Talk:Terri Schiavo case

Since assisted nutrition and hydration were not considered medical treatment when this woman collapsed, I think trying to remove it from her now is a deprivation of her rights. This case is a wake up call to everyone to put in writing the types of treatment they think they would like to continue if they become incapacitated. Don't assume you can trust someone to carry out your wishes if they include being nourished. Write it down and make sure your family and friends know.

I think this page is awfully slanted towards the 'right to life' side of the debate with authoritative and definative statments of her cognitive abilities wich are disputed and have not been proven in court. --Lazarias 01:15, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Changes

I made some changes to the article due to the fact that I doubt that those who support Terri's feeding tube staying where it is and those who support removal could be split right down the liberal/conservative line. I felt that the lines as originally written had NPOV concerns. What was in there previously was,

Liberal "[[right to die]]" activists contend that "living in a vegetative state isn't truly living," and support the ability of the estranged husband to control the destiny of his wife. Conservative "[[pro-life]]" activists protest for Terri's "right to live."

I removed the liberal "right to die" and the conservative "right to live" references.
JesseG 06:10, Feb 24, 2005 (UTC)

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Wow, this thing had a SEVERE pro-death bias, and a lot of factual inaccuracies. I've tried to fix it:

Corrections:

1) I changed "taken off life support" to "starved to death," to make the opening sentence truthful.

Terri is not on life support -- a feeding tube is not "life support."[1] "designed to ... maintain breathing, heartbeat, and other vital functions in somebody who is seriously ill"

Michael Schiavo seeks to deny her nutrition/hydration by ANY means. The last time he succeeded in having her feeding tube removed, he also refused to allow her family to try to feed her orally. He wants her starved to death.

2) Changed for NPOV (balanced Michael Schiavo's claim with family's counter-claim):

Changed: "Micheal... contends that she is "a vegetable" and would not wish to live in that state. Her family (parents and siblings) contest that claim."

To: "Michael... contends that she is "a vegetable" and would not wish to live in that state. Her family (parents and siblings) contest that claim. They say she is responsive and in no discomfort, that her condition does not meet the medical definition of a "vegetative state," and that she would not wish to be killed."

3) Changed factually inaccurate (and severely POV) phrase "that Terri should be allowed to die" to NPOV "that Terri's life should be ended"

Terri has not been offered the choice of living or dying, so it is factually inaccurate to say that starving or dehydrating her to death is "allowing" her to die.

4) Changed for NPOV (balanced Michael Schiavo's claim with faimily's counter-claim / undid Gwynne's vandalism):

Changed: "The cause of her collapse is a controversial subject. At the time of her collapse, the couple was having marital problems. Michael Schiavo's contention is that she suffered a heart attack because of chemical imbalance brought on by an eating disorder."

So, thanks to Gwynne's deletion of the family's side, the reader is left wondering, "what is the controversy?" Only one side is presented. So I added the other side, for balance:

The cause of her collapse is a controversial subject. At the time of her collapse, the couple was having marital problems. Michael Schiavo's contention is that she suffered a heart attack because of chemical imbalance brought on by an eating disorder. However, there is no physiological evidence that she suffered a heart attack. Some members of Terri's family think she might have been asphyxiated or otherwise assaulted by her husband. However, there is no forensic evidence of an assault.

5) Changed PVS argument for NPOV (balanced Michael Schiavo's claim with family's counter-claim & dictionary definition):

Changed: Michael contends that she is in a Persistent Vegetative State (PVS), which Terri's family disputes.

To: Michael contends that she is in a Persistent Vegetative State (PVS), but Terri's family says that she does not meet the medical definition of "vegetative." (According to Stedman's Online Medical Dictionary, a vegetative state is "a state of grossly impaired consciousness, as after severe head trauma or brain disease, in which an individual is incapable of voluntary or purposeful acts and only responds reflexively to painful stimuli.")

6) Removed POV caveats from factual statement:

Changed: Terri's family contends that she is not in a coma or on life-support.

To: She is not in a coma or on life-support.

She is certainly not in a coma or on life-support; that is indisputable.

7) Removed this outrageous POV sentence, which was inserted by JnB987:

"These actions, however, have been dismissed by a court-ordered doctor as reflexes and the family has been accused of exaggerating them for their own exploitation."

What "court-ordered doctor," who is accusing, and what does "for [the family's] own exploitation" even mean? Exploit is a transitive verb: who is alleged to have been exploited, and how? Her family loves her, unconditionally, and they are trying to protect her from being murdered. If JnB987 thinks that is "exploitation," then I feel very sorry for him.

