Here's the thing about the Code Blue Blogger challenge (other than that the point is now basically moot).
To prove my point I am offering $100,000 on a $25,000 wager for ANY neurologist (and $125,000 for any neurologist/bioethicist) involved in Terri Schiavo's case--including all the neurologists reviewed on television and in the newspapers who can accurately single out PVS patients from functioning patients with better than 60% accuracy on CT scans.
I will provide 100 single cuts from 100 different patient's brain CT's. All the neurologist has to do is say which ones represent patients with PVS and which do not.
I don't know squat about neurologists or CT scans, but I do know this. Doctor Code Blue, by his own admission, has only seen a single cut (on the internet) of Terri Schiavo's brain CT while the neurologists who testified in court, the neurologists who actually count, have seen the whole scan. So have some of the neurologists that are annoying him so much by commenting on the case in the media. CBB claims he can tell from looking at a single cut that all of the doctors who say Ms. Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state are wrong. Terribly wrong. But CBB's also admitted that he'd like to see the rest of the scan. So why is he challenging other doctors to prove they can assess whether a patient is in a PVS by looking at a single cut when almost no one but him is claiming that ability? Beats me.
This kind of grandstanding is why I tuned out on CBB's armchair analysis of this case several days ago. That and the fact that he's claiming Bill Clinton has AIDS. Or maybe cancer. He's not quite sure which.
Nice.
And since I've unfortunately been unable to restrain myself from commenting directly on a subject I've (mostly) been avoiding like the plague, I guess it's time to get a few things off my chest. What I'd like to say it this:
I don't really have a strong opinion one way or the other about Terri Schiavo's medical condition, what she did or didn't say, what ought to be done about it or who has the moral authority to decide. That's at least partly because I don't really think it's any of my business and partly because, even if it was, I don't have access to the information necessary to make any of those decisions.
I do have a strong opinion, however, about deference to the rule of law in this, my country.
I have a strong opinion about whether religious beliefs, however sincere, should ever trump the protections and the restrictions that our laws and the Constitution provide and impose.
I have a strong opinion about people who threaten other people with violence for upholding the law.
I have a strong opinion about people deliberately distorting beyond recognition facts that are easily ascertainable and verifiable in order to make their point.
I have a strong opinion about people who exploit other people's deepest pain for any number of purposes, from ego gratification to greed.
I have a strong opinion about people using words like "Nazi" and "concentration camp" to describe anything they don't happen to approve of.
And I have a strong opinion about people who barge into other people's blogs and attack them in the most vicious and personal and hurtful ways for simply expressing their opinion.
It's clear to me that an awful lot of people simply don't understand how our legal system works. That's too bad, but it's not surprising. It takes a little time and effort to understand. Much easier to simply pop off whenever it doesn't produce the result you prefer, whether that result is a murder conviction, an indictment of gay marriage or the replacement of a feeding tube. It would be so much easier if judges would simply conduct polls to decide the outcome of their cases. But it doesn't appear that that method would have changed the result in the Schiavo matter. So maybe they should just tally up which side makes more death threats and go that way.
To Michele and Charles and Glenn and Matt and Matt and countless others who have managed to express their own diverse opinions and provide us with valuable information and insights on this very emotional issue without rancor or hyperbole and who have been raked over the coals for it, thank you.
And to my parents and S., who assure me that I never have to worry that anyone will ever try to keep my body alive after my consciousness is gone (but in case there's any doubt and my living will mysteriously disappears, perhaps Google will show clearly and convincingly enough that I want no effing feeding tube unless I have the wherewithal to ask for it), thank you.
And that's really all I have to say.
Update: It's over. May she rest in peace.
