals that supported her being killed, jumped the gun. The PVS diagnosis was flawed, and nobody was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, nor the opportunity to live.
Even with studies like the one referenced above, and other facts that are surfacing, I am sure the leftists, and the media, that cheered the death of the young women will never admit their error. Terri, I believe, was misdiagnosed, and deserved to live.
I don't understand why they didn't at least, as many pleaded to the judge during the case for Schiavo's life, use new brain scanning technology just to be sure.
Such requests were inexplicably refused.
Advocates for death, be it through euthanasia, or abortion, claim they are fighting for choice, but I have yet to understand why the choice to live is not an acceptable one to these people.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
New Findings Cast Increasing Doubt on Schiavo’s Death - CNS News
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