You can't starve an unfeeling body to death!!!

I feel so bad for the limited ability of people to understand how the body works. My grandfather starved himself to death voluntarily - he couldn't feel much of anything and he just became unconscious and passed away. I feel sorry for people who can't accept how fantastically our body is at adapting and releasing the appropriate chemicals to minimize any suffering. I wish people could at least TRY to understand this. And Terri doesn't even HAVE a cerebral cortex to even FEEL THE PAIN!!!!!!!!! Can you imagine if she WAS existing TRAPPED inside her head BEGGING to be let go and nobody will listen because she can't talk?? The only reason I see for her existence is for the edification of scared people like here parents and others who can't accept reality. It's CERTAINLY NOT FOR TERRI's BENEFIT!!! I can't deal with ignorance any more. No more on this subject for me...

I also feel bad for the parents.........being one myself, there would always be that hope of a chance. Granted, it might be a chance in hell, but one nonetheless.

before they decide there is no hope?? NO BRAIN, NO PERSON!!! This really is difficult for people because we all want to believe that we are more that just the collection of neurons in our head. We may be, but without the brain we do not exist (at least in physical form).

And even if she is there are certainly more humane ways to send a being to her maker than enforced starvation and withholding fluids. This is obscene.

This is exactly the insanely stupid commentary that I am talking about - I'm sure you are just pulling my chain to instigate me.

Is appalling better?

Man, what does it take to talk sense into people who don't understand or care not to believe science? Oh, well, I suffer with fools every day...

what part of "withholding food and water will kill her" are you not comprehending? would it kill a corpse? See how I say things without the charming little comments in your 2 replies to me?

That expression applies perfectly in this situation - I'm not sure why I didn't think of it before!!

I'm so charming because your position, to me, lacks intellectual honesty. And if there is one thing that pisses me off....

See, Repukes would rather you have to go through this circus to die over a long period of time rather than dying quickly through physician assisted death. Why do you think Dr. Kevorkian is in prison?

And 'enforced starvation and withholding fluids' is the natural way that most of us die. Our desire for food and water shuts down at the end of life. The toxins that accumulate in the body have an anesthetizing effect. There's nothing barbaric, obscene, or appalling about it at all.

who have bottles of water go in a give her a drink of water, hopefully the hypocritical reugs will charge thewm with murder, since the poor lady has no swallow reflex, if given a drink, she will drown.

(and that's not very often at all)

I guess I support the decision to let Terri Schiavo die, although it should be done by a lethal injection of morphine or some such thing. This trying to pin it on God or Nature or whatever is plain moral abdication in my view. Starvation of any living entity - even a tree - does not feel right to me. There is a saying: reason often fails us, but rarely conscience.

The Western scientist in me agrees that no neocortex = no intellectual identity or associative thinking. However, as Candace Pert, the discoverer of endorphins, wrote in her book The Molecules of Emotion, emotions are not the exclusive domain of the neocortex. In fact, the neocortex isn't even the principal brain structure that hosts them. That's reserved for the deeper and ontologically older structures of the limbic brain...structures that Schiavo did not lose.

Even more surprising, Pert shows how emotions are really a cooperative system between brain and body, mediated by chemical messengers. The body literally experiences emotions in situ and through chemical signalling controls the emotional states of the brain (more precisely, the communication goes both ways).

This isn't the right place to go into the details, but you've always struck me as inquisitive and open-minded, and something tells me that you would find Pert's (and others') work says something concrete and unexpected about the relationship between mind, body, and self. It may be that a damaged neocortex does not equal lack of personhood. (Once again, to be clear where I stand: that's a speculation at best, and plain wrong at worst.)

Peace.

I have reservations that even if the body & brain combination have some capability of feeling "something" - without a processing center telling the person there is pain, then no experience can be perceived IMHO. Even worse, the "person" who would be on the other side of the processing facilities is long since gone (dead IMHO) - so 2/3 of the requirements for "suffering" are missing. OTOH, I don't see any reason why they couldn't give a dying person a tranquilizer to make their body shut-down quietly and painlessly. And if it would make people who want to think of Terri as "starving" :eyes: feel better, then by all means, give her a shot. Heck, since it's only for the people watching to "feel" better about it - just give her water, or poison - what difference does it make after 15 years after death?

