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

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

[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.