Posted on 03/25/2013 5:13:32 PM PDT by Morgana
As Holy Week begins and we reflect on the passion of Jesus Christ, it is especially appropriate to remember another person who eight years ago at this time was subjected to a tortuous, brutal and heinous death – one whose anniversary falls this year on Easter Sunday: Terri Schindler-Schiavo.
And just as the Church now ushers in our new Pope Francis, I am reminded how two days after Terri’s death we also lost our Holy Father. As Pope John Paul II lay dying at the Vatican his aides would later tell the Schindlers that when he learned of Terri’s death, it was “the final blow to his broken heart.”
For most pro-lifers following Terri’s case of “legal” murder by her estranged husband Michael and his right-to-die advocate attorney George Felos, the verdict was a haunting reminder of the “lawful” murder of millions of our innocent preborn. In fact, many began calling it the Roe v. Wade of euthanasia.
But in Roe v. Wade few remember that it was actually a legal precedent in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) that set the stage for current abortion laws. In Griswold, the Supreme Court ruled that the denial of contraceptives was unconstitutional under an alleged “right of privacy.” Who would have thought that Griswold, combined with a later alarming Florida legal precedent, would predetermine Terri’s fate?
In 1986, Estelle Browning, an 86-year-old woman, suffered a stroke that left her severely brain-damaged. Unable to swallow, a feeding tube was inserted by attending physicians. Browning, however, had a written advance directive, stating she didn’t want artificial sustenance if she became terminally ill. In 1987, the court denied her cousin’s petition to remove the tube, basing its decision on Florida’s Life-Prolonging Procedures Act, which allowed patients to refuse medical treatment only under specific circumstances. Browning, the judge ruled, did not qualify.
After Browning’s natural death in 1990 the Second District Court of Appeals overturned this decision based on the “right to privacy,” and the Florida Supreme Court upheld the ruling. According to Justice Rosemary Barkett, who wrote for the 6-1 majority, “The right to privacy and freedom from intrusion into one’s own body is rooted in our nation’s philosophical and political heritage.”
In absence of written directives, the evidence of a patient’s wishes could also be determined solely by the guardian, which is called “substituted judgment.” This “judgment” is supposedly not what the guardian wishes, but what the patient (allegedly) desires. The only necessary qualifier would be “clear and convincing evidence” as simple as an oral statement, claiming that the person would not want to live. Once this is satisfied, the Court ruled, the State can not override the so-called “right to privacy.”
Ten years later, this “clear and convincing evidence” became the entire focus of Terri Schiavo’s case. However, the testimonies given from both the Schiavo and Schindler witnesses were contradicting hearsay, leaving Judge George Greer as the sole and final arbitrator of whom he chose to believe.
Media reports claimed that at least 19 other judges had reviewed the case, but in reality not one other judge heard any testimony whatsoever. The Courts simply rubber-stamped a legal decision, not an evidentiary one. In their view, Greer had acted in accord with the letter of the law, despite that the “clear and convincing” evidence was simple hearsay. The appellate courts only had to ensure that the law was followed—not that the evidence was credible—because hearsay is subject to opinion, not legalese.
During Terri’s final weeks, as the State Department of Children and Families attempted to take Terri into protective custody, attorney George Felos reminded Judge Greer of a startling fact: Even if Michael himself suddenly decided not to remove Terri’s feeding tube, it still had to be done, because the court had determined by “clear and convincing evidence” that this was Terri’s wish.
More appalling was Greer’s reaction to the Schindlers requests for swallowing tests for Terri as he angrily thundered, “I don’t want anybody putting anything into that girl’s mouth!” Horrifically, this statement would later be used to deny Terri the right to receive Holy Communion. However, food and water given orally is not considered medical care even by Florida’s weak definition.
In addition, sustenance provided artificially or naturally cannot be denied to a disabled person under the Americans with Disabilities Act. It states: “Nothing in the Act or this part authorizes the representative or guardian of an individual with a disability to decline food, water, medical treatment, or medical services for that individual.”
