Posted on 12/29/2004 7:16:22 AM PST by floriduh voter
The Terri Schindler Schiavo Daily Threads are created month to month as we watch local and national news regarding Terri and her family.
Since Terri's supporters are in every time zone, you may see something FIRST. Please share news with us that you don't see here already. Now, why would you want to do that? Terri's Daily Thread for September/October of 2004 was viewed over 15,000 times. Terri's November Daily Thread was viewed over 6,000 times. December's thread is over 3,000 views.
More and more good folks are finding out about Terri and that judicial tyranny would take her life, but for lots and lots of prayer and non-stop lobbying of relatives, friends, clergy, our leaders, the media, a passerby, a cashier - ANYONE who you feel comfortable chatting with.
Folks always want to know how can this be in America or on earth for that matter? Unfortunately, this is really happening to an innocent woman who just celebrated her 41st birthday. She's not the only one but she's the one with devoted parents and siblings who knows what's in Terri's heart. Terri has a strong will to live. That's apparent. It's been 14 years.
Besides, feeding tubes have been around practically since the Civil War. They are not high tech devices. Terri is "not hooked up to machines". Her feeding tube is the diameter of a piece of spaghetti.
Talkin' about Terri is the best way to lobby for her. It is a salespitch to save her life and subsequently, many lives. If you've never sold anything in your life, START NOW. START WITH TERRI.
See Terri's flash movies if you need more information. You can see for yourself that's she's interactive and follows the doctor's instructions.
Visit: http://www.terrisfight.org
NOTE: Terri's December Dailies are noted as a source above. There are lots of important links at the very top of that thread. If you missed Terri's Celebration of Life, you can click on it from there.
"I'm wondering if political pressure could be brought to bear on Jeb Bush and the legislature to make another emergency law that prohibits causing intentional death by starvation and dehydration where the will of the patient to be "put down" in that painful fashion is not written in her own hand and notarized - asserting rather that a more humane method must be used as it is with condemned criminals and unwanted animals, i.e. lethal injection.
If Michael fought the change, it would be a huge news story and would slow down the process. If he did not fight it then Terri would be spared a great deal of suffering."
I've been thinking along those lines too, but maybe what we need is a law outlawing death by starvation and dehydation. Evidently, this is not allowed in many states, and considerd a very inhumane death. It was posted here that it only became a law in Florida in 1999.
Someone said Felos lobbied for the law to be passed.
This may boomerang on the right-to-kill folks yet.
"But before any tests are done, her warring husband and parents would have to agree to drop their life-or-death legal fight in favor of whichever side the medical evidence supports, Jay Wolfson told The Associated Press in his first interview on the case since serving as Terri Schiavo's guardian ad litem."
I don't know how he expects the Schindler's to put the fate of their daughter in the hands of a stranger. They don't need a stranger to tell them that their daughter responds to them. Although brain damage, she is alive and conscious, except when the hospice medicates her.
I think the hospice is afraid of a lawsuit. if it is ever proven that Terri should have been rehabilitated and that she is not PVS, they could be sued for their lack of care.
We already know Terri is not PVS from the videos, but it has to be proven in Judge Greer's kangaroo court, even though he won't let the Schindler's doctors testify.
http://www.baynews9.com/ViewerCenter.html
Thanks. Just voted and posted a comment. Mentioned that Michael melting down Terri's wedding rings.
Quote--
Attorney: What did you do with your wife’s jewelry?
Michael: My wife’s jewelry?
Attorney: Yeah.
Michael: Um, I think I took her engagement ring and her...what do they call it...diamond wedding band and made a ring for myself.
BTTT!
Indeed, it ought to boomerang on the "right to kill" folks. Thank you for your reply!
No. Michael would very happily have Terri put down by lethal injection.
Making clearn that anyone who prevents bona fide efforts to provide oral feeding and hydration to a patient who was starving or becoming dehydrated would be guilty of capital murder might be better.
Otherwise, the legislature could correct the two biggest problems in Terri's law:
To overrule the stay, the judge must find that not only are the above conditions for issuance not met, but he must also find that the ward is still in a persistent vegetative state, that any evidence of her wishes is credible, and that the guardian who seeks to have her dehydrated is still legally qualified to be her guardian.
Perhaps I'm being too detailed, but on what basis could a law like that be struck down? It's not vague, I don't think Michael could disprove any of the factual requirements for the governor's action, and I don't think that a court would find that the rights of a patient whose case met those requirements would be infringed if her guardian wasn't allowed to kill her.
