The sad truth is, Terri Schiavo was executed by the state.
Heres where most of the Terri Schiavo money went:
These funds, the result of a malpractice suit, were meant solely to provide for Terri Schiavos 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 Terris 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 daughters 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 wasnt George W. Greer.
It was Mark I. Shames.
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.