Ok, I'm going to try this one time.... again.
There is more bad and incorrect information running around on this story than anything else I have seen in years.
Here is the real world legal situation. THIS IS NOT A POPULARITY OR EQUITY CASE, THIS IS A LEGAL MATTER.
This is first and foremost a case of who has the right to speak for Terri. Is it her husband or her parents? The law says it is her husband. Is he a hairball who is living with another woman, had a kid with her, etc? Yes, he is all that and worse. But that does not change the legal situation that he is able, under the law, to speak for her, TO THE EXCLUSION OF ALL OTHERS, including her parents. Her parents have tried to get the courts to set aside the husband's wishes and substitute theirs. There is little precedent to do that. He has spousal rights, period.
Secondly, this has been a PR disaster from Day One. All the claims of a horrible judge, unconstitutional decisions, claims of attempts at murder, huge conflicts of interest, have only served to anger the entire legal system and local residents.
The far-out "It's ok to murder abortionists" crowd and some guy from Lakeland who wants to act as Terri's lay lawyer and bring the matter before the UN are some of the more rational people involved. Others have waved pictures of aborted babies at first and second graders from a school near her nursing home. How is that expected to help Terri?
They brought in "psychic healers" (con men) from somewhere in the midwest. Their idea was tell tell Terri, via speakerphone, "Wake up, they're trying to kill you."
They introduced a videotape supposedly showing her somewhat visually tracking a balloon for about 30 seconds, but then, when the entire tape was shown, it showed her have no contact with anything for the entire 45 minutes of the tape, except the 30 seconds.
Sorry, the results speak for themselves. I do not demean the desire of these people to help Terri, but when public support was at 77% when this matter began and is now at 28%, someone is doing something very foolish.
For some "supporters" this has been all about face time on TV, not Terri's survival.
Besides a PR disaster, this has been a legal disaster. Her parents were outlawyered from day one. They were always going to lose on "law." The lawyers should have it an "equity" style matter from day one. Equity deals with the concept of, regardless of what the law says, what is right? I would have been arguing that we give death penalty sentences every benefit of the doubt. Why aren't we doing that in this case?
Please do not get me wrong, I am on Terri's side completely. It's just that as a lawyer and former network news reporter, I have seen the vast foolishness perpetrated in this case. .... and yes I have volunteered to help. On three separate occasions, "someone" from the team was going to call me back in 30 minutes. Callbacks? Zero.
Let this be a lesson for all of us. Dedication and belief are not enough. Terri's supporters are exceptionally dedicated. They are unquestionably correct on moral, ethical and equity grounds. Unfortunately, the actions of some of them have had the exact opposite effect of that which was desired.
If one disagrees with that statement, then ask yourself, why are we still losing. The answer isn't bad judges or anything like that. Losers say that in every case.
The answer is; something different must be done, and until it is, Terri will continue to slip away from us, physically and legally.
