(Michael Schiavo looked after her for about seven years before giving up hope.)
Is not marriage supposed to be for sickness and in health? Is not death supposed to be the end of marriage?
Oh... I get it... Terri was "already dead", correct?
If Terri was "already dead" as the utilitarians claim, then Terri's husband should have considered himself to be a widower, and then he should have buried her promptly instead waiting seven years to do so, and he should have not waisted all that time and money to get a court to pull out a feeding tube on Terri's "corpse" before burying her.
The graveside would have been a little uncomfortable in that situation since Terri would have been BREATHING when being buried, and she likely would have been CRYING in horror as they closed the casket and dropped her into the grave... but hey, you know, she was "already dead", correct? Why not dispense with the formalities of pulling a feeding tube?
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Terri sure wouldn't have been crying in horror, she wasn't even aware of her surroundings. Or did you think that removing the feeding tube made her react, even though she was starving to death? If she didn't react to that, she sure as hell wasn't going to react to being buried alive...because she was already dead, and only machinery was keeping her BODY functioning. I could scoop your brain out, and with the proper gear make your heart beat, your chest rise and fall due to breathing, your blood pulse in your veins...but does that mean you're alive? Nope.
Man, she's gone, leave the poor woman in peace. You created a media circus around her when she was being kept alive in a hospice, stop using her as some "pro-life" poster child for the party that wants to keep brain-dead people alive against their expressed wishes. You're driving people away in disgust, because NOBODY wants to spend the last years of their life hooked up to machines. A lot of living wills have been written thanks to Terri Schiavo. That's her real legacy.
"She likely would have been dead by the time they put her in the ground, as she no longer had the ability to breathe without life support."
Is not marriage supposed to be for sickness and in health? til death do you part. Terri was dead.
Is not death supposed to be the end of marriage?
Terri was dead for all meaningful purposes.
Oh... I get it... Terri was "already dead", correct?
Correct, unless you can call a brainless body run by machines to be "alive."
If Terri was "already dead" as the utilitarians claim...
Utilitarians? You mean people who don't attribute moral rights to the inanimate, like plants, rocks, embryos, and corpses? Actually, you have a point in saying "utilitarians," but I have an inclination that it does not mean what you think it means.
...then Terri's husband should have considered himself to be a widower, and then he should have buried her promptly instead waiting seven years to do so...
People are not always completely rational. We tend to allow hope to overcome reason and believe what we wish were true even when the evidence indicates that it isn't true. For example, many people believe that they will live forever and enjoy this "afterlife" even though there is no reason to believe that death is anything less than permanent. In Terri's case, Michael Schiavo believed that Terri would recover and become herself again. Even when Michael accepted that this wasn't going to happen, Terri's parents still believed it. Terri's parents fought to get custody of Terri's body and fought to keep her minimally "alive" because they believed that she would come back, even when it was certain that she was gone.
...and he should have not waisted all that time and money to get a court to pull out a feeding tube on Terri's "corpse"...
You idiot, he had to go to court in order to get permission to take out the feeding tube! The doctors knew that Terri was basically dead and gone, and Michael Schiavo managed to accept it, but her parents tried to stop him because they naïvely hoped she would come back, and the many anti-choicers in the are tried to stop him as well because they didn't know what a persistent vegetative state is or because they have a knee-jerk reaction to preserve anything that looks fairly human or has human DNA, or because they worried that a court ruling saying that unconscious automata have no moral or legal standing might inhibit their fight against abortion.
People of your ilk ordered him to keep the feeding tube in, and now you're saying that you're right because he didn't remove it. You can't claim that you're right because you ordered someone to act like you were right under threat.
...before burying her.
Burying her? Terri was dead, but her body was still intact. Her kidneys, liver, and possibly other organs could have been salvaged and used for transplants. Perhaps people could have even drained her blood and put it in blood banks for accident victims or hemophiliacs. The remains of Terri's body could have been used to save lives! Of course, a "pro-lifer" wouldn't think of that. The "pro-lifers" are too busy trying to protect the unborn and the already-dead and have no time for people between those two.
Obviously, it was up to Michael Schiavo to decide what to do with the body, but you would suspect that the so-called "pro-lifers" would at least encourage the life-saving option...
The graveside would have been a little uncomfortable in that situation since Terri would have been BREATHING when being buried...
She wouldn't have been breathing, dipshit. She wouldn't be burried with the machines that kept her body minimally functional. Those machines would go to people who had suffered injuries from which they could actually recover.
...and she likely would have been CRYING in horror as they closed the casket and dropped her into the grave...
She would not have been crying, you idiot, she wasn't even aware of her surroundings. How can you cry because you are being burried when the sections of your brain that control your emotions, all five of your senses, your memories, your thoughts, and all of your higher functioning have been destroyed? Can you get that through your head? The only part of her brain that was still intact was the part that controlled automatic metabolic functioning. Terri wasn't sad, because the part of her brain that controls emotions was destroyed in the heart attack that left her like this. She couldn't see where she was, because her visual cortex was destroyed in the heart attack. She wouldn't have been able to feel the coffin because the part of her brain that handles tactile sensations was destroyed in the heart attack. She wouldn't have known what a coffin was, because her memories were destroyed in the heart attack. (There is no single part of the brain that stores memories; memories will become fuzzier as parts of the brain are destroyed, but it dosn't matter which parts in what order. Nonetheless, enough of Terri's brain was destroyed to wipe out her memories.) Of course, Terri couldn't even wonder or think about where she was, because the part of her brain that controls conscious thought and awareness was destroyed in the heart attack.
...but hey, you know, she was "already dead", correct?
Yes. She was dead. She had no mind. She was no longer conscious. There was nothing in her head but liquid and a few remnants of her brain that controlled automatic metabolic processes. She was no longer able to breathe without the help of machines. Her body was biologically "alive," but everything that made her Terri - or even a functioning person - was long gone and not coming back.
Why not dispense with the formalities of pulling a feeding tube?
Why bother pulling the feeding tube? Because the feeding tube has to be used for people who have injuries from which they can recover. Burying the feeding tube along with her would be a waste.
Of course, there could have been far fewer "formalities" if it weren't for the fact that half the country declared it had a right to stick its collective nose into Michael Schiavo's personal affairs and try to exploit his tragedy.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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