• Home
  • About
  • BIO
  • Conferences
  • Contact
  • Follow Gerard on FB & Twitter
  • Speaking

Coming Home

Dr. Gerard M. Nadal: Science in Service of the Pro-Life Movement

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« An Open Letter to Pope Francis’ Detractors
Thanksgiving Amidst Joy and Sorrow »

When a Presidential Candidate Calls the Starvation Death of Terri Schiavo, “Much Ado About Nothing”

November 16, 2015 by Gerard M. Nadal

terrischiavo

 

Presidential candidate, Dr. Ben Carson, was recently quoted in the Washington Post  regarding the starvation death undergone by the severely brain injured (and NOT brain dead) Teri Schiavo,

“We face those kinds of issues all the time and while I don’t believe in euthanasia, you have to recognize that people that are in that condition do have a series of medical problems that occur that will take them out,” he said. “Your job [as a doctor] is to keep them comfortable throughout that process and not to treat everything that comes up.”

When the reporter asked whether Carson thought it was necessary for Congress to intervene, he said: “I don’t think it needed to get to that level. I think it was much ado about nothing.”

 

While this has occasioned all manner of denunciations in pro-life quarters, Carson’s comments as a pediatric neurosurgeon are particularly potent, and merit a measured analysis and response.

Recalling that time, many news outlets carried the news that Schiavo was brain dead. If that was what was in Carson’s mind when he made his statement to WaPo, then his comments would appear to make clinical sense, though lacking in any warmth or sensitivity toward the family she left behind. Further, Catholic bioethics would agree that in the case of an active dying process, one would try to keep the individual comfortable, while not treating everything that comes up. But Terri Schiavo existed in a steady state for years. She wasn’t dying, nor was she dead.

There are many of us in science and medicine who contend that what is called, “brain death,” is so broad in its criteria that the majority so labeled are not actually dead yet. It has become a convenient set of criteria to help facilitate the organ transplant industry. The fact that many of these “cadavers” are administered anesthetics during the harvesting should be a rather obvious indication that something is terribly, terribly wrong with our diagnostic criteria for death, especially brain death.

It has always been the contention of Terri Schiavo’s family that they had physicians who challenged the diagnosis of brain death, and that these voices were largely ignored by the media and the courts.

What next becomes troubling about Carson’s comments is the notion that a “brain dead” person could have existed in an intact, dynamic physiological state for years. Dead people don’t track visual stimuli, something that Schiavo did and had captured on video. Doctors for her husband called it a “reflex,” though there is not balloon-tracking reflex that I have ever seen in medicine. In fact, one of the criteria for brain death is the absence of deep reflexes. So how a “dead” brain would be capable of processing visual stimuli and formulating commands to the motor neurons to move the head and eyes along with the side-to-side motion of the balloons, Carson did not say or care to opine.

Dead brains don’t see, don’t process what they can’t see, and don’t issue commands to follow what they can’t see.

They’re dead.

A world-renowned pediatric neurosurgeon certainly knows these things. He should also know that a brain alive enough to have brainwave activity, track visual stimuli, and maintain dynamic, integrated systems functioning is a brain that can’t be, “kept comfortable,” while it is being starved and dehydrated to death.

Carson knows this. He also knows that severely brain damaged people are not the same as people who are dead.

Perhaps the question for Carson in the next debate would be whether he thinks severely brain damaged people such as Terri Schiavo aren’t worth the expenditure of medical and financial resources. If so, then perhaps Dr. Carson might define for us the functionality and worthiness criteria he would have a national healthcare system use in determining when enough is enough.

When is it much ado about nothing, and when does the finality of a single human life degenerate into much ado about nothing?

This scientist would dearly love to know.

Share this:

  • Share
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Email

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

7 Responses

  1. on November 17, 2015 at 7:38 AM Well

    Your “Catholic bioethics”

    Is a sack of [Edited for content ~ G.N.] that’s the problem. Carson called it as is.

    You need to live in the real world instead of this sad fairytale about men rising from the dead.


  2. on November 20, 2015 at 1:14 PM pt-109

    Dr. Nadal’s Catholic bioethics have provided me a moral ballast on some very important issues, even though I am not Catholic. To deny any wisdom is unwise, but to do so distastefully is contemptible. However, personally speaking, I would not want a life like that of Ms. Schiavo, and would be grateful (eternally) to my spouse for ending it.


  3. on November 25, 2015 at 9:31 AM L.

    My grandmother wasn’t brain dead, either, when my family, together with the hospice workers, decided it was time to end her nutrition/hydration. So yes, I’d have to also say, much ado about nothing.


  4. on November 25, 2015 at 11:43 PM Gerard M. Nadal

    Happy Thanksgiving, PT-109 and L. !!


