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THIS is the lady whose home page has ALL the Terri information as it pertains to court documents that you will ever need.

Her research is astounding and covers conservatively 1,500 pages of read and digested material.

awww... thank you!

But, just when things get going strong, I go and hurt myself. lol I'm either in too much pain to type or too wiped out on drugs. :|

You've done an awesome, awesome job carrying the torch - making the difference in every thread you've touched. Invaluable effort.

Just want to support your bump for Trinity_Tex. This might help as well!

Trinity_Tx

Since Oct 30, 2003

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After cutting through all the rhetoric, wild rumors and speculation become "fact", just what is the central issue in the Terri Schiavo case?

If you want to understand the bottom-line, most basic facts of the case and ruling, you must read the 6 documents linked to below. An hour of reading.

First, simply understand that, under Florida law, as approved by the US Supreme Court in Cruzan, (in which they gave states the right to determine what level of evidence was necessary to determine a patient's wishes) the deciding issue is whether or not there is clear and convincing evidence that Terri would or wouldn't want to be maintained on a feeding tube. It is not about determining her quality of life. It is simply a matter of a patient's ability to refuse treatment, whether by oral or written statements made while they were lucid.

As stated in 2001, by the Florida 2nd District Court of appeals in their support of the foundation ruling (linked to below, they found that there was clear and convincing evidence that she wouldn't want the tube to remain.

They also noted that Michael did not make the decision - he asked the court to listen to both sides and for the court to take his role in this matter of her tube. He did not have to do that. He could have forced he parents to challenge his legal decision from a less powerful position.

http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/trialctorder02-00.pdf
Greer's decision that there was clear and convincing evidence she would not want the tube.

Then, read the second district's very informative affirmation of his ruling:
http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/2dcaorder01-01.txt

Then, read:
http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/trialctorder11-02.txt
Greer's ruling in 2002 after the 5 doctor trial to see if there were any hope for her to improve.

http://www.miami.edu/ethics2/schiavo/2D02-5394.pdf
The Second district court of appeals' (interesting) ruling in support of his decision.

(Her parents' attorneys picked really bad doctors IMO. This was their best chance, and they shouldn't have gotten only alternative medicine docs who were so easily impeached at trial. I posted more on that last night.)

Finally, this excellent, official time line of events, including links to other court decisions:
http://www.miami.edu/ethics2/schiavo/timeline.htm

And the Wolfson Report, which gives the most thorough history:
http://www.miami.edu/ethics2/schiavo/wolfson%27s%20report.pdf
(Her parents asked him to be re-instated. Both sides trusted him. he's the main voice of sanity here, I think.

Anyway, that's my contribution. No one can even begin to understand the case without reading at least those 6 links, IMO.

I have a ton more, but those are the heart of it.

I know this is long, but I promise it is the shortest trip to informing yourself on the critical basics.

(As for my personal opinion, I think they should have followed the advice of Wolfson in his report.)

Extra Links

Cruzan decision
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=497&invol=261

More on Cruzan:
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/cruzan.html

Terri's medical discharge summary:
http://www.terrisfight.org/documents/Humana%20Discharge%20Summary%20050990.pdf

Report of Guardian ad litem Richard Pearse, who was relieved after 6 months when it was discovered that he had a previously stated personal objections to legalizing the removal of patient feeding tubes:
http://www.hospicepatients.org/richard-pearse-jr-12-29-98-report-of-guardianadlitem-re-terri-schiavo.pdf

Greer's denial of bone scan - the doctors who actually saw Terri, and the radiologist who did follow-up x-rays saw nothing suspicious.
http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/trialctorder11-02-scan.pdf

Greer's finding that Carla Iyer and others were not credible:
http://www.terrisfight.org/documents/Order%20Denying%20Pet%20Immed%20Ther%20091703.pdf

Description of the complete 4 hours of video:
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/11/10/Tampabay/Schiavo_tapes__snippe.shtml

Description of the testimony at the 2000 trial to determine Terri's wishes.
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/11/08/Tampabay/Schiavo_s_wishes_reca.shtml

NATIONAL ENQUIRER 1998 featuring Dr. William Hammesfahr (he has ads there)
http://www.floridaneurologicalinstitute.com/national_enquirer_1998.htm

CT scan of Ms. Schiavo's brain.

Normal brain scan image. (If you have a larger one, I'd love a link to it.)

More links at http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/infopage.html
and http://www.miami.edu/ethics2/schiavo_project.htm

I'll try to upload the transcripts of the 2002 trial sometime tonight or tomorrow.

*The only 2 doctors in the last 15 years (including 9 neurologists) who said she wasn't PVS after actually seeing her in person were both alternative medicine docs hired by her parents:

- A radiologist (who couldn't accurately define PVS or distinguish it from coma in the trial)

- the neurologist, Hammesfahr, who said she wasn't PVS even before he examined her, and has very little credibility after his intentionally misleading claims of a number of things - like being a Nobel prize nominee, for just one example.

When it comes to recovery, actually coma patients are much better off. They can wake up years later and have great recovery.

When someone comes out of a coma, but remains uncommunicative, the prognosis depends on the age of the patient, and what caused their injury. Children and those with traumatic head injuries have a better prognosis than those with an anoxic injury.

Patients who show no signs of consciousness after their eyes open usually fit the criteria for the vegetative state(VS). Persistent vegetative state (PVS) is a prognostic term that refers to a chronic condition in which basic arousal (i.e., wakefulness) and life-sustaining functions (e.g., respiration, blood pressure) are generally intact, despite the absence of behavioral signs of meaningful interaction with the environment. The American Academy of Neurology recently adopted the position that the VS should be termed "persistent" at 1 month, and considered "permanent" after 3 months following non traumatic causes of unconsciousness and after 12 months following traumatic injury [27]. However, rare exceptions to this have been cited. Merck

(Note: I couldn't place Trinity, Tx on a map. I chose this nick for other reasons. Sorry for the confusion.)

... Freeperette since 1999, just lurked or posted under Husband's account until I created my own on Oct 9, 2000...Changed nicks in 2003 for reasons of personal privacy.

Stay at home mother, homeschooler, moderate libertarian/conservative, depending on the issue...

A few of my favorite quotes:

Libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.
Men gladly believe that which they wish for.
-Julius Caesar
"The problem with the world is the fools and fanatics are so sure of themselves, and wise people are full of doubts."
-Bertrand Russell

"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."
-Thomas Jefferson

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.
It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.
The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
-C. S. Lewis

"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."
-Daniel Webster

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
-Stephen Roberts

Note: I'm not an Atheist... Just an agnostic still searching for the truth...

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved. >br>Origin of Species http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species-6th-edition/chapter-15.html
Answering certain types of people is futile. Whether or not you win intellectually, they will draw it out with mis-quoting, twisting, outright lies, and perjorative comments. Let them have the last word, as yours are on the record for reasonable people to judge.
Difficilis facilis, iucundus acerbus es idem:
nec tecum possum vivere nec sine te.
Difficult and easy, delightful and severe, you are the same:
I am neither able to live with you nor without you.
Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believin as we already do
"It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.
...those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
-C. S. Lewis