It’s now official and documented: by the time Terri Schiavo’s died her brain had shrunk and there were no signs of abuse — nothing to back up the claims that she had been abused.
In other words: nothing to CONFIRM the allegations — asserted with absolute certainty by audience-seeking talk show hosts and vote-seeking politicians — that her husband had abused her. The autopsy backs Michael Schiavo’s claims that she was in a persistent vegetative state and that therapy would not have helped mer. And it undermines claims that she had been “starved to death.” The Washington Post:
Terri Schiavo died of the effects of a profound and prolonged lack of oxygen to her brain on a day in 1990, but what caused that event isn’t known and may never be, the physician who performed her autopsy said today.
A meticulous study of the organs, fluids, bones, cells and medical records of the Florida woman who became a cause celebre over the “right to die” also found that her brain was severely shriveled and weighed about half that of a normal adult’s. The damage to it “was irrecoverable, and no amount of treatment or rehabilitation would have reversed” it, said pathologist Jon R. Thogmartin, who is the chief medical examiner for Florida’s sixth judicial district.
The damage was especially severe in the region responsible for vision, making her functionally blind, he added.
The autopsy either ruled out or greatly diminished the likelihood that Schiavo lapsed into a coma 15 years ago as a result of strangulation, beatings, drug overdose, eating disorder or a rare molecular heart defect. All had been mentioned since she collapsed at age 26.
Asked at press conference today whether there was any evidence of neglect or abuse of Schiavo, Thogmartin answered firmly: “No.”
Asked whether the underlying cause of her death will ever be known, he said: “I don’t know.”
Schiavo died at a hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla., on March 31, 13 days after a feeding tube was removed from her stomach.
“She died of marked dehydration. She did not starve to death,” Thogmartin said. As measured by the balance of salt and water in her body fluids, the dehydration was the most severe he had ever seen. This attested to Schiavo’s robust underlying health, and in particular the strength of her heart, the pathologist said…
Thogmartin said a review of Schiavo’s medical records confirmed to him that she was “not a candidate for oral hydration or nutrition,” and couldn’t take enough by mouth to sustain life.
The brain examination was “consistent with a persistent vegetative state,” said Stephen J. Nelson, a neuropathologist who was a consultant to the medical examiner’s office.
Science Tech Today puts it more bluntly:
At the time of the autopsy, her brain weighed 615 grams, about half of that of a healthy woman of her age, and Thogmartin said no amount of therapy would have reversed the massive loss of neurons in her brain.
Schiavo’s husband Michael and her parents engaged in a bitter legal battle over whether she should be allowed to die. The struggle went the whole way to the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Congress, but federal judges insisted that the judgments of the Florida courts should stand, and her feeding and hydration tubes could be disconnected.
Her husband said she would not have wanted to exist in a persistent vegetative state while her parents wanted to keep her alive at all costs.
The debate over Schiavo turned ugly when her parents and others alleged Michael Schiavo of having abused her, of having possibly contributed to her initial injuries and of having sought to speed up her death process when she was in hospice.
Thogmartin said there is no evidence of trauma contributing her collapse, no evidence that there was any abuse or neglect, and no evidence that drugs were administered illegally while she was in the Florida hospice.
Will this close the debate on Schiavo? Absolutely not. Why not?
- Because there are still political forces in the U.S. that to be blunt could care less about facts, medical evidence or even testimony. They will now zero in on a smaller point, or they will call the report a whitewash, or call the doctors liars, or try to spin the autopsy by saying it reaches conclusions totally different that what ANY reader can discover for himself/herself by going on Google and reading several news stories by different reporters. There is a belief that if you repeat a political line over and over as fact there are some who will believe it — even if it isn’t a fact. And there is some truth in that.
- There is still powerful segment within the GOP elite that has big vested interest in advocating or validating whatever position those who will brush this aside advocate. It’s highly unlikely they will simply say “case closed” if those who fought to keep Schiavo connected to machines keep up their clamor and say the autopsy doesn’t prove anything.
- Radio and cable talk shows (on the right and left) seldom admit when they were wrong. They will downplay this report and probably even use it to keep the issue alive, even though Schiavo is physically not around. An attempt to discredit the autopsy report isn’t unlikely.
Here’s one of our key posts on the Schiavo issue.
UPDATE: You can read some early reactions from those who did not want Schiavo disconnected here (thanks Jim for the tip!)
UPDATE II: An AP story notes that alhough many doctors don’t want to judge if Terri Schiavo was in a PVS without examining her, two independent experts say recovery was NOT an option:
MIAMI Without examining Terri Schiavo, many doctors are reluctant to say if the brain-damaged Florida woman was in a persistent vegetative state.
Yet after hearing and reviewing some details of Schiavo’s autopsy, two experts are convinced that recovery simply was not an option for Schiavo — no matter what measures were taken.
A professor of neurology at the University of Florida-Jacksonville says “the biggest test” in cases like this is time. Doctor Michael Pulley says if there has not been evidence of improvement in 15 years, “it’s not going to happen.”
AND:
The chief of neuropathology at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, Doctor Karen Weidenheim, says “if you’re an adult and your brain is half of what it should be, almost certainly you’re going to have severely restricted function.”
That explains our country’s politicians…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.