A right to live ... not to be killed

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.

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.

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.

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 .

... but there's no clear proof and no written intention.

This is what I find so disturbing about this case, as well as the general trends evident in society today regarding abortion, euthanasia, doctor-assisted "suicide", and all the other trappings of this culture of death that the so-called "enlightened judiciary" seems to have erected. In the past, the assumption was that in the absence of evidence to the contrary we acted on behalf of preserving life. If we erred, it was on the side of caution, assuming that a sentient, rational being would likely choose to live rather than die. Now, the tables have turned. We assume that people would rather die than live. The default position seems to be to kill first and ask questions later. That doesn't bode well for the infirm, the helpless, the voiceless, or those who have lost (perhaps even temporarily) the ability to communicate in an understandable way.

But, then again, the ghosts of, going on, what, 50 million or so dead since Roe V. Wade, will attest to the injustice of that. Once a society makes the decision to slaughter it's children, it isn't much of a step to take that to it's logical endpoint and start doing away with "useless persons". The shadows of Hartheim, Somnenstein, Grafeneck, Bernburg, Brandeburg and Hademar are looming large over the Florida legal landscape.

This email from New Hampshire went to Tim Russert. It's not something I wrote. It's got a good summary and the writer is making a point, not trying to produce a legal document. These are factual and I'm sure the writer could back them up if push came to shove but they didn't want to write a book to Russert.

Terri is not a narrow, Florida issue as the Florida Supremes would lead one to believe:

Dear Mr. Russert:

I am very sorry to report that the life of Ms. Terri Schiavo, in Pinella's County Florida, has become a matter of political debate. When has the life of a human being become a form of politics? What CAN you do to help?

Please understand that those that support the life of Ms. Terri Schiavo have become totally disillusioned with the inaccuracy of the press. I highly respect you, and your show...and hope that you please read the following and consider having this issue brought to the attention of the media public so that the REAL TRUTH can be known. Why is the ACLU defending the spouse instead of the disabled woman who did NOT have her wishes in writing? Her husband is hardly one to "tell the truth" (see his history below)

I thank you, in advance, for your assistance. Please take the time to write me a reply.

Click for THE TRUTH: http://www.crisismagazine.com/january2004/johansen.htm

Website: http://www.terrisfight.org

History of the "CARING" Spouse, MIchael Schiavo. All court documented:

NO CARING SPOUSE does what he does to Terri and her family. NO CARING SPOUSE euthanizes her healthy cats only a few weeks after her "collapse". NO CARING SPOUSE melts his wifes wedding rings BEFORE SHE is dead and while she is still in the early days of her hospitalization. NO CARING SPOUSE romps in bed with his wifes nurses. NO CARING SPOUSE drags his girlfriends to their wifes hospital room and points her out and says "Thats my wife, she's a vegetable". NO CARING SPOUSE allows his own attorney to tag his wife with the title of HOUSE PLANTNO CARING SPOUSE screams "When is that bitch going to die" as testified in court. Affidavits. NO CARING SPOUSE threatens to punch the daylights out of the ederly father of his bedridden wife. LEt alone throw a tray across the room. NO CARING SPOUSE continues this charade for years and years and years to the point of bankrupting the family of Terri and draining them of their emotions for years and years and years while he only POPS in on Terri shortly before a court hearing to say "Yup, I just saw her yesterday". NO CARING SPOUSE hides the fact that ONE YEAR after her admission it was discovered she had extreme trauma in her bone scan done PRIOR TO HER COLLAPSE as testified by world reknown Michael Bader, Pathologist. NO CARING SPOUSE gets on TV and blatanly LIES and says he and his wife were undergoing fertility treatments when they were NOT and did NOT and he testified to all the doctors they saw and NEVER testified that blatant lie. NO CARING SPOUSE calls his father in law on the telephone when his wife is taking her last breath (as he described) INSTEAD of calling 911. NO CARING SPOUSE just sits there on the couch and then LIES and says when paramedics arrived he was cradling his wife and the records show otherwise. NO CARING SPOUSE LIES in one trial and says he found her on the floor face down and in another he states he found her face up. NO caring spouse would EVER FORGET the position his wife was in when found. EVER. NO CARING SPOUSE calls the police and has a huge investigation on the parents of his wife because some HOYER LIFT scratches appeared on her arms and he immediately declares the parents tried to inject her with something and proceeds to ban them a full 62 days from seeing their daughter and further demands if they want to see her on MOTHERS DAY for 1 hour they can pay for a private security gaurd of HIS CHOOSING. WHats the problem that the CARING SPOUSE did not go there himself and guard his own wife? NO CARING SPOUSE ignores court ordered procedures for all guardians to do yearly filings. NO CARING SPOUSE just doesnt show up to court hearings regarding his own wife's future. NO CARING SPOUSE spends and exhausts his disabled wifes trust fund money on HIS right to die attorney.

And Lastly.... NO CARING SPOUSE has his girlfriends name(in 1996) in his mothers obituary column as the grieving fiance' and BLATANTLY LEAVES his WIFES name (Terri) out of the obituary column.

Thank you, NEW HAMPSHIRE

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.