Posted on 09/27/2004 10:42:19 AM PDT by amdgmary
A right to live ... not to be killed
September 27, 2004
By Barbara Simpson
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
If I didn't know better, I'd think the heavens are crying. Perhaps they are. Florida is being inundated as the progression of hurricanes continues its destruction. Ironically, while media focus on evacuations aimed at saving lives, the Florida Supreme Court ruled 7-0 last week, that a helpless young Florida woman should die. Her name is Terri Schindler-Schiavo.
I take that back. Not just die. Be killed.
That is what's involved when a person is denied food and water. That person will die a prolonged, painful and horrible death. According to the black-robed justices of the Florida high court, that's exactly what should happen to Terri.
It will be done for a sole and not-so-subtle reason: to cause her to die.
Memo to the court: If this murder isn't prevented, Terri's blood will be on your hands.
The background. Terri Schiavo is brain damaged, but she is awake and sleeps. She breathes on her own, attempts to speak and recognizes family members when they're allowed to see her. That happens only rarely because her husband refuses to allow Terri's parents and siblings to visit. When they do, a policeman is present.
In 1990, Terri suffered some kind of trauma. Reports that it was a blood-chemical imbalance or eating disorder are inaccurate. No one knows what happened that night in her apartment with her husband, but oxygen to her brain was cut off for a short period causing brain damage. She was 26.
Terri was hospitalized, had some therapy and seemed to be improving. There were successful malpractice lawsuits with a $1.4 million verdict for her and $600,000 for her husband, Michael. He is her legal guardian.
Then the problems started. He moved her to another facility for only custodial care and began to keep her family away.
Terri didn't get the recommended physical therapy nor the routine physical care any patient should have - dental, antibiotics when sick, and physical therapy to get her off the feeding tube and reanimate her limbs. Terri's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, grievously unhappy at what was happening to their child, sought help from the courts. For the next 14 years, Michael battled them, consuming their lives and nearly bankrupting them.
Michael Schiavo used the settlement money, which was supposed to be used for Terri's rehabilitation, for his legal fight to keep the family out and have Terri's feeding tube pulled. He claims she wouldn't want to live this way but there's no clear proof and no written intention.
He refuses to allow Terri's parents to become her guardians. He refused to allow her to receive Communion. He refuses to allow Terri to be divorced from him despite the fact that he's lived with another woman for nine years and has two children by her. He presents himself to the media as a loving husband.
A lower court order last fall ordered the feeding tube removed - it was. Six days later, the legislature passed a law, called "Terri's Law," giving Gov. Jeb Bush the authority to order the tube reinstated. He did, it was, Terri survived. Michael challenged it and appealed to the high court.
That court didn't rule on the morality of the situation, nor the humanity. They were clinically and coldly legalistic and it appears, miffed that a judicial decision was challenged.
Their decision was to protect their turf and Terri be damned, or perhaps I should say, be dead.
Here's what Chief Justice Barbara Pariente said: "It is without question an invasion of the authority of the judicial branch for the Legislature to pass a law that allows the executive branch to interfere with the final judicial determination in a case." (My emphasis.) Silly me. I thought the legislature was supposed to make laws and the judiciary to interpret. I never realized courts were infallible.
The justices said it was simply an issue of separation of powers. Despite family grief, Justice Pariente said, "But our hearts are not the law, what is in the Constitution always must prevail over emotion." So the judges ruled Terri Schiavo be killed. A doctor or nurse, who is supposed to protect life, will take a step to kill a helpless patient.
The decision is not only immoral on the face of it, it is doubly so because it directs others to carry out a death sentence without due cause on a helpless, innocent human being.
If this comes to pass, the court, the lawyers, the American Civil Liberties Union and Michael Schiavo will be responsible for Terri's death and also the deaths of others with cognitive disabilities who will be killed the same way as their families and lawyers use this case as precedent. Every living person, able or not, should be afraid. Very afraid. We're all in danger from this immoral and illegal decision, which makes it easier for someone to decide who lives or dies, when, and under what conditions.
Gov. Bush has 10 days to ask for a rehearing or to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Terri Schiavo lives - day to day. She has survived a mysterious injury, 14 years of medical neglect and mistreatment, the actions of her husband and the backhand of the courts. On that basis alone, she deserves to live.
God help her.
