Apr 05 2005
Well?
It’s amazing, really.
On March 25, 2005, it was reported by a couple of bloggers I read that there was an issue more horrible than what Terri was going through. It was the story of a woman named Kianna who needed an experimental drug that had not been FDA approved that would supposedly help her cancer treatment.
We were told by both bloggers that this issue was of utmost importance, and were given an address to write to our Representatives / Senators in support of what they called Kianna’s Law.
Of course, this was just a blatant attempt to use a dying woman to prove the rest of the blogosphere who supported Terri was hypocrites because they weren’t taking every cause up immediately.
My proof?
Neither site who saw it so damned important to mention on March 25, 2005 have seen fit to mention it at all for a second time almost two weeks later.
In honor of those fine sites who grabbed a suffering dying woman and made her a political pointmaker with no followup whatsoever once she no longer fit their political needs, we honor those sites with Kiannawatch.
In the middle column at the top is a reminder of how many (and which) sites mentioned Kianna that used to be in my regular read list. These sites shamelessly co-opted Kianna’s case to make a political point. Instead of following up and putting pressure on their readers, it was mentioned once two weeks ago.
That means either the case is resolved, less important now that it can’t be used as a political football, or never was important to begin with; at least to the people who wrote about it when they did.
I tend to think it’s the latter, but that’s just me.
April 5th, 2005 at 10:17 pm
Vinny, I’ d love to have 2 cents from you, the Man-haters, or anyone else on this post. The lack of compassion from the moonbats in regards to the Schiavo case really irritates me despite our different takes on the issue.
Off topic, yes, but please indulge me this one time.
April 5th, 2005 at 11:40 pm
Why certainly Gordon.
While I’m horrified by what I read, nothing from the left surprises me anymore. In fact, I was just thinking today that now that Terri is gone, the left can focus on doing what they do best:
Trying to save convicted killers. Scott Peterson could really use some activist judges and some interference right now. I’m sure the ACLU (All Criminals Love Us) will have a say in whether or not that bastard gets pumped full of death.
April 5th, 2005 at 11:41 pm
FYI - She’s dead. You would know that if you would have read the update on our original post. We posted the update on 3/26.
Thanks.
April 5th, 2005 at 11:43 pm
I didn’t know it was “your” post Lisa.
Lighten’ up, Francis.
April 5th, 2005 at 11:51 pm
That’s interesting Lisa, because this morning, I checked the only two sites I saw that mentioned the Kianna story, and read forward from the original posts and I guess I must’ve just missed that big update at the bottom of the original article with the blockquoted email.
Heck, I even did a search on Kianna’s name and it only hit once.
But, I guess you’re right. You mentioned that she died.
Now besides bringing it up to prove a political point (and make one, for that matter), what more are we going to learn about Kianna from Right Voices, or is the issue gone now that we can no longer hold her up as an example with which to prove what hypocrites others are?
April 6th, 2005 at 1:58 pm
It’s so cool - I have a new nickname! “man-hater” whoohoo!
April 6th, 2005 at 2:28 pm
Kricket…not only to we have new nicks but Hall and Oats knew of us years ago and wrote a song…. well, Man Eater but if you listen to the words it sums it all up!:evil:
April 6th, 2005 at 5:14 pm
hahahhaha I’m embracing this! Probably not what Gordon had in mind when he first called us that, but heck, I’m gonna take it positively.
Luv ya, Gordo!
hahahaha
April 6th, 2005 at 7:18 pm
Once again Vinny missed the point. We were not the ones posting day and night for the sole purpose of saving any one person. We weren’t the ones “on strike” and refusing to blog on any other topic. We weren’t the ones screaming from the rafters about how the government needs to DOOOO SOMETHING to save a single human being.
Pointing to Kianna’s story wasn’t an “attempt” to show what a hypocrite you are, it was a “successful attempt.”
You are a hypocrite.
April 6th, 2005 at 7:20 pm
As for Gordon’s post, I too am HORRIFIED by what that asshat(e) wrote. I may not have agreed with the federal government meddling in a state matter, but that doesn’t mean I have no heart! This is sick and depraved, I don’t care what side you’re on in the argument.
