If you were in Terri Schiavo's shoes, what would you want done? - Page 2 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

NCB · 03-22-2005, 06:44 AM

Pull the tube, no doubt.

JBX · 03-22-2005, 08:15 AM

I'd like to add a note to my let me die statement. I'd prefer a lethal injection to speed things up.

ratbastid · 03-22-2005, 09:14 AM

Look: If I were in Ms. Schiavo's shoes, I wouldn't want ANYTHING done. I'd be incapable of wanting anything. I would have no cerebral cortex with which to do any cognition of any kind. Most of us can't conceive of that--we're shown pictures of her "reacting" with "a smile" to her mother, and we think there's a retarded, stunted intelligence in there. There's not! It would be physically impossible for that video to actually be showing what it appears to show. It's a coincidence caught on tape, and that's all.

I find it impossible to have sympathy for the woman, simply because there's no human being over there to have sympathy for. She's not suffering! She's feeling no pain! There's no "her" anymore to have such thoughts and feelings. On the other hand, my heart totally breaks for her parents and her husband for their loss and for what they've gone through since her heart attack.

/threadjack. Were I in a severely and permanently incapacitated state, I wouldn't want artificial means used to extend my life. I don't have that in writing anywhere (except here, now), but I intend to very soon. IMO, that's the best thing that's come out of this whole mess.

roachboy · 03-22-2005, 09:55 AM

ever read "johnny got his gun"?
it's about someone greivously wounded in world war 1 who is kept alilve in the basement of a hospital as a kind of medical curiousity.
the schiavo case seems to me about the technological capacity to prolong physical life well beyond the flickering out of consciousness.
it is about machinery.

i frankly do not understand the motivations of schiavo's parents in this--what they are hoping will happen---whether this whole saga, the whole raft of litigation, is about anything beyond the fact that her parents cannot let go. i feel quite a sympathy for them insofar as i imagine it completely unclear to them, this question of what exactly they are fighting for.

as for political correlates, i cant see any rational basis for linking this case to anything in a "pro-life" position, unless by doing it those who support such a position are interested, for some reason, in making a mockery of their own beliefs. this is not life that is being defended here. this is the maintenance of the minimal metabolic features that define physical life by mechanical means. this is not life.

filtherton · 03-22-2005, 10:07 AM

Lebell, you left "i want to be a political pawn" out of the poll.

I'd voted for plug pullage.

meembo · 03-22-2005, 11:27 AM

I think she is dead. Once my awareness is gone, I have no need for my body. I'd be ready to go to wherever it is we go.

arch13 · 03-22-2005, 11:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NCB

Pull the tube, no doubt.

It needs to be asked, are you being sarcastic based on your previous statements in the other Sciavo thread?

And I must impress once again the importance of a living will. I would not want to be given up on easily, but there is a reasonable amount of time, and a medical diagnosis that would signal to my family to let me go if they love me.

oktjabr · 03-22-2005, 11:49 AM

Without doubt, pull the plug.

Though I have to admit that starving to death sends cold vibes up my spine.

Glory's Sun · 03-22-2005, 11:52 AM

definately pull it. Since this has happened I've made sure to tell all my friends and my family exactly what to do. I do not wish to be kept alive by a machine. If it's a coma.. pull the plug. If it's a feeding tube.. pull it. If I'm brain dead.. pull it.

NCB · 03-22-2005, 11:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arch13

It needs to be asked, are you being sarcastic based on your previous statements in the other Sciavo thread?

And I must impress once again the importance of a living will. I would not want to be given up on easily, but there is a reasonable amount of time, and a medical diagnosis that would signal to my family to let me go if they love me.

Let me clarify.

If I am brain dead and there is no chance for any awareness and that I've had the opp to express my wishes before injury, I would want the plug pulled.

I feel that with Terri's case, there are serious doubts to her hubbys credibilty and her hubby's doctor's testimony. Like I've said all along (Thanks to my daily talking points memos

), I prefer to err on the side of life

uncle_el · 03-22-2005, 05:50 PM

pull my plug.

sitting in a bed, grimacing, making involuntary movements which people will think are purposeful and intended is no way to live a life for myself.

