Teri Schiavo Autopsy

Just this morning the autopsy results for Teri Shiavo were made public. Listening to some of the report it appeared that there was no evidence that Teri suffered from any kind of physical abuse from her husband. There were reports during this fiasco that her husband had abused her while she was paralyzed and that some of her bones were broken due to this. The spokesman reporting the results indicated that all bone deterioration and fractures were consistent with patient's in her state. She appears to have suffered from osteoporosis, which weakened her bones and joints, and caused compression fractures during physical therapy. You can view an article on the autopsy here.

This just reminds us of why politicians should not get involved in family decisions like this. The far-right took this family tragedy and twisted it to their own ends. This poor girl COULD NOT SEE!!!! The video of her watching the balloon and smiling at people was pitiful to watch, but was misleading. It made it appear she was seeing these things but from the autopsy there is no possibility she could have seen this because the part of her brain that registers signals from the eyes was dead. The part of her brain that controls awareness and cognitive functions was dead. This poor woman had no chance of ever recovering from this tragedy. According to Jon Thogmartin during the press conference :

"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."

There are a lot of people in the Republican party, talk radio and conservative blogs who owe Michael Shiavo a huge apology. But you won't see it. It was never really about Teri in the first place. It was about advancing the Far-Right's political agenda.