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Terri Schiavo's Brother Says Ellen Goodman Op-Ed Misguided, Inaccurate
LifeNews.com ^ | September 25, 2006 | Steven Ertelt

Posted on 09/26/2006 2:31:27 PM PDT by 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


TOPICS: Local News
KEYWORDS: bobbyschindler; ellengoodman; euthanasia; prolife; terrischiavo
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To: rhema
Second quiz. If you can answer the first quiz (see #17), tell us which persons of those three remembered Terri's statements after meeting in person with George Felos, Michael Schiavo's lawyer?

You can have three guesses, but shouldn't need them :-)

21 posted on 09/26/2006 3:16:16 PM PDT by T'wit (When Bubba Clinton wags his finger, he's lying. But then, he's lying when he doesn't wag his finger.)
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To: HEY4QDEMS
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.

But who does she think should foot the bill for keeping a million severely impaired patients alive, in order that some day ONE of them might regain some awareness? Money doesn't grow on trees; it represents chunks of people's lives, which shouldn't be thoughtlessly confiscated.

22 posted on 09/26/2006 3:16:28 PM PDT by GovernmentShrinker
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To: muawiyah

But perhaps ONLY under those conditions? :-)


23 posted on 09/26/2006 3:17:46 PM PDT by GovernmentShrinker
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To: rhema

So Ellen's her usual self, then?


24 posted on 09/26/2006 3:20:16 PM PDT by RichInOC (The press: Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em...can't shoot 'em....)
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To: HEY4QDEMS
What you probably need to do is hire a "hit" ~ do this very discretely, but you'd better believe the others will get the idea real fast and leave you alone.

Remember, they will be advising termination to a lot of different people in a short period of time so they won't really know who did it.

I doubt they're aware they're really hanging out for someone who would hire the mob.

25 posted on 09/26/2006 3:20:59 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: rhema

Peace Kills

Greg Levy, a UMass student, killed himself by fire in Amherst Common in 1990 to protest the Gulf War, and now it's hard even to find a single mention of him on the web, despite the fact that his step-mother, Ellen Goodman, was a syndicated political columnist (who never once mentioned him in print, as far as I can tell).


26 posted on 09/26/2006 3:22:08 PM PDT by afortiori
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To: GovernmentShrinker
But who does she think should foot the bill for keeping a million severely impaired patients alive

She's not speaking for a million people she's speakin for herself and if I needed to, I will pay for her.
27 posted on 09/26/2006 3:23:08 PM PDT by HEY4QDEMS (Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.)
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To: muawiyah

You know, this is rally turning into a morbid conversation.


28 posted on 09/26/2006 3:25:50 PM PDT by HEY4QDEMS (Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.)
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To: afortiori

So, you are giving us the evidence that Ellen Goodman is as hard-hearted and nasty as we have all come to believe her to be.


29 posted on 09/26/2006 3:27:24 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: HEY4QDEMS
rally = really
30 posted on 09/26/2006 3:27:47 PM PDT by HEY4QDEMS (Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.)
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To: 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.

So, when in doubt KILL!

31 posted on 09/26/2006 3:28:16 PM PDT by feedback doctor (Lindsay Graham, the conscience of al-Qaeda.)
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To: afortiori

Perhaps having Ellen Goodman as his step mother was the real reason he killed himself.


32 posted on 09/26/2006 3:29:19 PM PDT by HEY4QDEMS (Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.)
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To: HEY4QDEMS

Considerations of death's coming are going to be like that you know.


33 posted on 09/26/2006 3:30:36 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: rhema

Ellen Goodman "misguided, inaccurate"??

I suppose it's understandable that Bobby Schindler would want to set the record straight, but somebody should have clued him in about what a sick cow Goodman is. Best ignored.


34 posted on 09/26/2006 3:32:37 PM PDT by Lancey Howard
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To: rhema

I must say she was a looker before she became injured.


35 posted on 09/26/2006 3:39:03 PM PDT by Married with Children
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To: 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.

I know, its terrible.

No matter how sick or old a person might be, they should never be denied the basics of life, ie. food and water. When food and water is all a "brain-dead" person requires, it is murder to deny it to them.

I should be clear though, I'm not in favor of keeping people alive whose time has come. For example, a 90 year old woman who is so old and sick her heart won't even pump on its own should not be hooked up to machines to keep her heart pumping and lungs breathing indefinitely. In situations like this, when more than food and water is required to keep a person alive, the debate must be viewed on a more individual basis.

I think that any time there is the slightest doubt, we must always err on the side of life.

Its also interesting, the left has infinite faith that embryonic stem cell research will someday cure almost any disease, and probably could have cured Christopher Reeves, and yet they are equally as certain that people like Terri will never recover. Why do they always side with death?

36 posted on 09/26/2006 3:46:53 PM PDT by The Blitherer (You were given the choice between war & dishonor. You chose dishonor & you will have war. -Churchill)
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To: The Blitherer
I'm not in favor of keeping people alive whose time has come. For example, a 90 year old woman who is so old and sick her heart won't even pump on its own should not be hooked up to machines to keep her heart pumping and lungs breathing indefinitely.

Nor am I, thats a very reasonble position.
37 posted on 09/26/2006 3:50:21 PM PDT by HEY4QDEMS (Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.)
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To: clinkclink

ignorance bump


38 posted on 09/26/2006 5:00:52 PM PDT by clinkclink
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To: GovernmentShrinker

Such tactics are entirely too familiar.


39 posted on 09/26/2006 8:45:01 PM PDT by justshutupandtakeit (If you believe ANYTHING in the Treason Media you are a fool.)
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Comment #40 Removed by Moderator


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