Murder will out
Jun. 21st, 2005 05:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fpbHaving a severely disabled person in my family, and having been involved in disabled organizations, I know a thing or two about disability: enough to know that the mass media's reading of the Schiavo autopsy was ignorant and prejudiced bullshit (a functioning brain mass of half the whole represents severe disability, but certainly not brain destruction). And by the same token, I have a personal stake in the struggle against the increasingly-popular, increasingly-encouraged murder of the old and sick: my reaction to all promoters of euthanasia must be, quite simply, get your filthy hands off my family, or I will duff you up. But I am no doctor, much less a specialist in brain functions. So here is what one such person had to say about the evidence for the loathsome judicial murder of a disabled woman:
Physician Who Examined Schiavo for Over 10 Hours--Critical of Autopsy Report
Insists that based on clinical evidence and autopsy results, “an aware woman was killed”
CLEARWATER, Florida, June 20, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A neurologist who spent 10 hours examining Terri Schiavo while she was alive has issued a release criticizing the autopsy conclusions drawn by the independent medical examiner.
Dr. William Hammesfahr, nominated for a Nobel Prize for his work in Medicine, and a patent holder for a medicine to help people with brain injuries and stroke, released the following statement in response to the independent medical examiner’s autopsy conclusions:
“We have seen a lot on the autopsy of Terri Schindler Schiavo in recent days that I feel needs to be addressed,” Dr. Hammesfahr began. “To ignore these comments will allow future ‘Terri Schiavo's’ to die needlessly after the wishes of clinicians and family are ignored.”
“The record must be set straight. As we noted in the press, there was no heart attack, or evident reason for this to have happened (and certainly not of Terri's making). Unlike the constant drumbeat from the husband, his attorneys, and his doctors, the brain tissue was not dissolved, with a head of just spinal fluid. In fact, large areas were ‘relatively preserved.’”
“I have had a chance to look at Dr. Nelson's analysis of the brain tissue, and essentially, as a clinician, these are my thoughts. (Neuropathologist Dr. Stephen Nelson performed the autopsy on Mrs. Schiavo's central nervous system.) The autopsy results confirmed my opinion . . . that the frontal areas of the brains, the areas that deal with awareness and cognition were relatively intact.”
“To use Dr. Nelson's words, ‘relatively preserved.’ In fact, the relay areas from the frontal and front temporal regions of the brain, to the spinal cord and the brain stem, by way of the basal ganglia, were preserved, thus the evident responses which she was able to express to her family and to the clinicians seeing her or viewing her videotape. The Spect scan confirmed these areas were functional and not scar tissue, and that was apparently also confirmed on Dr. Nelson's review of the slides.”
Terri Schiavo “was a woman trapped in her body, similar to a child with cerebral palsy, and that was born out by the autopsy, showing greater injury in the motor and visual centers of the brain,” Hammesfahr continued. “Obviously, the pathologists comments that she could not see were not borne out by reality, and thus his assessment must represent sampling error. The videotapes clearly showed her seeing, and even Dr. Cranfoed, for the husband, commented to her that, when she could see the balloon, she could follow it with her eyes as per his request.”
“That she could not swallow was obviously not borne out by the reality that she was swallowing her saliva, about 1.5 liters per day of liquid, and the clinical swallowing tests done by Dr. Young and Dr. Carpenter. Thus, there appears to be some limitations to the clinical accuracy of an autopsy in evaluating function.”
“With respect to the issue of trauma, that certainly does not appear to be answered adequately,” Hammesfahr added. “Some of the types of trauma that are suspected were not adequately evaluated in this assessment. Interestingly, both myself and at least one neurologist for the husband testified to the presence of neck injuries. The issue of a forensic evaluation for trauma, is highly specialized. Hence the wish of the family to have observers which was refused by the examiner.”
“Ultimately, based on the clinical evidence and the autopsy results, an aware woman was killed.”
Physician Who Examined Schiavo for Over 10 Hours--Critical of Autopsy Report
Insists that based on clinical evidence and autopsy results, “an aware woman was killed”
CLEARWATER, Florida, June 20, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A neurologist who spent 10 hours examining Terri Schiavo while she was alive has issued a release criticizing the autopsy conclusions drawn by the independent medical examiner.
