Governor Jeb Bush May Have Found a Way to Help Terri Schiavo

LifeNews.com ^ | February 23, 2005 | Steven Ertelt

[amdgmary]

Tallahassee, FL (LifeNews.com) -- Florida Governor Jeb Bush may have found a method of helping Terri Schiavo, the disabled woman at the center of a national euthanasia controversy.

The Florida Department of Children & Families investigated a way to intervene in the case on Wednesday, just hours after Bush told reporters in a press conference that he would do everything legally possible to help Terri's parents prevent her estranged husband from starving her to death.

Details of just how DCF would get involved were not yet available, according to an Associated Press report.

Also on Wednesday, Circuit Court Judge George Greer extended a stay preventing the starvation until Friday so the Schindlers could have two more days to take care of additional appeals and legal motions.

However, Judge Greer prevented a DCF representative from being able to speak at the afternoon hearing.

The news had Terri's father, Bob Schindler, hopeful again.

"We are really elated," Schindler told AP. "Forty-eight hours to us right now seems like six years. We pray to God and we thank God that we have some time and our very, very thankful that DCF has picked this up."

However, euthanasia advocate George Felos, the lead attorney for Michael, criticized the Bush administrations latest efforts saying it "reeks of the intervention of politics into the case and is an affront to the court."

DCF may have gotten involved, according to Felos and Schindler attorney David Gibbs, because of a bone scan conducted on Terri after she collapsed 15 years ago.

Though they were never investigated, because local authorities said they were too old to go into, DCF may be alleging that Michael abused Terri to cause the physical head trauma the scans displayed.

Terr is alleged to have made statements before the collapse to her family and friends that she was unhappy in her marriage, but Michael has denied hurting her.

In a press conference Wednesday, Bush said he was exploring every legal possibility to again prevent Terri from being starved to death. He called the effort a "work in progress."

"I can assure you, I will do whatever I can within the means, within the laws, of our state to protect this woman's life," Bush said Wednesday. "I won't go beyond that."

The governor said he has received thousands of calls and emails from supporters of Terri and that he and his staff are working with attorneys at the legislature to devise a solution.

"People with deep faith and big hearts are concerned, as I am about the circumstance that Ms. Schiavo is in," the governor continued. "I want them to know I will do what I can, but there are limits to what any particular person -- irrespective of the title they currently hold -- can do."

[amdgmary]

Ping.

[goldstategop]

We have a duty to protect someone from being killed against their will. This not a "right to die" case where someone's hooked up to a machine and wrote a living will specifying no heroic measures be taken to extend their lives or they want to be made comfortable as much as possible in their final days. This is about allowing someone to kill another human being with the full blessing of the state. I submit its absolutely unacceptable in America and must not be allowed to set a precedent.

(Denny Crane: "There are two places to find the truth. First God and then Fox News.")

[InShanghai]

I had an interesting thought after reading this month's National Geographic's cover story.

The story is about the new advances in studying the inner workings of the mind via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Today, it is technically possible to visualize what is happening in one's mind whilst an event is occuring.

The article explains how receptors in the brain are recorded in near-comatose patients. The results show that when a family member tells a story regarding a memorable instance, the patients' brain activity jumps off the charts.

I'm sure that Terri's would also...

[cliff630]

Isn't it bizarre that liberals fight almost to the death to
save vicious killers from death row but pull out all stops
to starve this poor woman, who has done nothing wrong, to
death?

If anything, shouldn't it be the other way around?

[HiTech RedNeck]

but there are limits to what any particular person -- irrespective of the title they currently hold -- can do

Unless that Person is God

[goldstategop]

Amen. What's her crime? Its forbidden to put animals to death by depriving them of food and water and here we're considering putting a human being to death because that person is a burden to society. And the liberals remain silent on this abuse of human rights.

(Denny Crane: "There are two places to find the truth. First God and then Fox News.")

[Future Useless Eater]

>>We have a duty to protect someone from being killed against their will.

So true! This case is SOOOOO wrong in soooo many ways!

Just take a jury of 12 women to Terri's room when she feeling good, and let them watch while she gets a nice warm BATH! Her extreme pleasure from that will convince all of them that she is RESPONSIVE and communicative, and still enjoying life in her own ways.

Two weeks ago, her father kissed her, and she RETURNED his kiss! Terri is NOT in PVS!

The abuse and neglect allegations ALSO need investigation as well, so 3 cheers for the DCF! The current guardianship is also obviously wrong with such strong conflicts of interest.

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[HiTech RedNeck]

it "reeks of the intervention of politics into the case and is an affront to the court."

All we need now is to hear Felos start to address Greer as "Your Majesty"

[Future Useless Eater]

I wish the DCF could also force Terri to be allowd a much needed simple shunt to drain the excess FLUID PRESSURE on her brain. This needs to be done at least a few weeks or month before they do the MRI brain scans.

If Michael refuses simple treatments like this during the DCF testing phase, that should equally count as abuse and neglect, along with everything else thats been alledged.

The neurologist in 2002 believed that Terri had fluid pressing down on her brain, PLUS a crushed disk in her neck and those TWO conditions he had only seen once before... and that was in a STRANGULATION CASE.

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[little jeremiah]

Felos is an affront to the state of Florida, the South, the human race, God, and the planet.

Thank God Bush is doing something.

