Posted on 03/19/2005 3:05:30 PM PST by FairOpinion
PINELLAS PARK, Fla., March 19 - The morning after Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was removed, supporters of her parents sought new avenues in their fight to keep the critically brain-damaged woman alive, while police arrested several of the protesters who gathered outside Ms. Schiavo's hospice when they tried to force their way inside.
At midmorning Saturday about 30 people prayed and waved signs outside the Woodside Hospice, and the Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, said that later in the day that he would lead as many protesters as he could gather to Tallahassee, where they would spend the next few days lobbying the State Legislature and Gov. Jeb Bush to somehow force the feeding tube's reinsertion.
Just before 11 a.m. Saturday, three protesters were taken into custody when they tried to force their way past officers guarding the driveway to the hospice and to take bread and water to Ms. Schiavo. The three men - led by James (Bo) Gritz, a former Green Beret commander from Nevada - were arrested on misdemeanor trespassing charges, police officials said.
Ms. Schiavo cannot eat or drink without a feeding tube, but the protesters said the action was meant to be symbolic.
Shortly after the arrests, a man who described himself as a spiritual adviser to Ms. Schiavo's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, emerged from the hospice to say they did not want any civil disobedience. The man, Paul O'Donnell, said the Schindlers were inside and wanted "everything to remain peaceful" adding that they were "devastated but hopeful."
Mary Schindler, who rarely addresses the news media, emerged from the hospice around lunchtime to say that Ms. Schiavo "is my life."
"I am begging Governor Bush and the politicians in Tallahassee, President Bush and the politicians in Washington, please, please, please save my little girl," she said.
Doctors removed the feeding tube from Ms. Schiavo on Friday afternoon. They said that the 41-year-old woman, who suffered extensive brain damage when her heart failed 15 years ago, could live up to two weeks without the liquid meals that were provided through a gastric tube.
She has been the focus of a seven-year fight between her husband, Michael, who is her legal guardian and says that he is fighting to protect her wish to die, and her parents, who reject court findings that she has no cognition and would not want to be kept alive artificially.
Mr. Mahoney, one of several conservative religious leaders trying to rally national protest of the tube removal on grounds that no life should end prematurely, said he hoped more people would travel here as Ms. Schiavo's condition deteriorated.
"We want a spiritual prayer witness sort of thing in Pinellas Park and a more political front in Tallahassee," Mr. Mahoney said.
He added that protesters would pressure Governor Bush to visit Ms. Schiavo at her bedside, as her husband has angrily invited him to do. Mr. Schiavo sued the governor in 2003 after the Legislature passed a law empowering the governor to order Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted six days after it had been removed.
Mr. Schiavo, appearing Saturday morning on the "Today" show on NBC, said that he was at his wife's side shortly after the tube was removed Friday afternoon and that he knew it was what she wanted.
"It felt like some peace was happening for Terri," Mr. Schiavo said in the television interview. "And I felt like she was finally going to get what she wants, and be at peace and be with the Lord."
Mr. Mahoney - who believes, as Ms. Schiavo's parents do, that she can think and feel and could improve with therapy even though the courts have accepted medical testimony that she cannot - said visiting Ms. Schiavo could prompt the governor to take drastic action.
"It's important for him as a chief executive to see what's being done to one of his residents," Mr. Mahoney said. "Governor Bush might be her last practical hope. We believe he could take her into protective custody or otherwise use his executive privileges."
Mr. Mahoney and Randall Terry, the founder of the antiabortion group Operation Rescue, said they would continue lobbying Congress to pass a bill that would require a federal court hearing in cases like Ms. Schiavo's to evaluate whether the state had followed all requirements for judicial due process. They also said they still hoped the Florida Legislature would pass a law requiring the tube's reinsertion or forcing the replacement of Mr. Schiavo as his wife's guardian.
There is also God's command to those that fear him, which applies strikingly in this case:
Prov. 24:11 If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain;
24:12 If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?
Namecalling merely illustrates your propensity for bomb-throwing on these threads devoid of proof. Blindly appealing to "the courts", while ignoring the blatant problems in this case illustrates your own blindness to the facts. FR is chock-full of resources that can enlighten you, but I suspect no amount of evidence would convince you - not even a video showing Terri is not a vegetable.
Finally, saying this is not an execution is tantamount to saying Michael is Terri's husband. To a fact-twister, a letter-of-the-law type, that's true. But for anyone with eyes, a brain, and a modicum of common sense, Terri is being executed and Michael is married to Jodi and has two children.
That's a nice site. Thanks.
We all need to make a stand here, for one day there may be people wanting to starve us to death, and deny us even water. God help us all. I do not want this evil action to be a precedent set for the rest of us! God forbid!
There are only 30 protestors? On the first full day her feeding tube was pulled.
Sadly if this goes forward none of the henchmen involved in this will swing from any gallows.
They remind me of little yapping, howling coyotes gathering around a sick deer. It almost seems like, in their cruelty, they will have a party to celebrate Terri's passing. I hope that's a wrong perception.
Taquito the troll is gone to re-join his pro-death cultists at DU.
Thanks!
This fool is really getting over the top here. Thumbing his nose at people who are sincerely upset. Not adding anything substantive, just sneering and trying to upset people. No place for that here. But that's your decision.
Pressing the nuke button was a pleasure ;)
Thank you!
I should say the BAN button ;)
Welcome ;)
Disagreement is one thing, but this was a bomb-thrower.
Sure was. I'm sure he's happy back home now at DU, where he belongs.
Thanks! Those were some nasty posts.
YES!
Oh, shoooooot, it was nothin' ;)
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