In the fifteen yrs that Terri Schiavo has been on life support,there have been many others who would have been viable,productive members so of US society who will have simply died because of lack of funds that Terri's treatment has used to nil effect.
It amazes me that those who believe in god, immortality and a better after life,cling to life so desperately,while agnostics and athieists accept death more readily.Why is this so?

This is so because those who believe in God also believe that only He creates life and only He takes life. Humans do not have any right to destroy life as each person is made by God for a reason known only to Him.

I think this exchange highlights the necessity to change our attitudes toward the faith/reason debate. It has previously been argued that ‘you cannot have ethics without religion’, but it is now becoming more and more clear that you cannot have sensible ethics with religious beliefs involved. Sam Harris’ new book ‘The End of Faith’ argues along these lines, and many more such works can be expected in the near future.

Good post Greg M. Many religous people support the death penalty eg George Bush Jnr. Yet he has personally involved the Fed Gov in the Shiavo case. Ethics aren't pure when fused with a religious agenda. As the Shiavo case has demonstrated. Hence, the need for separation of church and state.

I am also concerned that pro-life isn't about quality of life. I treated my old dog with more compassion than has been shown to Terri Shiavo. As an ambulance officer I see life and death choices as a part of my job, from what I have read about the condition of Terri's cerebral cortex that's all she has left and that is not a life that is a night mare she has been forced to endure for over 15 years.

No doubt the religious fraternity on this forum will indulge in the usual hysteria that their way is the right and only way.

Sorry mmaioyp, if it were up to God Terri would have been dead a long time ago. We are the ones that are interfering by artifically keeping her alive.

Terri is being fed and given water. She has been breathing on her own all along. Should a baby die because he cannot feed himself? How about an elderly person, or someone who is paralyzed? Should we let them starve to death too?
There is no proof that she is "brain dead". If she were, how was she able to recognize her family members? How did she laugh or become upset at times? How do we know she's not fully aware, trapped inside a body that will not move for her as she wants?
How do we KNOW that Terri is not in horrible pain? Nurses said they heard her moaning as she did when she had her "time of the month"--suffering from cramps.
Would you starve your pet to death? I doubt it because you know it is not painless.
How cruel have we become?

Starving disabled babies and the elderley is far more common in our hospitals than you might realise - a central debate in current biomedical ethics is whether this "letting die" is as bad as killing.

It has not been argued that Terri is "brain dead", only that she is in a Persistent Vegetative State (PVS). This is itself controversial - such a diagnosis is difficult since there is many different levels of consciousness. However, it has consistently been demonstrated that she has no real cognition of things happening around her, and has no hope of recovering, which is why the courts agree she should no longer be kept alive artificially.

I would not starve my pet to death - if it was seriously injured I would have it put down. To do otherwise would be seen as cruel. As you suggest, it is cruel to do the same to Terri. The humane thing to do would be to actively euthanise her, but certain religions believe in the very cruel idea of the absolute 'Sanctity of (Human) Life'. Our pets are lucky that we haven't don't view their lives as "sacred" regardless of their condition.

You might like to check out the book 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly', it's a story written by a french writer who is completely paralysed exept for his left eyelid. He uses the eyelid to painstakingly dictate the book before he dies a short time later. Someone like Terri has much greater control of her body (as demonstrated by the 'baloon following'), yet cannot make any such significant communication. If she was "fully aware" but "trapped inside a body" she could surely form some kind of communication.

I live in the bush. Like I said in the other thread on this topic, I wouldn't subject my horse or dog to the treatment that is being inflicted on this poor woman. Any truly caring person would put her out of her misery.

As for starving her to death, if I did that to my horse or dog I would most properly be prosecuted for cruelty.

I cannot comprehend the cynicism of those who are using this poor woman as a political football to further their religious beliefs.

Let her die. Quickly. Mercifully.

Morgan

Greg m,I think that they who cling to their religion too much ,are afraid of life.Belief and faith are not the essence of life.God has got to do a lot better than the flawed book we call the bible.
Terri Schiavo is being kept alive artifically.You have yet to address my statement about the others who would have died in this 15yr period because of valuable resources Terri used.

Well she's finally dead. Now watch the fight over her remains.

How very sad.

Interesting that the Pope has just chosen to NOT go to hospital, where presumably they could hook him up to some more intensive high tech life support that might eke his life out a little longer. Apparently George Bush would like to "err on the side of life" and make it mandatory for him to go, and prolong life by any artificial means available. Lucky for the Pope he does not have to answer to George, and neither did Terri S. Perhaps this action by the Pope is a good message to those who would see religion as meaning one position only in a complex situation like this.
Another point. So many commentators on radio, newspaper and here talk as if it is a given that fading away from not having nutrition must be agonizing. Has anybody proven this? Sure it is cruel to starve somebody in the prime of life, or a young person who is full of life, energy and purpose. But for the very sick, the dying or the comatose, isnt is possible that fasting can be a peaceful transition, entering a dreamy, less and less conscious, less body oriented state. Then slipping away. In the not distant past when fasting was regularly used in sanitoria as a treatment for serious disease, it sometimes led to people recovering, and sometimes (so it was reported) led to remarkably peaceful deaths when someone failed to recover. High-tech medicine may not have all the answers - to curing or to dying.

Ironer, there’s a big difference between refusing or denying treatment and starving someone to death. Whether or not starving someone to death is agonizing is beside the point. How do they know if it’s painful? I suppose no one who has actually died of starvation can tell you, but there’s enough people who have almost died from starvation who can tell you that it was a most unpleasant experience. But since Terri couldn’t complain who really cares?

The thing I can’t understand is that the same people who are more than happy to see a person murdered by starvation would often be the first to condemn capital punishment for the worst piece of human garbage imaginable. Terri Shiavo had absolutely no right to life, but a child sex murderer has every right to life. How is that?