Thank you for your reply. I appreciate that you listened to my thoughts and offered another perspective.
This is a most difficult case. Not only because of her injury but with the constant media coverage.
I frankly amd glad that I am not in her shoes but one needs to knock on wood. We are not immuned to what happened to her and if the only thing we as fellow human beings can learn from her tradgey, that is to make sure our affairs are in order and insist on the type of medical care that you want and what you do not want. Put it in writing or on a video.
Had she given her husband more to support his claim we would not be here. He may be a shmuck but if he did not harm his wife shouldn't the husband trump the parents.
This is a very difficult call. My prayers for the entire family and those working on her case.
To suggest that a married man who moves in with another woman, fathers two children by her, and pledges to marry her, should retain authority over his wife is to make a mockery of marriage.
From the report: "Testimony provided by members of the Schindler family included very personal statements about their desire and intention to ensure that Theresa remain alive . . . at any and all costs. Nearly gruesome examples were given, eliciting agreement by family members that in the event Theresa should contract diabetes and subsequent gangrene in each of her limbs, they would agree to amputate each limb and would then, were she to be diagnosed with heart disease, perform open-heart surgery. Within the testimony, as part of the hypothetical presented, Schindler family members stated that even if Theresa had told them of her intention to have artificial nutrition withdrawn, they would not do it."
Wolfson told me that when Michael heard this, he said: "That's it. I'm never going to let that happen to her."
I understand why he is so adamant about this.
Wolfson's report states that in the four years after her collapse, Michael "had insistently held to the premise that Theresa could recover and the evidence is incontrovertible that he gave his heart and soul to her treatment and care . . . In late autumn of 1990, following months of therapy and testing and formal diagnoses of persistent vegetative state with no evidence of improvement, Michael took Theresa to California, where she received an experimental thalamic stimulator implant in her brain. Michael remained in California caring for Theresa during a period of several months."
Says Wolfson now: "Michael was adoring of her. One nursing home complained he was hostile and abusive of the staff in championing her care. She was immaculately kept. In 13 years, she never had one bedsore."