One would think, with recent stories about coma patients waking after almost 20 years, and Jesse Ramirez coming out of his “persistent vegetative state,” that many in the media would understand the connection to the Terri Schiavo case and the reality of what was done to her. But Bobby Schindler points out that the media has done no such thing:

In an ABC News just a couple of weeks ago regarding Jesse Ramirez, they made certain to separate his situation from Terri’s. “But ethicists debate the extent to which this comparison is valid. This guy was not hopeless and in a persistent vegetative state by any means.”

Here is a USA Today story from June 2005. “The cases of Wallis and Schiavo are different biologically. Both slipped into comas when their brains were first injured, but then they diverged. Schiavo remained vegetative while Wallis moved into a state of limbo.”

And a Washington Post article from September 2006. “But Owen, Schiff and others stressed that the research does not indicate that many patients in vegetative states are necessarily aware or likely to recover. Schiavo, in particular, had suffered much more massive brain damage for far longer than thhe patient in Britain, making awareness or recovery impossible, they said.”

The above mentioned stories illustrate what we have been saying all along, where there is life, there is hope. When faced with the choice between life and death – choose life, therefore, so that you and your descendants may live! All life – whether it’s an embryo in a petri dish, an unborn child, a brain damaged patient unable to communicate or the terminally sick and the elderly – should be protected and preserved, loved and cherished.