ARTelevision · 03-22-2005, 06:16 PM

I'd have wanted the life support removed 15 years ago.

joeb1 · 03-22-2005, 06:28 PM

Pull the freakin plug will ya! Damn how long is long enough! Does this husband and lady have no rights. Why the hell is congress and the Pres. getting involved? It's just really sad that this was not taken care of 15 years ago!

whiplash13 · 03-22-2005, 08:40 PM

Pull the damn plug. There is absolutely no quality of life whatsoever for you at that point.

analog · 03-22-2005, 11:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by matthew330

Seriously, nobody here can put themselves in Terry Schiavo's shoes, so i don't accept the validity of the question.

Have another poll. Seriously, would you personally remove her feeding tube?

Here you go. Go and vote.

irseg · 03-23-2005, 12:09 AM

If I couldn't live under my own power and my life was limited to making sporadic movements in a hospital bed, I'd unquestionably want to pull the plug and be given a massive dose of morphine.

I think the best thing to come out of all this is that it will spur more people to get living wills so they can clearly explain what they want done should something similar happen to them.

Gilda · 03-24-2005, 02:29 PM

Here's the thing. Whether or not to teminate the life support of someone with no higher brain functions isn't about the person on life support. Everything about that person that made them a person is already gone. They don't exist anymore.

Teminating life support, like everything that has to do with death, is about the needs or the survivors. If I were to be in an accident tomorrow that caused all my higher brain functions to cease, I would be incapable of caring what was done to me. I would want my lifemate to do what was best for her; I would be beyond harm. She's told me that she would not want to have me around as a shell of the person I once was, so for that reason, I would want her to pull the plug on me, solely because it would be what was best for her.

On the other hand, since it's been brought up in this thread, if I were a paraplegic, unable to breathe without a respirator, but otherwise able to see, hear, and think, and thus decide for myself, hell no I wouldn't want life support terminated. There's too much of life that would still be available to me to want to give that up.

One last edit:

The last line of I Never Sang for My Father

"Death ends a life, but it does not end a relationship which struggles on in the survivors mind toward some final resolution...which it perhaps never finds."

jhkayakr · 03-24-2005, 03:04 PM

This is one reason everyone needs a living will. In writing. If she had....case closed, she'd have been dead for 15 years already. I would be for pulling the plug for me.

crewsor · 03-26-2005, 09:13 AM

For me pulling the plug in this situation 14 yrs and some odd months too late. While I can understand her parents reluctance to let go, I believe its way past time.

raveneye · 03-26-2005, 09:28 AM

In a situation like this I would want my wife to do whatever is best for her and our daughter. If I'm in a PVS, then hell yes pull the plug and get the life insurance, and use it to raise our daughter.

My wishes now are based on what's best for my family, not what's best for me, since I'll no longer exist in any meaningful sense if that comes to pass.

And the government should have no right to countermand my wishes or those of my wife in such a situation.

Dwayne · 03-28-2005, 01:33 PM

I wouldnt want to die like that. If they pulled the tube they should also put me to sleep so I dont feel suffering.

james t kirk · 03-28-2005, 04:53 PM

Pull the plug, but please, don't pull out a tube and let me suffer.

Just a nice quick shot of cyanide would do fine.

Hurricane1 · 03-28-2005, 05:30 PM

Pull the plug. However, I would not want to die of thirst.... give me an overdose of morphine or something else and let me go!

RangerDick · 03-28-2005, 05:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hurricane1

Pull the plug. However, I would not want to die of thirst.... give me an overdose of morphine or something else and let me go!

