Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra features stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Schiavo Case Raises Medical Ethics Questions, 03/28/05
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june05/schiavo_3-28.html

Initiating Questions:

1. What is starvation?
2. Are there methods of keeping people alive without food or water?
3. What have you heard about the woman in Florida, Terri Schiavo, at the center of a debate over life and death?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. How long ago did doctors remove Terri Schiavo's feeding tube?

After 11 days without a feeding tube, Terri Schiavo is getting closer to death. Her parents argue that their daughter is being cruelly starved to death, a claim disputed by some doctors who say patients in Schiavo's state have no knowledge of "starvation."

2. Why do some doctors say that removing Schiavo's feeding tube is not a cruel act?

But many doctors familiar with the Schiavo case and other cases of people in a "persistent vegetative state" as courts have stated Schiavo to be in, say that what is happening to Schiavo is not starvation in the sense that most people think of it.

"Patients in a persistent vegetative state give no sign of experiencing pain and suffering in any way that we can relate to," Dr. Russell Portenoy, a neurologist and chairman of the Department of Pain Medicine and Palliative Care at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, told the NewsHour.

3. How does a feeding tube like Schiavo's work?

For people like Schiavo, in a state of little to no consciousness due to brain damage, feeding tubes that funnel nutrition directly into the stomach are the only means of sustenance.

While there are different kinds of feeding devices, the one that Schiavo has -- a gastrostomy tube -- uses a small hollow catheter, or tube, to provide nutrition and hydration in the form of liquid food, fluids and medication. The tube is inserted by cutting a small hole in the patient's abdomen, guiding it through into the stomach and then stitching up the hole around the tube to prevent shifting.

4. Why did Schiavo initially need the feeding tube?

Schiavo has been kept alive by this means of life support since 1990 when she suffered heart failure from complications of the eating disorder bulimia and fell unconscious.

Lack of oxygen caused damage to the parts of the brain that controlled thinking, emotion and memory, despite images released by her family showing Schiavo appearing to smile and react to stimulation.

5. What would happen if food or water were put in her mouth?

People in Schiavo's state "have no knowledge of food," according to Dr. Sean Morrison of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

"They don't recognize food," Morrison told The New York Times. "If you put food in their mouth, it would sit there until they took a breath, and then that food would go down into the lungs."

6. What is happening to Terri Schiavo, according to her parents?

Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, say their daughter is being allowed to slowly and painstakingly starve to death, a violation of her civil rights.

Already, according to the Schindlers, Schiavo is showing signs of dehydration. Her lips are dry, her skin is flaking, her eyes are sunken and her breathing is strained.

7. What will happen to Schiavo if the tube is not replaced?

Without the feeding tube, Schiavo could die within days. Her organs would slowly shut down, toxins would build up in her system, she would fall into a coma and her heart would eventually stop.

"Typically patients who are toward the end of life and do not have access to nutrition or hydration slowly get quieter and sleepier; they lapse into coma. The coma gradually deepens and then finally they die," Portenoy said.

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. Are Terri Schiavo's parents right in claiming that their daughter is being starved to death in a cruel fashion? Does it matter that she may not be able to feel hunger? Is it still starvation?

2. What would you want done in the event you were in a similar state to Terri Schiavo? Who would you want making the decision about whether to keep you alive or not?

3. Consider what Dr. Kathleen Jamieson said about the language being used by both sides of the Schiavo case? Have you noticed language playing to your emotions?

Write a 500-800 word essay on any of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org]. Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.