[lbo-talk] Re: terri schiavo

[Marta Russell]

>On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 16:03:23 -0800
>  > >Yesterday, there was a guy on the radio confirming what my mother
>  > >has told me, as has a woman who had her mother and MIL in hospice
>>  >care. People don't really feel a whole lot of pain or hunger when
>>  >they're dying. They often ask, "Shouldn't I feel hungry?"  This is
>>  >also the case in starvation studies. The body simply shuts down and
>>
>>  >doesn't feel hungry.
>>  >
>>  Marta wrote:
>>  Terri's condition is not terminal.  She is not dying as an old
>>  person
>>  would die at the end of life.  She is a young woman completely
>>  healthy in those senses.

Jim wrote:


>Well, if one can call living without a functioning cerebral
>cortex, being "healthy."
>
>

Weren't we talking about the capacity to suffer while starving to 
death?  There is another case I know of to be mentioned.  Elizabeth 
Bouvia is a woman living in CA who has cerebral palsy who got the 
legal "right to die" by challenging the law. Since1986 the Bouvia 
court decision gave the individual the right to determine one's 
medical care i.e., to refuse medical treatment in the state of CA. 
Bouvia is in pain and on a morphine drip.  She never died as planned, 
however, because she said it was too painful to starve herself to 
death, even with the morphine. So I don't buy it that people who have 
food and water taken from them "don't suffer."

Marta

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