Agreed Hurricane. Slowly increase the morphine drip and let me go to sleep.....forever. Don't starve me to death or let me die of thirst. Brutal.

radioguy · 03-28-2005, 05:38 PM

pull the plug. my life is over.

connyosis · 03-29-2005, 12:27 PM

Pull the plug. Being a vegetable is nothing I want to suffer through

View Poll Results: If you were in Terri Shiavo's shoe's, what would you want?
Pull the plug	102	89.47%
Keep me alive as long as I can breath on my own	8	7.02%
Keep me alive as long as medical science can do it	4	3.51%
Voters: 114. You may not vote on this poll

03-22-2005, 08:15 AM	#42 (permalink)
JBX Unfair and Imbalanced Location: Upstate, NY	I'd like to add a note to my let me die statement. I'd prefer a lethal injection to speed things up. __________________ "Youth and Strength is no match for Age and Treachery"

03-22-2005, 09:55 AM	#44 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	ever read "johnny got his gun"? it's about someone greivously wounded in world war 1 who is kept alilve in the basement of a hospital as a kind of medical curiousity. the schiavo case seems to me about the technological capacity to prolong physical life well beyond the flickering out of consciousness. it is about machinery. i frankly do not understand the motivations of schiavo's parents in this--what they are hoping will happen---whether this whole saga, the whole raft of litigation, is about anything beyond the fact that her parents cannot let go. i feel quite a sympathy for them insofar as i imagine it completely unclear to them, this question of what exactly they are fighting for. as for political correlates, i cant see any rational basis for linking this case to anything in a "pro-life" position, unless by doing it those who support such a position are interested, for some reason, in making a mockery of their own beliefs. this is not life that is being defended here. this is the maintenance of the minimal metabolic features that define physical life by mechanical means. this is not life. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 03-22-2005 at 10:03 AM..

03-22-2005, 11:27 AM	#46 (permalink)
meembo Junkie Location: Connecticut	I think she is dead. Once my awareness is gone, I have no need for my body. I'd be ready to go to wherever it is we go. __________________ less I say, smarter I am

03-22-2005, 11:49 AM	#48 (permalink)
oktjabr Crazy Location: Fünland	Without doubt, pull the plug. Though I have to admit that starving to death sends cold vibes up my spine. __________________ "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face -- forever." -G.O.

03-22-2005, 09:14 AM	#43 (permalink)
ratbastid Darth Papa Location: Yonder	Look: If I were in Ms. Schiavo's shoes, I wouldn't want ANYTHING done. I'd be incapable of wanting anything. I would have no cerebral cortex with which to do any cognition of any kind. Most of us can't conceive of that--we're shown pictures of her "reacting" with "a smile" to her mother, and we think there's a retarded, stunted intelligence in there. There's not! It would be physically impossible for that video to actually be showing what it appears to show. It's a coincidence caught on tape, and that's all. I find it impossible to have sympathy for the woman, simply because there's no human being over there to have sympathy for. She's not suffering! She's feeling no pain! There's no "her" anymore to have such thoughts and feelings. On the other hand, my heart totally breaks for her parents and her husband for their loss and for what they've gone through since her heart attack. /threadjack. Were I in a severely and permanently incapacitated state, I wouldn't want artificial means used to extend my life. I don't have that in writing anywhere (except here, now), but I intend to very soon. IMO, that's the best thing that's come out of this whole mess.

03-22-2005, 10:07 AM	#45 (permalink)
filtherton Junkie Location: In the land of ice and snow.	Lebell, you left "i want to be a political pawn" out of the poll. I'd voted for plug pullage.

03-22-2005, 11:52 AM	#49 (permalink)
Glory's Sun Registered User	definately pull it. Since this has happened I've made sure to tell all my friends and my family exactly what to do. I do not wish to be kept alive by a machine. If it's a coma.. pull the plug. If it's a feeding tube.. pull it. If I'm brain dead.. pull it.

03-22-2005, 05:50 PM	#51 (permalink)
uncle_el Crazy Location: n hollywood, ca	pull my plug. sitting in a bed, grimacing, making involuntary movements which people will think are purposeful and intended is no way to live a life for myself. __________________ An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of inprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law. - Martin Luther King, Jr. The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses. - Malcolm X

03-22-2005, 06:16 PM	#52 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	I'd have wanted the life support removed 15 years ago. __________________ create evolution

03-22-2005, 06:28 PM	#53 (permalink)
joeb1 Crazy Location: Over Yonder	Pull the freakin plug will ya! Damn how long is long enough! Does this husband and lady have no rights. Why the hell is congress and the Pres. getting involved? It's just really sad that this was not taken care of 15 years ago! __________________ Disco Duck...

