Terri Schiavo's Brother Says Ellen Goodman Op-Ed Misguided, Inaccurate

LifeNews.com ^ | September 25, 2006 | Steven Ertelt

[rhema]

St. Petersburg, FL -- Bobby Schindler, Terri Schiavo’s brother, says a recent nationally syndicated editorial written by columnist Ellen Goodman is misguided and inaccurate. The following is a copy of his letter to the editor to the Boston Globe newspaper reaction to her opinion piece, “Playing vegetative mind games.”

Ms. Goodman:

I read your recent column, "Playing vegetative mind games".

The lengths that you and many of your colleagues continue to go to in order to somehow justify the barbaric killing of my sister, Terri, are truly sad and in my opinion a tragic reflection of how you and those that think like you have truly misplaced your humanity.

What is so profoundly frightening about what you wrote is the effort to use this scientifically inaccurate persistent vegetative state (PVS) label to indiscriminately decide when it’s permissible to kill those that are disabled. As you pointed out in your column, there are tens of thousands of people that have experienced a brain injury. The idea that certain lives have somehow lost their meaning because they exist in this so-called PVS, which according to you, is some type of "horrifying" state of consciousnesses or lack thereof (not quite sure how you or anyone would have knowledge of this) is equally alarming. It is this form of lethal bigotry that my family battled in our efforts to get help for my sister.

Recently, a British research study concluded that the PVS diagnosis is in fact misdiagnosed more than 40% of the time. Recognizing this finding along with this most recent discovery, and others similar to it, one with any common sense would have to agree that using the completely subjective PVS “diagnosis” as the basis to kill the disabled is clearly outrageous.

Incidentally, I find it remarkable how the voice of disabled community has been all but ignored by most of the popular media. Why are the persons that are truly in harm’s way, the disabled, rarely mentioned? There were thirty (30) local and national disability organizations that publicly spoke out on behalf of Terri, yet their voices have been silenced.

It seems to me that in spite of your opinion (and many in the mainstream media for that matter) the general public is just not agreeing with what you and so many morally misguided individuals are promoting. Fortunately, good people know the fundamental difference between right and wrong, and have compassion for those that are most vulnerable. Regardless of these dehumanizing labels, they realize that preying on the brain injured is not a way of showing kindness, nor is it some form of altruism, but rather a selfish and cowardly act by those who justify in their minds that the killing of the weak and voiceless is somehow "okay".

It comes down to this Ms. Goodman, and it's really very simple - it's not up to you or anyone to decide.

Perhaps if you ever had the opportunity to care for someone like Terri you would understand why your article is so offensive not only to her memory and my family, but also to the tens of thousands of brain injured persons that you claim to speak for.

Bobby Schindler

Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation

5562 Central Avenue, Suite 2

St. Petersburg, FL 33707

727-490-7603

www.terrisfight.org

P.S. I thought it would be helpful to you to include the names of the medical professionals, many being distinguished neurologists, who either believed that Terri was not in a PVS or could have been helped if Michael Schiavo and/or the courts would have permitted it (all of their affidavits submitted to Judge George Greer can be accessed on terrisfight.org).

Perhaps your next article might make mention of them.

1. Dr. Jay Carpenter

2. Dr. Fred Webber

3. Dr. Jacob Green

4. Dr. Alexander T. Gimon

5. Dr. William Scott Russell

6. Dr. Joseph L. Brunner

7. Dr. David L. Coulter

8. Dr. David Hopper

9. Dr. Beatrice Engstrand

10. Dr. Alyse Eytan

11. Dr. Harry Sawyer Goldsmith

12. Dr. William M. Hammesfahr

13. Dr. Paul Harch

14. Dr. Carolyn Heron

15. Dr. Lawrence Huntoon

16. Pamela Hyink, SLP

17. Dr. Jill Joyce

18. Dr. James P. Kelly

19. Dr. Philip R. Kennedy

20. Dr. Kyle Lakas

21. Dr. Peter J. Luca

22. Dr. William Maxfield

23. Dr. Peter J. Morin

24. Myra Stinson, CCC-SLP

25. Dr. James Avery

26. Dr. Ricardo Senno

27. Dr. Stanely A. Terman

28. Dr. J. Michael Uszler

29. Dr. Richard Weidman

30. Dr. Jon David Young

31. Dr. Thomas Mark Zabiega

32. Dr. Ralph Ankenman

33. Carla Sauer Iyer, RN

34. C. Johnson, CNA

35. Heidi Law, CNA

36. Sara Green Mele, MS, CCC-SLP

37. Dr. Laurie Barclay

38. Dr. Rodney Dunaway

39. Dr. George Isajiw

40. Dr. Leonard P. Rybak

41. Dr. Richard Neubauer

[kjo]

Yeah. I look forward to the MSM acknowledging this letter and trying to answer it. Yeah. Sure.

[Tennessee_Bob]

Forty-one doctors versus a columnist? And they think I'm going to take the doctors' opinion over the columnist? Please.

[The Blitherer]

The sad truth is, Terri Schiavo was executed by the state.

[rhema]

Forty-one doctors versus a columnist? And they think I'm going to take the doctors' opinion over the columnist? Please.

