Posted on 03/20/2005 6:06:29 PM PST by Former Military Chick
He's been vilified on Web sites and talk shows. He's been called a wife-abuser, an adulterer, a money-grubbing murderer.
Death threats have been left in his mailbox.
Throngs of protesters have waved signs and chanted outside his house in Clearwater, Fla., and they have gathered again.
Sometimes, even Michael Schiavo's friends have wondered why, in the face of all that, he didn't just walk away.
It would have been easier for him to relinquish guardianship of his severely incapacitated wife, Terri, to her parents.
So why not give it up, leave Terri's feeding tube in, let her parents care for her? After all, he is living with another woman now and they have two children.
"Because he's sticking by what he promised," Scott Schiavo, Michael's brother, said in a recent interview. "He wants to honor the last thing he can give to her."
Physicians have testified that Terri Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state and will never improve. Michael Schiavo has said his wife told him she would not want to live like this.
Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, formerly of Huntingdon Valley, say she is responsive and can be helped. They say that, as a Catholic, she would choose life at all costs.
On Friday, Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, which has been in place for all but two brief stretches of time since she collapsed in 1990, was removed. It could be brief this time as well. The House is expected today to consider a Senate bill that would allow Schiavo's parents to take their case to federal court.
Throughout the protracted legal battle, the Schindlers have made their religious views, their personal anguish, and their mistrust of Michael Schiavo a public cause.
Intensely private, according to his family and friends, Michael Schiavo has rarely spoken publicly about the matter, out of respect for his wife's privacy. Through his brother, he declined to be interviewed for this story.
However, in recent days he has gone on national TV to reiterate that Terri would not have wanted to live like this and criticize politicians for getting involved in a deeply personal matter.
His brother and friends also have decided that it's time to speak up. The mudslinging, they said, has become too ugly, too nasty.
"I have a friend who I think has been maligned," said Russ Hyden of Gainesville, Fla.
"We're tired of it. We're done. It's time people know who he is," said Scott Schiavo, who lives in Levittown near where the brothers were raised.
The thing is, even if Michael Schiavo wins the final court battle, and Terri Schiavo's feeding tube is removed, he really hasn't won at all, Scott said.
"He's already lost," he said. "He's already lost Terri."
Social with friends, but reclusive
His brother and friends describe Michael Schiavo as social within his circle of friends, but otherwise almost reclusive. Except for the No Trespassing sign on his front lawn and the armed guards he's occasionally hired to protect his home, he's tried to grasp whatever shreds of normalcy he can.
His friends don't see the demon that protesters who have hurled insults at him do.
Wilma Mackay, a 65-year-old retiree from Palm Harbor, Fla., who watched her husband and brother die of cancer, sees a man who is "the epitome of loyalty."
Bonnie Rowley of Largo, Fla., a friend for about a decade, sees someone who "stands strong on what he believes in, and that is Terri Schiavo. If I needed a health-care advocate, he'd be my first choice. I know he'd be there till the end, and he'd give it one hell of a fight."
Michael Schiavo, 41, was the youngest of five boys. Six-foot-seven, athletic and model-handsome, he met Terri Schindler at Bucks County Community College in 1982.
She had graduated from Archbishop Wood High School in Warminster, he from Woodrow Wilson High School in Bristol Township.
Married two years later, they moved to Florida, where, early on the morning of Feb. 25, 1990, Michael Schiavo has testified, he awoke to the sound of a thud and found Terri on the floor in the hallway, unconscious.
They had been married a little over five years.
He has spent three times as long - the last 15 years - first trying to bring her back, then trying to let her go, his friends and brother say.
In the beginning, they say, Schiavo was relentless in his search for his wife's cure. She underwent various therapies.
He rented a house large enough for him and Terri's parents, who had moved to the area.
He made sure she was dressed every day. He applied her makeup and dabbed on perfume, Rowley said.
He went to school to become a nurse, "because he wanted to take care of Terri," Scott said. "He swore that he could get Terri better... . One doctor said: 'Mike, you know what? There's nothing else we can do. The next time Terri gets sick, why don't you just let nature take its course?' And Mike wouldn't do it."