Terri's family has doctors who say that her condition could improve substantially with rehabilitative care; when arguing for a big medical malpractice settlement, to cover the cost of that care, Michael agreed. But now that he stands to inherit the money when she dies, he refuses to permit her to receive that rehabilitative care that the money was supposed to pay for. THAT is exploitation!

8) Corrected pro-death POV manipulation family's statement:

Changed: However, her family disputes that, saying that while they were not present during the conversations she had with her husband, Terri is a devout Roman Catholic whom they believe would not wish to violate the Church's teachings on euthanasia and suicide by intentionally starving or dehydrating herself to death.

To: However, her family disputes that, saying that Terri is a devout Roman Catholic who would not wish to violate the Church's teachings on euthanasia and suicide by intentionally starving or dehydrating herself to death.

When telling what the family says, you should not insert a bunch of waffle words that they never use.

9) Restored Gwynne's deletion (vandalism):

Terri's family also points out that Michael apparently did not recall those conversations immediately after Terri's collapse. It was only several years later, after Terri received more than $1 million in legal settlements to cover the cost of her long term care and rehabilitation, that Michael first claimed to remember conversations in which Terri expressed a wish to die rather than live in the condition in which she now finds herself. If she dies, Michael will inherit whatever remains of that money.

The accuracy of that paragraph is undisputed, and important for understanding the case.

10) Restored Gwynne's deletion (vandalism):

Hospice is SUPPOSED to be ONLY for terminal patients. Reputable hospices should not accept patients who are not terminal. Hence it is important to note that Terri's condition is not terminal:

Changed: He had Terri placed in hospice.

Back to: He had Terri placed in hospice, though her condition is not terminal.

11) Restored Gwynne's deletion (vandalism):

"Michael could legally cede guardianship to Terri's parents, but refuses to do so, claiming he is doing what is best for her. Her parents want to bring her home; they maintain that, with therapy, their daughter can be helped."

There's no disputing the accuracy of that sentence, and it is necessary to answer the obvious question of where SHOULD she be, if not in hospice.

NCdave 16:22, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sorry to say NCDave, but the article is much more POV now than it was before.

As for the PVS/not in a coma claim, can we just settle the impossible argument we're having by saying "The Court has repeatedly found that Terri is in a PVS, a finding her family still disputes." -JnB987

So, JNB987, you would like to mention a series of court rulings that were so transparently dishonest, and so outrageous to basic decency, and so infuriating to the public at large, that a special session of the legislature -- called solely for the purpose of reversing the court's misbehavior -- passed a special law just to protect this poor woman from the abuse of those courts -- and your "neutral" way of summarizing that astonishing indictment of those rulings is to say, "a finding her family still disputes"? You are outrageous!

So, NCdave, you in turn would like to mention a series of legislative decisions which were equally transparently dishonest, and so outrageous to basic decency, and so infuriating to the public at large, that they were determined to be unconstitutional and struck down by a higher court? Call me POV, but I prefer the official judiciary stance of the non-partisan court over the legislative manipulations of a very partisan state legislature.

The only NPOV way to handle the argument over whether she is or is not in a PVS is to contrast the medical definition to her actual symptoms, and let the reader decide who's right. Deleting those simple facts does NOT make the article NPOV, it makes it incomplete.

Yes I agree. So let us say that her symptoms have been diagnosed by an independent, court-ordered doctor as being "reflexes"! It is hypocrisy to claim that I am leaving out facts when you have very conveniently left one out yourself.

However, as you say, it is true that the courts have ruled that she is in a PVS (so far, anyhow), so I've added that fact to the (de-vandalized) article, for completeness. NCdave 06:34, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's hard to stay impartial while stating facts, but sometimes giving too much of one side of the facts is impartial, NCDave. -JnB987

I can see that you don't like facts, JnB987, but they are stubborn things, and they just won't go away because there are too many of them for your taste. Facts don't have "sides." They simply are. POV bias creeps in when you selectively omit some of them to paint an incomplete picture, or when you adorn them with opinion-expressing adjectives.

Facts do not have sides, NCdave, you are right about that. But we have sides. And you have consistently shown yours as I have shown mine. However, we must realize that there is a middle ground here, neither of us is completely correct. However, what must be written here is an impartial (read: no emotion, no inflection, no bias... I'm sure you understand) telling of the facts. All of the facts. Have I left anything out? Yes. But I left things out because they were unimportant (the anecdote about the Communion which is clearly pandering to the Christian audience.) Opinion-expressing adjectives must be eliminated. The example you give below is good, but the problem is it' still not NPOV. Let me explain: "Michael wants..." no he doesn't. Do you honestly think this man wants his former wife to die? No he doesn't. He wants to free her from her suffering! You seem to have no ability to understand his point of view, which is she doesn't want to be a vegetable! WikiPedia must present both of these views, and your writing is extremely biased so that the reader cannot but think Michael is a fraud. He may be, but that cannot be the way the writing here demonstrates. Any bias on WikiPedia should come from the reader, not the writer.

