Terri Schiavo

In the latest unit of my Gifted and Talented Class we have been discussing the case of Terri Schiavo. Terri was 26 when she collapsed at home from a heart attack. The heart attack left her with extensive brain damage. Many people believe that this heart attack was an effect from Terri being bulimic. 3 years after her heart attack, Terri's family, the Schindlers, request that Mr. Schiavo was to be removed as Terri's guardian. This request is denied. In May of 1998, 5 years later, Michael Schiavo (Mr. Schiavo) files a petition to remove Terri's feeding tube. After many years, arguments, debates, appeals in court, and petitions, in October 2003 Mrs. Schiavo's feeding tube is removed. A few days later a law passed giving Jeb Bush the authority to keep Terri's feeding tube in her. The next day, the tube is reinserted. This law is eventually struck down, and there are more court cases throughout the years. The case is even brought up to the House of Representatives and the Senate, but the Supreme Court refused to become involved. On March 18th, 2005 Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was removed permanently. During the next 13 days appeals were made to replace the tube but they all failed. On March 31, 2005 Terri Schiavo was pronounced dead 13 days after the removal of her feeding tube. After her death there was an autopsy performed to see her brain damage.

On the left side is a average brain. On the right is the ammount of damage they found in Terri's brain. The dark black represents water in the brain. The white dot in the middle is what was monitoring her brain.

I do believe that it was justified to disconnect Terri. Although it goes against my moral beliefs, she had no way of being able to live. Even if Terri could ever wake up, her life wouldn't be very worth living. Her brain damage was extremely extensive as you can see in the picture above. Terri was already depressed about something before she suffered from the heart attack. The fact that she was bulimic shows that she wasn't happy with herself. Bulimia is an extreme measure, and I'm sure that just weight issues were the only contributing factor to her bulimia. Terri was already close to being dead. I believe that disconnecting Terri was justified, but not the way that she was disconnected. Removing her feeding tube is like cutting off someone's food supply.

Gattaca and Natal Spectrum

Recently in my Gifted and Talented class we watched the movie Gattaca. This movie is about a world where people are not conceived naturally, but instead are born by the method of pre- implantation genetic diagnosis for non-deleterious traits. These people are known as valids, and those born naturally as invalids.  The movie focuses on one character, Vincent Freeman, an invalid child. Throughout the movie he struggles to find his place at a space port called Gattaca. When he discovers that the company is prejudice, Vincent becomes a "borrowed latter." He poses as a valid, Jerome Eugene Morrow, and is able to work at Gattaca. The real Jerome Eugene Morrow (known as Eugene) was a sports star, but became physically disabled. Eugene would supply Vincent with anything that contained his DNA: hair, skin, blood, even urine so he could pass as a valid. When the mission director is mysteriously murdered, everyone at Gattaca is under investigation- including Vincent. While investigating, the investigators find Vincent's real DNA, and suspect him. Little do they know that the real Vincent is right under their noses, as Jerome Morrow. When the investigators finally catch the real murderer, Vincent's boss, Vincent goes to see the head investigator. When he meets with the head investigator, Vincent sees that it is his younger brother, Anton who was better than him in everything. In the end, Vincent is able to achieve his dream, and go to Titan.

I felt that this movie was very dark and disturbing. I did not enjoy this movie. Gattaca showed the evils to having a pre- implantation genetic diagnosis for non-deleterious traits society, while showing no benefits of the process. I thought that this movie was unnecessarily violent, and very dark. This movie made me very uncomfortable, thinking that this could happen to our world.


There are many topics such as pre- implantation genetic diagnosis for non-deleterious traits that are under controversial debate. People view these topics differently, and everyone has opinions on these topics. I have listed these topics from what I believe as least controversial to most controversial:

1.       1. Natural Reproduction

2. 2. Fertility drugs: Prescription drugs which increase a woman’s chance of becoming pregnant

3. 3. Carrier testing: Genetic tests of parents that show the risk of passing on a genetic disorder

4. Prenatal testing: genetic screening of fetus for genes that cause disorders

5.Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis for Diseases: Fertilization of sperm and egg in a Petri dish. Embryos are screened for a certain genetic disorder.  Those without the defective gene are inserted into the female reproductive tract via a syringe in a doctor’s office.