Death and defining moments
Many of the defining moments of Michael Schiavo's life have revolved around death.
In 1988, his grandmother was hospitalized with a serious illness. She had signed a "do not resuscitate" order, Scott Schiavo said, but when she worsened in the middle of the night, no one looked at her records.
"It took them I don't know how long to get her breathing again. They stuck a ventilator down her throat." To little avail. "She was brain-dead," Scott Schiavo recalled.
All the family could do was wait until medications that kept her heart beating wore off. It took a day and a half, he said.
After the funeral, the family went to the Buck Hotel in Feasterville. Scott and Terri were sitting next to each other at a large table, where the conversation turned to how upset their grandmother would have been at her final hours.
Terri turned to him, Scott Schiavo said, "and she said, 'Not me, no way, I don't want that.' She says, 'If I'm ever like that, oh, don't let me. Pull that tube out of me.' " Scott Schiavo said he testified about the incident in 2000.
Several years after Terri collapsed, Michael Schiavo's mother was diagnosed with cancer.
Eventually, medical complications required the removal of her feeding tube, Scott said. "It's not like we said: 'Turn it off.' "
She was kept "peaceful and out of pain" until she died, Scott said.
Then their father died.
Eventually, Scott said, his brother realized he would have to let Terri go, too.
The Schindlers - who did not respond to a request for an interview made through their lawyer - have been distrustful of his motives partly because, they have said, no one mentioned Terri's wishes until years after her collapse.
But, Scott said, "it's not something you think about while Mike's trying to save her life... . It's something that people do when there's nothing left to do."
This particular fight has not come without a price.
"I give Mike all the credit in the world, because I would have snapped already. I know how bad it hurts me when I hear people talking about him and downing him," Scott Schiavo said.
Most of all, Scott said, "the thing that tears him up is he worries at nighttime, if he's working. He's afraid for the kids and Jodi."
Love and moral dilemmas
Michael Schiavo met his girlfriend, identified in court records as Jodi Centonze, about a decade ago.
Initially, Rowley, who was Centonze's friend, didn't know what to think. The court battles had not yet heated up, but she knew the situation with Terri.
When Rowley met Michael Schiavo, what she noticed first was his "great smile, a gentle smile."
Gradually, her respect grew. "He could have stepped off and divorced Terri five years ago, when this really hit the court. And got married and started his family that way," Rowley said.
The couple has two toddlers - a daughter and a son. Michael Schiavo works in the medical unit of the Pinellas County Jail.
Both Centonze and Michael Schiavo had to face "their own moral dilemmas as far as having children out of wedlock," Rowley said. "But the two of them weren't getting any younger... So does that make him a bad person because he did that? Did he fluff his responsibility to Terri at any point? No."
It is Centonze, Scott Schiavo said, who now does all Terri's laundry. "She's been unbelievable. She supported Mike in everything he did... . She's gone with Mike to visit Terri. She's helped Mike clean Terri up."
Centonze has been a flashpoint for Michael Schiavo's critics who think it is a reason to disqualify him to be Terri's guardian. His living with Centonze "abrogates the covenant of marriage," said Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy Council, who was among the demonstrators outside the hospice on Friday.
Looking back on it now, Scott thinks his brother "just wanted somebody to love him." He equates it with a widower who remarries, "but it doesn't mean that that person stopped loving their spouse that passed on. Mike was very lonely. I mean, he was a 26-year-old kid" when Terri collapsed.
"It's hard to imagine the circumstances he lived under," friend Russ Hyden said. "There was no closure, yet there was no companionship either. That's the worst possible scenario."
Hyden had met Schiavo in 1991. Hyden's pregnant wife had been diagnosed with cancer. A mutual friend thought they "might have something in common. And we did."
But it was more than that they were both going through "life-changing ordeals," Hyden said. "We both liked to play a little golf. We enjoyed each other's company."
Hyden scoffs at the accusations about Schiavo taking the malpractice money awarded to Terri. "If there was so much money, where was that money when I first met Mike? Why wasn't he driving a big car and living in a big home? He was driving a Jeep and living in an apartment."
