COMMENTS:
Michael Schiavo was not the caring husband he trys to make himself out to be. She was starving herself to stay rail thin because that's how he wanted her and didn't get enough potassium; stopped her heart; caused brain damage. I'm living right here, ten minutes from the family and believe me, those parents have been through the ringer. Many of her friends have come forward to say that she had stated their marriage was on the rocks and she was trying to keep him happy. It's a horrible situation.
ouch, that really makes it a shitty situation. Does that mean that she wouldnt want to die? Sounds like he is a real bag of shit, but I guess the bottom line is "what would she want now?"
I guess my decision making on this WAS based on him being the one she lived, but shoot, sounds like he was psycologically abusive.
It's true she was anorexic, but regardless of the cause of her condition, I cannot imagine she would want to go on living. If all there was to life was being alone in your head unable to interact with the world, would you want to stay alive? It's not like she is in a coma that she might awaken from some day - she is alert but unable to move.
Michael Schiavo did something to her.her head x rays show damage to her head.If she didn want to be kept alive they should of had a living will drwn.Hes an evil weasel liar trying to hide his greed by trying to kill his wife.Prick.
I saw the brain scans of her, and they show that portions of her brain are now mush. I wish there was something that could be done but I got to believe she would want to be left to die.
They are now saying there are signs of abuse and, what they don't tell you is that the husband denied them the types of therapy that might have helped bring Terri back to a somewhat normal state. As it is, she smiles when she sees her mother or hears her voice. They've aired video of it so that people are aware that she is not laying there, unconsious to the world around her. She even laughs at times. It's wrong to stop feeding her and let her die that way. She is aware of many things and who is to say exactly how aware she really is? I find it hard to believe that, considering all she can do, there's nothing going on in her mind.
Also, many people are living good, productive lives and they have lost large portions of their brain due to tumors, damage, etc. They brain is still very much a mystery to us and I think starving her is cruel. Especially since she is awake and alert.
she "seems" to be awake and alert. Have they seen other emotions from her such as crying? If someone murdered a bunny in front of her would she still be smiling?
I still would find it hard to believe she would want to exist in a world where she could not "live"
Well, she breaths on her own, is not hooked up to any machines at all and the only help she needs to survive is a feeding tube when she eats. My friend teaches mentally handicapped children that would fit that same description. It doesn't matter anyway because a judge decided that they have three weeks and then they are going to start starving her to death.
So then the husband will get his way, (there was never any proof, other than his word, that Terri didn't want to be on life support even though she is not), and now he can collect whats left of the insurance money and marry his live in girlfriend and the mother of his child. Terri's mother and father, who have been there with her every day, get to stand back helpless and watch their daughter slowly starve to death.
Nasty matter, all around. The husband has a rock and chain reserved in East Hell.
Brain-damaged woman talks after 20 years
Associated Press
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — For 20 years, Sarah Scantlin has been mostly oblivious to the world around her — the victim of a drunken driver who struck her down as she walked to her car. Today, after a remarkable recovery, she can talk again.
Scantlin's father knows she will never fully recover, but her newfound ability to speak and her returning memories have given him his daughter back. For years, she could only blink her eyes — one blink for "no," two blinks for "yes" — to respond to questions that no one knew for sure she understood.
"I am astonished how primal communication is. It is a key element of humanity," Jim Scantlin said, blinking back tears.
Sarah Scantlin was an 18-year-old college freshman on Sept. 22, 1984, when she was hit by a drunk driver as she walked to her car after celebrating with friends at a teen club. That week, she had been hired at an upscale clothing store and won a spot on the drill team at Hutchinson Community College.
After two decades of silence, she began talking last month. Doctors are not sure why. On Saturday, Scantlin's parents hosted an open house at her nursing home to introduce her to friends, family members and reporters.
A week ago, her parents got a call from Jennifer Trammell, a licensed nurse at the Golden Plains Health Care Center. She asked Betsy Scantlin if she was sitting down, told her someone wanted to talk to her and switched the phone to speaker mode:
"Hi, Mom."
"Sarah, is that you?" her mother asked.
"Yes," came the throaty reply.
"How are you doing?"
"Fine."
"Do you need anything," her mother asked her later.
"More makeup."
"Did she just say more makeup?" the mother asked the nurse.
