Eluano Englara's "Gentle Death"
We keep hearing from those who support dehydration that taking food and water away from cognitively disabled patients leads to a "gentle death." I have written debunking this fallacy, but here is a reporter's take on Eluana's death so you can judge for yourself. From the story:
Twenty-four hours later came the first complications. On Saturday afternoon, Eluana had difficulty breathing and her mucous membranes were dry. Nurses sprayed water with a nebuliser. On Sunday, the situation got worse. The nurses turned her over every two hours and sprayed her mucous membranes with more water. Marinella Chirico, a RAI journalist who saw Eluana, reported that she was "unrecognisable, there are abrasions on her ears". Eluana was already under sedation with Delorazepam, injected subcutaneously. On Monday, her condition deteriorated rapidly. The distress log opens at one o'clock in the morning. "Eluana is lying on her left side"; "at 4 a.m. on her right side"; at 8 a.m. she "is again supine". "At 10.15 a.m., the mucous membranes are again dry" and the nurses moistened her lips with water droplets. Sedation continued. That afternoon, Eluana's temperature rose. She was weak, breathing with extreme difficulty and still under sedation. She had no more urine. At 7.35 p.m., Eluana's heart stopped beating. The clinic declared cardiac arrest caused by renal failure.Gentle. Peaceful. Dignified.
Labels: Eluana Englara. Difficult Death.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 2:30 PM
23 Comments
23 Comments:
So incredibly sad.
Tom
No, thank you.
God love her. I can't stand that people think it's somehow "peaceful" to be starved to death. It hurts to go without food and water. Even if she was sedated....
HEY! Wait a bleedin' second here - if she's a "vegetable" then how come they have to sedate her?! Ohhhhh I get so FRUSTRATED with this whole thing - it's hypocritical! They KNOW she's in there feeling pain, or else they wouldn't bother with sedation! But there goes the superiority act again, and they have to treat her like she's a shrub instead of a human being if they want to boost their egos. I swear, it was always the "immortality on earth" crowd that I believed were the worst lot, but it's occurred to me that most of the doctors involved were male, had a huge freakin' ego to assume that a human with disabilities is somehow less important or less alive than the doctors are, and always think they know what's best. Honestly, I think these guys have phallic issues and feel the need to stick it in someone, to the point of death, and what better phallic substitute than a needle with poison in it? Only in cases like these where they're dehydrated to death, I'd say the removal of hydration is more akin to the "slip out" method of "brith control."
I'm not maligning your sex, Wesley, but I'm starting to see (for the very first time) what Feminist Textual Criticism is good for.
1. "HEY! Wait a bleedin' second here - if she's a 'vegetable' then how come they have to sedate her?! Ohhhhh I get so FRUSTRATED with this whole thing - it's hypocritical! They KNOW she's in there feeling pain, or else they wouldn't bother with sedation!"
2. "Honestly, I think these guys have phallic issues and feel the need to stick it in someone, to the point of death, and what better phallic substitute than a needle with poison in it?"
How did you manage to follow a brilliant question (1.) with such a bizarre question (2.)? Phallic substitute? Pardon?
You seem to relate sex to poison, dehydration and death. What's up with that. It seems to me if done with the right person, it is a life affirming (and sometimes creating) act. Hopefully most men don't think of sex as "sticking it to someone". One other thing you seem to forget, many physicians are female and not "those guys" have no need of "phallic subsitutes"
How reassuring. I hope God gives me a better place to die then that scenario offers.
As for the needle sex thingie. Don't think so. However I do think that I would rather not be the one needled as the one doing the needling the patient. After all ,it must be a real challenge to a person's conscience to spend their lives giving needles to increase the changes of survival and then do a 180 degree turn and use that needle to push someone over the edge or watch a patient starving to death when you signed up to feed them towards getting their life back.
bmmg39 and iscream247:
The phallic comment came down after an argument with a guy over why his big honkin' SUV had the right of way when he was coming out of a driveway and my little Chevy Aveo, which was going down the main street and actually had *legal* right of way, was in the way when he almost ran me over.
We didn't crash, thank God, but he did get out to yell at me when I pulled over due to nerves. My first reaction was to go for my phone and hit 911. Luckily he saw and didn't push the issue, but he did make a remark which I will paraphrase here to keep it clean, since what he said was not:
This is my car in my driveway, and I can use the road like I can use a woman and like I should use you. I can put this vehical wherever I want, whenever I want, and a female like you had better like it.
