I was catching up at La Shawn Barber's Corner after a few days' absence and ran across "Death Culturists Say Michael Schiavo ‘Vindicated’." I high-fived my monitor when La Shawn pointed out that manner in which Terri was killed was immoral and can't be vindicated by anything contained in an autopsy report. Many people were too easily led down feel-good bunny trails at the report's release, including, regrettably, several conservatives that I’m declining to name at the last minute. Count on La Shawn to stick to the real issue.

I decided to read the autopsy on my own before reading the mainstream media's interpretations of the event. I'm no doctor, but I am a scientist by training and I figured that I could a better job of interpreting it than 99% of the mainstream media. Here are some of the things that stuck out from the report:

A total of 645 milliliters of cerebrospinal fluid (weighing 678 grams) were recovered upon opening the skull and exposing the brain. The brain was small, with widened sulci and narrow and thinned gyri. It was smaller in its vertical dimension as a result of the hydrocephalus ex vacuo tissue volume loss.

This is to be expected because Terri was severely brain-damaged. What happened is that parts of her brain wasted away and were replaced by cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). The average human brain contains about 140 ml of CSF. Terri’s CSF was much denser than normal because of Terri's dehydration. Normal cerebrospinal fluid in women has a density of about 1.00049 g/ml while Terri's cerebrospinal fluid had a density of 678/645 or 1.051 g/ml.

Brain weight is an important index of its pathologic state. Brain weight is correlated with height, weight, age, and sex. The decedent's brain was grossly abnormal and weighed only 615 grams (1.35 lbs.). That weight is less than half of the expected tabular weight for a decedent of her adult age of 41 years 3 months 28 days.

Interestingly, the mainstream media so often spouted this as proof that killing Terri was justified. But why was brain weight selected as the criteria? Reduced brain-weight can be caused by a variety of things, including stroke, injury, Down’s Syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, or congenital birth defects like encephalopathy. Our brain weight falls by 10% from age 18 to age 80, absent any disease.

Is it possible that reduced brain weight could be a future criterion for pulling someone’s feeding tube? The implications are chilling. I can imagine a society where, once a certain amount of reduced brain weight is determined by MRI, the plug is ordered pulled in order to free up hospital and hospice space. “Say goodbye to grandma, Timmy, because the HMO says that her brain is too small to do her any good.”

Pro-lifers have noted often in the last few weeks that someone who has been dehydrated is going to have a shrunken brain. Was Terri's decreased brain size totally due to dehydration? No, it wasn't. But was her decreased brain size partially due to dehydration? Yes, it was.

Regardless of brain size, though, Terri Schiavo was a human being and denying someone water is a particularly nasty method of killing anyone. The world would be in an uproar if the Iraqis decide to put Saddam to death by dehydration.

Neuropathologic examination alone of the decedent's brain -- or any brain, for that matter -- cannot prove or disprove a diagnosis of persistent vegetative state or minimally conscious state.

In other words, the pathologist refused to say whether Terri was or was not in a Persistent Vegetative State.

No one observed Mrs. Schiavo taking diet pills, binging and purging or consuming laxatives, and she apparently never confessed to her family or friends about having an eating disorder. Recent interviews with family members, physicians, and coworkers revealed no additional information supporting the diagnosis of Bulimia Nervosa and, indeed, many other signs and symptoms of Bulimia Nervosa were not reported to be present.

Well, hell’s bells! All this time we were told that bulimia caused Terri to have a heart attack. She became a veritable poster child for eating disorders. If the doctors got the diagnosis of bulimia wrong, then why are we supposed to assume that they correctly diagnosed a persistent vegetative state, especially when several of her medical caretakers testified that she could respond to outside stimuli?

Mrs. Schiavo’s heart was anatomically normal without any areas of recent or remote myocardial infarction.

Whoops! Apparently the mythical bulimia caused Terri to have a mythical heart attack. Can I buy a diagnosis?

Autopsy examination of her neck structures 15 years after her initial collapse did not detect any signs of remote trauma, but, with such a delay, the exam was unlikely to show any residual neck findings. Even bony anomalies would have likely resolved.

I’m satisfied that Terri was not strangled or hit. Such a thing would have been noted after she was admitted to the hospital.

Mrs. Schiavo suffered a severe anoxic brain injury. The cause of which cannot be determined with reasonable medical certainty. The manner of death will therefore be certified as undetermined.

We don’t know why Terri went into cardiopulmonary arrest and suffered brain damage. We do know, however, that refusing water to a human being is a horrible way to kill someone. Regardless of Terri’s brain size and regardless of whether she was able to respond to the outside world, she had a cruel death inflicted upon her.

Terri’s case may be a watershed event in the “right-to-die” (read “right-to-kill”) movement. Our society has long sanctioned the killing of the unborn. Can killing of those considered unfit to live be far behind?