You might look at some of the threads on DU about people whose family members have starved/dehydrated in hospice. It is not an agonizing experience. In fact it is often described as peaceful.

I personally would prefer that route to a lethal injection. That doesn't mean it's what everyone should do - it's just my preference.

And I point out that preference only so that you'll know there are some people who would prefer it. However horrific it seems to you, there are other positions.

There is, of course, a rich religious and mystical literature describing the calming and clarifying effects of fasting. Thirst, on the other hand, seems a more pernicious devil. But I speculate.

My best friend is a cancer doc. He agonizes when terminal patients die in pain, but is usually accepting when they die instead by just slipping away, because they've reached a point where they no longer choose to (or can not) eat.

In any case, the cessation of all body functions is, by definition, a physically catastrophic event, and I'm sure the body hangs on to life until the last possible moment. That's why I support the idea of an injection for Terri Schiavo. Then there's no question of whether or not some remaining part of her suffers. Even if the chance is 1 in 100, why take it?

As far as your question regarding the 1 in 100 chance there might be suffering, you'd have to pose that same question for ANYTHING. Who knows if you suffer when you get a morphine overdose? No one has come back to tell us.

Interesting about your friend. My kids' mom is an internist who, because she treats low income uninsured people, tends to have a very sick patient panel, a number of whom end up in hospice. She spoke with me just tonight about what a moving journey the end often is for her patients who go there. For some it is emotionally painful, for others calm and peaceful.

I watched her slip away from consciousness right before my eyes as we were talking to her. The infection (caused by complications of rectal cancer) raged through her body and had gotten to her brain. She was a particularly sensitive person, but at this point her body's protective systems had taken over and she expressed no indication of any pain at all. After she slipped into unconsciousness they asked about morphine. Even with a raging infection and morphine her body hung on for another 12 hours - I was the only one awake (late at night at this point) watching her body desperately gasping for air - it was a difficult thing to watch but I felt it was important to know when she was gone. She took her last breath and her heart kep beating for at least another minute, albeit at an slower and slower rate. I'm not sure why anybody would object to giving Terri Schiavo morphine just in case she can feel anything - for all we know they are giving it to her. Even if she can't feel anything, the body has natural reactions to malfuctions and can spasm in strange ways - the morphine helps to control these spasms from what I can determine. Even though her EEG has no readings at all, they should give her the morphine to calm the minds of friends and family - how much can it cost really?

and I agree with you. I'm just stating that I feel for the family in this situation. It is indeed a fact that once the cerebral cortex is gone, there is no "life" as we know it. I know this for a fact; my daughter's friend just passed away from a drug overdose (don't know if it was accidental or suicidal). The brain scan showed that his brain (including the cerebral cortex) was dead but his brain stem was still intact. The stem allows movement, breathing without aid, physical responses etc, but the brain itself no longer functions. He was initially on life support and when they took him off, he was breathing on his own and actually sat up in bed. There were 2 scans done, both showing no brain functions. He died 4 days later. Meanwhile, his family, ex-wife and son keep up hope, which is their right. It was very sad.

But just like a relationship where a person keeps rejecting the other, only to make the person come back for more - these people NEED to start the healing process. They are unnecessarily ruining their lives by continuing to believe that there is a person in there. The person is gone - the people in your example are very lucky that the body of that poor kid failed shortly after he left it. Terri was not so lucky - imagine if she WAS in there begging to be let go from the awful torturous existence?? It makes me ill thinking of being trapped in my head forever - people in solitary confinement inevitably go insane!

it reminds me of the old "if a tree fell in a forest, and no one was around to hear it, would it make a sound?"

A "feeling" body, or an "unfeeling" body can be starved to death. I think the OP was mixing concepts.

B-)

It's as vague as people's understanding of the human body and where their mind is located. I chose not to change the title.

That WAS my point and those people ARE responding - as I had hoped.