The above MUST be done. Any person in their RIGHT mind can understand that much.
An excellent article, CR!
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Inactivist judges
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD
Many of those who complain about "activist judges" were likely disappointed in the inaction of the U.S. Supreme Court in Florida's Terri Schiavo case.
The high court's passivity was correct. It cements the Florida Supreme Court's sound ruling that Florida's Legislature and Gov. Jeb Bush had attempted to unconstitutionally override the courts. In a bit of stunning legislative arrogance, lawmakers passed and Bush signed a bill to obviate a judge's order that Schiavo's feeding tube be removed, in accordance with what her husband said were her stated wishes.
It was a transparent attempt to curry favor with right-to-lifers and, worse, to insert the power of the state into an intensely private matter. The legislative grandstanding seemed a clear violation of the traditional conservative notion that politicians shouldn't meddle in the private lives of their citizens.
As a spokeswoman for the Hemlock Society of Washington pointed out when the Florida Legislature passed the so-called Terri's Law, we in this state are at least governed by laws creating a hierarchy of persons who can make decisions for an incapacitated patient such as Schiavo. And spouses, such as Michael Schiavo, are high on that hierarchy -- higher than parents.
There are no real winners in this wrenching case. There are only losers. But we would have all been losers if the case had been allowed to weaken the separation of powers or the right of individuals to control their own lives -- and deaths.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/209490_judges.html
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Jan 10, 2005 The Pinellas Palace of Justice.
"Demers brought in a full-time spokesman, Ron Stuart, who runs interference for them. Call a judge, leave a message, get a call from Stuart, who can't speak for them. Judges rarely return telephone calls."
....and
"There's no guarantee Greer would do anything differently - but there's hope. He has been known to return telephone calls."....
Link at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2005-01-26-schiavo-oppose_x.htm
'Death sentence' is unjust
By Daniel Webster
By any definition, Terri Schiavo is alive. She has now been issued a death sentence by the courts.
"Terri's Law" was enacted in October 2003, when a disabled and brain-damaged woman was being starved to death by judicial order in Florida. Terri Schiavo had collapsed in her apartment from lack of oxygen in 1990 at age 26.
Terri had never executed a written living will. There were questions regarding whether the judges in this case had actually followed Florida law. There were differing statements given in court about her end-of-life wishes. There was conflicting medical testimony as to whether rehabilitation could help Terri. This was the climate in which Terri's Law was enacted by the Legislature and signed by the governor.
Florida citizens were justifiably concerned that an innocent, disabled Florida woman was being put to death by court order under extremely questionable and horrific circumstances. If the proceedings that led up to the execution of serial-killer Ted Bundy had been handled in the same way, Bundy's conviction would have been overturned.
Capital felons on trial for their lives in Florida are entitled to independent counsel, competent representation, trial by jury and automatic review of their death-penalty case by the Florida Supreme Court. Yet Terri, utterly innocent of any wrongdoing, received none of these protections.
Additionally, had Bundy been ordered to die slowly by starvation and dehydration (as Terri likely will), his penalty would assuredly have been reversed by the courts as "cruel and unusual" punishment.
The governor has the ability, in a criminal death sentence, to grant clemency. The Legislature only sought to extend the same protection to Terri Schiavo.
The legislative and executive branches have equally important roles to play in protecting the handicapped. The state's duty is to preserve life, not arbitrarily end it.
Florida State Sen. Daniel Webster, R-Winter Garden, was sponsor of the "Terri's Law" legislation.
The Florida legislature passed a law in 1999 which allows the starvation and dehydration of disabled people. The legislature can repeal the law.
Other states believe that starving someone to death is too cruel and will not allow it. Florida needs to re-examine this cruel law and repeal it.
You know what? I think we need to dig and find out if we have any other cases similar to Terri's where someone's feeding tube was pulled. We know they're doing it with ill people because of the statute. Anyone know if/how we can find out this info? Wasn't there another case that Greer ruled on?
I understand that you must be tired, and deservedly so! You have done a fantastic job at the Empire Journal for Terri! Take a break if you need one. We all do from time to time. But don't let the buzzards get you down. Some people, although they might mean well, do not always have a pleasant way of informing us of our mistakes. Rather it comes across as criticism of the highest order, when it needn't be that way.
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