Posted on 11/02/2003 2:06:03 PM PST by Pan_Yans Wife
The husband of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman at the centre of America's longest and most celebrated "right to live" controversy, is challenging a new Florida law that enabled the state governor to step in and halt his wife's court-sanctioned death by starvation.
After a series of medical, legal and emotional battles that have left a family - and public opinion - deeply divided, Michael Schiavo has broken his long silence over his wife's plight. In a television interview, he said his parents-in-law were motivated by money in their fight to keep their daughter alive.
Mrs Schiavo, 39, collapsed at home in 1990, suffering extensive brain damage. Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, have argued for years that their daughter shows signs of life and should have a chance of rehabilitation. Yet several Florida courts have agreed with doctors consulted by her husband - Mrs Schiavo's legal guardian - that she is legally brain dead.
On October 15, the feeding tube that had kept Mrs Schiavo alive for 13 years was removed on her husband's wishes, a move sanctioned by a Florida judge. Seven days later, however, "Terri's Law" was passed by the state legislature, granting Governor Jeb Bush, President George W Bush's younger brother, the power to override the court. He ordered Mrs Schiavo's doctors in Tampa to reinsert the tube.
The law also required a legal guardian to be appointed for Mrs Schiavo. Prof Jay Wolfson, an authority on health care financing, will report to Mr Bush in 30 days on the merit of tests to see if she can be rehabilitated and recommend whether the order that is keeping Mrs Schiavo alive be lifted.
The case has divided those who believe it would be merciful to let Mrs Schiavo die, and those who believe in the sanctity of life. But the passing of Terri's Law also threatens to plunge Mr Bush and the Republican-controlled Florida legislature into a constitutional crisis because sections of public opinion oppose a politician's involvment in medical dilemmas.
Mr Schiavo, whose new partner has one child by him and is pregnant again, has always argued that his wife did not wish to be kept alive artificially.
Thanks to a campaign by the Schindlers, the governor received a petition containing 40,000 signatures from around the world in support of Mrs Schiavo's right to live.
In their "Save Terri" campaign, the Schindlers have used clips of Mrs Schiavo taken from a video posted on the internet. In the film, made with a camera smuggled into her room in defiance of a court order, their daughter opens and closes her eyes, and appears to smile as Mrs Schindler kisses her. Her doctors, however, have said that patients in vegetative states do this involuntarily.
Last week, a 44-page document drawn up by Mr Schiavo's lawyers - who are backed by the powerful American Civil Liberties Union - argued that Terri's Law had "trampled on Mrs Schiavo's right to privacy, self-determination and personal dignity".
The laywers have asked a state judge to rule that the law is an "egregious violation" of the separation of the judicial and executive branches of state government, and clearly unconstitutional.
The strained relations between Mr Schiavo and the Schindlers became publicly poisonous after his hour-long television interview last week.
He said the Schindlers wanted a share of a $1.2 million (£700,000) medical malpractice payout he had won on his wife's behalf in 1992.
He alleged that a year after the malpractice suit had been settled, Mr Schindler tackled him at Mrs Schiavo's bedside, asking how much of the payout he would receive. "He always wanted to get money out of this," Mr Schiavo said.
Hey, supply and demand. I haven't heard Terri complain about it, have you?
I really hope they don't believe this. I know I don't.
I really hope they don't believe this. I know I don't.
Yes, but have you heard her complain? Terri had "deep pockets", and could thus afford the lawyer's full retail rate (until she reached the point of "empty pockets" anyway).
No doubt. Of course, Felos could just have found some doctor to testify that the squawks she was making were "just reflex" and Judge Greer would have been free to allow Terri's slaughter.
http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1476505
Disability rights activist Rus Cooper-Dowda, who had once been diagnosed as being in a "persistent vegetative state," shares her perspective on the Terri Schiavo case.
Cooper-Dowda was in the hospital listening to the nurses talk about unplugging her, and she tried to letters with her hand, but they would sedate her.
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