Terri Schiavo is sustained only by politics
All the political grandstanding hasn't changed the gruesome truth. There's no hope for Terri Schiavo.
Her new court-appointed guardian ad litem spent a month studying her medical records and court documents. He talked to nurses and doctors. He questioned medical, legal and bioethical experts. And religious scholars. He talked to family members. He spent time nearly every day at the bedside of the depleted woman at the center of Florida's right-to-die controversy.
He found nothing in her perpetual, mindless repose that offered hope.
Guardian Jay Wolfson reported this week that, ``Highly competent, scientifically based physicians using recognized measures and standards have deduced, within a high degree of medical certainty, that Terri is in a persistent vegetative state.''
She has no intellectual capacity. No hope of recovery. Neurological tests and brain scans, Wolfson noted, ``indicate that Terri's cerebral cortex is principally liquid, having shrunken due to the severe anoxic trauma experienced thirteen years ago.''
On Feb. 25, 1990, Terri suffered a heart attack. A loss of oxygen to her brain caused a permanent loss of cognitive function. After several years of failed efforts to revive his wife, her husband, Michael, surrendered to the inevitable. ''It had taken Michael more than three years to accommodate this reality and he was beginning to accept the idea of allowing Terri to die naturally rather than remain in the non-cognitive, vegetative state,'' Wolfson wrote in his report to the governor.
BITTER COURT FIGHT
But that decision, which the husband said followed his wife's wishes, set off a bitter feud and court fight with Terri's parents and siblings. They have been absolutely opposed to any decision to disconnect the feeding tube. The guardian noted that during the years-long legal struggle, the Schindlers ''voiced the disturbing belief that they would keep Terri alive at any and all costs.'' Even if that required amputation of her limbs or open-heart surgery.
``As part of the hypothetical presented, Schindler family members stated that even if Terri had told them of her intention to have artificial nutrition withdrawn, they would not do it.''
The feeding tube was finally removed in October. But the Legislature, urged on by the governor and religious fundamentalists, intervened. The tube was reinserted. A guardian was appointed to represent Terri.
But Wolfson's investigation offered no hope. The University of South Florida professor tried to elicit some response from Terri himself. He spent time with her parents, who similarly tried to demonstrate awareness in their daughter. Nothing happened.
Wolfson's report only mirrored the findings of so many judges who had considered this awful case for years. He had discovered nothing new.
CONTROVERSIAL LAW
Of course, the governor, before leaping into this painful, familial fight, easily could have read the same records. The legislators, before passing such controversial legislation, could have first considered opinions of the same experts. Scientific testimony would have led them to the same sad, inescapable conclusion that Terri Schiavo is beyond hope.
But scientific reality didn't matter. The governor and legislators were indulging in anti-science, like medieval potentates, hauling Terri into a political forum to appease their ignorant zealots.
Wolfson gently suggested that the governor and the warring factions agree to a compromise. If Terri can eat or drink and swallow on her own, then she would be sustained. Otherwise, the tube would be disconnected and she would be allowed to die (too late, I'm afraid, to die with dignity).
Of course, the governor won't agree. He and his Dark Ages allies already know that Terri Schiavo can't eat or drink or swallow on her own.
They know that she is beyond medical help -- the only thing sustaining her depleted life is a gruesome, intrusive, very medieval kind of politics.