Schiavo

Updates

CBS Poll:
An overwhelming 82 percent of the public believes the Congress and President should stay out of the matter

Steve Gilliard:
Radical Right trainwreck

Los Angeles Times:
Experts say dying of starvation and dehydration is a peaceful end for the ill

corndog @ Daily Kos:
Schiavo background story

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digby @ Hullabaloo:

"I've been thinking that I'm going to have to ask whether a doctor is a Republican or a Democrat before I trust my health to him or her from now on . . . Why would you ever put your life into the hands of someone who would sell out their professional ethics and their intellectual integrity for the sole purpose of appeasing a bunch of religious zealots?"

Amy Sullivan @ The Washington Monthly:
Stop this man before he diagnoses again!

Sam Rosenfeld @ TAPPED:
Dr. Hack.

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Katherine @ Obsidian Wings writes:

Food and water are basic necessities of life, but so is oxygen. Eating and drinking come naturally; so does breathing. But there also comes a time when it is natural to lose the ability or desire to swallow food and water, or lose the ability to breathe. To mechanically force food and liquid into the stomach and air into the lungs is certainly a medical treatment-- a much more invasive and physically uncomfortable one than asking a patient to swallow a pill. Apparently this is counterintuitive to people, but we have absolutely no business making medical decisions for complete strangers based on our uninformed intuitions.

Many, many, many families face this exact decision about whether to insert or remove a feeding tube for a relative near the very end of their life. I am frankly shocked that so few members of Congress seem to have encountered it. Every year, many, many, many people decline tube feeding and hydration near the end of life, for themselves or for a loved one, with or without a living will. To accuse Michael Schiavo of trying to murder his wife, torture his wife, kill his wife, starve her to death, parch her mouth with thirst, treat her worse than a dog, make her mouth split and bleed--is to accuse all of them of doing
the same to their relatives.

And if they interfere in this case without any consequences, they can interfere in your family’s medical diagnoses, medical decisions, and painful legal disputes, and in mine. On the bright side, I doubt they’ll accuse you personally of murder on the House floor.