Questions

I'll lead with my wife's question:

Terri had a stroke, and her husband who claims she didn' t want to live that way, sues the doctor for malpractice (he kept her alive for all of this). He gets a lot of money to get her rehabilitated, never uses a cent to do the rehabilitation, then he sues to pull her tube. I can' t figure out how a judge makes any sense of all this.

Obviously a rhetorical question since it is emminently unanswerable when you try to reconcile with Greer's rulings.

A Michelle Malkin reader asks:

If left to fend for themselves, advanced stage Alzheimers patients will starve just like Terri S. Is that an acceptable course, if the husband says so now?

I would also add a longer list of people with conditions ranging from cerebral palsy to autism to chronic pseudo-obstruction, i.e. anyone who does not meet someone else's quality of life definition, anyone who requires enteral or parenteral nutrition, etc. Where does it end?

Patterico asks:

Do you oppose an attempt to feed her liquid, to see if she can swallow it on her own? If so, why?

This by the way, may be the question that provokes Governor Bush to Executive action.

Patterico keeps 'em comin':

What is the difference between providing federal habeas review for Terri Schiavo, and providing it for someone sentenced to death in state court?

A question interesting to those interested in the law -- the comments section is interesting.

Tom Maguire notes the disabled community are asking tough questions (and not getting answers):

To [disabled] people, the case of whether Mrs. Schiavo should be kept alive looks very different. And who better to understand the issue than those whose lives hinge on the same question?

As Rick Brookhiser noted today, the slippery slope argument is definitely in play, and it is "Time to take a stand."

This time Tom Maguire doesn't ask an explicit question, but wonders:

Maybe We Need A "Futile Blogging Law"

He goes after bloggers trying to make political hay over W's signing of The 1999 Advance Directives Act in Texas. Tom notes the open, inclusive process by which the Texas law came about and does ask: "Has that happened in Florida?" Uh no. The courts have defined the rules in Florida. Not an open nor inclusive process by any stretch of the imagination.

CodeBlueBlog asks a medical question (Hat Tip: Blogs for Terri):

Does Terri Schiavo Have Hydrocephalus?

Oh, how the cascading questions can overwhelm.

Next, two questions on the theme of pain simply wrench the heart.

First Blogs for Terri note an NRO Corner item that is an answer to the question: Does Terri feel pain?

Doctor says Terri is Aware and Feels Pain.

Patterico demolishes the insipid Los Angeles Times and their claim that dehydration and starvation bring euphoria.

The L.A. Times has a story today about how much fun it is to be starved and dehydrated to death. I kid you not. The story describes the “characteristic sense of euphoria that accompanies a complete lack of food and water.”

Euphoria.

There is zero mention of the perspective provided by Kate Adamson, who was mistakenly diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state, had her feeding tube pulled, and lived to tell about it. I told you about Adamson’s experience the other day, in this post. Among other things, she said:

When the feeding tube was turned off for eight days, I was – thought I was going insane. I was screaming out don’t you know I need to eat. . . . [T]he hunger pains overrode every thought I had. . . . It was sheer torture . . .

Where is the question you ask? Simply, does the LA Times really believe the nonsense they are printing on dead trees? Where are the environmentalists when you really need them? I digress. . . .