Terri Schiavo
Like many of you, I have read the media's reports of the legal wrangling over Terri Schiavo, and her parents' legal fight to keep her alive. The ubiquitous description used is that Terri is in a ‘vegetative state’, conjuring up in my mind a picture of someone basically in a coma and unresponsive for the last 15 years.
But according to LifeSite News that is not a particularly accurate mental picture of what we are talking about. I confess I was slightly shocked at the following description given by those trying to keep Terri alive:
Terri's condition is consistently described as that of a ‘vegetable’ by news media. But the definition of ‘persistent vegetative state’ has been disputed by bioethicists for years. Some doctors believe that there is no such condition and that what is known to medical science about the human brain is too unreliable to trust such blanket labels.
Terri's nurses have testified and gone to the media with their eye witness accounts of Terri's ability to interact with staff and visitors and respond to spoken words—such as opening her eyes wide upon request—and her attempts to speak and communicate.
In an extraordinary account, Terri's attorney, Barbara Weller, tells of her last visit with her client. On the day of the order to remove the feeding tube, Terri's family accompanied by Weller, went to Terri's room and told her the news of her death order.
Empire Journal reports that when asked by her parents and their attorneys if she wanted to live, Terri Schiavo made two attempts to say “Yeah,” then began to cry when told that her husband, Michael Schiavo, would be removing her feeding tube on orders of Judge Greer, which would result in her death by starvation.