Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Thoughts on Schiavo

From: Samantha Atkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 11:49:40 -0800

On Mar 26, 2005, at 6:00 AM, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> Lets make one thing perfectly clear: Terri Schiavo's responsiveness is
> no less than the responsiveness of Stephen Hawking. Stephen just has a
> lot of high tech gizmos he's had years to learn to use to make himself
> useful in the world. Terri has been denied the same opportunities by
> her husband and remains in a condition that Stephen would be in today
> given a similar level of neglect.

This is the most empty and baseless assertion i believe I have ever 
seen from you.  Comparing one of the finest minds of our age to a woman 
who by every test we can administer is mentally unfortunately little 
more than a vegetable shows a patent disregard of reality.    Why are 
you just looking at the outside an ignoring everything we know and can 
test?

>
> Now, this being established, if we imagine instead that Stephen Hawking
> were in that hospital instead of Terri, what would you do about what is
> being done to him?

  Do you belief that your baseless assertion "establishes" anything at 
all?  What is your real agenda in this?

- samantha

>
> --- Giu1i0 Pri5c0 <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> My first reaction when I first heard of the Schiavo case was outrage
>> at the Christian Right's insistence on still considering Terri as a
>> thinking and living human being who should be kept on life support at
>> all costs even if there is no chance that she may recover any mental
>> functions. I think a "person" is a thinking and feeling entity, or
>> someone who may someday recover the status of thinking and feeling
>> entity, and that biological samples which do not and cannot think and
>> feel (embryos, cells, ...) are not persons. This is, after all, the
>> basis of our support for abortion and stem cell research: no harm is
>> done to persons. So I thought that the proper thing to do was
>> switching life support off.
>>
>> Then when I saw her pictures on television I realized that the fact
>> that she moves her eyes can give a very strong impression that she is
>> at least feeling something. Someone emotionally involved, like her
>> parents, is not likely to believe any medical statement that she is
>> does not, and never will, think and feel. So I ask myself what I
>> would
>> feel if I were in the place of Terri Schiavo's parents. Would I feel
>> that society is murdering my daughter? Perhaps I would. Why shouldn't
>> Terri Schiavo's parents be allowed to keep the hope, or the delusion,
>> that their daughter may wake up smiling? Is it because taxpayers are
>> paying for life support? Would things change if they were paying for
>> it themselves?
>>
>> Doctors say that Terri Schiavo will never think or feel anything. But
>> most doctors also say that today's cryonics patients will never be
>> revived, and that life extension technology will never work. Does
>> this
>> mean that we should give up on cryonics and life extension? Does it
>> depend on who is paying? It seems reasonable to think that those who
>> can pay for cryonics and life extension should be allowed to do so,
>> but that taxpayers' money should be spent wisely and focused where it
>> can be effective. But how do you explain that to Terri Schiavo's
>> parents? And how do you explain it to those who will want to try
>> experimental deep life extension therapies without being able to
>> afford it?
>>
>> All questions and no answers: these are difficult issues.
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>
> Mike Lorrey
> Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
> "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
> It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
>                                       -William Pitt (1759-1806)
> Blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com
>
>
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---

From: Rafal Smigrodzki <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 10:44:42 -0800

> were in that hospital instead of Terri, what would you do about what is

### Mike, are you saying that Ms Schiavo has ALS?

As far as I know you are not a neurologist, and certainly you have not
personally examined her. Yet you state with great conviction that her
physicians are grossly incompetent, and could, after doing the H&P and
reviewing results of laboratory investigations, confuse ALS and PVS. This would
put their skills at the level of not even a resident, or a first-year nursing
student but at the level of the hospital janitor.

Aren't you overstepping your limitations here?

Rafal

---

From: "Olga Bourlin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 13:11:40 -0800

From: "Mike Lorrey" <[email-masked]>

> given a similar level of neglect.

I could not believe I was reading this from you, Mike.  Stephen Hawking's 
*cognitive processes are very much alive*.  Terri Schiavo's *cognitive 
processes are gone*, due to the fact that most of her brain has liquefied. 
She has been (kept) alive due to activity from her brain stem.  Terri 
Schiavo's "responses" are reflexive.  Unfortunately, "there is no there 
there."

> Now, this being established ...

Please explain how your unfounded assertion has been established.

Olga