Hyden's wife lived for almost three more years. He and Schiavo spoke or saw each other several times a week.
"He was always great with my kids," Hyden said. Hyden's daughter was 2, his son 7, and Michael brought them gifts.
"He spent a great deal of time helping me put my family back together," Hyden said. "Perhaps it was because his had fallen so tragically apart."
Sympathy for Terri's parents
In a way, Michael Schiavo has said he can sympathize with Terri's parents. "I have children, and, you know, I couldn't even fathom what it would be like to lose a child," he said in an interview on Nightline last week.
But, he continued, "they know the condition Terri is in. They were there in the beginning. They heard the doctors. They know that Terri's in a persistent vegetative state. They testified to that at the original trial. Fifteen years - you've got to come to grips with it sometime."
He said Terri would "always be a part of my life.
"And to sit here and be called a murderer and an adulterer by people that don't know me, and a governor stepping into my personal, private life, who doesn't know me either? And using his personal gain to win votes, just like the legislators are doing right now, pandering to the religious right, to the people up there, the antiabortion people, standing outside of Tallahassee?
"What kind of government is this? This is a human being. This is not right."
In a way, Michael Schiavo's world still revolves around Terri. He calls every day and visits several times a week, Scott Schiavo said. He can still talk to her, even if she doesn't talk back.
Michael Schiavo yesterday told CNN that he had a "sense of relief" now that the feeding tube had been removed and he promised to "stay by her side" till the end.
"This is her time...," he said. "I will love her and I will hold her hand."
--------------------------
Contact staff writer Sandy Bauers at 610-701-7635 or sbauers@phillynews.com.
Congress tries again to stop Schiavo death
Timeline of the Terri Schiavo Case
Recent court rulings and other materials related to the Terri Schiavo case:
5 Wishes a Site that helps one prepare if one is unable to speak for themselves.
That is NOT true
Howlin and I may have different view points about this case
But she has NEVER favored killing Terry
Howlin's concerns are about Congress over stepping their bounds
I, and many of us here, have always had great respect for your contributions to FReeRepublic. But now you are simply being devil's advocate, or have lost your way.
Please say you're playing with us.
Only if you tie me up first... ;)
======
How high up? (I gotta be careful... I'm vertigo prone) !!! ;-))
Stick to the principles. That's why I've been on Terri's side from the beginning. None of the melodrama matters. Forgetting all personalities this case stinks based on the principles. Then you start looking at the details and it's all over. By the time you get through that the soap opera is just a bad lingering odor that follows the real manure.
Here's my article that was pulled by the Admin Moderators of Free Republic:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
LET TERRI DIE AND RETURN TO GOD
A huge outcry has been raised concerning the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. Why the emotion over a common medical practice of stopping artificial treatment when there is no hope of recovery?
Terri has been kept artificially alive for more than fifteen years despite being in a “persistent vegetative state.” What exactly does this mean?
"People in [this] state cannot think, speak or respond to commands and are not aware of their surroundings. They may have noncognitive functions and breathing and circulation may remain relatively intact." (National Institute of Health)
Terri is kept alive by having a feeding tube inserted into her stomach. She has no chance of recovery. If it wasn’t for modern medicine, she would've died within several days of her heart failure.
What exactly is the difference of her and those who are kept alive by ventilators but are also impossible to restore?
When my wife was dying from cervical cancer several years ago, I signed a "DO NOT RESUSCITATE" form. I didn't want to see the woman I loved, the mother of my three young sons, my mate of ten years and eternal companion, suffer more than she had. Seeing her go through three years of pain was more than I could bear.
When she slipped into a coma, we knew the end was near. When she stopped breathing, I was holding her hand, whispering "Go towards the light." And "I will love you forever."
Her sisters were frantic and wanted her to be resuscitated and kept alive for as long as possible on the machines. I put my foot down and said no and informed them I signed a "DO NOT RESUSCITATE" form. As a result, my wife was finally at rest and no longer suffering.