April 6th, 2005 at 7:25 pm
Deb,you know what the best part of your comments are?
No, really, that’s a question. I don’t know the answer.
Anyway, you are a pathetic liar who trampled all over a dying woman (at the time you wrote about her) to make a point. You posted about her in the heat of the Schiavo story. You emphasized the importance of it to make a political point. Then you mysteriously lost interest; most likely because there was no political points to score anymore.
Good job. I’m sure the timing of it was just a coincidence. I’m sure even more that the fact that you’ve not written about it since is also a coincidence.
It’s okay. I can live with my conscience after defending Terri. If you can live with yours, good on you.
April 6th, 2005 at 7:36 pm
What “political” point was I trying to make Vinny? No really, that’s a question too because I have no answer–I had no “political” point to make. I have no political axe to grind here. I’m not a Democrat, as you well know, nor am I particularly “Pro-Choice.” My sole point was to point out that you (and others) who were going so ballistic over Terri were being so narrow in your focus that it was obvious that YOU had a political point to make, and it was YOU who were using a dying woman to make it.
Or proove me wrong and start posting about how you plan to push the government to change the laws so that there will never be another Terri, EVER. If you don’t, then you are just proving yourself to be the same level of hypocrite you accuse me of being.
April 6th, 2005 at 7:41 pm
Deb you’re an idiot and you don’t know what you’re talking about, okay? Now I’ll speak slowly and use small words so you can comprehend that which sitting on your everloving ass all day has rotted:
There are two people starting an information center for living wills, and such, and doing so with money out of their own pockets. The project is already in the works and will be revealed soon. One of the people, me, has already contacted a lawyer to help write some articles about what’s legal state by state.
We’re also going to be an advocacy center where you can find information about your local congressmen / Senator, write them, and urge them to pass a law forbidding the removal of a feeding tube or respirator without specific written instruction from the patient.
So now that we know what I’m working on with regards to Terri and her situation, what are you doing with Kianna’s story besides playing gotcha?
Take your time.
I’ve got all night.
April 6th, 2005 at 7:46 pm
Well, I stand corrected then, and if this is what you are doing then it’s a good thing.
April 6th, 2005 at 7:49 pm
Thank you.
But with all due respect, since you called me a hypocrite, or insinuated that by not doing something I was one, I would like to know what you’re doing about Kianna’s story besides mentioning it while I was writing about Terri to “prove a point.”
April 6th, 2005 at 7:56 pm
Deb,
Do you see what you are saying here? We were not the ones posting day and night for the sole purpose of saving any one person. We werenÃt the ones ìon strikeî and refusing to blog on any other topic.
What Vinny did was not for ONE person. Sure Terri was the focal point but this was to stop the insanity of starving any other person in the future. I think this is it in a nutshell and no need to go into lengthy converstations or arguements about it. The “Blog Strike” was to make a point. Have you ever heard of protests? Kricket and I have both been called “man haters” over our thoughts of what an ass Michael is. I stand by that and will till I leave this mortal world. I could go on and on about my thoughts of his man and what he did. But, then we are called “soap opera queens”. I have to commend Vinny and all others who gave up their blogs totally to write and let others write about Terri and what her “husband” did to her. We saw both sides here at Insignificant Thoughts, I don’t think Vinny blocked anyone (he may have but I saw both sides being expressed here). I just want to say “Thanks Vinny”!
April 6th, 2005 at 8:03 pm
Again, you’re missing the point. I’m not doing anything but I wasn’t making a Federal (literal and figurative) case over Kianna like you were over Terri. I merely MENTIONED her. In fact, to be exact, I titled the post “How about Kianna’s Law?” and I said:
Then I posted the WSJ piece about Kianna’s situation, and then I said:
Where do I mention Vinny or IT? Where do I say that I’m going to do anything? If it’s not clear to you that I was pointing out the hypocrisy actually of CONGRESS and the PRESIDENT and not you, then I suggest you read more carefully.
