SwiftVets.com

[Tanya]

It's all in the words!

"If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought."
George Orwell 1

http://www.internationaltaskforce.org/fctwww.htm

Then there are the polls and the way they are worded.

http://www.pollingreport.com/news.htm

[Guest]

It is also said that if men do not learn from their mistakes, they are doomed to repeat them. Remember Auschwitz?

[Fort Campbell]

[Fort Campbell]

Nancy Cruzon”s cerbebral cortex was destroyed due to lack of oxygen in 1983, and who was kept alive for 7 years by a feeding tube.
Nancy, in her persistent vegetative state (PVS) could no longer experience anything of the world around her, except perhaps pain. Determined to see their daughter at peace, her parents undertook a prolonged legal struggle that led to the US Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court ruled that hydration and nutrition were life-prolonging treatments that a patient could refuse (and which could be terminated in the cases of incompetent persons who had expressed clear preferences that they would not want to be kept alive without higher brain functions).

http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/6803.html

[Fort Campbell]

Another article obtained by a simple Google:

Nancy Cruzan

Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, et al, 497 U.S. 261; 110 S. Ct. 2841; 111 L. Ed. 2d 224; 1990 U.S. Lexis


In January 1983, twenty-five-year old Nancy Cruzan lost control of her car as she traveled down a Missouri road. The car overturned, and she was discovered, lying face down in a ditch, without detectable respiratory or cardiac function. Emergency medical technicians were able to restore her breathing and heartbeat, and she was transported to a hospital in an unconscious state. A neurosurgeon there diagnosed her as having sustained probable brain damage, compounded by significant oxygen deprivation. The estimated length of the period without oxygen was twelve to fourteen minutes. (Permanent brain damage generally results after six minutes without oxygen.)

Cruzan remained in a coma for approximately three weeks, and then progressed to an unconscious state in which she was able to orally ingest some nutrition. In order to ease feeding and further her recovery, surgeons implanted a feeding and hydration tube with the consent of her then husband.

In October 1983, she was admitted to a state hospital. Subsequent rehabilitative efforts proved unsuccessful. It became apparent that she had virtually no chance of regaining her mental faculties, and her parents—who had been appointed as her coguardians—asked the hospital to terminate the medically assisted nutrition and hydration procedures. The hospital refused to honor the request without court approval.

The Cruzans then filed a declaratory judgment action in a Missouri trial court, in which they sought judicial authorization of their request. A guardian ad litem was appointed for Nancy. The trial court, following a hearing, entered an order directing the hospital to follow the parent's instructions, based upon its findings on (1) the permanent and irreversible damage that she had suffered as a result of prolonged oxygen deprivation; (2) its belief that a person in Cruzan's condition had a fundamental right under the Missouri and Federal Constitutions to refuse or direct the withdrawal of "death prolonging procedures"; and (3) her expressed thoughts at age twenty-five, in somewhat serious conversation with her housemate, that if sick or injured, she would not wish to continue her life unless she could live at least halfway normally, suggested that she would not wish to continue on with her nutrition and hydration given her present condition.

Both the state and the guardian ad litem appealed. The Supreme Court of Missouri, reversing the lower court, expressed the view that (1) although Cruzan was in a "persistent vegetative state," she was neither dead within the meaning of Missouri's statutory definition of death nor terminally ill; (2) Cruzan's right to refuse treatment—whether such right proceeded from a constitutional right of privacy or a common-law right to refuse treatment—did not outweigh Missouri's strong policy favoring the preservation of life, as embodied in the Missouri living will statute; (3) her conversation with her housemate was unreliable for the purpose of determining her intent, and thus insufficient to support the parents' claim to exercise substituted judgment on her behalf; and (4) no person could assume the choice of terminating medical treatment for an incompetent person in the absence of either the formalities required under the living will statute or "clear and convincing, inherently reliable evidence," which was absent in Cruzan's case.

The United States Supreme Court upheld that ruling. It found that due process was not violated by the Missouri requirement that an incompetent person's wishes in regard to the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment be proved by clear and convincing evidence. In the end, however, further witnesses satisfied Missouri courts that such clear and convincing evidence of her wishes did exist, and medically assisted nutrition and hydration were removed in December of 1990. Cruzan died two weeks later.

Missouri now allows health care directives (though not living wills) to instruct that medically assisted nutrition and hydration be removed after a diagnosis of permanent or persistent vegetative state has been made.

(See Withholding and Withdrawing Treatment, the Principle of Respect for Autonomy, and Surrogate Decision Making.)



© Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System
webmaster@sclhs.net

http://www.sclhsc.org/mission_vision_values/ethics/nancy_cruzan.asp

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

Nancy Cruzan was determined by more than one doctor to be in a "Persistent Vegetative State." There were not other doctors to come forward and insist that she was NOT PVS. There was no indication to her family that she was alive, in there.

She did not brighten all over when her mother entered the room. She did not wave her arms in time to music. She did not express pleasure in reaction to foods or other physical care. She did not try to speak when spoken to. She did not laugh at jokes or silliness or cry in anticipation of pain.

Please take note that in Cruzan's case, new evidence to support withdrawal of the feeding tube was presented on appeal - and it was heard!

Terri Schindler was not permitted ANY new evidence to be entered on her behalf, no matter how compelling. (perhaps even BECAUSE it was compelling in its support of her right to live!)

Apparently you missed my point that Terri tried to say, "I want to live" and they killed her anyway.

If I had known then what I know now, that dehydration is a terrible way to die, I'm sure I would have been just as angry and frustrated. The fact is, the entire public (including me) has been sold a bill of goods. Much of our society has bought into many of the tenets of the "right to die" movement - little by little, chip by chip.

It's taken a case like this to wake some of us up, and I include myself in that. I've said right from the start that until a few weeks ago, I thought this was a family matter and that her parents were probably (understandably) in denial.

It was the FACTS and the unanswered questions in this case that persuaded me that I was WRONG.

Terri deserved to have evidence in favor of her life presented to the court - she got less due process than a convicted murderer.

Call me a hypocrite if that makes you feel better, but it doesn't change the fact that Terri Schindler was killed without regard to the fact that there was clearly a PERSON in there and without the due process guaranteed by our constitution.

This is acceptable to you?
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother

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