URL: Brain-Dead Woman’s Pregnancy Maintained

A brain-dead woman is being kept on life support in hopes that her 21-week-old fetus survives, and the woman’s husband said he is certain that’s what she would have wanted.

Jason Torres said doctors believe the fetus could have a chance if Susan Torres lives another month and her cancer stays away from her uterus.

He said he decided to keep his wife on life support when doctors at Virginia Hospital Center offered him the chance to disconnect the machines after concluding she would not recover.

I have told my husband and family that if I am ever pregnant and brain-dead, as this woman is, I would definitely want to be kept alive under these very circumstances.

The baby is far enough along to have this be a viable option, to have the mother, the natural incubator, continue to function in this capacity.

She may be gone, but there is another life here that may well be able to continue on. This life would be lost were the artificial life support turned off.

Autopsy Report here (Via Michelle Malkin)

You can request a copy of the autopsy request here.

Liveblogged.

Focus was the etiology of the initial collapse and allegations of abuse…

Full autopsy performed April 1st. 274 images were taken.

Cause of collapse: Did she have an eating disorder? Low potassium was probably caused by heart attack and treatment prior to blood draw. Unreliable measure of pre arrest potassium level render diagnosis of bulemia nervosa suspect. No evidence indicates she used or was given drugs.

Caffeine toxicity is unlikely.

Did she have a heart attack? Her heart was normal.

Was she strangled? No trauma was noted on the day of, the day after, or months later. Autopsy did not show trauma, but after 15 years, it might not be seen.

Bone scan one year after Terri’s attack was to look for hetertopic ossification. Autopsy supports this diagnosis. Tissue testing also confirms.

Could she eat by mouth? Records indicate that she would not have been able to eat. She was at high risk for aspiration. After the feeding tube was removed, she would have died whether or not nutrition and hydration were given orally.

After her collapse, was she given something to speed her on her way? There is no evidence to support that Terri was given substances in 1996 and 2004.

No drugs caused her to die or assisted her to death.

Was she in a persistent vegetative state. Brain was profoundly atrophied. Due to neurological damage. Irreversible. No amount of therapy would have helped. She was blind, could not see.

She died of marked dehydration. She did not starve to death.

Manner of death will be recorded as undetermined.

Receipt of credible information will be considered if necessary.

According to the AP, the autopsy report is due out today.

Bill Pellan, chief investigator for the medical examiner’s office, said Tuesday that Thogmartin reviewed police reports, medical records and other documents in trying to determine the cause of her brain damage. The issue of whether she was in a persistent vegetative state “will be addressed,” Pellan said, although he would not comment further Tuesday.

More when known.

Anchoress found this Quick and Dirty IQ to take.

I thought I’d give it a try too.

Your IQ Is 135

Your Logical Intelligence is Exceptional Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius Your Mathematical Intelligence is Genius Your General Knowledge is Genius

Didn’t do too badly, though the 10 weeks of Algebra I just finished sure did help with the Math section!

On the O’Reilly Factor last night…

O’?REILLY: Thanks for staying with us. I’?m Bill O’?Reilly. In the Great Debate segment tonight, is the left wing press undermining the War on Terror by blowing charges of US abuse out of proportion? President Bush thinks so, yesterday he said this to Neil Cavuto:

{begin video clip}

PRESIDENT BUSH: And I will tell you that we treat these prisoners in accordance with international standards. And that’s what the American people expect. When somebody put out that Amnesty International report, they asked me about it. I said it’s just absurd …

{end video clip}

O’?REILLY: With us now is pundit Arianna Huffington who sees things a bit differently. You want to close down Gitmo. You know I’?ve looked at this. I’?ve looked at all the stats we could possibly get a hold of. We sent Colonel David Hunt, our chief military analyst to interview a detainee in Pakistan, he was released. I see no evidence to why we should shut this place down.

HUFFINGTON: Well there is evidence. There is evidence in FBI reports, there is evidence of abuse. And there is the overwhelming evidence that it’?s being used as a recruiting tool for terror.

O’REILLY: But they’?ll find another recruiting tool.
Continue reading →

David McKeague (6^th) Yea: 96 Nay: 0 CONFIRMED

Not Voting – 4
Alexander (R-TN)
Biden (D-DE)
Jeffords (I-VT)
Murkowski (R-AK)

Roll Call will be is here.

Richard Griffin (6^th): Ayes: 95 Nays: 0 CONFIRMED

Not Voting – 5
Alexander (R-TN)
Biden (D-DE)
Jeffords (I-VT)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Obama (D-IL)

Roll Call should/will be is here.

As they were calling the votes, I was able to predict individual votes pretty easily.
Nelson of NE voted Aye.
Salazar of CO voted Aye.
Chaffee, Snowe, Collins Nay
Jeffords, Murkowski did not vote

Confirm Them:

We won, Ted Kennedy lost

Oh frabjous day, Callooh, Callay!!!!!
Bill Pryor has a lifetime appointment to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals! We won! Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer and all their smear jobs failed. They lost. We won, they lost. Pryor is a lifetime judge. I can’t stop saying it. This is so cool. We won, they lost. We beat Teddy K. Oh frabjous day! Callooh, callay!

William Pryor (11^th): Ayes: 53 Nays: 45

Roll Call will/should be is here.

The Senate voted to confirm Janice Rogers Brown 56-43. Bill Frist is calling for cloture on William H. Pryor.

Update: All Republicans and Ben Nelson (NE) voted for Judge Brown.
Update: Roll Call results will be are here.

Update: Final tally on cloture for Judge Pryor: 67-32 to agree to cloture. The final up or down vote is scheduled for tomorrow at 4 pm EDT.
Update: Roll Call result are here.

Dems voting for Cloture on Judge Pryor: Bingaman (NM), Byrd (WV), Carper (DE), Conrad (ND), Inouye (HI), Johnson (SD), Landrieu (LA), Lieberman (CT), Nelson (FL), Nelson (NE), Pryor (AR), and Salazar (CO).

Welcome Scared Monkeys readers. Please take a look around.

Charmaine Yoest at Reasoned Audacity has more on this story as well as links to the Pro-Abortion side. In comments on my first post He Gets Life, She Has the Right to an Abortion, Elisa asks, “How are the abortion rights people spinning it?”

They had named the twins Eric and Gerardo, Jr. after their parents. Does this mean that they’d had ultrasounds? They knew the sex of the children that they then deliberately and violently destroyed? I’ve also noticed that the Entrenched Media is saying that Gerardo merely “stepped on” Erica’s stomach. This report from the Houston Press says:

Erica lay on the bedroom floor, and Jerry, about five foot eight and 180 pounds, stepped onto her stomach, just above the navel. Then he pressed his K-Swiss sneakers into her flesh. Their statements vary as to how often they repeated this process. Jerry said it was two or three times during the week leading up to the miscarriage; Erica said he stepped on her twice in the two weeks prior to the miscarriage.

Stepped on her stomach and then pressed his sneakers in. 180 pounds. That’s not just stepped on, that’s stood on.
Debate Link has a post with quotes and links from others on the Pro-Abortion side.