You singled Lisa and me out here, and I merely retorted with my comment that if you missed the point that people who care about EVERY SINGLE LIFE ought to be just as worried about Kianna (and all those like her), or if you only focus on the one person that was Terri Schiavo, then you would be a hypocrite.
But now you say that you plan to launch a huge crusade in honor of Terri (and presumably those like her who still have their feeding tubes in place and are potentially in danger), you personally are NOT a hypocrite.
But I still maintain that until Congress does something (in response to your efforts perhaps), THEY ARE.
Is that clear enough, or shold I use smaller words for YOU?
April 6th, 2005 at 8:04 pm
Honestly, I think this post is mean spirited and over the top. It’s something you’d find at my blog, not this one.
It’s too bad friends can’t disagree on a topic without taking it to this level.
April 6th, 2005 at 8:12 pm
And Kathy, I never called you or anyone a “man-hater” or a “soap-opera-queen.”
I disagreed with what Congress did in this case, and I disagreed that all the factual evidence was being presented by the media, and I disagreed with those who maintained that Terri was not in PVS, and I thought Jeb should NOT send in the State Police, and I thought that Terri did have “due process,” but that is NOT THE SAME THING AS WISHING HER DEAD nor is it the same thing as making fun of her, nor is it the same thing as thinking Michael Schiavo is a great guy (I don’t know him and my only point ever was that we look at ALL the evidence before condemning him, I wasn’t just going to take the MSM’s word for it, especially since all the court docs I read showed that thorough investigations of him, his character, his behavior, etc… so totally contradicted the Schindler’s allegations about him).
Questioning Jeb Bush’s 1999 signing of a law that INCLUDED feeding tubes as “artificial life support” is not disloyal, it’s HEALTHY and NORMAL. Wondering if this is a sign of hypocrisy on his part, or on his brother’s (who signed similar legislation in Texas in ‘98) is also not a sign that I’m a left-wing-moonbat.
I’m a concerned citizen who wants my government to do what’s RIGHT, not what’s politically beneficial. I hope Vinny is successful in his efforts, and if you read all my comments on this site on the topic, I repeatedly called for changes in the laws governing end-of-life decisions.
But apparently none of this matters to Vinny who’d rather use fragments of my arguments and fragments of my being for “material” for this blog.
April 6th, 2005 at 8:28 pm
Geoff, this shit turned way personal the day I started posting about Terri.
April 6th, 2005 at 8:48 pm
Yeah, it was a personal topic. Why bring it up to rehash all over again?
April 6th, 2005 at 8:58 pm
Vinny, just out of curiosity, why? I’m not being snotty here, I really want to know. I can totally understand how anyone cared deeply about this issue–countless millions did (and do), but why so personal? Have you known someone in this situation, or do you now?
I only ask because–as you know–my step-mother died eight years ago of lung cancer and we had to make decisions for her regarding end-of-life, and it was really really hard. In fact, much of what we went though informed my curiosity into the Schiavo case. Part of why I wanted to read everything I could get my hands on about the case–everything that was primary and factual that is, not anecdotal or unsustantiated–was that we were of many minds in our family, and this was in a case where she was (at least until the last three days) awake, aware of the fact that she was terminal, and clear-thinking.
The reason we were so conflicted was that she told us that she wanted “no extreme measures” to extend her life, and yet she was totally UN-clear on what “extend” meant, or what “extreme” meant. So when she’d finished planning her funeral and had said her goodbyes to extended family, and only had us kids and my Dad around, things got ugly. One minute she’d be saying “I don’t want any more medicine, I just want the pain to go away!” Another she’d be sobbing and pleading and saying “I DON’T WANT TO DIE! HELP ME!”
Talk about confusion! My father wanted to ignore her wishes vis a vis medicine and wanted to force feed her with a feeding tube (she had thrush and without anti-fungal medicine, she could not eat orally). My sister and I believed this would horrify her. My brother–who was only 13–kept going back and forth. He didn’t want to see her suffering, but whenever she said she didn’t want to die, he started begging the doctors to feed her and give her more meds.