Scantlin still suffers constantly from the effects of the accident. She habitually crosses her arms across her chest, her fists clenched under her chin. Her legs constantly spasm and thrash. Her right foot is so twisted it is almost reversed. Her neck muscles are so constricted she cannot swallow to eat.
The driver who struck Scantlin served six months in jail for driving under the influence and leaving the scene of an accident.
Scantlin started talking in mid-January but asked staff members not to tell her parents until Valentine's Day to surprise them, Trammell said. But last week she could not wait any longer to talk to them.
"I didn't think it would ever happen, it had been so long," Betsy Scantlin said.
Scantlin's doctor, Bradley Scheel, said physicians are not sure why she suddenly began talking but believe critical pathways in the brain may have regenerated.
"It is extremely unusual to see something like this happen," Scheel said.
The breakthrough came when the nursing home's activity director, Pat Rincon, was working with Scantlin and a small group of other patients, trying to get them to speak.
Rincon had her back to Scantlin while she worked with another resident. She had just gotten that resident to reply "OK," when she suddenly heard Sarah behind her also repeat the words: "OK. OK."
Staff members brought in a speech therapist and intensified their work with Sarah. They did not want to get her parents' hopes up until they were sure Sarah would not relapse, Trammell said.
On Saturday, Scantlin seemed at times overwhelmed by the attention. Dressed in a blue warm-up suit, she spoke little, mostly answering questions in a single word.
Is she happy she can talk? "Yeah," she replied.
What does she tell her parents when they leave? "I love you," she said.
Family members say Scantlin's understanding of the outside world comes mostly from news and soap operas that played on the television in her room.
On Saturday, her brother asked whether she knew what a CD was. Sarah said she did, and she knew it had music on it.
But when he asked her how old she was, Sarah guessed she was 22. When her brother gently told her she was 38 years old now, she just stared silently back at him. The nurses say she thinks it is still the 1980s.
Her father, Jim Scantlin, understands that Sarah will probably never leave the health care centre, but he is grateful for her improvement.
"This place is her home ... They have given me my daughter back," he said.
Every baby in the world fits the description of Terry Schiavo. So does every kid. Every handicapped person. They all need assistance to get nourishment. Are we going to begin letting them all die off too? Are we going to let handicapped people legally starve themselves to death?
If the feeding tube is removed she will die a horrible death from dehydration.
There is a huge difference between machine assisted life support, like a breathing machine, and a feeding tube. Terry Schiavo is able to live on her own. She can breath on her own, her heart beats without assistance, she is alive. All that is provided to her is nourishment. Cutting her feeding tube is assisted suicide and will open pandora's box for thousands of other cases if it gets removed.
The government needs to step in and reaffirm its laws against assisted suicide. This should be out of the parents' and husband's hands.
Not much of a life. I can't think of anyone I know who would prefer being a vegetable for the rest of their lives to just dying with dignity.
^right^ If her parents really loved HER, they'd let her go, her life is not a life, she's in misery and if she could say anything she'd say to please let her go. .Why do people think a life is worth that much, worth living in that kind of misery?- does it have something to do with needing to think that god is a human with a face like yours?- Screw that, her life has been a horrible misery. It's unconscionable to make her go on, unplug her and let nature take over, starving for two weeks would be nothing next to lying there like a vegetable for thirty years.
by Jyl on Sat Mar 19, 05 11:11am
[+]
"Or her parents who donated the dna for her existence"
If thats all you think of family Duckhead then you are truly a sad human being.
How do we know that the husband did not put her in this position? Anyways He does not seem to care for his wife in any way now that she is unable to do anything for him. Why not let the family care for her, it makes no sense.
The court system does not accept heresay testimony, but for some reason they are in this case. If there is no written proof, she shouldn't be starved to death. Why are so many people for killing her but against putting people on death row too death?
Had the initial decision of the courts was to leave the umbilical chord in - this story would never have made so much as a footnote in a parish newspaper never mind world headlines, they give us these stats that two thirds of Americans agree with the decision, but would any one of these people have turned up outside the hospital in outrage that she was to remain alive? - NOT A CHANCE!!! You see that's the difference, people who care about human life and people who don't. How many of these pro-death advocates would stop watering their household plants if they were ordered to by law, thay would march on Washington to protest.
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