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Michael [Schiavo's] World: A Dangerous Place to Be (War on the Weak series)
Breakpoint with Chuck Colson ^ | 5/24/2006 | Chuck Colson

Posted on 05/24/2006 9:08:58 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback

Michael Schiavo has published a book titled "Terri: The Truth." It is about his well-known and, unfortunately, successful fight to end his wife’s life. Opening this book is like falling down Alice’s rabbit hole and ending up in a new and bizarre world.

You don’t even have to turn to the first page—just look at the front cover, where Michael proclaims, “My two babies were threatened with death. I was condemned by the president, the majority leaders of the House and Senate, the governor of Florida, the pope, and the right-wing media. . . . I didn’t respond to their attacks. I didn’t confront their lies. Until now.”

Well, a quick Internet search turns up page after page of Michael’s vigorous responses on Nightline, Larry King Live, and other venues, most of it very confrontational.

Why would he respond now? Books sales and talk shows are a lucrative business.

This turns out to be typical of the way things work in Michael Schiavo’s world. As readers of the book soon discover, Schiavo’s opponents deserve all the venom he can spew on them. To Michael Schiavo’s mind, nobody could possibly have a good reason for wanting to let Terri Schiavo live in her condition. So he paints his opponents as biased, liars, downright insane. Just as the book cover indicates, the pope, the president, the governor of Florida, Terri’s family, and several cranks who sent Michael death threats—which, by the way, I know from experience happens in these kinds of cases—are all lumped into the same category: people who opposed Michael’s noble crusade to kill his wife. Noble? Or was he after collecting the insurance money and marrying the woman he was living with? Michael Schiavo’s world, if you believe his book, is like the old Westerns where the good guys wore white hats and the bad guys all wore black hats and twisted their mustaches a lot.

Joking aside, Michael Schiavo’s world is a dangerous and scary place, a place where the “survival of the fittest” is taken to a whole new level—a place where a badly brain-damaged woman should have her food and water taken away simply because she is badly brain damaged and her husband says she would not want to live that way. It’s a place where it’s easy for even a registered nurse like Michael Schiavo to confuse food, which everyone needs, with the kind of life support, like a respirator, which his wife did not need. It’s a place where, as Schiavo is accustomed to saying with a straight face, taking someone’s food away is not starving her to death; it’s simply allowing her to die peacefully and painlessly. (Why a hospice needs to administer morphine to a person dying painlessly is something that Schiavo does not bother to explain, like so many other issues.)

The scariest thing about Michael Schiavo’s world is that he, and so many of his partisans in the media and the public, do not want to give the benefit of the doubt to a comatose person. Now, I admit that many people today think well of Michael and less of those of us who defended Terri Schiavo since the autopsy showed that she had been brain-dead when she was in a comatose state. But that’s beside the point. Our concern was with safeguarding the process and giving her the benefit of the doubt. After all, you can’t do an autopsy until the person is dead, and then it is too late to correct mistakes.

Reading Schiavo’s book is a sobering reminder that we must never give up our fight to guard the rights of the weak and the voiceless, or one day we will all be living—and dying—in Michael Schiavo’s world.

This is part six in the “War on the Weak” series.


TOPICS: Books/Literature
KEYWORDS: breakpoint; chuckcolson; cultureofdeath; euthanasia; michaelschiavo; schiavo; terrischiavo; warontheweak
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To: Scotswife
What upset me most was that her parents were prohibited from giving her water by hand.

Of course, if she accepted it I guess that would be pretty strong evidence that she wanted to live.

21 posted on 05/25/2006 6:00:26 AM PDT by Tribune7
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To: alwaysconservative

It's all Newspeak.


22 posted on 05/25/2006 6:18:52 AM PDT by polymuser (Losing, like flooding, brings rats to the surface.)
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To: tallhappy
This issue more than illegal immigration will cause us to lose.

Please elaborate. Why would we lose seats or the White house because of this?