But because the Federal Court refused to hear simultaneous lawsuits brought by 26 disability groups decrying these and other violations, Greer’s ruling stood unchallenged. Not only had Terri’s nurses testified that they had fed Terri gelatin and pudding in the past, but Terri also easily swallowed the average one-liter output of saliva healthy people consume daily. That Greer would not allow oral feeding, swallowing tests or therapy simply codified his own intent to mandate Terri’s execution.
The second determination for ordering Terri’s feeding tube removal was the claim that she was in an irreversible persistent vegetative state (PVS) with no hope for recovery. Two of Michael’s and one state-appointed neurologist testified that Terri was in a PVS, completely contradicting 16 other medical professionals who attested she was not.
Judge Greer later admitted he didn’t bother reading any of those statements because he simply didn’t find them credible. Never mind that one of Michael’s witnesses, Dr. Ronald Cranford is an advocate for “End-of-Life Choices,” a group promoting euthanasia. Or that the court appointed witness, Cleveland neurologist Peter Bambikidis, a colleague of Felos, spent only 30 minutes examining Terri. In truth, Greer’s mind was set.
During subsequent hearings in early 2005, 33 others – including 14 physicians (6 who are neurologists) submitted testimony declaring Terri had been misdiagnosed, while none were submitted by Felos to contradict their findings. Again, Judge Greer refused to consider the growing and glaring evidence. Consider what neurologist Dr. James Gabel, M.D., M.S., F.A.H.A, reported:
“Terri Schiavo is not in a persistent vegetative state. The parts of Terri Schiavo’s brain which would allow her to perceive pain, her thalami, were clearly intact and visible on her CT scan images shown by her own husband, Michael Schiavo, on national television. The parts of Terri Schiavo’s brain, which would allow her to swallow on her own, were also intact, and, in fact, she did not suffer from medically significant dysphagia (swallowing difficulty). If she had, she would have been dead long ago from a condition known as aspiration pneumonia, an infection in the lungs which is the result of inhaling one’s own saliva.”
In short, Terri was not dying. She was not suffering or receiving any type of life support. She was simply disabled and unable to feed herself.
Terri could have been fed orally and by law she should have been. Granted, she might have needed swallowing therapy to stimulate the muscles in her throat that had not been used for many years, but this would have been a relatively short and simple treatment. Yet Judge Greer refused to even consider it, incredibly noting that “Terri might aspirate food into her lungs and die a cruel and painful death.”
The day before the scheduled removal of Terri’s feeding tube on March 18, 2005, the Senate Health Committee and the House Government Reform Committee issued congressional subpoenas requiring both Michael and Terri to appear before Congress for a March 28 hearing. That morning, while Hospice was being served with Congressional letters instructing them not to remove Terri’s feeding tube, Attorney Barbara Weller and Terri’s sister Suzanne were happily explaining the upcoming trip to an elated Terri. But unbeknownst to them, the opposition was quickly moving to seek Greer’s intervention. As the 2:00 PM deadline approached, Greer made an unprecedented ruling to ignore the Federal subpoenas and ordered Hospice to proceed with the tube removal according to the court mandate.
This would be the first instance of Congress’ utter failure to legally preserve Terri’s life. It is a federal crime to obstruct or prevent such witnesses from appearing and while members of Congress appeared outraged and threatened to charge Greer with Contempt of Congress, they did nothing to enforce the subpoena, nor did they punish Greer for his judicial misconduct.
In the final week before Terri’s death, Congress passed legislation that was immediately signed into law by President Bush requiring the Federal Court to do a “de-novo” review of the entire case. Yet once more, they did nothing to enforce the very legislation they passed.
Clearly, Judge Greer violated several Federal Laws and stretched the interpretation of Florida statutes as well. But in the end, it would be the appalling court precedent of Estelle Browning’s case that allowed him to do so. In truth, one relatively insignificant district judge usurped the authority of the State Legislature, the State Executive office, Congress and the President of the United States. He succeeded in condemning an innocent woman to death for no other “crime” than that of being disabled.
Eight years ago this might have been simply viewed as “the perfect storm”. Timing is everything, they say. But frighteningly enough with Obama-care looming, it is now an inevitable “climate change” – a mere glimpse of the government-mandated “futile care policies” descending upon us.
