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.