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I just received this in my email from someone who is very involved with Terri's case.

nbc6.net
State Medical Directors Come Out Against 'Terri's Law'
Conservative Law Firm Asks To Intervene On Parents' Behalf
Associated Press
POSTED: 4:56 p.m. EST October 30, 2003
UPDATED: 5:18 p.m. EST October 30, 2003

TAMPA, Fla. -- The organization that represents doctors who work in hospices and nursing homes said Thursday that Florida lawmakers and Gov. Jeb Bush are interfering with private end-of-life decisions by blocking Terri Schiavo's death.

Meanwhile, the conservative law firm founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson asked Thursday to be allowed to intervene in the case on behalf of Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler.

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State Circuit Court Judge W. Douglas Baird would have to grant the American Center for Law & Justice permission to enter the lawsuit filed by Michael Schiavo against the governor.

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, said his firm is seeking to represent the Schindlers' interest in the constitutional challenge of the new law. The group decided to seek permission to enter the case after the American Civil Liberties Union joined George Felos, husband Michael Schiavo's attorney.

Felos said he had not seen the group's filing and could not comment on it specifically.

"I think ultimately various parties and groups, as this case goes up the appellate system, will be filing briefs and letting their position be known," Felos said.

The groups are the latest weighing in on Bush's action earlier this month that ordered doctors to reinsert the feeding tube that has been keeping the severely brain damaged woman alive. Her husband, Michael Schiavo, had sought to remove the tube, saying his wife did not want to be kept alive artificially. Doctors have said she is in a persistent vegetative state.

The statement released by the doctors does not have any legal implications, but Florida medical directors said the governor's actions to block Terri Schiavo's death violates federal law, state law and medical ethics.

"Requiring judicial and executive review of complex end-of-life decisions is an unnecessary intrusion into the private affairs of a patient and family -- at a most vulnerable time," the group said in its statement. "We believe, therefore, that this bill is unwise and should be overturned."

The feeding tube that has kept Terri Schiavo alive for more than a decade was removed Oct. 15 on her husband's orders. Michael Schiavo has said he is carrying out his wife's wishes to not be artificially kept alive. Her parents and siblings dispute that, saying say never expressed that wish to them.

Florida lawmakers and Bush intervened six days later, enacting a special law giving the governor the power to order the tube be reinserted. Terri Schiavo is now being cared for at the Pinellas Park Hospice, where she has lived for the past several years.

Howard Tuch, a board member and director of long-term care programs at Hospice of the Florida Suncoast in Sarasota, said although the new law was specifically defined to give the governor powers in the Schiavo case, it has had a further reach.

He said recently he dealt with a case of the family of an Alzheimer's disease patient who had lost the ability to swallow food and who had an advanced directive specifying no artificial life support.

While the family was at first comfortable with its decision not to have a feeding tube inserted, the massive publicity surrounding the governor's intervention and claims that the death would be a painful one caused them to order a tube be inserted.

The patient died within 48 hours, but Tuch said the case illustrates how distraught families and medical professionals have become about such decisions.

"This decision has raised the level of anxiety," Tuch said.

The doctors noted few people have advanced directives to indicate their decisions should something debilitating happen to them, and even fewer people have directives that address the specific technologies which exist in medicine to prolong life. That leaves the crucial decision on life or death up to a family member or designated surrogate, most often a spouse or an adult child.

"That has been undermined by this," Tuch said. "Even though this law is so narrow, if you didn't write it down, anyone in your family could rise to make an objection.

"We always worry about the cousin from California coming in and challenging a decision to do one thing or another. It's a mythical concern with end-of-life care issues. This raises what is mythical to a more present concern with us."

Bush has said he believes he did the right thing in stopping Terri Schiavo's death and is satisfied to let the matter now be handled by the courts.

Pat Anderson, the attorney representing the Schindlers' in their long legal battle against their son-in-law, said the facts of the Schiavo case are so unusual the law should not affect others. She said she had not seen the doctors' statement and declined to comment on it.

She said Terri Schiavo's reflexes have been improving in the week since the tube was reinserted. The 39-year-old is again smiling when her mother enters the room, Anderson said.