  5. on November 27, 2015 at 8:53 AM L.

    Ah, I’m too late to wish you Happy Thanksgiving in return, so I can only wish you Happy Black Friday — not as nice, but better than nothing.


  6. on November 29, 2015 at 4:33 PM pt-109

    Thank you Dr. Happy cyber Monday to you and L.

    By the way, did you move homes recently? We wanted to send Joseph something for the holidays, and it appears your address has changed.


  7. on November 29, 2015 at 8:46 PM Gerard M. Nadal

    Nope. Still here. send me an email and tell me what address you have.

    Hope your Thanksgiving went well!



Comments are closed.

  • Archives

    • January 2021 (6)
    • November 2020 (1)
    • May 2020 (2)
    • September 2019 (1)
    • May 2019 (2)
    • April 2019 (1)
    • February 2019 (1)
    • April 2018 (2)
    • January 2017 (1)
    • December 2016 (1)
    • November 2016 (1)
    • October 2016 (10)
    • July 2016 (2)
    • June 2016 (1)
    • May 2016 (1)
    • April 2016 (1)
    • March 2016 (1)
    • February 2016 (3)
    • December 2015 (1)
    • November 2015 (2)
    • October 2015 (1)
    • September 2015 (1)
    • August 2015 (3)
    • April 2015 (1)
    • February 2015 (1)
    • December 2014 (3)
    • November 2014 (1)
    • October 2014 (4)
    • September 2014 (15)
    • August 2014 (6)
    • June 2014 (5)
    • May 2014 (1)
    • April 2014 (2)
    • March 2014 (2)
    • February 2014 (1)
    • January 2014 (3)
    • December 2013 (17)
    • November 2013 (9)
    • October 2013 (12)
    • September 2013 (4)
    • July 2013 (2)
    • June 2013 (5)
    • May 2013 (2)
    • April 2013 (3)
    • March 2013 (6)
    • February 2013 (2)
    • January 2013 (1)
    • December 2012 (18)
    • November 2012 (6)
    • October 2012 (13)
    • September 2012 (1)
    • July 2012 (10)
    • June 2012 (13)
    • May 2012 (8)
    • April 2012 (1)
    • March 2012 (11)
    • February 2012 (21)
    • January 2012 (5)
    • December 2011 (18)
    • November 2011 (3)
    • October 2011 (23)
    • September 2011 (24)
    • August 2011 (22)
    • July 2011 (22)
    • June 2011 (29)
    • May 2011 (8)
    • April 2011 (11)
    • March 2011 (18)
    • February 2011 (42)
    • January 2011 (26)
    • December 2010 (30)
    • November 2010 (34)
    • October 2010 (33)
    • September 2010 (16)
    • August 2010 (15)
    • July 2010 (7)
    • June 2010 (21)
    • May 2010 (33)
    • April 2010 (14)
    • March 2010 (41)
    • February 2010 (36)
    • January 2010 (59)
    • December 2009 (59)
  • Categories

    • Abortion (258)
    • Advent (26)
    • Biomedical Ethics (82)
    • Birth Control (51)
    • Bishops (87)
    • Black History Month (10)
    • Breast Cancer (65)
    • Christmas (26)
    • Cloning (4)
    • Condoms (16)
    • COVID-19 (1)
    • Darwin (2)
    • Development (6)
    • Dignity (119)
    • Divine Mercy Novenas (10)
    • DNA (3)
    • Embryo Adoption (2)
    • Embryonic Stem Cell Research (6)
    • Eugenics (29)
    • Euthanasia (8)
    • Family (44)
    • Fathers of the Church (11)
    • Fortnight for Freedom (1)
    • Golden Coconut Award (3)
    • Health Care (14)
    • HIV/AIDS (5)
    • Infant Mortality (2)
    • IVF (4)
    • Joseph (6)
    • Lent (17)
    • Margaret Sanger (19)
    • Marriage (6)
    • Maternal Mortality (2)
    • Motherhood (12)
    • Neonates (1)
    • Personhood (20)
    • Physician Assisted Suicide (4)
    • Planned Parenthood (64)
    • Priests (50)
    • Pro-Life Academy (23)
    • Quotes (10)
    • Radio Interviews (3)
    • Right to Life (34)
    • Roots (1)
    • Sex Education (25)
    • Sexually Transmitted Disease (12)
    • Stem Cell Therapy (7)
    • Transgender (1)
    • Uncategorized (204)
  • Pages

    • About
    • BIO
    • Conferences
    • Contact
    • Follow Gerard on FB & Twitter
    • Speaking

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

WPThemes.


Cancel
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
%d bloggers like this: