Posted on 04/03/2005 2:09:33 PM PDT by FairOpinion
The arguments surrounding Terri Schiavo will live on in statehouse debate and new laws if an emerging coalition of disability rights activists and right-to-lifers succeeds in turning the national agony over her case into a re-examination of when and how our lives come to an end.
So far, only a few legislators in a handful of states have sought significant changes to their laws, which define the fundamental elements at stake - how a person can set limits on their medical care, who gets to decide what their wishes are, what evidence is needed to prove it.
None have yet become law and the chances for most, if not all, are slim this year, with some legislatures finished and many far along in their work for this session. But both Republicans and Democrats say the arguments aren't going away.
The debate is an effort to strike a new balance between one stance that argues that medical care and morality mean life must be pursued in nearly all cases, and another stance, crafted over decades of changing views about death, that some may choose to end drastically damaged lives that depend on artificial means.
"I really wanted to make sure we gave a default for life and not for death," said Kansas state Rep. Mary Pilcher-Cook, a Republican who helped revive a measure that would give courts a greater chance to review decisions to end life-sustaining care, lessening the role of guardians or doctors. "Our most vulnerable citizens are in fact in the most danger of losing their life without any recourse."
She was joined in her effort by disability activists, many aligned with liberal causes, and Democrats in the state House. The measure stalled in the Kansas Senate, however, as the session ended for the year last Friday.
"We don't want to get into the politics of the right or the left or whomever," said Michael Donnelly at the Disability Rights Center of Kansas. "This isn't about politics, this is about how we value or don't value the lives people with disabilities have."
His group had been working for years to revisit the issue, and came together with several conservative legislators to move the bill forward. Elsewhere, the National Right to Life Committee has produced model legislation and is working with legislators in several states.
Legislation has also been introduced in Alabama, Hawaii, Louisiana, Minnesota and South Dakota. The Louisiana bill is called the "Human Dignity Act"; Alabama's is the "Starvation and Dehydration Prevention Act."
Many measures predate recent weeks of attention to Schiavo, though some drew their inspiration directly from the agonized public debate over the 41-year-old woman's death - like one in Missouri introduced last Thursday, the day Schiavo died.
"I was gripped by what I was watching and couldn't believe the state of Florida would let this woman die in this manner," said GOP state Rep. Cynthia Davis. Her bill would bar anyone from directing that artificial food and water be withheld or withdrawn without a specific written directive from the patient.
There's also a slew of legislation around living wills and other end-of-life issues that wouldn't further the aims of this emerging group - like a Nevada measure that would let a guardian end life-sustaining measures even if it's against a patient's known wishes, as long as it's in their best interests.
The views of medical care and ending life have shifted over the past 30 years as the country grappled with brain-damaged or coma-bound patients whose families said they shouldn't be forced to live a life they wouldn't want, starting with Karen Ann Quinlan in 1975, then to Nancy Cruzan in 1990 and now to Schiavo.
Critics say the medical community and society have gone too far. "When original advance directives were created, nobody contemplated that hospitals would refuse to treat ... It was usually just the opposite, doctors refusing to pull the feeding tube," said Burke Balch, director of the National Right to Life Committee's medical ethics center.
Now, he says, the presumption in the hospitals, the courts and in too much state legislation, is to go ahead and pull life-sustaining treatment when there is not enough evidence that the patient wanted it.
Doctors and bioethicists say that overwhelmingly, safeguards exist in hospitals and in courts to ensure that patients' and families' wishes and best interests are protected.
"Are they going to go out and undo all the hard work that people have done to make sure they can die without having to go to court?" said Dr. Jean Teno, associate director at Brown University's Gerontology and Health Care Research Center.
Most decisions, unlike the portrayal of critics, are made by doctors and families working together, she said. "My sense is that this approach is working."
Political agendas are hard to discount, as congressional leaders raise dire warnings against judges in Florida and Washington over their Schiavo decisions. That meshes with GOP efforts to put more conservatives in the judiciary.
But political stereotypes fell, too, with traditionally liberal leaders like Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Ralph Nader supporting Terri Schiavo's parents efforts to keep their daughter alive.
Advocates vow that the questions of civil rights and morality are going to win out.
"If there's any doubt, than life trumps death," said Donnelly, in Kansas. "I'm a quadriplegic, been that way for 28 years. I would hate for somebody else to decide my life is not worth living."