[little jeremiah]

More proof that liberalism is a mental illness. And when acted upon, criminal insanity.

[Awestruck]

"George Felos, the lead attorney for Michael, criticized the Bush administrations latest efforts saying it "reeks of the intervention of politics into the case and is an affront to the court."

And what does Felos and Michael's efforts reek of?

[JFK_Lib]

Look how far our legal system has fallen in this age of abortion.

Twenty years ago, just twenty years ago, it would have been scandalous for a hospital to stop doing everything it could to keep someone alive. People being on life support for decades was not uncommon.

Now we have a case where a woman is obviously responsive, as any view of the videos of her show, but is merely bed ridden and cant feed herself.

She can stay alive without a breathing machine or any extraordinary measures, but is dependent on feeding tubes alone.

This dehumanizes her into a nonperson whose spouse can have starved to death?

Were Michael, her husband, trying to do this to a lame pet dog, he would have been jailed a long time ago and the dog removed from his care.

But since this is a helpless human being, and the wacko murder advocates want their pound of flesh, she less right to life than a lame dog. The logic of Roe v Wade proceedes unslowed by the success of the Conservative movement.

Bhis is a proverbial 'canary in the mine' case.

If the legal system allows this woman to be murdered through starvation, one of the worst ways of dying imaginable, then our legal system is in crisis.

If the life of a helpless woman is so unworthy of consideration because she married the wrong man and is now dependent on him to keep her alive then the criteria for any of us to be isolated from society and starved to death is established.

If our legal system has become so bound to the mere letter of the law that it will allow a woman to be murdered in this horrific way in cold blood by a callous husband and a conniving judge, then it is a legal system damned, steeped in evil disregard for human life beyond any recognition of that which is good.

Any of us can have access to stores of food removed from us, it does not require a feeding tube, but only a camp, or restricting access to food stores with armed guards like Stalin did.

The pretext for the isolation could be anything or any combination of reasons, like 'sensitivity training camps' for egregious hate crime offenders and for any imaginable legal reasons their supply of food is interupted. Lets say food shipments are interupted by a lawsuit, and the people left to starve, not *maliciously* underestand, but merely due to the entanglements of complicated law, and thousands or even tens of thousands allowed to starve to death as the courts drag their feet.

Of course those who prefer to not realize the logical possibilities will insist that I am deluded and paranoid. But the law is a cold and harsh thing left onits own, without the guidance of those who have a prevailing respect for human life to prevent the letter of the law from being used to end innocent human life.

According to the leftist murder advocates, a dog is entitled to more respect than a helpless woman.

Maybe Terry's family should press domestic violence charges on Michael and remove him from his protection?

This is a horrid case and this husband is scum and the judge is Satanic.

I would rather be governed by the student council at Bob Jones University than people like this judge (no offense to Bob Jones University for the comparison).

[MadAnthony1776]

Her husband is a real piece of work. All he cares about is himself. What he is trying to do amounts to murder. If he gets his way and removes the tube Terry will not die within a few minutes or hours. It will be several days and because of starvation. Obviously her brain is enough alive to help her breath and keep her heart beating. Maybe she can't express herself but what kind of pain might she feel if she is starved to death. I can't believe a judge can honestly go along with this. He ought to be removed from the chair because this kind of ruling you would have expected from the courts in Nazi Germany.

The husband should be removed from the picture because:

1) He is not acting like a husband. He's romantically involved with another woman and IMHO Terry is an inconvenience to him so he is trying to kill her to remove her from the picture. He could divorce her and let her parents take over her guardianship but that would cost money.

2) Terry's parents said they are more than willing to take over responsibility for Terry's care. Their feelings should be as important as the supposed spouse of Terry because they are the closest relative of Terry.

3) There is no living will which expresses Terry's desires in a situation such as this. All we have is the husband's word on this even though he is not acting like the loving husband he is trying to pretend he is.

4) Terry has rights just like anyone else. She deserves as much protection under the law as you or I deserve.

5) Terry's religious beliefs should have some sway here because the Catholic Church is pretty specific about removing feeding tubes in a situation like this.

I hope that Terry's parents win this one. I believe we're on the verge of a decision that could be as devisive as the Roe vs. Wade decision. You can't even equate this with Dr. Kevorkian's euthanasia practice because in Dr. Kevorkian's case the victims made the choice themselves. It wasn't made by someone who has serious conflict of interests involved. I hope at some point the Justice Department of either Florida or the US wakes up and sees that this is not a case of someone who is not loved and totally incapable of sustaining life but someone that has a family that loves her for who she is and would rather have her alive instead of dead and buried thus relieving them of any responsibility to her.

[foobeca]

Or what about how liberals do all they can to see to it that as many abortions as possible take place, and will fight to the death to save a murdering thug on death row.

[samtheman]

Isn't it bizarre that liberals fight almost to the death to save vicious killers from death row but pull out all stops to starve this poor woman, who has done nothing wrong, to death?

Liberals never miss an opportunity to be on the wrong side of an issue.

[KidGlock]

"I can assure you, I will do whatever I can within the means, within the laws, of our state to protect this woman's life," Bush said Wednesday. "I won't go beyond that."

Please show me state or federal law that allows Bush to send armed National Guard soldiers to the hospital to fend off anyone who comes near her?

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

You're absolutely correct. The only human life Democrats will fight to defend is that of murderers.

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

Jeb Bush for president!!!