Something interesting I learned from the head of the Illinois Organ Donation list: In order to donate your organs you CANNOT BE PRONOUNCED DEAD. You must be alive to be harvested. Evidentally, being dead does something nasty to your organs in very short order, they have to be removed while you are alive and placed on ice to have a chance.
More interesting, we have the ability to seed people with pig organs and those organs, if done correctly (specifically seeded with your own cells) have a much higher acceptance rate then organ transplants or even stem cell transplants.
Even more interesting, scientists are able to make blank stem cells (just like the ones ripped from embryos) from your own skin now. Before they were only able to use stem cells from bone marrow and other places for a few specific applications. For instance, a stem cell from the brain could be used for nervous system. From bone to endocrine system. From muscle to muscular system.
Funny thing is, that’s the research that Pres. Bush funded. :)
But back to Shiavo, there’s a few doctors now who think if she had been allowed to live she may have been restored to a functioning, but not perfect, life now.
Why do you think they keep coma patients on life support or why people pay for cryogenics? Medical science is growing by leaps and bounds every day. Any day could see the cure for cancer, the genetic modification that will end muscular dystrophy in the womb, the vaccine preventing Influenza in the human population for life!
Why anyone would willing want to murder someone for any reason is nuts. I can almost understand murdering someone who is “brain dead” if there was no way to keep up their care without hurting your own children or self. But Shaivo had an organization footing the bills, so that wasn’t an issue, not really.