For example, it is a NPOV fact that "Michael wants Terri to die by starvation & dehydration." But it would inject POV bias to say that "Michael wants Terry to die a horrible death by starvation & dehydration." Note that the later version is POV even though death by starvation & deyhdration IS horrible by all reasonable standards, because we do not know (and have no reason to believe) that he wants her death to be horrible, all we know is that he wants her dead. Do you understand the difference?

And yes, her family is exploiting these "reflexes" for their own benefit. Since it is impossible to know Terri's stance on the issue it is impossible to state that anyone is doing anything for her benefit. Therefore, with Terri removed from the equation, the family is only operating on their own benefit, as is Michael and everyone else involved. And yes, reporting these "reflexes" as puckering up to kiss them and smiling when they talk is outrageously exploitative, trying to pull on the heartstrings of America. JnB987 14:41, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

What utter, rediculous nonsense. Exploitation is the use of another person for SELFISH purposes. Terri's family is doing NOTHING for their own benefit. They have sacrificed extraordinarily, with NEVER a hope for gain for themselves. They are doing it ALL from love for their daughter/sister. They ask only to be allowed to care for her. Have you never loved anyone like that? Do you truly not understand that kind of love at all?

What I see of the family (since you've shown at great length what you've seen of Michael) is a group of people who don't care about their daughter's wishes, but are selfish enough to condemn her to a life of misery just so they can keep her alive and pander to their own denial-laced needs to "cure" her, something which medically cannot be done at this time.

Michael, OTOH, has a big financial stake in her death. That's a conflict of interest which SHOULD rule out his being a decisionmaker w/r/t life & death decisions about her fate (and WOULD, in the hospitals where I live, even if she were brain dead, which, of course she isn't).

This is hearsay, but I believe I heard that Michael would refuse any money he'd receive. I'll look into that claim and will come back whether it's supported or unsupported.

Of COURSE it is possible to know Terri's stance on an issue on which the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church are crystal clear. There is no dispute over the fact that Terri is a devout Roman Catholic Christian. But you don't know what the word "devout" MEANS, do you? Her stance is obedience, because she is a devout Catholic, and devotion to Christ requires obedience. Read that last sentence twice. Christ said, "If you love me, you will obey what I command." -John 14:15. So there literally can be NO DOUBT what she would say her views are on such a matter, if she could express them. I can see that you would not understand that. Yet you think you know Terri's mind better than the people who share her faith?\

So let me ask you a question, NCdave, being a Christian yourself, I assume. If you had the choice of living indeterminedly in the most excruciating pain imaginable, against your wishes (which you happened to discuss with your primary caretaker beforehand), you wouldn't feel at all inclined to try and make it stop? If the Roman Catholic God cannot forgive a soul in such pain for choosing euthanasia, than that Roman Catholic God is not the God for the terminally ill.

Michael Schiavo's credibility is zilch, too. He's a bigamist with a common law second wife, who has made a mockery of his wedding vows. What sane person would trust the word of such a man, particularly when he has a $million incentive to lie?? Moreover, his supposed recollection of Terri's wish to die under circumstances like these came to him suspiciously late (not until after the big disability award gave him reason to want her dead), and NOBODY else EVER heard her say such a thing. Her entire family is sure he just plain made it up. But you think you know Terri's mind better than the people who know her best?

Michael is not a bigamist. If he was, he'd be in jail, wouldn't he? Bigamy is illegal in America. If you have evidence of him being a bigamist, you should turn him in! He'd be a wanted man! What Michael did was something the family can't and should: move on. Terri is never going to regain any form of recognizable life. She is in a Persistant Vegetative State. Now, I am one to recognize "there's a first for everything" and maybe Terri can emerge as a fully-functional human being again. But I am also one to recognize the sheer stupidity of that belief and the rationalization that Michael has made. Terri is, for all intents and purposes, gone. When you say he wants her to die so he can collect the insurance money and live happily with his second wife, you do not understand his reasoning. Do you believe that every widow and widower in the history of earth should live a single, celibate life? Michael believes (as he has every right and reason to) that his wife has essentially passed on, and he has tried to move on. But you probably don't see it that way. It comes through in your cynical writing about him, NCdave. You think he's lying through his ass. Well, that might make you ineligible to be editing this article.

