Friday, March 18, 2005
Thought, Thirst, Mercy, Death, Darkness
I am thinking about Terri Schiavo tonight.
Have you ever been really thirsty? How dry your throat feels, how thick your tongue?
Now imagine laying there, not really able to move much, not really able to communicate well, yet alive and aware, and you feel that thirst building up. Other people have gone through this, been brain injured, in a something that looked like a pvs, gotten better and lived to tell about it. They knew exactly what was going on, yelled out in their heads and hearts about how it felt, how it hurt, how the dream of something to drink, the hunger, the thirst built up till it's an obsession never ending before their eyes - sometimes even with IV fluids.
Can anyone guarantee that unless they are SURE via significant MRI or PET type testing that a person really has too low a consciousness to experience dehydration, that people who are put down because someone else is horrified at their quality of life or wants to wrap up lose ends aren't merely in the "locked in" type condition and incommuncative?
A recent British study said that 40 percent of patients called PVS are misdiagnosed, and most get better.
Think about it. Laying there with a burning thirst and a body crying out for food. And you can't make anybody understand how much you need it.
If we did this to horses or cats or dogs, the world would be at our door, condemning us, threatening us in court, tearing down the walls to make us stop. But we are only doing it to our loved ones, our vunerable ones, our damaged ones, so it doesn't really count.
I want to know how can torturing the vunerable, something you would be prosecuted for if you did to an animal, be done as an act of righteous love in the name of mercy?
Have you ever been really thirsty? How dry your throat feels, how thick your tongue?
Now imagine laying there, not really able to move much, not really able to communicate well, yet alive and aware, and you feel that thirst building up. Other people have gone through this, been brain injured, in a something that looked like a pvs, gotten better and lived to tell about it. They knew exactly what was going on, yelled out in their heads and hearts about how it felt, how it hurt, how the dream of something to drink, the hunger, the thirst built up till it's an obsession never ending before their eyes - sometimes even with IV fluids.
Can anyone guarantee that unless they are SURE via significant MRI or PET type testing that a person really has too low a consciousness to experience dehydration, that people who are put down because someone else is horrified at their quality of life or wants to wrap up lose ends aren't merely in the "locked in" type condition and incommuncative?
A recent British study said that 40 percent of patients called PVS are misdiagnosed, and most get better.
Think about it. Laying there with a burning thirst and a body crying out for food. And you can't make anybody understand how much you need it.
If we did this to horses or cats or dogs, the world would be at our door, condemning us, threatening us in court, tearing down the walls to make us stop. But we are only doing it to our loved ones, our vunerable ones, our damaged ones, so it doesn't really count.
I want to know how can torturing the vunerable, something you would be prosecuted for if you did to an animal, be done as an act of righteous love in the name of mercy?
# posted by Knitting a Conundrum @ 9:08 PM 
