Terri Schiavo's autopsy results were released today, and guess what? It turns out that everything that the religious wingnuts said was completely wrong. We were shocked — shocked — to find that the medical examiner agreed that Terri's condition was beyond any chance of improvement. You can read the autopsy report for the full details (link from Ed Brayton), or check out this article from ABC News:

The autopsy released Wednesday on Terri Schiavo backed her husband's contention that she was in a persistent vegetative state, finding she was severely and irreversibly brain-damaged and blind as well. It also found no evidence that she was strangled or otherwise abused before she collapsed.

...

The autopsy showed that Schiavo's brain had shrunk to about half the normal size for a woman her age and that it bore signs of severe damage.

"This damage was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons," said Pinellas-Pasco County Medical Examiner Dr. Jon Thogmartin, who led the autopsy team. He also said she was blind, because the "vision centers of her brain were dead."

Well.

She was "severely and irreversibly brain-damaged." Apparently that whole thing about how she might improve with treatment was bullshit, huh? We also noted that she was blind. So that whole "she follows a balloon with her eyes" thing was also bullshit. There was also no evidence of abuse. So that whole "her husband was abusive" thing is, like the items above, bullshit.

It doesn't end there — read the rest of the article, and you'll see that just about every claim made by those clamoring to keep the feeding tube in place has been systematically refuted. Apparently it wasn't just a vast "culture of death" conspiracy. Who'd've thought?

Not that any of this is shocking. What's shocking is that there will still be lots of people for whom this autopsy means nothing. Through either ignorance or sheer force of rock-headed will they will continue to repeat the same bullshit that this report shows to be false. This won't matter to them — in fact, nothing will change their stance.

Nevertheless, attorney David Gibbs III said Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, continue to believe she was not in a vegetative state and questioned the conclusion that she was blind.

As we've said before, we can certainly sympathize with the Schindlers — but it's time to let go. We get the sense that if the autopsy revealed nothing but a puff of smoke in her head, they would still question the conclusion that her condition was irreversible.

This whole thing is sad. What happened to Terri in the first place was sad, the whole struggle was sad, the media circus was sad, and it's sad that this autopsy had to be done just to show something that any rational person already knew. How sad that it still won't change some people's minds.

We hope that this is the end of a story that should never have been anything more than an intensely personal and private affair.

[For more information, read our other posts on Terri Schiavo.]