To this day my in-laws still harbor anger towards me and still haven't stopped grieving for my late wife.
Terri's family wants to believe she will recover. They are portraying her husband as being evil for wanting to put an end to the horrible spectacle of artificially keeping this poor woman alive in a permanent vegetative state.
When people are in a situation where it is impossible for them to recover, it is an obscenity to perpetuate life when the only decent thing is to let our loved one go. It is unfortunate cryonics is still considered an outlandish procedure. Those cases that hold hope of a future medical cure should just be cryogenically preserved. I know I would prefer to be cryogenically frozen if I was placed in a similar situation. Nanomedicine a century or two from now shouldn’t have any problem repairing cellular damage from the freezing process and revive those frozen, regardless of their illness.
We humans are designed to eventually DIE. Everyone wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die. How long must this poor woman be kept artificially alive before she is allowed to move on to the next life? Isn’t fifteen years enough?
Her doctors aren’t evil. Neither is her husband. He loves her and wants her to finally be at peace. Living as a vegetable is no way for humans to live.
It is helpful to examine the different situations where artificial treatment is given in cases of medical incapacity:
• Cessation of brain and heart and/or other organ activity
• Cessation of brain activity
• Cessation of cognitive brain activity
• Cessation of heart or other organ activity
Cessation of brain and heart
Must one continually perform CPR upon a person who has drowned? How long must it be performed before one discontinues artificial treatment and face facts the patient will never recover? What if the victim's parents insist CPR be continued non-stop for days on end? One has to face facts artificial treatment may only work within a very small window of opportunity in cases of brain-death and heart stoppage.
Cessation of brain activity
What about in cases of brain-death and the person is only kept alive by machines? If the patient’s brain has ceased to function and the patient is incapable of breathing on his own; the person’s chances of recovery are nonexistent.
Cessation of cognitive brain activity
People in permanent comas lose their cognitive ability. They are incapable of thinking, waking up or communicating. Most doctors agree if these patients haven’t recovered after a year; they will never recover. However, everyone has heard stories about people waking up from comas after 10 years, giving the faint hope that our loved one will also recover some day. However for every one that does recover, thousands don’t and most die a slow death.
Cessation of heart or other organ activity
Modern medicine has machines that can keep a person alive for quite some time if they lose the use of a certain organ, such as kidneys or heart. It isn’t a permanent solution though and the person will need their defective organ repaired or replaced.
Final thoughts
Terri Schiavo suffered permanent brain damage from heart failure. This damage was so severe that she is incapable of cognitive thought. Her brain still works to a limited extent - the involuntary systems such as her respiratory and circulatory systems are still functioning. But Terri, the person, the personality, is not longer there. It’s as if the portions of her brain that stored her person, her memories, her thoughts and her personality were removed. It’s as if her spirit is no longer in her body. The only thing her brain does is keep her physical body alive – it has become nothing more than a hospital respirator or heart-lung machine.
I know it’s heartbreaking for most to see her. She sleeps and awakes, her eyes open and she moves from side to side. But according to all the independent and court-appointed observers, some of whom spent several months by her side, her eyes don’t focus. There’s never been any hint she recognizes anyone or anything. She doesn’t respond to speech or touch. All the remains is involuntary and noncognitive. Those most familiar with her specific case such as medical doctors and courts have all agreed with this assessment. This is why her husband has won every single case against her parents. It isn’t a conspiracy; the facts are obvious when examined honestly.
Fifteen years is long enough. I know what her husband is going through. He wants his wife to rest and stop being the vegetable laying in bed. He was a faithful husband for many years and placed great demands on his time and those caring for Terri for at least eight years before recognizing the hopelessness and decided to end the horror. I don’t think I could’ve lasted that long with the constant pain of seeing my wife in such a condition. At least he had the sense to move on, find another and raise a family while her parents still cling to a miracle of recovery.
We need to face facts. Sometimes God’s answer is no regardless of how fervently we want otherwise. Let us all let her go so she may enjoy her rest with the Lord.
