Click and sing along!
Posted on 10/21/2003 1:21:45 PM PDT by kattracks
October 21, 2003, 4:14 PM EDTTALLAHASSEE -- Lawmakers sent Gov. Jeb Bush a bill that will give him the power to order a feeding tube be reinserted into a brain-damaged woman in defiance of courts and her husband.
Bush said he will immediately sign the bill and order the tube to be reinserted into Terri Schiavo, the subject of one of the nation's longest and most bitter legal battles over care for a disabled person.
Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, want her to live. Her husband, Michael Schiavo, says she would rather die.
Schiavo's feeding tube was removed last Wednesday. Doctors have said the 39-year-old woman will die within a week to 10 days without nutrition and water.
Lawmakers were already called to the Capitol for a special session on economic development when they decided to intervene in the case.
Bush said he did not think lawmakers were motivated by politics.
``This is a response to a tragic situation.'' Bush said. ``People are responding to cries for help and I think it's legitimate.''
Sen. Tom Lee said Schiavo would ``essentially starve ... to death'' without intervention from lawmakers and the governor. ``It's a pretty awful way to go,'' said Lee, R-Brandon.
Opponents said government was stepping in where it had no business being.
``I do not believe the governor of Florida should be making a decision of life and death rather than the next of kin,'' said Sen. Steven Geller, D-Hallandale.
The House approved the bill 73-24 after the Senate passed it 23-15.
George Felos, a lawyer for Michael Schiavo, asked a judge to stop Bush even before he received the bill. A hearing was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
Earlier in Tampa, U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday denied a request by the Advocacy Center for Persons with Disabilities, which monitors the treatment of disabled adults, that Schiavo be kept alive so it could investigate whether removal of the tube was abusive.
Merryday wrote that federal courts _ other than the U.S. Supreme Court _ are forbidden from interjecting themselves into matters already decided by state courts. He also said the group failed to provide enough evidence to support its request.
The bill sent to Bush was designed to be as narrow as possible. It is limited to cases in which the patient left no living will, is in a persistent vegetative state, has had nutrition and hydration tubes removed and where a family member has challenged the removal.
Court-appointed doctors have described Schiavo as being in a vegetative state, caused when her heart stopped in 1990 from a suspected potassium imbalance.
Bush last week promised the woman's parents that he would help them if he could find a way.
The Florida Supreme Court has twice refused to hear the case, and it also has been rejected for review by the U.S. Supreme Court. Last week, a Florida appeals court again refused to block removal of the tube.
Felos said he thinks the legislation would be unconstitutional. It is Terri Schiavo's right under the Florida Constitution to not be kept alive artificially, and the courts have affirmed that, he said.
Pat Anderson, the attorney for the parents, said she was ``dumbfounded'' by the Legislature's action, although the Schindlers had hoped for such help in the wake of continued court defeats.
During a two-hour debate in the House, several Democrats argued that the Constitution doesn't let the Legislature give the governor the power to overrule the courts.
``This bill so oversteps our role it ... turns democracy on its head,'' said Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach.
But many Republicans and some Democrats said they need to be involved in dire cases where judges might be wrong.
``The Constitution is supposed to protect the people of this state,'' said Rep. Sandy Murman, R-Tampa. ``Who is protecting this girl?''
Former Florida Supreme Court Justice Stephen Grimes said the case is unique and it is not clear whether the law will be upheld.
``It presents a new legal issue that I've never heard of,'' Grimes said.
Copyright © 2003, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Does anyone have the ability to examine the history of Greer/Felos? I'd bet a $50 donation to FR that Terri's is not the first case, and were it not for her refusal to die like she was supposed to, Felos/Greer would still be at it.
This is a SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCE .... READ ... for God's sake, will ya? This is about life ebbing out of a person in a contested case, where there is NO CERTAINTY about the patient's ability to be rehabilitated (which the HINO has refused at EVERY turn), where she CLEARLY is not comatose and responds to external stimuli, and about a judge who has REFUSED to consider any alternative but STARVING HER TO DEATH!!!!!!!
Would you NOT consider this to be a SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCE???? Or do YOU know thousands of cases just like this????
When there is ANY doubt, you give the benefit of the doubt to LIFE ......... NOT PURPOSEFUL DEATH BY STARVATION!!!
Would you feel outrage at someone who was purposely starving a dog that was an inconvenience???? Or .. a convicted killer on death row who was purposely STARVED TO DEATH??? I'll bet you'd get your pants in a liberally wrinkled knot if you knew that was happening, but now you want to express FEAR of judicial precedent over just the CHANCE to save a human life, sentenced to a cruel and inhumane death when the facts are in conflict?
If a so-called conservative judge did this, I would feel no different ...oh, but that's right, I forgot. A conservative judge wouldn't do this. Who would be complicit in cases like this ... could it be liberal moral relativists? Or ...a liberal politician who wants the right to kill an innocent baby who's an inconvenience?? And to even have the RIGHT to murder a baby in the birth canal during delivery, puncturing its brain to suck them out??? Or ... a liberal activist who wants to protect trees, seas, manatees, whales, rock formations, coasts and ground .. and feels entitled to burn, bomb and destroy the property of others?? Or .. a morally bankrupt physician who may want to "harvest" organs from a newborn babe who may have medical challenges BEFORE it is legally declared dead. Or ... any of this ilk, who are indifferent to just how precious HUMAN LIFE is. See any paradox or hyocrisy here?
You must take out your worry beads, meditate, and focus on your naval, maybe inhale some green tea aromatherapy ... it'll all get better.
Those of us with faith don't have to go to those lengths to feel peace .. we have faith in our Lord. Do you know that doctors are wrong a lot??? Do you know than even a truly comatose patient can shock the doctors after years .. even over 10 years .. and recover from that coma??? Miracles DO happen .. events confound science.
TERRI IS NOT IN A COMA ... SHE JUST HAD THE MISFORTUNE TO MARRY A SELFISH, GREEDY, IMMORAL MAN. My guess: probably a just another Godless liberal.
We, on the other side, FIGHT ON!
I suspect an audit of Terri's books, which a guardian ad litem should demand, would show ample motive for all three members of the Schiavo Triumvirate. I don't think it can be reasonably denied that all three people were trying to kill her, and if the books show what I think they do, all three would have criminal motive.
BTW, I also have a hunch that an examination of Felos'/Greer's case history might lead to some other cases being reopened. They had their routine well enough planned I don't think it's the first time they've pulled this caper. Just the first time their victim has refused to die.
Click and sing along!
Yes. Among other things, it involves that a disabled person be represented by a guardian ad litem in all matters where her guardian's interests may be adverse to her own.
Greer declared there was no conflict of interest; that may make it "legally so", but that doesn't make it right.
I've got a really strong gut feeling that Terri's refusal to die may have served to expose a Schiavo/Greer murder racket. I doubt she's the first person they've killed off for profit. I'd say shutting such an enterprise down sets a very good precedent.
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