AND that was a follow-up to a visit to an anti-rape, anti-porn site run by a non-religious woman, who got a very rude response on her blog. I can post the link to it when I get home from work tonight, and I think I shall, but again to paraphrase:
You women have no right to complain about pornography. Men have a right to use women, and women are nothing more than objects for our sexual gratification.
...actually, he compared us to the "fleshlight" in terms of our use and our personhood.
Having experienced both of those in one day, I was feeling a little fed up and frustrated.
I don't equate sex with pain and death. I do, however, equate rape with such, and my intention was to compare euthanasia to rape, not to sexual intercourse. I was placing it on the same level of unruely male dominance as the guy in the Dodge Ram and the jerk on the website.
Euthanasia is like rape - it's the ruination of something sacred (life, sexual love) and the power of the attacker (the rapist, the doctor) over a helpless victim (the rape victim, the euthanasia victim). The victim is utterly helpless, while the attacker feels strong and powerful and has absolute control over the victim. Ultimately, the attacker thinks he's "better" than the victim, and the victom becomes nothing more than an object to be abused or used or killed in whatever way the attacker believes is deserving.
One could also compare euthanasia to spousal abuse. An abusive spouse desires more than anything to have absolute control over her partner, and will stop at nothing, feeling justified in punishing a "worthless" person, but in reality, that spouse has become her punching bag, an object to be used.
In the case of rape, the phallic symbol isn't a symbol of love and sexuality, it's a club, a weapon of violence. In "withdrawal" rape, a man rapes a woman, and then pulls out to humiliate her by spraying her, sort of marking his territory. It's a sign of his complete control over the victim.
In this way, the suffering that a euthanasia victim goes through is akin to a "withdrawal" rape - the attacker removes the feeding tube and the victim suffers to death, with the death being the mark of the attacker's dominance. The victim is just an object.
This is what I was trying to get at, but unfortunately I wasn't very clear because I was so angry. Really, I should have split the two topics up and posted the rape comparison separately, with all the information here that I've added. That would have made more sense.
Also unfortunate is the fact that some mistook my anger at aggressiveness as anger against sex. I meant it to be directed toward the rape analogy. I have no problem with the concept of sex, seeing as I haven't gotten married yet so I don't know about the practice of it, and I am very much in line with Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body, so I have no problem at all with sexual intercourse. And anyway, I adore kids, so there's yet another plus to consensual sex. So please don't take what I said the wrong way.
A little guidance from our sponsor: The discussion about the phallic comment was fine so far. Comment made, criticized, explained.
But I don't want to go further with it in this post or discuss rape. Thank you all for your cooperation.
Wesley,
All is good! Thank you for giving me the chance to explain what I meant. My original post was *very* badly worded. I don't blame anyone at all for misunderstanding.
Changing the topic to what I had actually wanted to say when I showed up on the board today:
Here's a good question: When Terri Schiavo was killed, everyone, including her priest, was watched carefully to ensure that no water or food was given to her. She wasn't even allowed to receive Communion, which in this case would have been a drop of the Precious Blood (wine) and a crumb of the Body (bread).
In Eluano Englara's case, though, she was given ice on her musuous membranes. Ice on the lips, for example.
Doesn't it strike anyone else as odd that she was given the "courtesy" of having her mouth wetted, but Terri wasn't? Why was that done? Again, does this go back to the whole statement of, "they're hypocrites?" They know that she's suffering pain from the dehydration and are trying to minimize it by applying some liquid to her mouth to sooth her? Doesn't that seem... like smacking her in the face almost. Am I the only person who sees that?
T E Fine, my assumption would be that the nurses weren't asked whether they wanted to dehydrate Eluana or thought it was the right thing to do. As Donnie said, that wasn't what they signed up for. My guess would be that they were doing the best they could for their patient, under the circumstances.
Terri's nurses weren't the ones deciding how she was treated, either.
And I'm reminded of Haleigh Poutre's nurses, who when they discovered she was to be disconnected from her ventilator, took it upon themselves to wean her off it ahead of time (if I remember correctly).
Nurses don't get to call the shots, usually, but frequently they do what they can.
Thank you for clearing up your frustration T E Fine. I wondered at why you made the connection. Quite a bit out of character for you. And no you are not the only one that sees this scenario for what it is. Cruel & Inhumane and more importantly dehumanizing for the ones that with hold the most basic relief for such a patient. Food & water>
Donnie -
Thanks for understanding. Blah. One more thing, I also was writing that during my one hour lunch break, except it was at the tail end, so I was pressed for time, and forgot all about finishing it when I got home. Double blah.
