And so, now we know…
Washington Post: Schiavo Autopsy Released
And for all that, we tied up the congress, the court system, and the morals of hundreds of thousands of people who used this poor, doomed woman as a poster child for the injustices of fate.
And now, NPR and PBS…
Thinking Canadian thoughts again…
Comments:
KH:
preaching: choir
my favorite part is the part where the autopsy points out that she was BLIND.
so the videotape of her eyes following a balloon — the videotape that caused our elected senate majority leader to declare that he doubted the official medical prognosis, the videotape that was aired 24/7 for a while there, the videotape that caused EMERGENCY LEGISLATION to be passed — that videotape was a FRAUD.
[how do you videotape a blind woman following a balloon with her eyes? you wait until she’s moving her head and then move the balloon in the same direction at the same time.]
and the powers that be bought the whole thing. hook, line, and sinker.
do you think we could get the republicans to hold an emergency session of congress to pass legislation to get everyone to clap really hard so that tinkerbell could be magically brought back to life while we’re at it?
if mexico had canada’s health care…
kmh
Me:
Hello, choir….
See comments to MS below. There simply isn’t an excuse for this stupidity. Oh, except the 2008 election, maybe. And what galls me most is there are people who still think the doctors were wrong, including her parents.
I hope I’m never in that position. I don’t think I’d survive. But there isn’t a chance I’d let either of my girls sit on life support until the courts forced me to shut the machines down. Death with dignity ought to be the rule.
Yeah, I know. Preaching again…. Sorry ’bout that…
DD:
Re: preaching: choir
[how do you videotape a blind woman following a balloon with her eyes? you wait until she’s moving her head and then move the balloon in the same direction at the same time.]
Actually, no. There is a condition called “blindsight” in which a person who is cortically blind (i.e. the part of the brain that processes the information in gone) can still respond to visual stimuli. You can even ask them to point to an object that is in their field of vision and they will, with a reasonable degree of accuracy. So the eyes still track, but the central visual processing is gone.
Her parents were (and are) completely insanely desperate, but they didn’t commit fraud. Good thing, because they have enough to answer for as it is.
MS:
Well, at least that whole mess prompted a lot of people to make their wishes known on paper.
Me:
There is that (and I did finally get some paper out of DH over this stupidity), but honest to god, there just is no excuse for the huge waste of time, money and angst this situation caused.
And let me be a little more annoyed – would they have gone to the same lengths if the family in question was black? Latino?? American Indian???
HAH!
American Blind Justice my huge pink fanny….
MS:
no excuse at all!
and of course the answer is NO. Who would have cared