He committed NUMBEROUS PREJURY, He's BSer...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1366335/posts?q=1&&page=1
The TRUE FACTS, this is Domestic Violence Abuse's Case, and the MURDER is NOW IN PROGRESS!!! Right in OUR FACE!
Send this information(s) to your local FBI office, maybe somebody will SEE this!
And put 1+1+1=PREJURY!!!
I'll take that as a "I couldn't find one," which makes your post false.
Don't you dare defend me to these people.
I did ask them if I can repost it. They turned me down. I then asked why and why the apparent double standard when articles written by leftists like Michael Moore, Maureen Dowd and Ted Kennedy are found here every week without getting censored. I didn't even get a reply.
I used to be very proud of Free Republic. In the four years I've been a member; not once have I seen dissenting opinions censored. FWIW, here's my article:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
LET TERRI DIE AND RETURN TO GOD
A huge outcry has been raised concerning the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. Why the emotion over a common medical practice of stopping artificial treatment when there is no hope of recovery?
Terri has been kept artificially alive for more than fifteen years despite being in a “persistent vegetative state.” What exactly does this mean?
"People in [this] state cannot think, speak or respond to commands and are not aware of their surroundings. They may have noncognitive functions and breathing and circulation may remain relatively intact." (National Institute of Health)
Terri is kept alive by having a feeding tube inserted into her stomach. She has no chance of recovery. If it wasn’t for modern medicine, she would've died within several days of her heart failure.
What exactly is the difference of her and those who are kept alive by ventilators but are also impossible to restore?
When my wife was dying from cervical cancer several years ago, I signed a "DO NOT RESUSCITATE" form. I didn't want to see the woman I loved, the mother of my three young sons, my mate of ten years and eternal companion, suffer more than she had. Seeing her go through three years of pain was more than I could bear.
When she slipped into a coma, we knew the end was near. When she stopped breathing, I was holding her hand, whispering "Go towards the light." And "I will love you forever."
Her sisters were frantic and wanted her to be resuscitated and kept alive for as long as possible on the machines. I put my foot down and said no and informed them I signed a "DO NOT RESUSCITATE" form. As a result, my wife was finally at rest and no longer suffering.
To this day my in-laws still harbor anger towards me and still haven't stopped grieving for my late wife.
Terri's family wants to believe she will recover. They are portraying her husband as being evil for wanting to put an end to the horrible spectacle of artificially keeping this poor woman alive in a permanent vegetative state.
When people are in a situation where it is impossible for them to recover, it is an obscenity to perpetuate life when the only decent thing is to let our loved one go. It is unfortunate cryonics is still considered an outlandish procedure. Those cases that hold hope of a future medical cure should just be cryogenically preserved. I know I would prefer to be cryogenically frozen if I was placed in a similar situation. Nanomedicine a century or two from now shouldn’t have any problem repairing cellular damage from the freezing process and revive those frozen, regardless of their illness.
We humans are designed to eventually DIE. Everyone wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die. How long must this poor woman be kept artificially alive before she is allowed to move on to the next life? Isn’t fifteen years enough?
Her doctors aren’t evil. Neither is her husband. He loves her and wants her to finally be at peace. Living as a vegetable is no way for humans to live.
It is helpful to examine the different situations where artificial treatment is given in cases of medical incapacity:
• Cessation of brain and heart and/or other organ activity
• Cessation of brain activity
• Cessation of cognitive brain activity
• Cessation of heart or other organ activity
Cessation of brain and heart
Must one continually perform CPR upon a person who has drowned? How long must it be performed before one discontinues artificial treatment and face facts the patient will never recover? What if the victim's parents insist CPR be continued non-stop for days on end? One has to face facts artificial treatment may only work within a very small window of opportunity in cases of brain-death and heart stoppage.
Cessation of brain activity
What about in cases of brain-death and the person is only kept alive by machines? If the patient’s brain has ceased to function and the patient is incapable of breathing on his own; the person’s chances of recovery are nonexistent.