Yup. It is Ellen Goodman, after all. Ipse dixit.

[ElkGroveDan]

Waiting for the FR death squad to swoop in and attempt assuage their own guilt through insults and invective ......... any minute now.

[Diogenesis]

---

Here’s where most of the Terri Schiavo money went:

These funds, the result of a malpractice suit, were meant solely to provide for Terri Schiavo’s care and rehabilitation.
=======================================================================================
Atty. Gwyneth Stanley - $10,668.05
Atty. Deborah Bushnell - $65,607.00
Atty. Steve Nilson - $7,404.95
Atty. Pacarek - $1,500.00
Atty. Richard Pearse (GAL) - $4,511.95
Atty. George Felos - $397,249.99
1st Union/South Trust Bank – $55,459.85
Michael Schiavo - $10,929.95
Total: $545,852.34

---

Virtually as soon as Michael Schiavo received the monies from the medical malpractice claim involving his wife, Terri Schindler-Schiavo,
he withheld all therapy and rehabilitation services from her.

Terri Schiavo had sustained a serious brain injury as the result of a suspicious incident in their home in 1990 and in 1992,
her husband had filed claims against several of her former doctors, claiming her “collapse” was caused by a misdiagnosis.
He received over $1.5 million in 1993 including $750,000 which had been specifically earmarked by the trial jury for Terri’s rehabilitation based on a life expectancy of 50 years.
Mary and Bob Schindler Sr., her parents, consulted a St. Petersburg attorney about removing Michael Schiavo as their daughter’s guardian and discussed the case at length with him.
Unfortunately, the Schindlers did not have the amount of money the attorney demanded as a retainer to take the case.
That attorney became the judge in the case-----a totally prohibited conflict of interest.
Thereafter, the attorney-judge approved the hiring of George Felos as the attorney for Schiavo to be paid from the trust fund and the stage was set for her judicial homicide.
The judge wasn’t George W. Greer.
It was Mark I. Shames.

[Gerish]

Ellen Goodman misguided and inaccurate? He is being too kind.

[HEY4QDEMS]

Ellen Goodman is pure evil anyway.

She's an absolute C yoU Next Tuesday with a capital K!

Her email address: ellengoodman@globe.com

[Issaquahking]

I also have to wonder how much the "church of scientology" gained financially out of killing Terri?

[freekitty]

I keep thinking of the day that Michael will be tried for the murder of Terri.

[justshutupandtakeit]

All these doctors saw Terri?

[GovernmentShrinker]

It's quite possible that she was really "executed" by her husband. The state just took care of the technical part.

I would not want to be kept alive in that condition, and wouldn't choose to keep any legal dependent of mine alive in that condition, and am utterly opposed to one cent of taxpayer money being used to keep people alive in that condition. However, the Schiavo case was unusual in that the support she needed was minimal and her parents and siblings were willing and able to provide it at their own expense. Furthermore, in the absence of a living will, the most objective evidence available of what Terri's wishes would have been, was that she was a seriously practicing Catholic, and therefore the reasonable presumption was that she would have wanted to be kept alive as long as food/hydration was all she required, in accordance with Catholic Church teaching.

As a staunch opponent of government-recognized marriage, I note that the ONLY thing that stood in the way of her parents and siblings taking Terri home to care for her, was the almighty government-issued-heterosexual-monogamous-marriage license that "conservatives" are so obsessively attached to. That stupid piece of meddlesome-government paper was Michael Schiavo's license to dispatch her.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Anything from Ellen Goodman is an automatic BARF alert. She's a pro-abortion hag.

[muawiyah]

Ellen Goodman has, herself, been in a vegetative state for the greater part of her adult life.

The Schiavo family should find a reason to lay a ruinous lawsuit on her.

[GovernmentShrinker]

I've never been able to pin down a Scientology connection to this case, and yet the combination of the location and bizarre cast of colluding characters on Michael Schiavo's side makes it hard to believe there wasn't a connection. I'd be interested to know if you have any evidence.

[T'wit]

Short quiz that showed up a couple of days ago in a Terri thread. This is from a column by Carrie Hutchens.

"How many times have people made it a big deal that "three" people said that Terri made statements that she would not want to be kept alive on life support? Test time. How many can name who the three people were and what their relationship was to Michael?"

Take all the time you want :-)

[muawiyah]

Actually, I would want you kept alive under those conditions.

[HEY4QDEMS]

What's even more scary is now hospitals are starting to jump on the "death to the helpless" bandwagon.

My wife made it very clear to me that if she were ever in that situation and there was a one in a million chance she could come out of it then leave the goddamn plug in.

If that ever did happen, I'd honor her wishes but I fear I'd end up facing a legal fight from the hospitals and health insurance companies that will try to kill her.

In Holland, family members are excluded from the decision making altogether, it's completely at the doctors' descretion.

[GovernmentShrinker]

There have been a lot of exaggerations and distortions on both sides of this case. Few of these doctors ever saw Terri. Most just made general statements about the impossibility of 100% certainty of lack of awareness and/or lack of possibility of future awareness, based on the clinical diagnostic results which were available for Terri.