Schiavo's Brain Was Severely Deteriorated

NYT reported An autopsy on Terri Schiavo backed her husband's contention that she was in a persistent vegetative state, finding that she had massive and irreversible brain damage and was blind, the medical examiner's office said Wednesday. It also found no evidence that she was strangled or otherwise abused. But what caused her collapse 15 years ago remained a mystery. The autopsy and post-mortem investigation found no proof that she had an eating disorder, as was suspected at the time, Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner Jon Thogmartin said.... He also said she was blind, because the ''vision centers of her brain were dead,'' and that her brain was about half of its expected size when she died 13 days following the feeding tube's removal.... ''The brain weighed 615 grams, roughly half of the expected weight of a human brain,'' he said. ''This damage was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons.''

I said at the time that it was right to allow Terri to die, that passing special legislation was a mistake, the courts were right in rejecting the appeal, but I wish that if they felt it was unconstitutional that they should have determined that, and not just ignored the law, and that regardless of what you might have thought should have or should not have happened regarding Terri Schiavo, the most important thing we have to learn about this sad situation is that everyone needs to have a written Living Will