Posted on 03/21/2005 11:02:18 PM PST by HundredPercenter
The primary reason of government is to protect it's citizens. The argument of states rights and "it's a private matter," regarding Ms. Shindler-Schiavo, must be trumped by common sense.
I, like the next man, want government out of my life. But the case of Terri Shindler's life vs. Michael Schiavo's feelings has to be addressed by our leaders- for it's outcome will set precedent.
Why is everyone so comfortable with this man's (Schiavo) opinion- regarding Terri's life?
As far as I am concerned- a blood relatives decision ( i.e., Father, Mother, Sister) should override a spouse's, who in many cases cannot be trusted (i.e., Scott Peterson). If that is contrary to our modern day law, then perhaps it needs to be changed.
Plus, this man, Schiavo, is no longer committed to Terri. He has another "wife" and two children. So, what you pro-deathers are doing by supporting him is allowing an ex-spouse make the decision to legally kill his ex-wife- a very dangerous precedent indeed.
The only reason why Schiavo is still married to Terri, is to kill her- sad but true.
To my fellow conservatives who are mixed, indifferent or against Terri: stop being so damn glacial and automated on the "law." Just because some crocodile judge ruled in favor of her death, who by the way is legally BLIND and cannot read the documents in front of him, doesn't mean that his decision is the correct one.
The woman is breathing on her own- living. Like a baby, all she requires is food and water to quench her thirst.
The true mark of a great society is how they care for it's weakest citizens- the vulnerable.
Frankly, I do not know how anyone can turn their back on this helpless woman. It truly sickens me when I hear so many callous morons citing court cases, procedure and quoting from the U.S. Constitution- when addressing a matter that is literally the test of the moral fiber of our society.
Forget your rules and what one quack doctor may have said, choose life, choose the wishes of her real family.
Those of you who take the side of Michael Schiavo, may in fact be siding with a murderer.
UPDATE: I see many liberal and so called conservative bloggers cited the biased ABC poll that supported Terri's death. Well, then, HP would like to cite this poll.
Unfortunately- I feel the same. Nonetheless- I have full coverage at www.HundredPercenter.com
Unfortunately- I feel the same. Nonetheless- I have full coverage at www.hundredpercenter.com
What's so conservative about government interference? An act of Congress no less!
Life and death.
When you weed through the zealotry and emotional pleas it appears 7 courts have found it clear Terri died 15 years ago. No amount of 'therapy' can change the organic irreparablity of her state. Those who chant otherwise are as much the charlatan as lil ol' ex-Senator Edwards was with his proclamation that if he and Kerry were elected people like Chris Reeves would rise up and walk again.
Umm. Your facts are wrong. If she died 15 years ago, for one, she would not be able to beathe on her own.
Secondly, well, read this:
PINELLAS PARK, Fla. (BP)--A doctor close to the Terri Schiavo case told the Florida Baptist Witness that the 41-year-old disabled woman could actually be fed orally if it were allowed.
"The important thing for people to understand is that she can eat and swallow right now,” said William Hammesfahr, a neurologist who has examined Schiavo. He is in many of the videos circulated through the news media showing that Schiavo is at times responsive and aware.
"They are truly withholding food from a person who is awake, alert, and can eat and swallow,” Hammesfahr said. After spending at least 10 hours with Schiavo several years ago, he told Florida Judge George W. Greer that she can improve with therapy.
Hammesfahr said his credibility had been questioned at the time, but he has since been vindicated in court and currently maintains a thriving private practice in Clearwater, Fla. Despite reports attacking him, he said he has never lost his license to practice medicine and currently is involved in litigation surrounding the ordeal.
Hammesfahr was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology in 1999 for his work in brain injury and stroke. He is a recognized expert in treating neurological disorders, having successfully treated thousands of patients using vasodilator therapy, which increases blood flow to the brain, thus healing conditions previously thought to be untreatable.
Standing with a handful of supporters outside of the hospice late in the evening Mar. 19, Hammesfahr told the Witness Schiavo previously has swallowed pudding and daily swallows almost two liters of water by virtue of being able to process her own saliva and sinus drainage.
"That’s liquid and that’s the most difficult thing to swallow," Hammesfahr said of her saliva. "If she can swallow that she can swallow food or pudding."
Other doctors who testified before Greer in 2003 had limited exposure to Schiavo and did not complete standard evaluations for brain injuries, Hammesfahr said. The court-appointed doctors maintained Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state (PVS), with no chance for recovery.
