Sean Hannity Steps In: Terri Schindler Case (New Video)

FOXNEWS.COM ^ | 10-13-03 | my favorite headache

[My Favorite Headache]

The Terri fight takes to Hannity and Colmes tonight. New exclusive video and a heated discussion to be on the show tonight. Since Jeb Bush has not done a damn thing to stop the drawn out execution of Terri Schindler.

Terri on Hannity and Combes tonight with Randall Terry, also some new video of Terri which will cause major problems for Michael and Felos.

Please get the word out - this is urgent!!!

[pgyanke]

In cases like this, the legal guardian (Michael Schiavo is the legal guardian, and no one else. Not the parents) makes the decision as to whether or not life support will continue in the absence of any explicit "living will" by the person, in this case, Terri.

This is where you, and the courts, are off base. The absence of the "living will" means the law is REQUIRED to maintain her life. Michael is arguing that "she never wanted to live this way" essentially speaking for her and trying to create a defacto living will. The criminal thing is the court is allowing it.

I have dealt with many clients over the years in similar circumstances. We preach the need for living wills to ensure your own wishes are respected by the courts. However, everyday, there are people kept artificially alive by hospitals who aren't allowed to die because it is against the law. The living will provides that you can elect before you are in this situation to ensure you aren't artificially kept alive. The absence of a living will means she should be kept alive and given rehabilitative care.

That's my rant and I'm sticking to it.

[My Favorite Headache]

Bump to your post..

[My Favorite Headache]

This will make waves...Jeb has done his part already and it isn't enough.

[Armed Civilian]

Yes, how anyone could rule the way they have is sick. They are saying it could take 7-14 days for her to die from removing the tube, how about letting them rehab her like her parents have asked during that time to see the results. They are all cowards.

[First_Salute]

If the A.C.L.U. gets a court order for President Bush to not use anti-missile missiles to defend New York City, should he not use the anti-missile missiles?

Now the judge, in this case, has said "no missiles."

The duty of the President is to protect and defend, to save life and limb.

The Chief Executive's power is in the Constitution.

There are many situations under the rule of law, where the balance of power between the branches of government is determined by the branches and the sovereignty of the people, as each tests the other to assert their authority.

There are some rule that we live by here --- some are "on the books" and some are not.

To be sure, we will lose our liberty if we imagine that the people only have the powers enumerated by the powerful dictates of government officialdom, especially in our blessed land where it is we, the people, who actually have the power to bear down upon the branches of government and force them to be our public servants.

Lest they turn the world on its head and make servants of us.

The message, the very reason I am a member of this forum, is because it is my duty to inform you that you must make your Stand and live or die by it.

[Armed Civilian]

I'm with you. A company I worked for in the past used to market living wills, hence the name living.

[sinkspur]

With all due respect, that's all fluff.

Unless you can cite a specific statute that gives Jeb Bush or George Bush the authority to intervene here, they cannot.

[DrDeb]

"This is going to get the attention it needs right now. Let's see how much Jeb drags his feet after this airs."

I genuinely feel your pain; however, we must target the REAL villains in this heart-wrenching case! Jeb Bush has tried to intervene TWICE in this case -- he DOES NOT have the legal authority to do anything other than what he has already done!

The following article was posted on Glenn Beck's website:

MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH
Federal judge says
Terri Schiavo must die
Rejects plea by parents to allow disabled woman to live

Posted: October 12, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Sarah Foster
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

A federal judge in Tampa, Fla., has ruled against Terri Schiavo, the 39-year-old brain-disabled woman, whose death by court-ordered starvation is scheduled to begin in four days. The ruling clears the way for her husband, Michael Schiavo, to remove the feeding tube his wife depends upon for food and hydration.

At the end of a three-and-a-half-hour hearing Friday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Richard A. Lazzara rejected a plea by Terri's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler of Gulf Port, Fla., to assume federal jurisdiction over the case, refusing to acknowledge that her constitutional rights, in particular her 14th Amendment right to due process, had been violated.

He also rejected a request by the Schindlers for a temporary injunction on removing Terri's feeding tube, until she has received sufficient therapy and training to enable her to be spoon-fed.

He granted a motion to dismiss the Schindlers' petition made Monday by Schiavo's attorney George Mr. Felos, a well-known "right-to-die" advocate.

The case was argued in court by Christopher Ferrara, of the American Catholic Lawyers Association, co-counsel with Patricia Anderson representing the Schindlers and Terri herself.

Pamela Hennessy, volunteer spokesperson for the Schindler family, attended the hearing and pulled no punches in comments to WorldNetDaily.

"I sat there in the courtroom, and it seemed that he cut off every other sentence Chris made. He interrupted him endlessly. I don't think [Lazzara] let him finish too many sentences. I don't think Chris was really heard."


Gov. Jeb Bush

Not even the fact that the Florida Gov. Jeb Bush had stepped into the fight for Terri last week by filing a friend-of-the-court brief on her behalf impressed the judge, said Hennessy.

"[Lazzara] didn't care," she said. "He said the governor's brief was well-written and he allowed him to be admitted as a friend of the court, but he said that [Bush] was only a friend of the court and had no power to intervene."


Hennessey took umbrage at the notion that as a federal judge he cannot take jurisdiction.

"Of course he can," she exclaimed. "[Terri's] constitutional rights have been denied. He could have stepped in, but nope – he washed his hands of it, he didn't want to get involved at all."