I'm thinking I'm not going to post the link to that guy's comment when I get home from work today. It's Wesley's board and he's the demiurge here, and I want to be respectful, so I apologize if anyone wanted to see what I was talking about. (cue me hanging my head and looking ashamed)
Laura -
Here's another case of me not saying it right. I'm not blaming the nurses; my Auntie's a nurse, up in New Jersey (I've mentioned her before), and the hospital she works in has a geriatric ward (I hope I spelled that right), where she spends a lot of time. Nurses have a lot of responsibilities, and they do everything they can to let the people who are dying be comfortable.
I'm rather more angry at the fact that they were *permitted* to give her some comfort, but Terri wasn't given any comfort, not even spiritual comfort. And I'm angry because the comfort that they were allowed to give ultimately did nothing for poor Eluano. She still suffered and died.
And that's just it - the fact that she was suffering wasn't lost on the nurses! They knew, and they gave her some kind of relief, even though Eluano was supposedly no more "there" than a brussel sprout. That's a contradiction right there. You don't give general anesthetic to a rose when you snip it. They had her sedated. You don't numb a broccoli florette with ice before you eat it. They were soothing her.
This is a great case of 1984 double-think at work. George Orwell nailed it.
HOW DARE THEY? HOW DARE THEY?
It is no longer a question of daring to take such measures Ian. The practice of giving the extra nudge is becoming more and more acceptable.
Ianthe -
See, YOU get it!
T.E. Well as Dr. Savage said at the end of the show where I was lucky enough to be put on the air, as the last call, "At least there's two of us." There's a lot of us. But where are they? Why isn't everyone speaking up at once, going out of their way to organize, to STOP this stuff?
Donnie: I didn't mean they were daring to take such measures. I mean HOW DARE THEY. But you knew that. I've seen how "acceptable" it's become. Lots of criminals are walking around loose as if they were not what they are, criminals.
Sadly they aren't criminal because the mouth piece lawyers who support Korvorkian death merchancy are convincing judges that the law over rules the Hippocratic oath & do no harm, medicine. In fact the day is fast approaching where the Courts & the Government will be yanking licenses from doctors who don't support harvesting organs . Or who don't support knocking off babies that were born alive after failed abortions. They will be ostracized from the medical professions unless they comply with court orders demanding euthanasia for the failed abortions, the to costly elderly, the mentally injured who have healthy organs or the myriad of reasons they can come up with to cut costs while pretending a kinder day has arrived in medicine..
Sorry about that I guess one of my other accounts was on record here.
Donnie Mac Leod
Donnie: The judges won't honor the conept of the Hippocratic oath if the doctors won't. Lawyers can be horrible but they can also be wonderful. The medical profession is a lot more messed up than the legal profession is. The public knows what to expect from lawyers. It knows what it has a right to expect from doctors and it doesn't know that it isn't going to get it. I say first thing we do let's get rid of all the doctors, and the insurance industry, and the "health care" industry, throw out the latter two, and then put the doctors through a very fine sieve and let only the ones who belong in the profession back in. Those ones won't mind taking the oath. Even that way it would take two or three generations for medicine to become what medicine is supposed to be again.
Just reflecting upon the fact that both ends of the spectrum are astray Ian. I don't see that factor ending anytime soon.
I believe all of this is about doing "it" the easy way: just like a dog - simply "put them to sleep" when they get too old or too sick. Starving someone to death or depriving somebody of water until death comes is deliberately placed before our very eyes in hopes of many out there, in frustration, simply saying "For God's sake, will you put the poor thing out of his/her misery!" The giving of true love and true palliative care for our dying or disabled will always be time consuming and expensive. But anything worthwhile always is. If we want to live as human beings then the giving of these things keeps us that way. If we succumb to the plan to go the way of "putting them to sleep" - none of us will be safe. In the end we'd expose our disabled infants to the elements like many pre-Christian cultures did; the old would be taken out and left all alone to die and those disabled by injury or illness would simply get "it" with a big club in the back of the head. It always comes down to - choose life or choose death: there is no in between.
I agree, what is the value of a life. These people are still alive, and here for a reason. Not to be discarded because they are incovient.
The doctors do not always know exactly what is going on, even with all the technology we have today. I had brain surgery, and during it I had a severe subarachnoid hemmorage and was in a coma. The doctors best hope for me was either I would remain in a coma, and if I did come out I would be a vegtable. My husband kept pressure on them to continue to care for me. I was clinging to life over those 3 weeks ICU. Today although I have problems, I am like anyone else. If it was up to the doctors there was no hope, but apparently they do not know everything.
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