Comments on: Deciding to Die

By: J Hernandez

J Hernandez — Tue, 29 May 2007 14:30:03 +0000

For me, this post is about having the opportunity to “decide to die”. The law in Oregon that allows a person to choose death has prerequisites, 1) the person must be terminally ill, 2) he/she must be mentally competent 3) he/she must be able to self-administer the drugs and 4) he/she must request the drugs twice verbally and also in writing. I personally would like to have this as an option.

The Schiavo case is an entirely different matter. Schiavo’s mental competency may be debatable but she was clearly not able to communicate her wishes. That is where the Living Will comes in. Like Ms Bogart, I have one and hope if I ever need it, it will be honored.

By: Mavis

Mavis — Mon, 28 May 2007 03:53:06 +0000

an understatement. You need to do a retraction of your wrong “facts”

By: Connie

Connie — Sun, 27 May 2007 12:43:15 +0000

This has to be one of the most irresponsible and uninformed pieces of trash I have read in a long time. Terri Schiavo wasn’t in a coma. She had a feeding tube, like thousands and thousands of people across America. Terri Schiavo was “assisted” in dying. The real question is how Terri sustained the brain injury to being with and all fingers point to the husband who then got himself another woman, filed false insurance claims and engaged in insurance fraud to net himself $300,000 and net out $750,000 for rehab and care of Terri. He then set on a crusade to kill her, trying to withhold medical treatment. He should have been arrested then for attempted murder as withholding treatment is illegal. When that didn’t work, he hired an attorney to help him get court approval to kill his wife. That attorney, George Felos, had to coach him in how to do it—Felos should be charged as an accessory, they had to convince the judge that Terri wanted to die so they made up some stories with the help of his brother and sister-in-law and there was no way to colloborate them or substantiate them. Terri Schiavo was killed, no doubt about it. It was illegal for Kevorkian, it’s illegal for Michael Schiavo, the only difference being is that presumably Kevorkians’ victims wanted to die. Terri didn’t and there’s no proof that she did. The autoposy said she could have lived another 10 years or more, that she was in reasonably good health otherwise. Shame on you for printing uninformed poppycock. You should have posting privileges removed.

A highly-charged issue for sure.

– Carol

By: Nancy Reyes

Nancy Reyes — Sun, 27 May 2007 11:01:40 +0000

Schiavo was truely an “assisted euthanasia” for the convenience of her husband, who was living with another woman, and helped with the “right to die” movement. The press coverage was terrible. I have worked with profoundly retarded adults and see them as human, but we had to watch where we sent them for treatment, because a lot of people thought they were “better off dead” and at least one of my patients died in a suspicious manner in a university hospital for elective treatment.

However, she was not “in a coma” and may not have been in persistant vegetative state, since she was able to recognize her parents. According to the British Medical Journal, PVS is overdiagnosed in 40 percent of patients, and I’ve had several patients who did not meet the criteria called “PVS” by neurologists who ignored they were sick or they were on high doses of pain or anti convulsent medicines at the time when they were seen.
As for severe pain, that should not happen. If you are in severe pain, you need a pain specialists.