Terri's Fight - (Daily Thread/Updates)November 1-2, 2003

Various | November 1, 2003 | sweetliberty

[sweetliberty]

TERRI'S FIGHT (Daily Thread 2 - November 1-2, 2003)

Link back to thread 2 - October 30-31)

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Contained in thread 2:

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Contact information for the ACLJ, link for Chris Ferrara's legal brief, Senate Amendment to Terri's Bill, Ken Connor of the Family Research Council joins fight for Terri's Law, contact information for law enforcement and Judge Demers, Republic's impassioned letter to Judge Demers, Schiavo's claim that Terri's surgery was a success, link to CBN interview with the Schindlers (Oct 31), state's medical directors come out against Terri's Law, more links to testimony and legal debate, short bio on Judge Demers, update from the vigil and a doctor's exam report on Terri from 1990. Wacky Sam has also graciously offered to provide server space for documents to be kept to prevent their loss form other sources.

There is also a lot of discussion and links dealing with the seeming network of connnections between the girlfriend, Jodi, various insurance business links and possibly Terri's new doctor. In addition, several questions are addressed regarding Michael Schiavo's hiding of assets and tricks that may have been employed to throw off investigative efforts. Some of the FReepers have been doing their homework on the unholy alliances in the case. Let's keep working to connect the dots and expose the results. Also contained in thread 2 is some of Schiavo's litigious history, a bit more information on George Felos and more on Jay Wolfson. Some information on the doctors involved in Terri's case can be found on this thread as well. Since there are so many posts and links to the above mentioned topics, the best thing to do is to browse the thread.

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Click on pic for Terri's website

This thread serves as a place for posting all new general information and references, along with links following Terri's case, plus information on cable news and talk radio shows dealing with the issue, court cases and press releases. This is also the place to post contact information, prayers and general discussion.

If you have something that qualifies as BREAKING NEWS or FRONT PAGE NEWS, please post it on a separate thread in that category in order to give it maximum exposure and then post a link to the article/thread here so that it will be included in the next update of links. Also, if you post links to articles from original sources and there is also a thread on FR, please link to the FR thread. Many original links become corrupt over time and we want to be able to access the information at will.

Thanks again to everyone for all your hard work.

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Latest Threads On Terri's Case

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Terri's Parents Want Their Voice Heard in Life-or-Death Case

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW - Schindlers Respond to Michael Schiavo's Larry King Love-Fest - PART1 (Listed In Previous List, but added here to have both parts together)

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW - Schindlers Respond to Michael Schiavo's Larry King Love-Fest - PART 2

Michael Challenges Terri's Law, Wants Guardian Appointment Delayed

An Execution In Florida — Terri Schiavo On Death Row

TERRI SCHIAVO: Woman's plight raises questions

Majority Would Remove Schiavo's Feeding Tube (Fox News)

Awareness Seen in Vegetative Patients

Professor Appointed to Probe Schiavo Case

Ending Life Humanely (Ed Koch on Terri Schiavo)

[oreolady]

Thanks, but how do I get the rest of it?

[Aliska]

Understand that general reaction and polls are based on misinformation.

To a certain extent, yes. Still they believed the husband and trash the family. I can't help wondering if a lot of this is based on their putting themselves in his shoes and not wanting themselves to be saddled with a useless spouse. I'm only human myself and at some point would get burnout. The problem is that regardless of your personal stake, you must still do your best to do the right thing imo. That's is what separates the sheep from the goats, not feelings. To me, doing the "right" thing doesn't involve years later "remembering" and starvation, especially of an individual who has not being diagnosed as terminal. In a worst case scenario, if Terri is truly PVS (which doesn't appear to be the case to me), that still doesn't excuse termination by deliberate starvation.

That is why it is critical that we all get as much FACTUAL information as possible out to several reporters/newscasters/talk show hosts as possible.

That is helpful, providing the factual information to get out are actual facts. We aren't privy to a lot of the facts. What I'm seeing is that people are no longer concerned with the facts. They react viscerally (hatred for the Bush brothers using Terri as their catalyst) and want to get on to the next show.

Even facts don't dissuade most people. Their minds are made up. As is mine, of couse, mainly because of the inconsistencies in the case. The bottom line for me is that no matter who has custody of a person, they ought not to be starved to death when we have the means to prevent it, especially on the basis of belated remembering and biassed "testimony".