As WorldNetDaily reported, the Schindlers have been fighting with their son-in-law Michael Schiavo for 10 years over the lack of care and therapy Schiavo has provided for their daughter, who suffered massive brain damage when, at the age of 26, she collapsed at her home 13 years ago under mysterious circumstances.

The contentious family dispute escalated into a major euthanasia battle in 1998 when Schiavo petitioned the Florida courts for permission to end his wife's life by disconnecting her feeding tube, insisting she is in a "persistent vegetative state" and that in casual conversations she had told him she would not want to be kept alive "artificially." Although Terri breathes on her on and maintains her own blood pressure, she requires a simple tube into her abdomen to her stomach for nourishment and hydration.

Although Terri's parents and siblings have claimed for years that she recognizes them and tries to talk – and over a dozen prominent doctors and therapists have stated under oath that she is not in a persistent vegetative state and with therapy could be rehabilitated – a handful of doctors have testified she is "vegetative." They claim her expressions and vocalizations are simply reflex actions and that she will never regain consciousness. Despite a scarcity of expert testimony and evidence for Schiavo's position, Greer and Florida's appellate courts have consistently sided with him and Felos, his attorney.

When the seven-member Florida Supreme Court washed its hands of the matter in August by turning down an appeal by the Schindlers to review the case, the way was clear for Schiavo to starve his wife to death.

On Sept. 17, probate Judge George Greer, of the Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court, scheduled Oct. 15 as the day Terri's feeding tube would be removed.

At the same time but in separate rulings, Greer – who has been in charge of the case from almost the beginning – denied any rehabilitation whatsoever for the disabled woman. An Aug. 26 request by the Schindlers asking that their daughter be allowed an eight-week trial of speech, occupational and physical therapy, was summarily rejected by Greer along with a motion made Sept. 10 that she be taught to swallow food so she could be spoon-fed.

With the state courts closed against them, the Schindlers sued their son-in-law in federal court to block the scheduled Oct. 15 removal of their daughter's feeding tube. In their Sept. 22 request for a preliminary injunction, they asked Judge Lazzara that Terri be given therapy for a sufficient time to wean her off her feeding tube and return her to nutrition by mouth.

Friday's ruling by Lazzara has destroyed that opportunity and the hopes of Terri's family and supporters that she would be allowed to live.

Terri's feeding tube is scheduled to be removed at 2 p.m. Wednesday. Physicians say her slow death by starvation and dehydration will take anywhere from seven to 14 days.

The Schindlers and their attorneys were unavailable for comment.

Legal documents and information on Terri's fight for life are posted on the family's website.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35041

[stanz]

What is strangely missing from all of this is what Terri wants. I read that she responded that she does not want the food tube removed, but people ought to stress that this is Terri's life and her wishes ought to be respected. I just can't imagine them causing this woman to die.

[Catholicguy]

Bush has executive power in the State. I think he can stop this if he desires. I would think he certainly could order a delay.

[Ann Archy]

Storm heaven with prayers also!!

[Armed Civilian]

Her rights, the judge has basically said she has none. PRAY, PRAY, PRAY....

[My Favorite Headache]

It just makes me ill.

[TheBigB]

Depends on your interpretation.

Under Florida Law, If a patient has not made a Living Will Declaration, but has designated in writing a "Health Care Surrogate," then the surrogate may make decisions regarding life-prolonging procedures unless the patient has specifically limited the surrogate's authority to do so.

However, the surrogate must find that the patient does not have a reasonable medical probability of recovering capacity and must also find that the patient is both mentally and physically incapacitated with no reasonable medical probability of recovery. However, under the terms of the Florida Statute Section 765, life support can only be terminated when the patient is terminal, in an end-stage condition, or vegetative. Having "zero quality of life" does not rise to any of those standards, and so under the statutes the surrogate would not be authorized to terminate life support. In this case, Michael and several doctors have said she is in a persistent vegetative state. Others have said she is not. Not being there, and not being a Doctor, I don't know. From what I've read (and I don't know how much of it is tru and how much is not), Michael sounds like a lying, money-grubbing sleazeball.

[sinkspur]

Bush has executive power in the State. I think he can stop this if he desires. I would think he certainly could order a delay.

What specific statute gives him that authority?

Are state chief executives able to just intervene anywhere, in any situation?

Either he has the power to intervene here, or he doesn't.

I'd like to see this halted, and I think Jeb would too. Public opinion would certainly be on his side in this.

It's just silly to hold Jeb Bush somehow responsible for this woman's death.

[sc2_ct]

How is it that everyone always seems to gloss over this part!?!

October 14, 2002 -Dr. Hammesfahr testified that in all of his past experiences he has only had one patient who suffered a neck spinal cord injury that was similar with what he had found during his examination of Terri. Attorney Anderson asked Dr. Hammesfahr how this injury occurred to that patient. Dr. Hammesfahr emphatically stated that the neck spinal injury this patient incurred was by Strangulation. Schiavo’s attorney avoided challenging Dr. Hammesfahr’s strangulation statement.

Michael Schiavo and his lawyer should be hunted down, strapped to chairs and killed through starvation if this is allowed to go forward!

[TheBigB]

Anf for the record, I'd like to see it stopped too. But I don't see any other legal recourse at this point.

[My Favorite Headache]

It needs to be out there and shown constantly.

[Catholicguy]

I don't know of any particular statue. I was just sugesting it must be part of his executive authority within the State. We know he can commute the sentence of a guilty individual and we know the state can intervene withn families to prevent the abuse/death of individuals, so, I just assumed....

[snopercod]

I agree with what you say, but I'm staying out of this bar fight.

Easing toward the door....