6. In Vitro Fertilization: Fertilization of sperm and egg in a Petri dish.  Viable embryos are chosen and inserted into the female reproductive tract via a syringe in a doctor’s office.

7.Artificial Insemination: Insertion of sperm into female reproductive tract by syringe in a doctor’s office

8.Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis for Non-deleterious Traits: Fertilization of sperm and egg in a Petri dish. Embryos are screened for genes of non-deleterious traits (such as hair color, height, sex).  Those with desired genes are inserted into the female reproductive tract via a syringe in a doctor’s office.

9.Cloning: The creation of an organism that is an exact genetic copy of another.  

I chose this in this order because first of all, natural birth is the least controversial- it is completely natural, nothing added. Fertility drugs are more controversial than natural birth because you are adding drugs to get pregnant, but it doesn't affect what kind of child is born. Next I had carrier testing because once again, it doesn't affect the child being born, but shows if it is possible for that child to have a disease without testing the eggs. After that there is prenatal testing, which is similar to carrier testing, but it tests the fetus instead of the parents. This is more controversial because it shows if the child has disease, but once it’s already conceived.  Next is In Vitro Fertilization, which is also known as test tube babies. This topic is more controversial than the previous ones because it is unnatural and occurs outside the human body. Artificial Insemination, which is next, is more controversial because it is an injection into the human body, rather than meeting them both outside of the body. After that is pre-implantation genetic diagnosis for non-deleterious traits. This is like the designer babies, where you can pick and choose the traits of your child. This is what happened in the movie Gattaca where society became entirely made of children who are basically perfect. Finally, I have cloning as the most controversial, since by cloning someone many times, they truly never die. This method is very unnatural.

I personally think that humans should stop after carrier testing. After carrier testing, the other methods are unnatural, and would affect the outcome of the child, produce a child unnaturally, or like cloning, reproduce someone completely unnaturally. Carrier testing is the last one of these methods that is natural, and does not affect the outcome of the person being produced, if chosen to be produced.

Choices and Values

In my Gifted and Talented class, we are now transitioning to a new unit of ethics. After a few days of learning about terms such as values, and morals, we took a survey on our own values. Based on some questions that I answered, my results were:

• Education, Intelligence, Wisdom
• Love, Friendship, Personal closeness
• Religion, Spirituality
• Fulfillment, Intellectual and Vocational achievement
• Courage

I believe that these values fit me closely, but are not entirely accurate. Education, intelligence and wisdom fit me very well. I enjoy learning every day, and I like teaching other people and helping them learn. Love, friendship, and personal closeness also fit me accurately. I enjoy spending time with friends, and getting close to other people. Being close and having a meaningful relationship with God is important to me. I pray every night, and attend church as much as I can. I feel that fulfillment, intellectual and vocational achievement fits me as well. I like to achieve my goals and work hard towards them. Setting goals for myself is a big part of my life. However, I don't really think that courage fits me that well. I would like to be courageous and think of myself as a courageous person, but I don't think it's a value that I truly have. I was surprised by this answer.

The Trouble with Geniuses Parts 1 &2

For the past few weeks, my Gifted & Talented class has been reading the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. The book is about success, and how a person comes to be successful.  Gladwell says that the opportunity that one has defines their success, and shows this through many examples. He talks about advantage, and how that plays a big role in success. In the book, Gladwell also mentions how to become good at something, you must spend time on it. He uses many famous people to prove his points, such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and The Beatles. In fact, Gladwell writes, "We do owe something to parentage and patronage.......beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot. It makes a difference where and when we grew up."