Without question, such laws, the courts, and tyrannical authority must be stopped. For if our society becomes one that judges on the basis of a “quality of life” ethic, that society will selfishly seek any means to rid itself of any imperfections or burdens—at any cost. In the words of Clemens Von Galen, the Bishop of Munster, Germany, who fought fiercely against Hitler’s euthanasia policies in 1939, “Once we admit the right to kill unproductive persons, then none of us can be sure of our own life.”
No better time than this week to reflect – Terri – we will never forget!
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Anyone who does not know Terri Schiavo's whole story needs to read this. And anyone who may have missed part of it, or forgotten. In her honor and memory, please read it. Shame on every "official" who COULD have done something and did not! Shame on them all!
Anyone wanting on/off either ping list, FREEPMAIL me.
There was once a Terri Schiavo Ping list who has it?
Evil or Diet Evil is still evil. Don’t complain that someone who’s not willing to compromise on principles & basic morality cost us the election. Quite the contrary.
BykrBayb - do you know who has the Terri Schiavo ping list?
To even ask that question, means you have not understood at all what my point was. I said not one freakin’ thing about “execution”. I can imagine no greater torture any person can possibly endure that to live completely cut off from the world in that way, it would be like just having your brain kept alive in a jar, unable to interact with ANYTHING. True, she had no living will, so the people around her had no way to know her wishes. I cannot say for absolute certain that she truly wanted to continue living, but you absolutely for more certain cannot guarantee that she wasn’t silently screaming in her head every day for years for her family to just do the compassionate thing and let her go. Because of this incident, my living will is absolutely, abundantly clear, what I want to happen if I get into a similar situation where I no longer even have the power to express my wishes to anybody.
Apparently you read nothing about her when the whole thing was happening.
To kill someone is either execution, when state ordered, or murder, when performed by a private party.
So I could have used hte word murder as both execution and murder are applicable in her case.
You want to starve and dehydrate to death? Your choice.
It was not hers.
what on earth makes you so certain that the governor of a stste has the power to interfere in a medical decision made by the husband of a woman that he was responsible for??
her family couldn't stop it, the medical profession wouldn't stop it, as I recall Washington couldn't stop it, what was the governor to do???
Patriots evidently still have problems with the Terria Shiavo case, probably for the same reason that they had problems with why the 5th Amendment didn’t apply in the Kelo v. New London land grab case imo. In both cases, patriots failed to understand that justices ultimately yielded to laws that Constitution-ignorant state citizens didn’t like because of general ignorance of 10th Amendment protected state powers, not that activist justices usually respect such powers.
More specifically, patriots got upset when justices sided with the City of New London, Connecticut because they didn’t understand that the 5th Amendment’s limit on Congress’s power that “the government” can only buy private land for public use does not apply to the states.
Likewise, and with all due respect to the family, friends and supporters of Terrii Schiavo, patriots got upset when the Supreme Court wouldn’t intervene in her case because they evidently didn’t understand that, since the states have never delegated to Congress via the Constitution the specific power to regulate life issues not expressly protected by the Constitution, the 10th Amendment was made to clarify that the Constitution’s silence about things like euthanasia, marriage and abortion, etc., means that they are automatically unique state power issues.
Again, lawmakers in both Florida and Connecticut made 10A-protected state laws that voters didn’t like essentially because Constitution-ignorant, football-watching voters typically don’t get interested in state legislation that probably won’t work in their favor until it is too late imo.
In fact, I suspect that Florida citizens who supported Terri still haven’t worked with Florida lawmakers to make Florida euthanasia laws that show more compassion to people like Terri.
So you’re saying via gobbledygook lawyerese slippery talk that states can pass laws that violate the Constitution and no one can do anything about it.
I remember that my lib nephew even realized that this was wrong. He asked his mother to make sure that he was given all available technology including food and water to prolong his life.
I am literally sickened when I think about this situation and how Terri was m.u.r.d.e.r.e.d.
I understand your thinking, I used to think that way too. I talked to my mother about it because my mother was in a accident and in a coma not expected to live or to ever wake up for 28 days.
