Blaming Science

Posted by on . 67 comments.

Bush Urges Graduates to Use Science to Protect Human Dignity (NYT):

“Science offers the prospect of eventual cures for terrible diseases and temptations to manipulate life and violate human dignity.”

schiavodignity.jpg

Isn’t the greater threat to dignity Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist?

Comments

  1. JimC says:
    May 8, 2006 at 9:45 am

    With all due respect Mr. Tobey, I’m not baiting anyone lest having a different view and it here is “baiting” you…and I have always been interested in a civil conversation or debate, even when it is peppered with unwarranted personal attacks. I can handle ribbing, no sweat I expect that, but vicious hatred and dismisive attitudes I will not sit idle by and take it without reply…

  2. sac says:
    May 8, 2006 at 9:47 am

    I would but I’m guessing Jim might be against that sort of thing. The marrying part, anyway.

  3. matt says:
    May 8, 2006 at 9:57 am

    I believe there were other doctors who differed on the diagnosis although they were in the minority. However, Micahel Schiavo cut off access to Terri and refused the parents requests to have her tested again by other doctors. Out of everything I’ve read, not one person who actually met Terri came away with the feeling that she was an empty shell. David Gibbs who I mentioned before actually expected much less of her and when he saw her for the first time he states he was “shocked” at how alive she truly was. You might say he is biased towards life, yes probably so, but had Micahel Schiavo allowed others to impartially observe her, these things could have been verified.

    this argument died the minute the autopsy results were released. he brain had liquified. the vision centers (necessary to “track objects’ like fristy said) were gone. this isn’t a faith issue, that’s medicine. argue all you want about the theory, but terri schiavo was exactly a shell.

    Out of everything I’ve read, not one person who actually met Terri came away with the feeling that she was an empty shell.

    want to know why? the people who published their experiences all had an agenda other than science. the doctors didn’t need to publish their feelings, they had a job to do. the only doctor with a dissenting opinion hadn’t seen her for years. every doctor who saw her in her final condition had the same opinion.

    The Terri Schiavo case was by most accounts not a right to die case.

    is there another terri schiavo that i don’t know about?

  4. Matthew Tobey says:
    May 8, 2006 at 10:01 am

    With all due respect Mr. Tobey, I’m not baiting anyone lest having a different view and it here is “baiting” you…and I have always been interested in a civil conversation or debate, even when it is peppered with unwarranted personal attacks. I can handle ribbing, no sweat I expect that, but vicious hatred and dismisive attitudes I will not sit idle by and take it without reply…

    I just remembered how boring this is.

  5. JimC says:
    May 8, 2006 at 10:41 am

    this argument died the minute the autopsy results were released. he brain had liquified. the vision centers (necessary to “track objects’ like fristy said) were gone. this isn’t a faith issue, that’s medicine. argue all you want about the theory, but terri schiavo was exactly a shell.

    This does not explain what was observed while she was alive. Furhtermore, her brain was terribly damaged, perhaps two weeks of dehydration may have finished off what fragile brain functions she had already…just a thought…

    want to know why? the people who published their experiences all had an agenda other than science. the doctors didn’t need to publish their feelings, they had a job to do. the only doctor with a dissenting opinion hadn’t seen her for years. every doctor who saw her in her final condition had the same opinion.

    All the more reason to have brought in as many “experts” as possible yet this was prohibited by her “guardian” to what goal,we will never know.

    How many brain dead “shells” can sit in a chair breathing on their own and seemingly react to people entering the room, consistently with the same reactions for different people?

    In *this* case, there was more than what we know….but will never have the chance to observe Terri.

    But at the very root of it, why, oh why, would Micahel, after having moved on with his life, with another woman, having kids, why would he not do the human thing and simply hand over complete resposibility and care to her willing parents?

  6. matt says:
    May 8, 2006 at 10:49 am

    This does not explain what was observed while she was alive.

    once again, by people with an agenda. had her doctors observed this, i have no doubt she’d still be hooked up to tubes to this day. no one outside of “life” groups saw any of this. in science, coincidences like that are dismissed as bias.

    But at the very root of it, why, oh why, would Micahel, after having moved on with his life, with another woman, having kids, why would he not do the human thing and simply hand over complete resposibility and care to her willing parents?

    because that’s not how it works. in theory, i’m not all that unsympathetic to that arrangement. but in practice, Michael Schiavo said that Terri was very clear on her wishes, and was consistent from day one, before he remarried. sort of absurd to insert yourself, or Gibbs, or randall terry or anyone else into their marriage, innit?

  7. JimC says:
    May 8, 2006 at 11:21 am

    once again, by people with an agenda. had her doctors observed this, i have no doubt she’d still be hooked up to tubes to this day. no one outside of “life” groups saw any of this. in science, coincidences like that are dismissed as bias.

    I’m note sure this is 100% accurate but it won’t matter because if someone claims that she was more alive than what was reported, they would be dismissed as you put it as being “biased”.

    Also, she was not hooked up to tubes. The facts are, she had a feeding port that she was feed thru I beleive 3 times a day only because of the time it took to feed her by mouth and by the risk of getting food into her lungs. She was able to eat food that was placed in her mouth.