03-22-2005, 08:40 PM	#54 (permalink)
whiplash13 Tilted	Pull the damn plug. There is absolutely no quality of life whatsoever for you at that point.

03-23-2005, 12:09 AM	#56 (permalink)
irseg Junkie Location: Florida	If I couldn't live under my own power and my life was limited to making sporadic movements in a hospital bed, I'd unquestionably want to pull the plug and be given a massive dose of morphine. I think the best thing to come out of all this is that it will spur more people to get living wills so they can clearly explain what they want done should something similar happen to them.

03-24-2005, 02:29 PM	#57 (permalink)
Gilda 32 flavors and then some Location: Out on a wire.	Here's the thing. Whether or not to teminate the life support of someone with no higher brain functions isn't about the person on life support. Everything about that person that made them a person is already gone. They don't exist anymore. Teminating life support, like everything that has to do with death, is about the needs or the survivors. If I were to be in an accident tomorrow that caused all my higher brain functions to cease, I would be incapable of caring what was done to me. I would want my lifemate to do what was best for her; I would be beyond harm. She's told me that she would not want to have me around as a shell of the person I once was, so for that reason, I would want her to pull the plug on me, solely because it would be what was best for her. On the other hand, since it's been brought up in this thread, if I were a paraplegic, unable to breathe without a respirator, but otherwise able to see, hear, and think, and thus decide for myself, hell no I wouldn't want life support terminated. There's too much of life that would still be available to me to want to give that up. One last edit: The last line of I Never Sang for My Father "Death ends a life, but it does not end a relationship which struggles on in the survivors mind toward some final resolution...which it perhaps never finds." Last edited by Gilda; 03-24-2005 at 02:38 PM..

03-24-2005, 03:04 PM	#58 (permalink)
jhkayakr Insane Location: under the skirt	This is one reason everyone needs a living will. In writing. If she had....case closed, she'd have been dead for 15 years already. I would be for pulling the plug for me. __________________ ........gotta need for speed....

03-26-2005, 09:13 AM	#59 (permalink)
crewsor Women want me. Men fear me. Location: Maryland,USA	For me pulling the plug in this situation 14 yrs and some odd months too late. While I can understand her parents reluctance to let go, I believe its way past time. __________________ We all have wings, some of us just don't know why.

03-26-2005, 09:28 AM	#60 (permalink)
raveneye Born Against	In a situation like this I would want my wife to do whatever is best for her and our daughter. If I'm in a PVS, then hell yes pull the plug and get the life insurance, and use it to raise our daughter. My wishes now are based on what's best for my family, not what's best for me, since I'll no longer exist in any meaningful sense if that comes to pass. And the government should have no right to countermand my wishes or those of my wife in such a situation.

03-28-2005, 01:33 PM	#61 (permalink)
Dwayne Crazy Location: New England	I wouldnt want to die like that. If they pulled the tube they should also put me to sleep so I dont feel suffering.

03-28-2005, 04:53 PM	#62 (permalink)
james t kirk Junkie Location: Toronto	Pull the plug, but please, don't pull out a tube and let me suffer. Just a nice quick shot of cyanide would do fine.

03-28-2005, 05:30 PM	#63 (permalink)
Hurricane1 Upright	Pull the plug. However, I would not want to die of thirst.... give me an overdose of morphine or something else and let me go!

03-28-2005, 05:38 PM	#65 (permalink)
radioguy Registered User Location: Texas	pull the plug. my life is over.

03-29-2005, 12:27 PM	#66 (permalink)
connyosis Psycho Location: Sweden - Land of the sodomite damned	Pull the plug. Being a vegetable is nothing I want to suffer through __________________ If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby.