[extropy-chat] Thoughts on Schiavo

[Samantha Atkins]

On Mar 26, 2005, at 6:00 AM, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> Lets make one thing perfectly clear: Terri Schiavo's responsiveness is
> no less than the responsiveness of Stephen Hawking. Stephen just has a
> lot of high tech gizmos he's had years to learn to use to make himself
> useful in the world. Terri has been denied the same opportunities by
> her husband and remains in a condition that Stephen would be in today
> given a similar level of neglect.

This is the most empty and baseless assertion i believe I have ever 
seen from you.  Comparing one of the finest minds of our age to a woman 
who by every test we can administer is mentally unfortunately little 
more than a vegetable shows a patent disregard of reality.    Why are 
you just looking at the outside an ignoring everything we know and can 
test?

>
> Now, this being established, if we imagine instead that Stephen Hawking
> were in that hospital instead of Terri, what would you do about what is
> being done to him?

  Do you belief that your baseless assertion "establishes" anything at 
all?  What is your real agenda in this?

- samantha


>
> --- Giu1i0 Pri5c0 <pgptag at gmail.com> wrote:
>> My first reaction when I first heard of the Schiavo case was outrage
>> at the Christian Right's insistence on still considering Terri as a
>> thinking and living human being who should be kept on life support at
>> all costs even if there is no chance that she may recover any mental
>> functions. I think a "person" is a thinking and feeling entity, or
>> someone who may someday recover the status of thinking and feeling
>> entity, and that biological samples which do not and cannot think and
>> feel (embryos, cells, ...) are not persons. This is, after all, the
>> basis of our support for abortion and stem cell research: no harm is
>> done to persons. So I thought that the proper thing to do was
>> switching life support off.
>>
>> Then when I saw her pictures on television I realized that the fact
>> that she moves her eyes can give a very strong impression that she is
>> at least feeling something. Someone emotionally involved, like her
>> parents, is not likely to believe any medical statement that she is
>> does not, and never will, think and feel. So I ask myself what I
>> would
>> feel if I were in the place of Terri Schiavo's parents. Would I feel
>> that society is murdering my daughter? Perhaps I would. Why shouldn't
>> Terri Schiavo's parents be allowed to keep the hope, or the delusion,
>> that their daughter may wake up smiling? Is it because taxpayers are
>> paying for life support? Would things change if they were paying for
>> it themselves?
>>
>> Doctors say that Terri Schiavo will never think or feel anything. But
>> most doctors also say that today's cryonics patients will never be
>> revived, and that life extension technology will never work. Does
>> this
>> mean that we should give up on cryonics and life extension? Does it
>> depend on who is paying? It seems reasonable to think that those who
>> can pay for cryonics and life extension should be allowed to do so,
>> but that taxpayers' money should be spent wisely and focused where it
>> can be effective. But how do you explain that to Terri Schiavo's
>> parents? And how do you explain it to those who will want to try
>> experimental deep life extension therapies without being able to
>> afford it?
>>
>> All questions and no answers: these are difficult issues.
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>
> Mike Lorrey
> Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
> "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
> It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
>                                       -William Pitt (1759-1806)
> Blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com
>
>
> 		
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