Well the results are in on Schiavo: Wishful thinking wasn't going to bring her back.

The autopsy results are clear. There was absolutely nothing incriminating towards her husband; half of her brain had dissolved (as he alleged) and she was not capable of eating or drinking by mouth.

For the religious zealots who interfered in this matter... I would ask all of you... would ANY of you want to "live" like that? *I*, personally, wouldn't even consider such an existence.

Does that mean that those involved in attempting to legislate an extension to this woman's "life," are to be condemned for it, As Dr. Dean/Mr. Hyde routinely attempts?

No.

Support of that effort was an error in judgment, but the motivation for that interference appeared, on the whole, at least, to be altruistic in nature.

The lesson learned? Stay out of other people's business and stop interfering when you don't happen to like the outcome.




Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - Page updated at 08:48 AM

Schiavo autopsy shows no sign of trauma, official says

By Mitch Stacy
The Associated Press

LARGO, Fla. — Terri Schiavo did not suffer any trauma prior to her 1990 collapse and her brain was about half of normal size when she died, according to results released today of an autopsy conducted on the severely brain-damaged woman.

Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner Jon Thogmartin concluded that there was no evidence of strangulation or other trauma leading to her collapse. He also said she did not appear to have suffered a heart attack and there was no evidence that she was given harmful drugs or other substances prior to her death.

Autopsy results on the 41-year-old brain damaged woman were made public today, more than two months after Schiavo's death ended an internationally watched right-to-die battle that engulfed the courts, Congress and the White House and divided the country.

She died from dehydration, he said.

He said she would not have been able to eat or drink if she had been given food by mouth as her parents' requested.

"Removal of her feeding tube would have resulted in her death whether she was fed or hydrated by mouth or not," Thogmartin told reporters.

Thogmartin said that Schiavo's brain was about half of its expected size when she died March 31 in a Pinellas Park hospice, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed.

"The brain weighed 615 grams, roughly half of the expected weight of a human brain. ... This damage was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons."

Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company