23 posted on 05/25/2006 6:26:04 AM PDT by Mr. Silverback (Try Jesus--If you don't like Him, the devil will always take you back.)
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To: Mr. Silverback

"If we are going to allow courts to give decade-old half-remembered conversations the same force as a written living will, we are all in very, very big trouble."

Absolutely, and I think we're allready are in very big trouble.


24 posted on 05/25/2006 6:33:06 AM PDT by Scotswife
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To: Tribune7

"What upset me most was that her parents were prohibited from giving her water by hand.
Of course, if she accepted it I guess that would be pretty strong evidence that she wanted to live."

Terri was able to maintain her own saliva through swallowing.
At least 3 former staff members signed sworn affidavits stating they had either given her spoonfuls of jello, or placed wet cloths in her mouth for her to suck on.
One guardian ad litum requested a swallowing test which was ignored by Judge Greer.


25 posted on 05/25/2006 6:35:32 AM PDT by Scotswife
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To: alwaysconservative
I am not a Law & Order fan, but I've heard a lot from folks like you about all the Christian-bashing, and recently when I found out Jerry Orbach was a Christian, I wondered why the heck he put up with that crap for years.

"Without A Trace" has portrayed pro-lifers as the kind of people who would see a clinic bomber as heroic. These people just don't get it.

26 posted on 05/25/2006 6:36:22 AM PDT by Mr. Silverback (Try Jesus--If you don't like Him, the devil will always take you back.)
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To: Mr. Silverback
" ... a place where a badly brain-damaged woman should have her food and water taken away simply because she is badly brain damaged a major inconvenience if she recovers any brain function and a major means to increasing media coverage and the wealth of several and her husband says she would not want to live that way."

I would point out that Chuck cannot address the following because of Michael's panting attorney entourage There exist video of Terri prior to the lawsuit settlement which show her responding to directions of where to look and to people speaking to her; at some point after the courts awarded Michael monies, Terri 'became brain dead' and not in the natural progression of her malady. I'm of the school who believe someone with intimate access to Terri 'hurried along her decline via artificial means such as injected insulin, etc.

27 posted on 05/25/2006 6:38:36 AM PDT by MHGinTN (If you can read this, you've had life support from someone. Promote life support for others.)
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To: Tax-chick

Definitely a sociopath.


28 posted on 05/25/2006 6:38:42 AM PDT by Mr. Silverback (Try Jesus--If you don't like Him, the devil will always take you back.)
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To: MHGinTN

"I'm of the school who believe someone with intimate access to Terri 'hurried along her decline via artificial means such as injected insulin, etc."

It doesn't require such drastic measures.
Treatment for brain damage requires therapy and stimulation.
All one has to do is deny regular therapy, draw the curtains, turn down the lights, turn off the radio and TV, restrict visitors, forbid trips outside, forbid movement to a chair, deny dental care and other basic hygeine.

That oughta do it.


29 posted on 05/25/2006 6:42:17 AM PDT by Scotswife
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To: Mr. Silverback
Do any of you folks see how removing the the sole determination of a husband/wife for their spouse would lead to country-wide euthanasia?

30 posted on 05/25/2006 6:42:33 AM PDT by William Terrell (Individuals can exist without government but government can't exist without individuals.)
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To: Scotswife
But not quickly enough to satisfy someone asking care givers 'when is that bitch gonna die'. Look at the time line from the date the monies were awarded and the entrance of the euthanasia movement and the petitions to courts to 'put her down'. Compare the rhetoric of the husband prior to the monies awarded and following the awards. Notice the onset of 'another comforting woman' into the husband's life in conjunction with court awards and appeals to courts to withdraw sustenance and 'let her die' ... and we could go on and on and on profiling a monster, a sociopath, a ghoul, but what's the use, the media tells us their polls prove Americans don't care to examine this case beyond soundbyte foolishness.
31 posted on 05/25/2006 6:53:18 AM PDT by MHGinTN (If you can read this, you've had life support from someone. Promote life support for others.)
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To: MHGinTN

Michael was enjoying the comfort of other women even before he began his euthenasia campaign. One woman was even with the blessing of Terri's parents.

