Posted on 09/26/2006 2:31:27 PM PDT by rhema
St. Petersburg, FL -- Bobby Schindler, Terri Schiavos 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 its 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 harms 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
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
You can have three guesses, but shouldn't need them :-)
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.
But perhaps ONLY under those conditions? :-)
So Ellen's her usual self, then?
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.
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).
You know, this is rally turning into a morbid conversation.
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.
So, when in doubt KILL!
Perhaps having Ellen Goodman as his step mother was the real reason he killed himself.
Considerations of death's coming are going to be like that you know.
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.
I must say she was a looker before she became injured.
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?
ignorance bump
Such tactics are entirely too familiar.
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