My mother told me she was aware on some level; she knew when her mother was with her, she got to “know” certain nurses that were kind spoken. The thing she told me that I will never forget is that she had no awareness of the passage of time, she was in a fog like state and said the things like not being able to get up and do things, all the things you are concerned about- the awareness of that wasn’t there, she just didn’t even think about that type of thing. When my mother woke up she said she had no idea how long she had been in a coma, hours, days, weeks- no idea.
Three years ago my grandson was in a coma for almost 3 days and I asked him what it was like, he told me pretty much the same thing my mother said. He knew on some level that his mom and aunt were with him all the time, and knew hubby and I were there but were not there all the time. He is the most active boy ever, he is not a couch potato at all- he said he never thought about not being able to do anything- just never occurred to him.
My hubby was blown up by a landmine in Vietnam and told me he remembered floating up in the air, thought that was weird, didn’t know what was happening- then pretty much nothing for days. He did remember some awareness that things were going on around him but he said he never thought of what he couldn’t do, how bad he was hurt or anything like that until he was fully awake days later.
There was a woman in my state that was comatose and declared in a vegetative state for somewhere around 20 years and woke up- it was in the news for a while. She said she had no idea how much time had passed, to her it was like going to sleep and waking up the next morning. She did have some awareness of her family and music they played for her. In fact what she had a hard time with when she did wake up was that her kids had grown up and her mother, sister, etc. had aged.
It is a different state of mind, it seems it is not what we can relate to, people that are unconscious or in a coma don’t seem to experience the things that most of us think it would be like.
“In fact, I suspect that Florida citizens who supported Terri still haven’t worked with Florida lawmakers to make Florida euthanasia laws that show more compassion to people like Terri.”
It doesn’t matter now, comrade.
We have obamacare to take care of all the “special” cases.
And the elderly.
Thank you for relating your experiences. It must have been very painful to have to live with that. The descriptions of what it was like during the coma is definitely something to ponder about. Perhaps it is a defense mechanism your brain creates to prevent itself from going insane.
it was jeb’s state to have executive power in, understand states have rights, people have rights, Feds only have enumerated powers. Jeb could have protected her. I kept waiting for someone to spirit her out of Florida to a state that could actually protect her. Her “husband” who vowed to love honor and respect her got 250K in life insurance and was already dipping his wick with a new “girlfriend”
I won't post the excerpts unless you want to see them. But in case you are not aware, the Supreme Court had previously clarified that the states have never delegated to Congress via the Constitution the specific power to regulate, tax and spend for public healthcare purposes.
So all that the Supreme Court did when it decided Obamacare constitutional was to show that the judicial branch of federal government is just as corrupt as the other two branches imo.
The USSC decision of declaring zerocare a tax gave us citizens a tiny sliver of a chance of escaping it IF we had a strong enough resistance in one of the branches of government... so far, the House has tried to disassemble (defund) zerocare 38 times and counting, to no avail.
Personally, I think it’s the eotwawki and it doesn’t matter what the House tries to do to get rid of this monstrosity.
God help us.
You’re right.
Plus, a marriage certificate means something.
To change legalities, we would have to void the marriage contract and let big government take over that roll.
It does the same damage to marriage as homosexual marriage does.
You may not have seen two excerpts from the Gibbons v. Ogden opinion which should have killed Obamacare imo. Gibbons had clarified not only that the states have never delegated to Congress the specific power to regulate public healthcare, healthcare a state power issue, but also that Congress is prohibited from laying taxes in the name of state power issues, essentially powers which Congress cannot justify under the Constitution's Section 8 of Article I.
"State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress (emphasis added)." --Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.So Chief Justice Roberts' calling Obamacare a tax actually went againt case precedent imo."Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." --Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
This case showed that the legal system is capable of murdering an innocent woman while in the full knowledge of her innocence. This one a milestone that delegitimized the government on state and federal level. Row v. Wade was an earlier such milestone. Unless we think that laws are living things that can heal themselves, we must admit that the laws failed not due to a single human error, but as a system.
Rightly the murder of Terri Schiavo must be remembered each Easter.
I just freepmailed you my copy of the ping list. I doubt it’s current, as this was from a couple years ago.
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