[Pan_Yans Wife]

http://www.serendipity.li/cda/niemoll.html

Pastor Niemoller

[texasbluebell]

Here's a link to it, just found it on google.

First They Came for the Jews

[Graymatter]

>>...grey don't matter.

I resemble that remark!!

[Aliska]

I resemble that remark!!

hehe. Knew ya would :-). Just a play on words.

[Twinkie]

I just wish the media mouths would quit parroting the
words "in a coma", "vegetative". If a lot of people
would write short letters to the editors of their
local papers, maybe it would help counteract this lie
that just keeps being repeated by the media mouths.

[Aliska]

I don't see any language problems in your post.

Good. It read a lot better with the colorful language left in :-).

[oreolady]

Thanks, I, too, searched google, didn't think it would find a quote, but now I feel sheepish..............

[supercat]

I can't help wondering if a lot of this is based on their putting themselves in his shoes and not wanting themselves to be saddled with a useless spouse. I'm only human myself and at some point would get burnout.

Yes, but but would you react to such burnout by divorcing your spouse, or by killing your spouse?

By the time Michael won the malpractice award, more three years had elapsed since Terri's collapse. Consequently, he would have been eligible for a divorce. I don't think one would have been denied him, and Terri's trust fund would likely obviate the need for alimony. Of course, then he wouldn't be able to pocket Terri's trust fund himself, but he claims this isn't about money.

[sweetliberty]

Oh, I'm sure we all filled in the blanks quite nicely.

[msmagoo]

First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew

Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the gypsies and I did not speak out because I was not a gypsy

Then they came for the Catholics and I did not speak out because I was not a Catholic.

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.

by Pastor Martin Niemoller

Seeking answers in case of Terri Schiavo - Reader Opinions

Not artificial to supply food

By Wesley J. Smith, Oakland, Calif.

Florida Today's editorial headlined "Second thoughts" about the Terri Schiavo case, states that she has "been kept alive artificially."

I am not sure what that means. But if her life-sustaining medical treatment is "artificial," then so too is it artificial for the diabetic to receive insulin.

But no editorial writer would ever use the term "artificial" in that context to argue against treatment for diabetics.

I can only infer then, that the intent was to demean the value of Schiavo's life and minimize the wrongness of dehydrating and starving her to death.

[texasbluebell]

No need to feel sheepish! I wasn't sure it would work either, but it seems to be a pretty good search engine.

[Aliska]

Yes, but but would you react to such burnout by divorcing your spouse,

Probably not but I might. Where I am now with my religious beliefs, I would not feel free to remarry nor having a new relationship involving sex.

or by killing your spouse?

I would like to think I would never do such a thing, no matter how badly I wanted to be free. I can't deny that I would probably have a strong desire for deliverance though, but not through my own hand or actions. That's what living by faith encompasses, doing the right thing when we desire another, quicker outcome.

[msmagoo]

Just saw this article and wondered if the Prudential settlement was under Terri and Michael's homeowner's insurance?

Prudential to drop some policies

Homeowners told to shop for new coverage

This article was written re: natural disasters but if the Schiavos had homeowners insurance at the time of Terri's 'collapse' - which occurred in their home - wouldn't her initial medical bills have been covered, up to a point?

[sweetliberty]

" if the Schiavos had homeowners insurance at the time of Terri's 'collapse' - which occurred in their home - wouldn't her initial medical bills have been covered, up to a point?"

I wouldn't know. I just don't know enough about the insurance business operates.

[msmagoo]

Drake: Disabled are fearful: Who will be next?

By Stephen Drake

Saturday, November 1, 2003

Bob and Mary Schindler consistently refer to their daughter, Terri, as a disabled person. They're right. Although most newspapers are covering this story as an "end of life" or "right to life" issue, what ultimately happens to Terri Schiavo will affect countless other people with disabilities in this country.

Like many disabled people, Terri Schiavo is unable to tell us what future she prefers. She left nothing saying she preferred starvation to living with a disability. She never signed a legal document designating her husband as her surrogate in the event she became unable to communicate.