"Terri’s not that bad," Hammesfahr said. "She is like a child with cerebral palsy. She can speak. At least when I saw her, she would speak very slowly. She would sort of form words, she would move her arms and legs at command. She could understand questions in English.”
Hammesfahr said there are at least 50 physicians he knows of, in private practice and related to medical universities who have said Schiavo is not in a PVS or in a coma.
In 1990 Schiavo suffered brain damage after her heart stopped. Nearly a decade ago, Schiavo’s husband and legal guardian, Michael Schiavo, petitioned the court to halt the dispensing of nutrition and hydration through a feeding tube to his disabled wife.
Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, as well as family and supporters have argued that she could improve were she provided rehabilitation services. Michael Schiavo has refused to provide those services since around 1993, they say.
Although Michael Schiavo says his wife would want to die, no written request from her exists. Terri Schiavo’s parents have challenged his continued guardianship of their daughter, citing conflict of interest. Michael Schiavo has lived with his girlfriend, by whom he has fathered two children, for 10 years.
Greer ruled Feb. 25 that Schiavo’s nutrition and hydration be discontinued and in subsequent decisions ruled she cannot undergo more medical testing and cannot be fed by mouth. Greer also rebuffed a request by Florida’s Department of Children and Families for a 60-day stay of his motion so that they could investigate allegations that Michael Schiavo has abused and neglected his wife.
Hammesfahr said that about 30 percent of his cases are more severe than Terri Schiavo’s, and that she most likely could improve, whether by his approach or another.
"You can get almost anybody with a brain injury or a stroke better," Hammesfahr said. "I think that’s the long and short of it.
"It’s not that [Schiavo simply] deserves a chance, she deserves rehabilitation," Hammesfahr continued. "She’s not going to get the rehabilitation if she gets killed off here."
Each day Schiavo is off the feeding tube increases the chance that she will end up in a coma, Hammesfahr said. He described what happens to the human body when it is deprived of food and water.
"People who die of starvation, their acid eats through their stomach, they develop infections in their body, their body starts to dissolve from the inside out, they develop seizures, [and] frequently it breaks their back," he said. "They have to have medications to essentially put them into a coma to not have their body break their back or something of that nature."
He explained that the process of putting someone in a coma after withholding nutrition and hydration is part of an "exit protocol" that involves delivering powerful drugs like Morphine and Valium to the patient when they are expected to die.
"The danger for Schiavo is that if she is in a coma, she will not have the type of monitoring that could help her recover if the feeding tube is reinserted.
"Putting a person in coma is very dangerous,” Hammesfahr said, and after 7-8 days she might end up in an irreversible coma or with further brain damage.
Angel Watson, a Pinellas Park, Fla., resident who works with the Caring and Sharing Center for Independent Living, said she once was considered to be in a PVS, after a skiing accident left her paralyzed, but that she made remarkable improvements because of her strong will to live.
Referring to the two other times Schiavo’s feeding tube was removed and surgically re-inserted, Watson said it is wrong to treat Terri as if she would not want to live.
Watson questions Michael Schiavo’s insistence that he loves his wife and cares deeply for her. Michael Schiavo, Watson said, has had ample proof that his wife wants to live.
"She’s the embodiment of a living will,” Watson said. "She is a living will. He’s tried to kill her twice and she has the will to live.
"What more [evidence] could you possibly want?"
http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?Id=20400
Newsflash: These cases happen every day according to Judge Napolitano, Fox's analyst. It happens in America. Courts vet the cases and rule. It's happened here. Some seven times. Life and death happens everyday.
No one is waking the president in the middle of the night to protect the unborn who have their entire lives ahead of them. And they should be damn it.
"Conservative" support in this case is hypocritical and claims of 'life' in the instance of Terri are, at best, academic. That is, if you are only focused on the facts and not swept up in the passions of her parent's unwillingness to face reality.
Why are the same people so obsessed with keeping this brain dead automaton functioning the very same people so certain she'll be with her God in Heaven? Delayed, possibly, for some 15 years already. Her body is nothing more than a political football in a sick and sadistic metaphysical game. What's next for you people? Kidnapping of Terri's body to force a tube back down her throat?
If this Congressional interference is allowed to stand, just wait until the Leftists use it to load for bare on your life. Such is the incredible danger in this intrusive action.
Geez. How very automated. Please read the article above to know how I feel about the Constitutionality of the matter.
No *independent* doctor has done anything but testify she will never ever improve. It's already been battled in the courts. Over and over. And over. Terri is dead. What lay in the hospice bed, and at least where I am they only put folks in hospice who are never going to recover, is a body whose only claim to "life" is the most primative autonomic brain function. No amount of wishful thinking, propoganda videos, "nurse's" claims, "therapy" or moaning audio is going to change this.