How can you not understand the difference between truth and lies, between appeals to conscience and manipulative pulling on heartstrings? The fact is that those videotapes and photographs of Terri convey the Truth about her condition. Do you also think that photos of the NAZI's victims are likewise "outrageously exploitive" because they tug at your heartstrings? NCdave 06:34, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This definitely makes you ineligible to be editing this article. You just compared Michael to the Nazi's. You just compared Michael to the Nazi's.

I'm speechless. Are you that blind in your hatred of everything Michael stands for that you would compare this one man to the merciless machine that slaughtered millions upon millions? Christ! If you think I'm outrageous for suggesting that Terri is dead, you may need to check your bucket. There might be some holes in it.

(Note: this is JnB987 on a secondary computer)

Yeah, sure, Terri is dead, and the moon is made of cheese. I didn't compare Michael to the NAZIs (after all, he's only trying to kill one woman). I compared YOUR complaint (about the heartwarming videos and photos which show Terri smiling and kissing) to the complaints of those who don't want to be accept the reality of the NAZI's crimes, and so complain about photos of pitiful, starving concentration camp inmates because they, too, tug at heartstrings. NCdave 22:39, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This article is ridiculously biased toward the right-to-life view. Inflammatory language such as "die of starvation" and a general assignation of agency to her husband (instead of to the court) is not in the spirit of NPOV. If you compare this to an article on an unbiased newswire (q.v. [2]) you will see that the selective use of words like "claim" and "refuse" on this page do not reflect an objective reportage of the events. The anecdote about Michael Schiavo intervening during the performance of Communion upon the woman is not relevant information, is inflammatory, and should be removed. In fact I'm going to remove it now. Tcassedy 03:33, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Your argument is with the facts, not with me, Tcassedy. The FACT is that when Michael Schiavo had Terri's feeding tube removed last time, HE SIMULTANEOUSLY PROHIBITED HER FAMILY FROM FEEDING HER BY MOUTH. His purpose was simply to starve and deyhdrate her to death (a particularly nasty death, BTW). The statement that he seeks her death by starvation is indisputable. For someone to charge that such a simple, clear statement of an indisputable fact, utterly unembellished by adjectives, is "inflammatory," seems proof to me that you have no clue what the difference is between POV-bias and NPOV. NCdave

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I have placed a POV warning on the page. Just reading up on some of the newsreports on Google news shows me that neutrality on this subject is obtainable and that it should be here too. Not being American I don't know very much about this and really don't have any opinion on the subject, but the article as it stands is clearly POV even at a quick glance. Maybe some fresh eyes is needed on this. Preisler 07:21, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

What is this nonense?

The article starts with POV diatribe by calling her husband "estranged." The next paragraph starts this way, "Michael Schiavo contends that she is in a vegetative state." That's not just Michael Schiavo who "contends" this. The doctors, and the court agreed on this, say that she is in continuous vegetative state. The article also has some information about one million dollar that Michael Schiavo supposedly will inherit, but that money is long gone in legal fees. Michael Schiavo lost money, not made "money" pursuing what he believes is his wife's wish. I think I will revert to Feb 19 version if this article stays in this POV state OneGuy 20:24, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You're right, "estranged" is too mild. It should say something like, "Her abusive bigamist husband, who has lived with a different common law wife for years..."

As for the "vegetative state" argument, anyone who can read plain English can see that she does not match the definition. The fact that a court ruled otherwise proves only the already-imfamous dishonesty of Florida's activist judiciary. "The doctors" do NOT agree with it. Rather, Michael Schiavo's hand-picked euthanasia activist doctors agree with it. Most doctors who are familiar with her status do NOT believe it, and the family's doctors certainly disagree with it.

W/r/t the money:

1) It was awarded for Terri's care and rehabilitation but Michael refused to allow it to be used for that purpose. He has refused to allow ANY rehabilitative therapy for her, AT ALL. He wouldn't even pay for proper dental care for her -- and, as a result, she has lost five teeth due to dental neglect, while in his "care"[sic].

2)Instead of spending the money as it was intended to be spent, for HER, he spent much of the money on himself, and much more of it to fight to have her killed, presumably so that he could inherit the remainder.

3) Despite the vast sums of HER money that he has thus squandered, there STILL is no way to account for the entire amount. Michael claims the money is gone, but there's no evidence of that except for his word, and his word is no good -- after all, consider the cavalier disregard he has shown for his wedding vows.

Terri's family are the ones who've sacrificed. They have NO financial motive for this fight, unlike her estranged husband.

NCdave 22:39, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)