Terri Schiavo has died...

Her "stupid husband" could have indeed found the easy way out of the prblem by divorcing her and moving on with his life. Instead he stood by her - in a very difficult way, becoming "the evil man" - and fighting for what she supposedly wanted (and that I think everyone of us would want - not to live as a vegetable and be a burden). This "stupid husband" also turned down the biggest amounts of money when rich people tried to bribe him to keep his wife alive. That's integrity in my book. He again could have taken the easy way and yet he fought for his wife's right.

Don't get me wrong - I also see the parents' point of view, and starving her to death was certainly and undeniably cruel. But he's appointed to the bad man part and that's somehow very unfair. It can't have been easy for him either.

I have to agree with Spunky. It seems they are more worried about their own interests and feelings rather than their daughters. Who wants to see their daughter reduced to that?? In my opinion, the unselfish act is letting her finally go free.

Plus, people are preaching about God. If it was up to God, she would have died 15 years ago. Humans and their technology were the ones keeping her alive.

Stood by her? By getting with another woman and having children with her? Yeah, he was putting Terri first then. I can see how Terri was his primary concern and how it would have caused him great distress to divorce her and get on with his life without her which is what he was doing anyway.

The way I look at it this--she didn't have a living will. There's NO WAY for them to know what her cognitive abilities were. She had a feeding tube and no other means of life support. People have woken up from comas after years and still been able to function. There is no excuse for them to have removed her life support after years of letting it sustain her. Feeding tube or not is a decision that has to be made and lived with. You don't keep someone alive for years just so you can put upon them a tormenting death because you're tired of it or you justify to yourself that they're not cognizant enough to feel it. Unless you're in that body, you don't know what they're feeling.

I know VERY well what it's like to be around someone who's a "vegetable" for all intents and purposes and has to survive with a feeding tube. My grandmother had alzheimer's for years. By the time she died, she couldn't move. She hadn't spoken in about 3 years. She hadn't eaten solid food for five. But what do you do? Decide that the person is an inconvenience and take away nourishment so that they dehydrate and starve? A feeding tube isn't even considered a drastic measure of life support. My grandmother had a DNR order, but that didn't stop a feeding tube from being put in place to ward off the cruel death that would come without it. Her heart and lungs were strong. The alzheimer's didn't affect them. She had had a nasal feeding tube for almost a year because she couldn't survive the surgery to put in place a gastric one. A nasal feeding tube is only suposed to sustain a person about 6 weeks, not 11 months. They had to change it from side to side and all that was horrible. Just like Terri, a feeding tube was her only life support. But just because she couldn't physically do things, does that mean she couldn't think? How do you know? How do you know if the brain damage is paralyzing nerves and muscles alone or if cognition is going with it? You don't. She could follow our fingers with her eyes. Something was going on in her mind. Did we enjoy watching her lie there day after day dying and not knowing when she'd be at peace? No. But we sure as hell didn't decide it was time for her to go and make her starve to death and dehydrate. I felt JOY when my grandmother died because it released her from the prison that was her body. But it was not MY decision to make about when she went. I don't have that right. I don't think Michael had that right either.

He's a parent for goodness sake.. how would he like it if someone took one of his kids and said, "Okay, time for this one to die. You have no say in the matter." He's no hero. He made her last days on earth a living hell and only Terri will ever know how much she felt of the ordeal her body suffered as she died slowly and painfully. I'm sure even a "vegetable" would feel the pain of her eyeballs bleeding from dehydration. Her parents will be forever haunted by knowing such a cruel death was forced upon her.

It was completely inhumane to make her suffer. It seems cruel to keep someone alive, but I've been there, and you DO NOT KNOW what they think or what they feel, so HOW do you justify starvation? The decision had already been made to put in the tube. There should not have been a legal way to remove it.

Becky

Thats deep. You actually took the time to type all that?

If you'd lived it, you could take the time to type it too.

Becky

actually im too lazy

After his wife was in a vegetative state for years!! You make it sound like he got off with the next girl the day after the accident. How insensitive. Do people not have rights to move on and have another relationship???

I also think that alzheimers in not the same as a vegetative state.

And as a parent, I can assure you that I would not want my child to live like that for an indefinite amount of time. So, don't even suggest that he wouldn't do the same for his children.

The fact that she had to die by starvation is hardly his fault but that of our government that does not allow human euthanasia.

Why can't you believe that the two actually HAD that conversation about not wanting to live like that prior to the accident? I think it is a fairly common thing for spouses to discuss. Even if not formally, cases come up and in relationships we discuss things with each other --- more so with our living partners than parents.

I hope her soul rest in peace and i reall think stoping feeding not the way to end life.....

O.D'n like a Rock Star is!!!! Pass me that spoon!!!!!!

huh?