    Other than that, she had no other life sustaining apparati attached. So unless food and water are considered heroic or extreme measures to keep someone alive, she hardly fit the description of a person being kept alive by artificial means.

    Michael Schiavo said that Terri was very clear on her wishes,

    if you follow the record, you would see that Michael Schiavo came to this realization only after winning a huge malpractice lawsuit. Up until then he promissed to do whatever it takes to rehabilitate Terri. So excuse me if the loving husband argument does not seem to fit Michael.

    Seriously, try to put yourself in Michael position. You have been living with another woman for years and have fathered children with her. You have a huge burden of dealing with your disabled wife’s care. You have her parents and siblings begging you to let them take over her care, essentially freeing you from any responsibility for her, would you continue to insist on keeping them from caring for her even though you beleive she is “dead”? If my wife were in this situation and I beleived she was already “dead” and my in-laws were begging me to care for their daughter, letting me move on, how could I deny them? Even if I had some sense of duty, how can you tell the mother of your wife, “No you cannot care for her, I am going to let her die”??? It makes no sense….

  8. matt says:
    May 8, 2006 at 11:39 am

    I’m note sure this is 100% accurate but it won’t matter because if someone claims that she was more alive than what was reported, they would be dismissed as you put it as being “biased”.

    then look it up. do you honestly believe that had one of her then-current doctors said that she showed signs of life the court would have allowed the order to stop feeding her to go through? come on.

    Also, she was not hooked up to tubes. The facts are, she had a feeding port

    this is your argument? and you can’t see why we bat you around here?

    if you follow the record

    where did Gibbs tell you that this record is located?

    If my wife were in this situation and I beleived she was already “dead” and my in-laws were begging me to care for their daughter, letting me move on, how could I deny them?

    i’ll go with honoring her wishes. i’m going to interpret your views as “he wanted the money.”

    going wider, why is it that you feel the right to question his motives absent any proof, while concurrently scolding us for questioning the administration’s motives with overwhelming proof?

  9. sac says:
    May 8, 2006 at 11:46 am

    Regarding the tubes vs. no tubes, Jim’s argument is that she could live without the tubes as long as someone fed her. I do see the distinction between that and those who are on life support for breathing, heart beating, etc.

  10. JimC says:
    May 8, 2006 at 11:48 am

    Obviously you see food and water as heroic means of keeping someone alive so I guess we’re at an impass here…

    “i’ll go with honoring her wishes. i’m going to interpret your views as “he wanted the money.””

    Wanting the money may be a motive, I don’t know, but how do you honor someone’s wishes while dishonoring everything else? i.e. living with and father children with another woman? To me these two scenarios are contradictory. You cannot claim to honor your wifes wishes [to die] from the new life you have created with another woman, which dishonors the marriage that gives you claim to her care…

    The reason I question Michael Schiavo is that I believe there is evidence to believe he was not acting in the best interest of Terri and just as you claim there is no proof of this, I claim that your charges agains the Bush admin are based on opinion and not concrete facts…has the Bush admin made mistakes, yes. Are they as grievous and malicious as you make them out to be, no.

  11. matt says:
    May 8, 2006 at 11:48 am

    as long as someone fed her

    fed her what? nothing that had to be chewed, for sure. so the only difference here is automatic vs manual. pretty thin.

  12. JimC says:
    May 8, 2006 at 11:50 am

    sac said:
    May 8th, 2006 at 11:46 am
    Regarding the tubes vs. no tubes, Jim’s argument is that she could live without the tubes as long as someone fed her. I do see the distinction between that and those who are on life support for breathing, heart beating, etc.

    Thank you sac! I was really starting to question humanity and if we deserve to live at all…

  13. JimC says:
    May 8, 2006 at 11:54 am

    fed her what? nothing that had to be chewed, for sure. so the only difference here is automatic vs manual. pretty thin.

    But as I have stated before, many people cannot feed themselves and need to have food and water thru some other means. Newborns cannot eat solid foods for the very same reason Terri was fed thru a tube. People with severe throat cancer sometimes have to have feeding tubes. Someone who is in a coma must be feed thru a tube, do all these people meet the requirements that Terri did?

    So if feeding someone thru a feeding tube is common even in situations outside of sever brain damage, what else qualified Terri as being kept alive artificially?

  14. matt says:
    May 8, 2006 at 11:57 am

    The reason I question Michael Schiavo is that I believe there is evidence to believe he was not acting in the best interest of Terri and just as you claim there is no proof of this, I claim that your charges agains the Bush admin are based on opinion and not concrete facts…has the Bush admin made mistakes, yes. Are they as grievous and malicious as you make them out to be, no.

    classic. what you believe = proof. what we write (backed by news reports) = opinion.

  15. JimC says:
    May 8, 2006 at 12:21 pm

    “news reports”, who reports “news” these days? seriously…everything has become commentary rather than unbiased “news”…there seems to always be two sides to every “news” report. Even now you are hammering CNN for their “reporting”, how can one media outlet be called a tool for both sides of the political divide???

  16. matt says:
    May 8, 2006 at 12:25 pm

    who reports “news” these days?

    David Gibbs?

  17. JimC says:
    May 8, 2006 at 1:01 pm

    No, he’s a lawyer…any other ideas?