In Florida, the brother of 83 year-old stroke patient Marjorie Nighbert, decided to cut off her tube feeding, allegedly because of the terms contained in her advanced directive. Marjorie was not unconscious. During her starvation, she specifically asked nurses for food. This was so upsetting to one nurse that she blew the whistle. Enter the court, where, after a hurried investigation, it was determined that Marjorie was not medically competent to retract her advanced directive (in other words, to ask for the "treatment" of food). Thus, even though she had asked to be fed, the starvation was allowed to continue. Ms. Nighbert died on April 5, 1995.
This is the following link that was discussing the Robert Wendland case (a mirror twin of Terri's case) before Judge Bob W. McNatt (Calif) ruled for life.
http://www.chninternational.com/chninfo4.htm
and the following article is the final ruling:
http://www.angelfire.com/ca7/robertsangels/WendlandToLive.html
at the end of the CHN article are the names of books dealing with this slippery slope that is fast changing from the 'right to die" to "the duty to die."
I read that bigamy - for some odd reason - is not against the law in Florida - but that adultery is.
Michael was not committing bigamy - but he was an adulterer - so why didn't the judge enforce the law (rhetoric - not need to answer. I realize he would have had to've been charged first - not that that would've done any good - his was too well connected...
When did it become legal in California?
It must've been since 1997?
See the Wendland case - a mirror of Terri's - and the judges decision:
http://www.angelfire.com/ca7/robertsangels/WendlandToLive.html
AMEN
My heart goes out to you. Yours is not an easy path - in which you were given no choice.
And as your illness progresses, your mind will remain fully active.
I don't believe anyone else - other than someone with Friedreich's ataxia - has a right to judge what you will or wont, eventually do.
Myself, included in my Living Will will be the instructions :"Do not kill by starvation>"
May blessings unexpected come your way...and peace
Funny, but it hasn't so far.
I consider what I want a priority over my life.
I don't claim the right to kill anyone but myself or a loved one who has asked me to.
I don't claim the right for the government to kill anyone without trial for a capital crime.
I have the right not to be killed without my permission, just as I have the right not to be in the Army without my permission, and like the Army, I have the right to volunteer.
I have this right and will keep it because I can and will fight for it, something the Schiavo weenies hadn't the guts to do. The govt. is free to try me for my transgressions after the fact, though trying the dead went out of fashion in the middle ages.
A simple breaking of the law and possible punishment is something that happens thousands of times a day. It is what the law is designed to deal with.
The Schiavo fans, being all mouth, preferred to try to undermine the entire judicial system to accomplish what they had not the stones to attempt.
So9
Who is more qualified to judge the authenticy of CBS's "National Guard" memos--one of CBS's "experts", or a layperson like buckhead?
For that matter, who's more qualified to judge the quality of the emperor's raiment--his high advisers and nobles, or an ordinary uneducated boy?
A PVS diagnosis is a 'negative' diagnosis, meaning that it cannot be proven--merely disproven. Likewise with the authenticity of documents. Consequently, I would not trust a layperson's judgement that a particular person is PVS, or that a particular document is authentic, but I see no reason to doubt the ability of laypeople's judgements that particular subjects are not PVS, or that particular documents are clearly fake.
"During her starvation, she specifically asked nurses for food. Enter the court...it was determined that Marjorie was not medically competent to retract her advanced directive (in other words, to ask for the "treatment" of food). Thus, even though she had asked to be fed, the starvation was allowed to continue. "
This is HORRIBLE! Thanks for posting it. How much of this is going on that never makes the news!
I guess we better make advanced directive and spell out that nobody better stop feeding us or giving us water!
"Myself, included in my Living Will will be the instructions :"Do not kill by starvation>"
====
You better include "do not kill by dehydration" too, or else they'll feed you sawdust and let you die of thirst.
I suspect it's happening everyday - but unless there's someone to fight for them - for years and have the money to do so - we wont hear about them.
We only knew about Terri because her parents, bless them, would not let them murder her without the last ounce of fighting. There was another high profile case in 1997 in California - the state of the patient was a near mirror image to Terri - and the wife wanted to stop feeding - the mother didn't. There was a court battle that made news across the country, TV, Internet, etc. The Judge who made the life or death decision is a 30+ year friend of mine. A finer, more intelligent and fairer man I have never known. go to the following link to see what he said about his decision:
http://www.angelfire.com/ca7/robertsangels/WendlandToLive.html
ACtually - since the FDA okays sawdust as a legal ingredient for bread - which can then be 'truthfully" listed as "fibre" - you might just be right! (Ever wonder why some breads taste like sawdust? :O)
"To be a bigamist he would had to marry ..shacking-up is NOT marriage...whether you like it or not..."
When Jesus met the woman at the well, he asked her where was her husband, She replied that she had no husband. Jesus told her she had 5 husbands. I guess Jesus didn't know the rules. Glad you informed us.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.