Allow Terri Schiavo a Gentle Death

From Light Up The Darkness
http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/?view=plink&id=588

Allow Terri Schiavo a Gentle Death
20 March 2005

Assuming the feeding tube remains out, I imagined we would need some scientific data to counter charges from the right regarding the inhumanity of starving Terri Schiavo. I have read literature from hospices in the past regarding this, including advice that those on the verge of death (who are more aware than Terri Schiavo currently is) are often more comfortable without being fed.

I was planning to attempt to dig up such information from a medical or nursing journal. The New York Times saved me from going to the trouble. I often complain about the inaccurate information on medical issues contained in stories in the news media. In this case the New York Times did a fine job:

Experts Say Ending Feeding Can Lead to a Gentle Death

By John Schwartz

To many people, death by removing a feeding tube brings to mind the agony of starvation. But medical experts say that the process of dying that begins when food and fluids cease is relatively straightforward, and can cause little discomfort.

"From the data that is available, it is not a horrific thing at all," said Dr. Linda Emanuel, the founder of the Education for Physicians in End-of-Life Care Project at Northwestern University.

In fact, declining food and water is a common way that terminally ill patients end their lives, because it is less painful than violent suicide and requires no help from doctors.

Terri Schiavo, who is in a persistent vegetative state, is "probably not experiencing anything at all subjectively," said Dr. Emanuel, and so the question of discomfort, from a scientific point of view, is not in dispute.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/20/national/20death.html?position=&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1111370621-PgUk0WC9HhkkYUFO6VhSJA&oref=login
or at Light Up the Darkness (link above)