Can someone please explain the difference?

[POAS]

It has been argued by many on the Schindler side of the Schiavo controversy that this is different from cases such as the Sun Hudson case in Texas because she is not terminal she only needs food. Cases such as Hudson's, on the other hand, are prople that cannot live without a ventilator keeping air moving into and out of theri lungs.

So what is the difference?

If I don't get air I will die. If I don't get food I will die. The doctors overcome (temporarily) these deficiencies through the use of machines.

Both patients are terminal without the intervention of machines.

[BlueEyedSon]

1. The amount of time until death

is the difference.

[POAS]

7. That may be a distinction but is it enough of a difference

to support death by removal of one method and not the other?

If a slow death is the arguement against removal of the feeding tube then can it not be argued that the feeding tube has prolonged Schiavo's suffering for 15 years?

[rodeodance]

11. yes, of course you can argue that --effectively!!

[goodboy]

2. there is no difference, which is one of those real inconvenient things

those right wing handjobs don't like...


what are they called?


facts, yeah, facts, that it.

[Dookus]

3. there is no difference

except that some people find a 5-minute death acceptable, but not a two-week one.

[Az]

4. Life vs Sentience

Sun had a brain. Terri's brain is liquified. There is no person named Terri Schiavo any longer. There is only a living corpse.

[POAS]

8. I have argued that very point in other threads, but

Schiavo or Hudson's sentience aside, given two hypothetically identical cases except that one needs assistance to breath and the other to eat what distinctions allows that one must live and the other must die?

[Az]

10. If all things are equal then nothing

It really boils down to hope. If there is hope for a future for the person (important distintion) then you extend it. You move forward on that hope.

Sun's case is particularly tragic. Yes there was a brain present. But there was little to no hope that he would ever grow enough to breath on his own. His future was one of suffering. In the end it is likely that he would have been unplugged eventually. But the trouble is that he was still in a period where the actual depth of the issue had not been absorbed by the person most morally responsible for deciding his path. They pulled the plug without the mother's permission. In fact in direct opposition to her wishes at the time.

[BuyingThyme]

5. They're completely different.

No two cases are the same.

That's why people need to be allowed to make their own decisions without the government and the god squad getting involved.

[seabeyond]

6. the baby didnt ask to die, they ruled terri did

that is the bottom line.

[riverwalker]

9. the time is not the difference

because deciding you don't want to be hooked up to a ventilator can lead to a slow weeks long death. I have seen it many times in those with chronic breathing problems who say "never again" to a ventilator. Same with dialysis when people decide not to endure anymore, it is a weeks long process of dying. The same with cancer patients and heart patients who no longer want to "fight" a losing battle. The time is not a curse to them, but a gift, time to say good-bye and time for family to accept things.
We seem to even want to Walmart-ize death, make it quick, make it fast. Medicine can make it painless, but fast is out of our hands.

[Clark2008]

12. Just to clarify - it's not the lack of food that will eventually kill her,

it's the lack of water.

But, technically, there is no difference between Terri Schiavo and Sun Hudson. Neither could survive, naturally, on their own. Yes, I know little Sun would have to be taken care of by an adult, but I'm sure you get my meaning.

[Beaverhausen]

13. Christopher Reeve couldn't live without a respirator.

Would someone argue that it would be OK to turn his ventilator off?

It's Terri's brain that is the problem. Most of it is gone.

[Baconfoot]

14. I thought Sun was going to die even with the ventilator? NT

[doublethink]

15. How about ......

$ .... hypothetically if Ms. Hudson was very wealthy, then Sun would more than likely still be hooked up to the ventilator. Terry Schivos care it seems has been paid for by the Hospice where she has been for the last 2 years ... if the tube was to be re-inserted then what? The Government or Donations would pick up the tab? Anyway another hypothetical I'd ask of the 'miracle' intervention types ... who would have a more likely chance of a normal life if kept alive, Terri or Sun? I would have said Sun, he still had a brain was young, developing, who the hell knows? Maybe he could have started breathing on his own someday. I know this is all bullshit but what the hey. Just oddball stuff .... peace.

[Warpy]

16. They're no different, not really

One required artificial ventilation, and left to his own devices, he died. The other required artificial nutrition and hydration, and left to her own devices and without further interference with bodily processes, she will die. Neither had any hope of improvement in their physical condition (unlike healthy infants who require nutrition to be fed to them or men like Falwell who required temporary mechanical ventilation for a temporary illness).

The key here is "no improvement in condition." Left to their own devices, they are terminal. Artificially fed or ventilated, their condition was stable but with little quality of life in the present and less in the future.

My best guess on little Sun Hudson was that he'd have died even with mechanical ventilation in a period of weeks, if not days, as he put on weight and his oxygen demand grew but his ventilatory capacity did not. His life would have been short and increasingly miserable.

The people who are yelling that artifical nutrition and hydration is somehow different form artificial oxygenation are simply missing a point: artifical life support measures were never meant to be permanent means of keeping the nearly dead technically alive until some other disease process kills them, and it's a terrible misuse of decreasing Medicaid resources to do so, when those resources could be directed at saving people who have a hope of improvement.