Comments from the North Woods

Yeah, may as well beat this Schiavo abomination to death:
Here is description of starving and dehydrating to death... this is supposed to be 'a gentle death'? (NY Times, freakin commies...)
Here is an email sent me today, written by a recent grad of the Beth-El College of Nursing:


The exact rate of starvation and dehydration in a given individual is
impossible to predict exactly due to the number of variables involved.
However, it is certain that a person deprived of water will eventually
dehydrate and die and that a person that is deprived of food will
eventually starve to death. The following summation is the result of reading
I have done over the years from a variety of sources, some of which I
do not have available to refer to. It is my intent to summarize from
several sources and more or less common knowledge.
The human body has been seen to survive for over sixty days without
food, though in those cases the persons were consuming water, therefore
they actually starved. The body will dehydrate before it starves, thus
if a person is deprived of both food and water, they won't starve, they
will dehydrate.
Dehydration is a progressive process that affects every body tissue.
It is a relatively well known fact that a fair percentage of the human
body is in fact water. Water is essential to maintain fluid balance in
the body. Fluid balance is essential to things such as chemical
reactions in the body that produce energy, function of the brain, blood flow
and circulation, and maintenace of tissues (skin, eyes, all other
organs). Many people have experienced mild dehydration. The symptoms are
usually headache, dry mouth, nausea, and slight drying of the skin. If
dehydration were to continue, the headache would grow worse, the person
would feel feverish, dry mouth would increase, the eyes would begin to dry
and likely feel like they were burning. As the process goes on, the
person can become delirious, portions of the brain would slowly die off.
It is ultimately a slow and painful death.
Starvation takes longer than dehydration. In the case of dehydration,
the body requires energy. When no more is available from food, the body
first begins to digest fat stores. Once those are exhausted, it turns
to the other tissues in the body. The body prioritizes tissues in order
of importance and digests vital things last. Death can occur from
kidney failure because some of the self digestion can produce more toxins
than the kidneys can handle. Theoretically, barring kidney failure, one
could simply digest a critical portion of the body and die that way. The
most thourough research of starvation was probably conducted by the
Nazis in World War II. Some claim that death by starvation is not
unpleasant, however, those alive to make the claim would not appear to be in
the best position to speak on the point. It is true that digestion of
some tissues can produce endorphins, but that is not true of all tissues.
A person dying of starvation will feel constantly cold as they will
have insuffient energy and fat to stay warm. They may also experience
acidosis, a condition in which digestion of certain tissues causes the pH
in the body to rise beyond the limits that the body can handle.
As for myself, I would not want to be starved or dehydrated. Both are
lingering deaths that are likely to have many unpleasant aspects. I do
not fear death itself, but dying a slow painful death is something I
would prefer to avoid. I would far rather be shot.

Gotta love the talent for understatement...