And help us too, if we allow her murder to take place. For full details about Terri Schindler-Schiavo, and the timeline of this case, go to the family website .
What a surprise. It is the judiciary that provided the cover for the current holocaust which claims thousands of lives each day.
And let us not forget that Terri is forbidden to receive Holy Communion by order of Michael. If that isn't an abomination, I don't know what is.
Every governmental body in Florida is one in the same. They will not investigate because then they will have to investigate each other. I send Ed Gillespie empty donation envelopes but for notes asking for someone in D.C. to call the FBI. Our Tampa FBI won't touch this either. This is huge and thanks to free republic, the truth is getting out at best, but they have a lot of power to broker.
Shouldn't be a penny out of your pocket. You see, Michael Schiavo got a multi-million dollar judgment in the courts after he swore he'd care for Terri as a loving husband should. Of course, after he got the money, he "suddenly remembered" that Terri had a wish to die if she were ever in such a situation. Of course, no Living Will exists, so it's his word against hers...and gee, she can't speak.
I think the court should tell Michael that he can get his way only if he forfeits the previous multi-million dollar award. I'll bet that'd change his tune pretty damned pronto.
I hope that public awareness to Terri's plight is growing. I have no way to measure if we are reaching more and more folks so they know the truth about her condition and all that's been done against her and how her family has been treated like criminals for trying to save her life.
Terri's parents will be on LARRY KING LIVE tonight at 9:00 pm est. They are lovely people and have shown kindness and grace to anyone who's ever lifted a finger to help their daughter.
How can the court legally sanction 'murder' when 'murder' denotes an illegal act?
I don't understand how it's ok to carry out the death penalty quickly and humanely on a criminal by lethal injection, but to kill an innocent, it must be done by slow starvation.
Prayers continuing daily for Terri!
Perhaps if the positions on the high court were elected instead of appointed, this attitude would change with an alarming speed.
And, yes, that is a wake-up call for you Florida voters. Do not allow this woman to die, for the next one could easily be you.
The FL Supremes are appointed by the governor and then face periodic plebiscites from the voters. It's the same procedure in CA and other states. Voters in FL nearly always confirm the incumbents, perhaps out of name ID or perhaps out of liberal ideology.
Jeb Bush named two of the seven Supremes in Tallahassee, but they voted with the Democrats: shades of the "Bushite" David Souter?
Poor Terri, she was the only woman in American who said "I do" and found out that the expression could me "Kill me!" Otherwise, in this liberal nation, "I do" is a meaningless expression at a wedding.
Terri Ping
Imagine what the chances are for someone who has NO FAMILY against strangers who have a working relationship with a corrupt judge. They are deleted-euthanized-eliminated with the stroke of a pen.
IN MY AMERICA? seems so.
And it can't be said enough. She's innocent and she doesn't have the gift of speech. They use her inability to speak to kill her. But, if she's so unconcious, why is it that she can do eye blinks yes and no in a hospital setting? If she cannot swallow, how is it that Terri can swallow her own saliva and doesn't drool?
Fregards, floriduh voter
What do you think about these "Republican" justices named by Jeb Bush unanimously joining the Democrats to kill Terri?
Memo to the court: If this murder isn't prevented, Terri's blood will be on your hands."
Alas, the FL Supremes, both "D" and "R," could care less about Terri. It's all an academic exercise to them, particularly to the Republicans.
Memo to the court: If this murder isn't prevented, Terri's blood will be on your hands."
Alas, the FL Supremes, both "D" and "R," could care less about Terri. It's all an academic exercise to them, particularly to the Republicans.
The thing that sticks in my craw more than anything else is that murderers on death row have all kinds of comforts throughout their 20-year-or-so incarcerations, and then, when Justice is finally carried out, they are given a shot and simply go to sleep, no pain or suffering of any kind! All that for the most depraved, wicked dregs of society, who have caused others untold agony and suffering!
And then you have our Terri---an innocent lamb, a sweet girl who has never hurt a soul, that the Forces of Hell have sentenced to the most horrible of fates!! I tell you, it's enough to make one lose one's mind to think about it! :^(
And Michael forbids Terri from having flowers in her room. The other list of forbidden items are greeting cards, religous medals, stuffed animals. Some time ago, Michael threw away Terri's religious medals that she was wearing around her neck. Terri's mom now wears them.
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