Despite this, media commentary is dominated by bioethicists and "end of life" experts telling us she should be left to die and explaining how "peaceful" starvation is as a way to die. To hear them tell it, Schiavo has no meaningful life. She can't talk, they say, she can't eat on her own, can't walk and has no control over her bowels or bladder.

Thousands of people with disabilities across the United States are watching the case anxiously. In fact, 12 national disability groups have filed "friend of the court" briefs in opposition to the efforts to starve Schiavo. Obviously, we want to know how all those commenting in this case feel about the lives of people with Down's syndrome, autism, Alzheimer's and other disabilities. Are they next for death through starvation? It's not so farfetched.

I was born brain-damaged as a result of a forceps delivery. The doctor told my parents I would be a "vegetable" for the rest of my life -- the same word now being used for Schiavo -- and that the best thing would be for nature to take its course. They refused. Although I had a lot of health problems, surgeries and pain as a child, I went on to lead a happy life.

Up until the mid-1980s, U.S. pediatrics journals routinely published reports on the selection criteria used to determine which disabled infants born in hospitals would be left to die.

One of the most notorious incidents involved a team at Oklahoma Children's Hospital in the late 1970s that used a "quality of life" formula for children born with spina bifida that factored in the parents' economic and educational level. Poor and uneducated parents and those on public assistance were more frequently advised to not treat their children. Twenty-four babies with spina bifida died, mostly from untreated infections. Not one person on the medical team was charged with a crime.

About 20 years ago, a hospital staff in Indiana was starving an infant with Down's syndrome. A whistle-blower alerted authorities, and the district attorney went to court to order hydration. The judge refused. Public comment supported the idea that "difficult" decisions like starving disabled infants were best left to the privacy of doctor-parent consultation.

In spite of that, enough of the public was sufficiently outraged to create a stir that cut across the political spectrum in Washington. As a result, congressional legislation was drafted to prevent medical killings of disabled infants.

The legislation, which ultimately was passed, was decried by bioethicists, physicians and others as an attack on both the medical profession and the privacy of family decisions. As a result of the passage of the law, though, more of us avoided getting killed in hospital nurseries through denial of treatment.

Guardianship -- which in this case was granted to Schiavo's husband by the courts -- has to have limits, especially when the stakes are the very lives of the people under guardians' power. It's important to remember that guardians have power over people, not property, and those people still have rights.

Drake is the research analyst of Not Dead Yet, a national disability rights group

[TaxRelief]

People are concerned with facts, but only if they do not feel that their point of view is being ignored during the dissemination of those facts.

Their underlying belief is that they will lose their own personal right to reject extreme medical intervention. They instantly see themselves in some sort of capsule with tubes and wires connecting them to central controls and pipes in a huge space filled with bodies that are also being held in suspended animation. They see themselves forced to care for a parent with dementia or terminal cancer for an endless amount of time. Or they question their own judgement about the DNR they enforced when a family member was at hospice.

These are very real, very valid emotions. You are absolutely right.

This type of situation is different, though. There is some sort of corruption involved somewhere that actually will do more to make their fears come true than anything the pro-life movement would be able do.

When a few bad guys start taking a good system and using it for their own personal gain, the natural result is increased government intervention and red tape.

We need to help them transfer their fear of the prolife movement to a fear of corruption. We also need to help them realize that plenty of people who consider themselves pro-life also believe in DNR's, etc. Removing food and water is not the same thing as rejection chemotherapy.

And as you say, we don't have enough solid proof yet to be "beyond reasonable doubt". We have presented a tremendous number of inconsistencies and we are digging for lies and motivation. But do need to find as much of the truth as possible. In doing so, others may also be saved.

[sweetliberty]

"It's a step in the right direction for the judge to take the guardianship FROM the HINO"

But he hasn't. The HINO is still calling the shots. The GAL is just a representative who offers an opinion in court and it seems that even the court is arrogantly operating on the suppostion that Terri's Law will be overturned on Constitutional grounds. As I see it, the most important Contitutional issue here is the right to life. If defending the most fundamental principle of the Constitution is deemed "unconstitutional," we might as well throw the document away, because it has lost all real meaning anyway.

[sweetliberty]

"Since this is apparently a low priority for most of them, I suggest we provide them with research and links. (Yea, that means do their job for them.)"

I thought that was what we'd been doing all along!