In chapters 3 and 4 of Outliers (The trouble with Geniuses Parts 1 and 2), Gladwell emphasizes his point on how most people that win prizes and are very successful in life are not always those who have a high IQ. For much of the two chapters, he talks about who some say is the smartest man on Earth, Chris Langan. Langan has an IQ of 195. Einstein only had an IQ of 150. Gladwell writes about Chris's life, how no one cared or recognized that he was smart. Langan was officially considered a genius, and nothing less. However, Langan dropped out of college- twice. The first time, Langan's mother forgot to renew his scholarship, and so Langan quit. The second time, the college was giving Langan a hard time, so Langan also quit that school too. Now Langan lives married on his own farm in Milwaukee after years of being a bar bouncer. One would think that a genius like Langan would go on to be a doctor, or a profession of a similar sort. But Langan turned out to be a bar bouncer! For someone of Langan's potential, that is not very practical.

On the other hand, Gladwell also writes about Robert Oppenheimer, who was a physicist who helped to develop the atomic bomb during WWII. As a child, Oppenheimer was at a very similar level to Langan, they were both geniuses. However, Oppenheimer's parents cared about his education. He came from a much better background. Although Oppenheimer was slightly crazy by the fact that he tried to poison his tutor, he was extremely brilliant. Oppenheimer possessed something that Langan didn't, "practical intelligence." This is knowing what to say at the right times, to the right people. Gladwell also makes many other points about how it really doesn't matter how much of a genius someone is. As long as they have the potential to be smart, and the right background, they have a great potential to be successful.

In my Gifted & Talented class, we defined successful as "to maintain a balance between financial stability and happiness with self and others and to accomplish the goals you want to achieve." In an interview that my class saw about Chris Langan, he said that he was happy with his life. He's married, he owns his own farm, and he still continues to surround himself with knowledge and other things that he loves. He has enough money to do what he wants, and I think that he has achieved most of his life goals. Chris Langan might not be rich and famous, but he is definitely successful. He fits our class definition almost like a glove.

There is a lot that I'll take away from this chapter. First of all, I now realize that some of the people who are famous and rich aren't much more of a genius than I am. They just had better chances and opportunities than others. I know now that it doesn't really matter in terms of being successful how smart I am. I know that I come from an excellent background, and that will help me in life. But I now also know that being successful isn't just about being rich. It's also about the pursuit of happiness. There are those who may think that Oppenheimer was successful. Sure, he was rich, and famous, and remembered through history. But Oppenheimer wasn't happy like Langan. Oppenheimer was in a state of depression for most of his life. And because of this, I would say that Langan is more successful than Oppenheimer ever was. I strive to be as successful as Langan.

Kindergarten Debate

The New York Times piece by Sam Wang and Sandra Aamodt, "Delay Kindergarten at your Child's Peril," was much in contrast with the first chapter of Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers. They both spoke of how a child who starts later then their peers, and the effects from it. This delay is also known as redshirting.
In Outliers, Gladwell speaks of how being older brings a "accumulative advantage." I agree with this statement, and I have seen it applied in real life. Like how the book mentions, athletes who are born earlier in the year have had more time to practice, and are at a physical advantage to those who's birth dates are towards the end of the year. Also in many circumstances, this applies to school. Those who are born within the first few months of the year have an advantage to others. They have had more time learning math, and reading.
Nevertheless, I disagree with Wang and Aamodt. They claim that redshirting affects a child's learning in a negative way. I have seen myself that holding a child back doesn't leave them behind. My cousin has a learning disability in which he does not hear, and understand as well as other children. He is also unable to process multiple requests at the same time. Since the problem was noticed before he began schooling, my aunt held him back a year. Then, she placed him in a special needs school. There my cousin excelled, and did extremely well in school. He caught up, and is at the level of most children his age. All because he waited a year. This year, he was placed into the regular public school, and he is doing very well.

Introductory Blog Post

-First name: emily (:
-Grade: Freshmen
-Favorite subjects in school: Does lunch count? Lunch,
Geometry, Gifted and Talented, and English.
-Favorite topics to learn about: Mythology
-Hobbies/Interests/What you do in your free time: Play lots of soccer, play piano, and read.
-Potential career goal: Something with computers..
-What makes you happy: Soccer, piano, reading, spending time with my friends, eating......(: