Posted on 10/15/2003 9:59:46 AM PDT by oneday
Posted on Wed, Oct. 15, 2003
Removal of brain-damaged woman's feeding tube to proceed MITCH STACY Associated Press
DOVER, Fla. - Gov. Jeb Bush said Wednesday he has ordered his legal team to try to find a way to intervene in the case of severely disabled woman who is scheduled to have the feeding tube keeping her alive removed.
Bush's comments came after a 20-minute meeting with the family of Terri Schiavo, who faces a 2 p.m. Wednesday deadline in the removal of the tube. Her husband, Michael Schiavo, has been granted permission to remove the tube in a six-year legal battle against her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler.
Bush said his attorneys are looking for legal alternatives to somehow block the removal of the tube, but did not know yet what they might be.
"We are going to seek whatever legal alternatives are available and seek the best minds to find another avenue to submit to the courts to see if there can be a change in this ruling," Bush said at an appearance in Dover dedicating new housing for migrant workers.
"I am not a doctor, I am not a lawyer, But I know that if a person can be able to sustain life without life support, that should be tried," the governor said, adding the "ultimate decision of this is in the courts."
Bob Schindler Jr., Terri Schiavo's brother, said the family was heartened by the governor's last-minute effort. The Schindlers have pleaded with Bush - who in previous legal findings have supported their efforts to obtain therapy for their daughter - to intervene.
"The family has not given up hope on Terri," Bob Schindler Jr. said following the meeting with Bush. "We have spoken to the governor, and he hasn't given up hope either."
Terri Schiavo, 39, is expected to die within two weeks after the tube's removal. She's been in a vegetative state since suffering a heart attack in 1990. Her parents believe she is capable of learning how to eat and drink on her own.
A state appeals court in Lakeland rejected motions by an attorney for the Schindlers and their legal remedies have been exhausted, their lawyer said Tuesday.
Michael Schiavo says he is carrying out his wife's wishes that she not be kept alive artificially. The parents say their daughter has shown signs of trying to communicate and could be rehabilitated.
"In our eyes, it's murder," Bob Schindler said Wednesday on CBS' "Early Show."
George Felos, attorney for Michael Schiavo, said that the Schindlers were "still in denial" over Terri Schiavo's wishes not to be kept alive.
Doctors have testified that the noises and facial expressions Terri Schiavo makes are reflexes and do not indicate that she has enough mental capabilities to communicate with others.
She responds to her relatives' speech and touch, she follows them around with her eyes, she smiles when her relatives touch her, talk to her, and kiss her (all of this is clearly visible on the videos).
There was no date given for the videos, and the clips seen on the news were obviously edited. S facial expressions are in the same category as twitching and blinking. The video could have been assembled by the parents to support their case. Tests have shown no higher brain function.
...if she did not improve they would take out her feeding tube resulted in this: she sat up in bed and began to attempt to get out of bed, when she couldn't she started to cry.
If this did indeed happen, then she is not in a persistent vegetative state, and the entire issue is moot. The doctors involved are all conspiring to murder a healthy patient?
Have you ever watched the video of Terri?
I have not seen “the” video, I have seen (several times) an edited composite video showing her propped up. One portion that makes me question the video “shows” her blinking in response to questions – the sudden differences in lighting between question and “response” clearly indicate editing.
I see this as a case of a husband who wants his wife to finally be laid to rest while her parents refuse to let her go.
I received similar responses from friends the other day and it made me think about this: If she is in a vegatative state then her life is nothing, useless, irrelevant, valueless...then I though, I just have put a value on this person's life, who am I or any of us to do this on another person's life? At what point do "we" judge a human life as useless so as to stop trying to keep them living and kill them? There is a purpose for why she lives.
When you take God out of it a human life becomes meaningless.
Euthenise, murder - it's all in the semantics, isn't it?
I guess the doctors and nurses who claimed she is responsive are all conspiring to keep a "dead" (your definition) corpse in suspended animation?
The doctors are following the law, as interpreted by Judge Greer.
So if a judge ordered you to kill your innocent loved one, what would you do?
I think the husband is a complete sphincter!
When you take God out of it a human life becomes meaningless.
Without human medical intervention – the feeding tube - God would allow her to die.
Who is “playing God” – the husband or the parents?
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