The hospice people said she was in pain–LOTS of pain–because the cancer had invaded her spinal column and brain to such a huge extent it was everywhere in her body. They said it might take weeks for her to die “naturally” if we fed her, but that she would be in lots of pain, some from the feeding tube, some from the cancer itself eating her body. They said morphine was the only thing strong enough to kill her pain, but they also said it would likely kill her–quickly.
We argued, we faught, we cried, we tried to ask her, and she just said “MAKE THE PAIN GO AWAY,” but not one of us felt confident that this was the same thing as “Help me die.”
In the end, my Dad made the decision after (he says) talking with her one night while we were asleep. He elected to give her morphine every time she as much as twitched. He said she told him the pain was so awful, that she “just wanted to go home” and he interpreted this to mean she wanted to go. But it was still an interpretation.
She died the next day, and it was definitely the morphine that did it (technically) because her respiratory system just shut down and she was in a trance for hours before, totally unable to recognize any of us, totally delusional.
I will never really feel like we didn’t “kill” her, but at the same time watching her suffer and beg for mercy was excruciating. If we had put the feeding tube in, I’m sure we wouldn’t have removed it, but at the same time, she was starving in the end–when she died she hadn’t eaten in over a week, and she had refused an IV so she was dying of thirst too. One would think that refusing all these measures was the same as asking to die, but how do we reconcile the cries “I don’t want to die!”?
The only thing I can say is that none of us–even Kevorkian’s patients (and excepting those who are truly suicidal)–wants to die. Knowing you have no choice and wanting to do it are two different things, understandably.
All I know is that it’s very very easy for even close family to disagree when it comes to decisions such as these, and even when the patient (unlike Terri) IS terminal. Your loved one being terminal makes little difference when you’re in it personally, trust me.
I only bring this up because this case hit the headlines, I had to think about it all over again and it SUCKED. My initial gut reaction was the same as yours–how awful of the husband, how sick to starve her, how can we do this? But when I looked into it more, I realized what I already knew–that such personal, emotionally gut-wrenching decisons–aren’t easy for anyone.
April 7th, 2005 at 6:25 am
Why did this story catch my attention?
Because there were way too many unanswered questions about whether or not she wanted to die if she was in that situation, and instead of erring on the side of life, they believed an uncorrooborated story that her “husband” suddenly came up with 7 years after she collapsed; a story even he wasn’t sure about.
Because on 3/5/91, a bonescan was done on Terri Schiavo by Dr. Campbell-Walker that reported tons of broken bones and none of them were ever explained because Judge Greer didn’t seem to think it was important.
Because when the EMT’s arrived, the immediate assumption was, because of the position of Terri on the floor, that something “suspicious” had happened, and they called the police.
Because, despite the fact that Terri was walking on parallel bars after she was admitted for treatment, Michael Schiavo ordered a stop on all treatment to Terri.
That’s why I’m so interested in this case.
There are way too many things that don’t add up. It’s not emotion, it’s just common sense. You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t take one judge’s ruling being reviewed numerous times as being worth anything when it comes to how many times the case was heard.
You’ll also have to excuse me if I think that there is, at the very least, an odd set of circumstances surrounding the case.
April 7th, 2005 at 9:48 am
No Deb, you never did call Kricket or myself “men haters” or “soap opera queens”. you have that right but if you had been reading here you would know who it was. It wasn’t directed towards you.
April 7th, 2005 at 9:52 am
This explains your interest in the case, but not why it’s “personal” for you. Personal denotes an emotional connection to the circumstances of the case–typically a deep one–not an intellectual interest in the inconsistencies and irregularities of the story or the unpleasantness of the outcome.
9/11 was “personal” because either we all knew someone who died, or we felt personally attacked because out nation was attacked, our city was attacked, something in some way connected “personally” to us as individuals was threatened.
What about Terri’s story is personal to you? Is it religious conviction? Do you know someone facing end-of-life issues? That’s what I was getting at. I know what interested you in the case–you’ve gone over that a few times already. I’m not THAT stupid (or blind or illiterate).