told you it was the 80s yeah and youre wrong. In 1963, an Instruction from the Holy Office (now the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) lifted the ban on cremation Link

Only partially wrong. From your page:

In 1963, an Instruction from the Holy Office (now the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) lifted the ban on cremation by allowing it in certain circumstances provided that the reasons for choosing cremation were not contrary to Christian belief. However, burial of the body was clearly to be preferred. No allowance was made for any prayer or ritual to be used with the cremated remains. In other words, all services were to be in the presence of the body of the deceased, with cremation allowed only afterwards.

The corollary to the "Right good, left bad" and "Straight good, homo bad" mottos on JU -- "Breeders good, childless bad."

Why do conservatives want to shove everybody in the same box?

The corollary to the "Right good, left bad" and "Straight good, homo bad" mottos on JU -- "Breeders good, childless bad." Why do conservatives want to shove everybody in the same box?

And just what the he** does this have to do with what we were talking about?

I am going to fall back to the original point Brad was making.

If the scenario played out a Brad described (as has the Scheivo's has), as parents, you should know beforehand what your child's wishes are. You should also know beforehand what your child's spouse's wishes are. That means talking to the pair either before or shortly after the wedding, as well as helping them set up the living wills and power of attorney papers.

My wife and I had talked about living wills and were well aware of each others wishes and desires. We did not set up the living wills until we bought our first home. We are again going to look at the wills and power of attorney paperwork to make sure they are still tight legally (our wishes have not changed). What we have not done is have formal discussions with out parents about our wished, but we have had casual conversations about it, so they are all well aware of our wishes. We are also going to make sure that our children know, that conversation waits until they are a bit older though…

she's dead. game over

I know.....SUCKS don't it? And not the game over part either.

I find it very sad that anyone die under such circumstances.

BTW, Myr, you are a bit transparent when you use the term "breeders".

Back on subject, when I first heard of this case I instantly thought of what I would want to have done if I were in her situation.  I thought I would want to be put to sleep (no, that doesn't mean starved to death!).  But then I took a look at the situation as a parent.  I heard all of the miraculous stories of people snapping out of decade or more comas or of some new treatment coming along.  I thought of how desparately I would cling to any shred of hope if it were my own child.  I also thought, if there is any doubt of what her wishes would be (which there are plenty) why not let the people who want to care for her do so?  When in doubt, chose life.  It works that way for murderers, why not for some completely innocent brain damaged young woman?

No allowance was made for any prayer or ritual to be used with the cremated remains. In other words, all services were to be in the presence of the body of the deceased, with cremation allowed only afterwards.

He is too young to understand.  What is is, and is not always what the documents say that is allowed.  Check out "The Church in America" to see how the Vatican has allowed wide latitude to the American Church for many years, up until recently when Pope John Paul II tried to bring it back into compliance.

Oh, you dont know how to read that?

He is too young to understand. What is is, and is not always what the documents say that is allowed. Check out "The Church in America" to see how the Vatican has allowed wide latitude to the American Church for many years, up until recently when Pope John Paul II tried to bring it back into compliance. Oh, you dont know how to read that?

Dr. Guy--Now, I'm confused. The Catholic Church has allowed cremation since 1963 under the condition that it did not interfer with belief in the resurrection. However, they would not perform a mass over the cremated remains, so the cremation could not take place until after the funeral mass. Later they eased up on this last part.

I think everyone is saying the same thing, but arguing that the other is wrong.

The point is, it is not against the catholic religion to be cremated.

Back to the article.

I think the basic idea behind the article is simply that people without children could not possibily have relationships with other human beings that are close enough to cause them extreme anguish should something happen to that other human being--or in a less wordy way, parents are more compassionate than nonparents.

I disagree--obviously, because I am childless and don't like to have my opinion devalued, but also because I think that the majority of adults are closer to their spouses than they are to their parents. Remember, we are talking about adults, not kids. Chances are that spouses are going to have had these discussions, where as parents and their adult children have not.

Moral of the whole story--get it in writing, certified by a lawyer and make your wishes very vocally known to a lot of people. Don't let the courts determine your fate.

He is too young to understand. What is is, and is not always what the documents say that is allowed. Check out "The Church in America" to see how the Vatican has allowed wide latitude to the American Church for many years, up until recently when Pope John Paul II tried to bring it back into compliance. Oh, you dont know how to read that? Dr. Guy--Now, I'm confused. The Catholic Church has allowed cremation since 1963 under the condition that it did not interfer with belief in the resurrection. However, they would not perform a mass over the cremated remains, so the cremation could not take place until after the funeral mass. Later they eased up on this last part. I think everyone is saying the same thing, but arguing that the other is wrong. The point is, it is not against the catholic religion to be cremated.

It's "still" not completely kosher with the church.

In the United States up until 1997, the Order of Christian Funerals clearly indicated that if cremation had been chosen, cremated remains were not to be brought into church for the funeral Mass. Even now this is permitted only in cases where special circumstances warrant it and the bishop approves. The reasoning is that the funeral rites are intended to honor the body of the deceased.

Even now someone who is cremated can have problems with the church.