The husband put her in the hospice- against the will of family members.
Also- did you know that Attny. Felos is or was on the board of directors of Sunrise hospice- where Terri is. Furthermore- Sunrise is currently being investigated for Medicare fraude to the tune of 15 mill.
To date- Schiavo has paid Felos over 400k of Terri's money.
The only reason he got the 2 mil settlement was his empty promise of caring for her "the rest of his life"
She is not dead. She is alive- unless of course you too, like Judge Greer- are legally blind.
She can breathe- she reacts to stimulis- she is alive, period.
Her life should not be decided upon by an adulterer husband or a crocodile judge.
Have you always been an ignorant ass?
Regardless of what you may consider a life worth living, why must this woman die? Because her husband wants her to and a judge says okay?
Why not let her go home with her parents? Who does she harm by being in the loving care of her parents?
If we can pardon criminals and/or commute their sentences, why not Terri's?
Kill someone and you'll get 20 years of appeals.
Plot to blow up and kill Americans and you'll get a special diet for the rest of your life.
We just gave anyone under 18 a 'Get out of the chair free' card, if they kill someone.
But we kill the unborn on a mother's whim.
And now we can proudly call for the starvation death of the less than perfect. What a country.
The one fact in all of this is that if Congress went through its normal process, by the time something got done Terri Shiavo would be dead. There are no nuances about that.
There's a reason we grow into adulthood. A reason parents are no longer "in charge" of our lives. A reason we grow into being sovereign citizens ourselves, we CHOOSE a spouse. Blood relatives can just as often have agendas as these 'untrustworthy' spouses you claim are out there. Peterson is *not* Terri's husband. Invoking a cold-blooded double murderer in this case is a fatuous strawman. There's no evidence Michael attempted to kill Terri. There's plenty of innuendo on talk radio and from Terri's parent's camp but no evidence. Another strawman is Michael having fathered to children with a girlfriend. He's "moved on" since Terri cannot in any form fulfill her spousal duties. It's certain not unexpected even if it may not meet your moral standards or my own. Doesn't matter. That he stayed married to her suggests he's committed to see her situation out to the very end. He could've dumped her. He could've taken the millions offered to turn care over to her parents. He hasn't done any of these things. Either he believes he is truly advocating Terri's wishes *OR* he's the insane cold-blooded psychopath he's slanderously hinted as being all over the religious-right talk media. The courts, so far as I've seen, have found he's the former.
The bottom line her is you see Terri as "alive" on the verge of some kind of miraculous recovery if only she was given to her parents for therapy. My view of the facts are that Terri is essentially brain-dead; it's just a body. I care about a rule of law as a principle. I care about the system of justice that has served use for better or ill for hundreds of years. I care about our traditions dating back thousands of years to the story of Abraham where grown children cleave to their SPOUSES, not to their parents. My libertarian streak suggests we have no business even knowing about this case, imho and, most certainly, the Feds should've stayed out of the matter.
This isn't a case of a coma patient. Or a woman's who's been in a PVS for a few weeks, even months or just a couple years. It's been fifteen years and an arduous legal battle. What will be done, will be done. Unless you expect Jeb to send in the National Guard in to stuff a feeding tube down Terri's throat, it's going to be up to the courts. Even in your scenario... who is going to pick-and-choose between spouses and blood-relations if not the same courts who have already vetted Terri's case? It appears you have no faith in our system at any level. That's a very sad state of affairs.
Keep in mind, I still don't believe starvation and dehydration is ethical. It simply isn't my call. If Congress really wanted to take up this situation for future cases, they would eliminated removal of feeding tubes as a legal option.
That seems to be the reason to me. No written will, just the husband and some witnesses that say "Yeah, she might've said something like that." Didn't one of Mr. Schiavo's ex-girlfriends say he told her "Of course we didn't talk about that stuff, I mean, we were 25!"?
That's an awfully thin assurance to me that she wants to die (and even if she did, I highly doubt she wants to die over a painful extended 2 weeks or so).
Newzjunkey, I was under the impression dead people could be kept alive with machines that pump the blood, and force the lungs to respire (call me on it if I'm wrong). Terry apparently doesn't need these, just a means of getting food. I'm sorry, but there's no way in hell I can call that "dead." Clinically dead people don't make discernable words with their vocal cords, they don't move their eyes around to follow things, they don't smile. If I were Michael and I was really what I claimed to be, I'd insist she be allowed to die by euthanasia. We don't let dogs die like this when they bite people.
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