My point is that one doesn't need to actively injure someone to contribute to their deterioration.
One can simply deny basic treatment and stimulation so that neglect and isolation can do the work.


32 posted on 05/25/2006 6:56:35 AM PDT by Scotswife
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To: William Terrell
Do any of you folks see how removing the the sole determination of a husband/wife for their spouse would lead to country-wide euthanasia?

And can't you see how regarding decades-old half-remembered conversations as a living will could be used to override spousal decisions? If this case had been Terri's brother v. her parents, would she still be dead? You betcha.

No offense, but in seeing the pro-Terri faction as anti-spousal control, you are buying into a straw man argument that the pro-euthanasia forces have been happy to provide. The pro-lifers who sided with the Schindlers in this case did not object to spouses controlling medical decisions. They objected to the following:

1. Any guardian being given the right to starve a person to death.

2. Any court regarding food and water as a heroic medical measure.

3. A clearly unfit guardian (Michael Schiavo) being left in charge of a patient.

I want my wife in charge of my medical care, but you can bet I don't want her or anybody else saying, "We should starve him to death, he told me in 1986 that he didn't want a bunch of tubes in him."

33 posted on 05/25/2006 7:07:08 AM PDT by Mr. Silverback (Try Jesus--If you don't like Him, the devil will always take you back.)
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To: Mr. Silverback

"want my wife in charge of my medical care, but you can bet I don't want her or anybody else saying, "We should starve him to death, he told me in 1986 that he didn't want a bunch of tubes in him.""

Excellent point.
The vague "statement" he strangely remembered after he won the malpractice suit did not even address the situation she wound up in.
Supposedly she and Michael had been visiting a dying relative. This person was terminal, Terri was not terminal. He didn't make any claim she wanted to be dehydrated to death.


34 posted on 05/25/2006 7:14:30 AM PDT by Scotswife
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To: Scotswife

You are correct that neglect can cause the brain to deteriorate ... it's been proven in newborns, sadly. My point is that such neglect wouldn't 'eliminate the albatross quickly enough'.


35 posted on 05/25/2006 7:34:31 AM PDT by MHGinTN (If you can read this, you've had life support from someone. Promote life support for others.)
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To: Theodore R.
The American people are the problem.

Certainly a big part of the problem!

36 posted on 05/25/2006 8:20:46 AM PDT by Tax-chick (Knights of Columbus martyrs of Mexico, pray for us! Viva Cristo Rey!)
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To: MHGinTN

well...it cannot be proven there were attempts to actively injure Terri through such things as injections of insulin.
I'm not saying it isn't possible...it just cannot be proven.
The issues of neglect and isolation can easily be proven.
On top of that, several times Terri's body was forced to fight off infections without the aid of antibiotics (at Michael's orders) So this also greatly contributed to her deterioration.


37 posted on 05/25/2006 2:36:25 PM PDT by Scotswife
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To: alwaysconservative

Law and Order is another manifestation of the corrosion of godliness. The Scientologists who engineered Terry's death are another manifestation of truly insane psychopaths worming their insidious malice into the culture. The only way to overcome the evil that seeks to engulf us is to completely destroy liberalism in all of its manifestations.


38 posted on 05/25/2006 7:40:28 PM PDT by Louis Foxwell (Here come I, gravitas in tow.)
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To: Mr. Silverback
I haven't bought into an argument I heard. I thought it out myself.

Anytime you give politicians power in a medical issue of who lives and who dies, eventually you get doctors into the decision making process, other than just opinions. Then you get legislation.

Bad as MS is alleged to be, and I can agree with the presumptions, not the moral judgments, if he is used to move a personal decision on the matter of life and death to the political area, thereby destroying the custom, you open the door for euthanasia.
I don't agree with the starving remedy, either; she should have received a quick death.

39 posted on 05/26/2006 7:57:39 AM PDT by William Terrell (Individuals can exist without government but government can't exist without individuals.)
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