User talk:StuartGathman

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POV tag discussion in progress
While I do not know you, and am quite new here myself, I noticed that you posted the POV tag today, which was immediately removed. There is a discussion which indirectly includes this issue going on at, which may interest you. My personal opinion is that there are bias issues in this article that need to be resolved, but I have never posted the flag. I think it is important to provide specific citations when doing so.

Tropix 15:31, 2005 Apr 13 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. I would have to agree that NCDave is not going about things in very good way, although I agree with some parts of his POV (except the part where it is insinuated that Michael strangled/beat Terri). I have just one key fact with legal documentation that I have tried to mention in the article - that the immediate cause of death was the judicial order to prevent oral feeding, not removal of the feeding tube.

Whatever side you take on what Terri's wishes were, this is a significant fact. It means that Terri's death was active euthanasia. Oregon allows active euthanasia for certified terminally ill patients. But Terri's case went beyond that since she was not terminally ill (unless you consider a PVS state "dead"). Furthermore, Florida does not allow any kind of active euthanasia. Removing the feeding tube was an attempt (successful as far as the courts are concerned) to make the euthanasia compatible with Florida law. (Although I'm sure Terri or anyone else wanting to die would prefer to get a nice morphine overdose than to dehydrate for 2 weeks.)

But more disturbing to me is pretending that they were just "pulling the plug", when in fact (I attempted to add CNN links to the page) a 24 hour police guard was required to keep protesters from providing food and water and they arrested hundreds including 10 year old kids and disabled people in wheelchairs. What's the big deal? If she aspirates during oral feeding (the only medical reason for the feeding tube), there is a "do not resucitate" order and the problem is solved to the satifaction of all sides. I'm sure I would rather choke to death than starve for 2 weeks.

My personal reaction to Michael Schiavo was to think of "Jane Eyre" - the poor man was married to an insane wife, whom he kept locked in a room for her own safety. Very similar situation to Michael Schiavo, and his behaviour was not too different from the novel - including courting another woman while still married. The big difference was that Jane Eyre had more scruples than the woman Michael ended up with.

Anyway, I have been unable to get a word in edgewise, thanks to NCDave. And I don't understand the political process to add documented facts (as opposed to speculation about Michael). Every time I add a phrase with a link to a PDF of the order, it gets deleted. Is this the way to respond to your note? StuartGathman 20:20, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Withholding oral feeding.
I absolutely agree with you where you wrote "I have just one key fact with legal documentation that I have tried to mention in the article - that the immediate cause of death was the judicial order to prevent oral feeding, not removal of the feeding tube."

My personal opinion is that, regardless of everything else in the entire history of this case, that one issue stands alone as her death warrant. Even allowing for the sake of argument that all proper procedures were followed, and that she did not want to be "on machines", this item changed everything at the end. It seems highly likely to me that if she had been able to take any amount of water she would have lived longer, perhaps a lot longer. That prohibition was wrong. It was a violation of her civil right to life, like denying air. Murder, in a dictionary definition, is the unlawful and premeditated killing of a human being. Seems to me this was both.

Who knows if she actually could have swallowed? Or whether the judge forbid it because he thought it would be 'experimental' as one might interpret his order. My perspective is that he had no authority to prohibit oral feeding. Period. So, I completely agree, and I am very glad to have you see this too.

The article should be unbiased to the point that any partisan on any side could use it as a factual reference to argue a case. To the end of including facts on this particular issue, I introduced text pointing out that natural feeding is not 'life support' under Florida law, and distinguishing between the two motions that the judge denied together, one of them being the request for feeding by natural means. That much is non-biased and factual. I don't know if that text is still present, I haven't checked it lately. It seemed balanced enough that it was non-controversial. On the talk page, I brought up the issue whether this was assisted suicide or euthanasia for discussion. I think it would be fair to include it as one of the matters of controversy, in which it could be stated that those are not legal in Florida, and there is an argument is that one of them actually happened. I am concerned that some editors might reject this if their bias is it didn't matter what killed her, or possibly because they might simply not recognize it as an important event.

I have seen some signs that the atmosphere might be a little more cooperative and reasonable lately.

Tropix 21:24, 2005 Apr 19 (UTC)