Terri Schiavo - Another Thought on the Autopsy Findings

A friend of mine sent along a copy of an article from National Review on Terri Schiavo and the recent autopsy report. In fact, my friend is a practicing physician and I found his comments in the "cover letter" more interesting than the article. Herewith:

This piece came from the NR and coolly extinguishes the ejaculatory response made by the pro-"choice" people of the right to die group. How crassly ignorant are the misconceptions tossed about a complex clinical diagnosis such as PVS. That diagnosis is made with great caution and care by astute clinicians such as intensivists in the ICU. The brain cuttings revealed a brain that apparently suffered from hypoxic encephalomalcia. But who is to say contrary that the coup de grace by the Bench of not giving any protein and fluids normally supplied to her did not further distort the findings? Not too many brain cuttings are done on deliberately starved brain damaged patients. Let's go to Darfur, Sudan and see if there are similar findings of their neurologically infirm that were pushed to extinction.

The autopsy,of course, did not reveal if Terri's husband was telling the truth. This is the great tragedy coupled with the court who willfully ignored the legislation passed by the lucubrating Congress. Dismissing the actions of the Congress (even if the laws were passed at midnight) as reacting only in the interests of the Bible belt is highly judgmental. It is actually seemingly more egregious than all the brouhaha on the nuclear option. Certainly I would never expect that from a suspicious thinking old Leftists who seem to have a tendency for a Pavlovian responses on any attack on the sacrosanct "choice" whether it be the choice of the Right to Die or the choice of Roe vs. Wade as being one in the same.

When you put the thoughts in proper sequence how can anyone be dismissed as lunatic that supports the unequivocal protection of innocent life? And how can the word of one man who was estranged from his wife carry such power to bring on the desuetude of laws which were present to sustain his brain damaged loved one?

This was the crux of the issue.

Our courts should have acted better and erred on the side of life.

Like my friend, I would be very interested to know just how much of that shrunken brain, pictures of which The Times carefully put before us, was caused by a two-week deprivation of water.

[The article, for which this was a cover letter, is here.]