The new cremation regulation, dated March 21, 1997, was granted by the Holy See as an addition, or indult, to the Order of Christian Funerals. It permits U.S. Latin-rite bishops to decide whether to allow a person's cremated remains at Catholic funeral Masses in their dioceses. The permission is to be granted on a case-by-case basis. It is also clear in the indult that when cremation is chosen, "it is greatly to be preferred that the funeral liturgy take place in the presence of the body of the deceased prior to its cremation." But when cremation has already occurred a bishop can grant permission for a properly sequenced ritual: vigil, then funeral Mass, then committal rite.

If you are looking for the rule of law from the courts, good luck. A judge can break from the black letter law at a whim. I think it is a good thing to have the Pres. and others take a look at the courts. You do not want a closed door in a matter like this.

I think the divide is more between people who accepted the doctors' verdict and people who wanted Terri to live, based on the assumption that the doctors were wrong. It's a divide between reason and emotion, a divide between accepting the world and a certain idealism. Unfortunately it appears to be an idealism that required a bad guy.

Thus a husband who for all we know merely insisted that his wives wishes be followed was accused of murdering his wife and having mistreated her when she was still alive and aware.

An article on Foxnews.com appears to describe the two sides fairly well, and I quote:

"An attorney for Michael Schiavo announced earlier this week that there would be an autopsy of Terri's body, to settle once and for all questions over her physical state as well as some recent allegations that Michael Schiavo abused and attempted to kill his wife after she was hospitalized in 1990.

The Schindlers have not objected to the autopsy; they hope the findings will prove their daughter was not in a persistent vegetative state as has been diagnosed by numerous doctors. They and their supporters have said, against all known medical evidence, that Schiavo was able to communicate and respond. In one emergency legal filing last week, they claimed she had said she wanted to live."

Michael Schiavo (I always got the spelling wrong, I think) still believes that making the facts more known would somehow persuade his opponents to believe him and the doctors, while the Schindlers are still arguing against the findings of the doctors.

Well, I don't believe that the autopsy will convince anybody. We have all seen the scans of Terri's brain and read the opinions of her doctors and other medical professionals. At least we all had access to them and could have read them. We have believed of them what we wanted to believe. And whoever didn't want to believe that the scans showed that Terri's brain was almost completely gone and that she was unconscious and unaware and could not have been recovered, will still not believe it after the autopsy. The only point of the autopsy seems to be to avoid having people to take its absence as another "proof" for the great evils of Michael Schiavo.

As for the question of whether her parents should have been her guardians rather than her husband, there seems to be some confusion regarding why a guardian even came into it. It was to make Terri's wishes known to the hospital so that Terri could die or not, depending on what she would have wanted. And given that her husband accepted what the doctors said while her parents still don't, I'm afraid it seems that Michael was probably better suited to make the decision. A human life should not end as a media spectacle, and her parents had no right to make it one. (And in fact they seemed to have tried to convince their supporters to keep a lower profile.)

"President Bush opened a press conference by offering his condolences to Schiavo's "families," perhaps an intentional departure from other lawmakers' statements that exclude mention of her husband, Michael."

I must thank President Bush for being including both "families" of Terri's in his condolences. Intentionally excluding the dead woman's husband is despicable,

"His heartless cruelty continued until the end,"

These were Terri's parents comment when Michael wanted to be alone with his wife at the end. Michael's whereabouts are now unknown.

In only a few weeks we have now managed to make him fear for his life, just because his wife's wish as told by him happened to be not what we would have hoped for, even when we must have known that she could not have recovered. We blame him for continuing his life, while we all lived ours in the last ten years, we call him a murderer because we had the arrogance of claiming that what the courts believed was Terri's wish was really Michael's lie.

We must be really proud of ourselves as a society.

"An attorney for Michael Schiavo announced earlier this week that there would be an autopsy of Terri's body, to settle once and for all questions over her physical state as well as some recent allegations that Michael Schiavo abused and attempted to kill his wife after she was hospitalized in 1990.

And your doctors have already stated that it will not establish anything except the fact that she was brain damaged.  It will not determine if she was brain dead.

If i'm not mistaken the original award was in the millions, but it was later reduced because the court felt that T.S herself had been mostly to blame for her state because it resulted from an eating disorder.

I'd have to agree with the original premise here. I am a completely, totally different person than I was before I became a parent. I don't know if it is instinct, something chemical, who knows.

Dr Guy,

nobody said she was brain dead. It was determined that she was in a persistent vegetative state. Judging from the fact that most of her brain was physically destroyed (the tissue was actually gone) the doctors concluded that a) she could neither think nor feel and she could not possibly recover.

Keeping the body alive didn't help Terri because the part of the brain that was Terri was at that point already gone. You have been fighting for a goal that could not have been achieved and have therefor condemned Terri to not die in dignity when it was first determined that she could not recover but rather to be the central point of a media spectacle.

If you want to do something for human life, concentrate on supporting a patient who can actually be helped.

Some other Bloggers and I have been working to help an Illinois mother who is in a guardianship case where the sister simply paid lawyers ($211,000.00 so far)and the mother can not even talk with her childern. I have never seen anything like it. Don't be fooled, Judges, not you parents, are in control of your children. The Amy Joan Schneider case is a shameless example of our court and the law being in the hands of deal makers and the like. Money is the fuel that drives the court system. Mike S. had to give so much of that money back to lawyers regardless of the outcome. Nothing should be more important than human life and the right to have our children.