Dr. William Hammesfahr, nominated for a Nobel Prize for his work in Medicine, and a patent holder for a medicine to help people with brain injuries and stroke, released the following statement in response to the independent medical examiner’s autopsy conclusions:
“We have seen a lot on the autopsy of Terri Schindler Schiavo in recent days that I feel needs to be addressed,” Dr. Hammesfahr began. “To ignore these comments will allow future ‘Terri Schiavo's’ to die needlessly after the wishes of clinicians and family are ignored.”
“The record must be set straight. As we noted in the press, there was no heart attack, or evident reason for this to have happened (and certainly not of Terri's making). Unlike the constant drumbeat from the husband, his attorneys, and his doctors, the brain tissue was not dissolved, with a head of just spinal fluid. In fact, large areas were ‘relatively preserved.’”
“I have had a chance to look at Dr. Nelson's analysis of the brain tissue, and essentially, as a clinician, these are my thoughts. (Neuropathologist Dr. Stephen Nelson performed the autopsy on Mrs. Schiavo's central nervous system.) The autopsy results confirmed my opinion . . . that the frontal areas of the brains, the areas that deal with awareness and cognition were relatively intact.”
“To use Dr. Nelson's words, ‘relatively preserved.’ In fact, the relay areas from the frontal and front temporal regions of the brain, to the spinal cord and the brain stem, by way of the basal ganglia, were preserved, thus the evident responses which she was able to express to her family and to the clinicians seeing her or viewing her videotape. The Spect scan confirmed these areas were functional and not scar tissue, and that was apparently also confirmed on Dr. Nelson's review of the slides.”
Terri Schiavo “was a woman trapped in her body, similar to a child with cerebral palsy, and that was born out by the autopsy, showing greater injury in the motor and visual centers of the brain,” Hammesfahr continued. “Obviously, the pathologists comments that she could not see were not borne out by reality, and thus his assessment must represent sampling error. The videotapes clearly showed her seeing, and even Dr. Cranfoed, for the husband, commented to her that, when she could see the balloon, she could follow it with her eyes as per his request.”
“That she could not swallow was obviously not borne out by the reality that she was swallowing her saliva, about 1.5 liters per day of liquid, and the clinical swallowing tests done by Dr. Young and Dr. Carpenter. Thus, there appears to be some limitations to the clinical accuracy of an autopsy in evaluating function.”
“With respect to the issue of trauma, that certainly does not appear to be answered adequately,” Hammesfahr added. “Some of the types of trauma that are suspected were not adequately evaluated in this assessment. Interestingly, both myself and at least one neurologist for the husband testified to the presence of neck injuries. The issue of a forensic evaluation for trauma, is highly specialized. Hence the wish of the family to have observers which was refused by the examiner.”
“Ultimately, based on the clinical evidence and the autopsy results, an aware woman was killed.”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-06-21 11:39 am (UTC)This is based on what? In an informal poll of my flist, the concensus was strong: we would all rather have our mates (whom we freely choose for the similarities in world-view and temperament) make decisions over our life and death than our parents (who are linked to us by a biological imperative, and from whom we as children have to struggle to individuate). I don't know how old you are, or how married or otherwise committed, but to say the love and financial support of a family member are greater than that of a spouse is to misapprehend the meaning of love and overvalue the importance of generational wealth. My mother loves me like a child, and I will be a child to her till the day she dies; but I am not a child, and don't want to be treated like one in death.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-21 11:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-21 11:57 pm (UTC)Don't open the door to blood relatives - it's a slippery slope and goes both ways. It may be hard to imagine a parent who has watched a child suffer so much they pray for the child's death, but I know it's happened, with love in their broken hearts. It may be easier for someone who is more removed from the pain to make the choices you think best.
And downstream, the children of a sick old person could decide to pull the plug on them, overriding the spouse. The financial incentive (either inheritance or avoiding the further burden of care) is clear. And I don't know a single child who never had an issue with their parents. Benign spousal neglect may be all some people have left in the end.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-22 05:56 am (UTC)What I was saying, however, is something quite different, which the appropriately-named Caprinus ("goat-like") refused to understand. (The saddest thing about being a fanatic is how stupid it makes you.) It is simply that, where the notion of marriage as a lifelong and unbreakable bond which trumps all other bonds is NOT or NO LONGER embodied in the law, there is no reason to award the spouse rights that overcome those of any related person, and that any such rights are simply the fossils of a conception of marriage which does not exist in law.