Cessation of cognitive brain activity
People in permanent comas lose their cognitive ability. They are incapable of thinking, waking up or communicating. Most doctors agree if these patients haven’t recovered after a year; they will never recover. However, everyone has heard stories about people waking up from comas after 10 years, giving the faint hope that our loved one will also recover some day. However for every one that does recover, thousands don’t and most die a slow death.
Cessation of heart or other organ activity
Modern medicine has machines that can keep a person alive for quite some time if they lose the use of a certain organ, such as kidneys or heart. It isn’t a permanent solution though and the person will need their defective organ repaired or replaced.
Final thoughts
Terri Schiavo suffered permanent brain damage from heart failure. This damage was so severe that she is incapable of cognitive thought. Her brain still works to a limited extent - the involuntary systems such as her respiratory and circulatory systems are still functioning. But Terri, the person, the personality, is not longer there. It’s as if the portions of her brain that stored her person, her memories, her thoughts and her personality were removed. It’s as if her spirit is no longer in her body. The only thing her brain does is keep her physical body alive – it has become nothing more than a hospital respirator or heart-lung machine.
I know it’s heartbreaking for most to see her. She sleeps and awakes, her eyes open and she moves from side to side. But according to all the independent and court-appointed observers, some of whom spent several months by her side, her eyes don’t focus. There’s never been any hint she recognizes anyone or anything. She doesn’t respond to speech or touch. All the remains is involuntary and noncognitive. Those most familiar with her specific case such as medical doctors and courts have all agreed with this assessment. This is why her husband has won every single case against her parents. It isn’t a conspiracy; the facts are obvious when examined honestly.
Fifteen years is long enough. I know what her husband is going through. He wants his wife to rest and stop being the vegetable laying in bed. He was a faithful husband for many years and placed great demands on his time and those caring for Terri for at least eight years before recognizing the hopelessness and decided to end the horror. I don’t think I could’ve lasted that long with the constant pain of seeing my wife in such a condition. At least he had the sense to move on, find another and raise a family while her parents still cling to a miracle of recovery.
We need to face facts. Sometimes God’s answer is no regardless of how fervently we want otherwise. Let us all let her go so she may enjoy her rest with the Lord.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Here's there website:
http://www.fbi.gov
Mmmmmhmmmm....
And Dred Scott and baby Roe (who actually lived, but who's keeping track?) are down with the legal system, huh?
Legal precedent can be wrong. And I say that as a licensed attorney!
The principle of the case is all that matters. Pro Michael Schiavo's position = pro killing Terri.
I myself was full of anguish for the trials of poor Mikey. I mean the savage attacks against his character and motives. The criticism of his abandonment of marriage vows. The failure of people to see his deep, deep devotion to Terri's wish to starve to death. I mean heck she was a bulimic of course she would want to starve to death. It would be the only fitting way to die. His respect for her privacy but alas not her private parts ( or is discussing her gyn exam a weird twist on her privacy that I did not apprectiate) But I pulled myself together and just brushed that ole nasty anguish aside. Yep the sorrow is over and a new day dawns. God bless Terri and her family.
Micheal Schaivo took up with some little sweetie long ago and has a couple of kids with her. How does that behavior fullfil those promises to Terri?!!!
Perhaps because after all those years he realized the Terri he knew wasn't coming back. This story is a tragedy all the way around, with so many accusations but my heart goes out to both sides. If it were my daughter, I can't say I wouldn't be doing exactly what the Schindlers are doing. I can't imagine anything more heartbreaking. I've watched the tape and it definitely looks like Terri is reacting to her surroundings. Her guardian says it took hours to get those few minutes and it could never be duplicated. Just because someone doesn't agree with the Schindlers doesn't automatically make them evil or lying. However, if her nurses, who probably spend the most time with her say she's talking then there should be more follow-up tests done. At this point, both sides have become so entrenched in their positions that I don't think objectivity is possible.
After reading the various threads of FR, I was all ready to buy the "Michael is evil, he did this to her" that seems to be the prevailing opinion. Someone on a different thread pointed out this link: http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/infopage.html and I'm glad they did because it's the most unbiased look at the case I've seen. I would bet if someone started looking closely at Terri's parents, it wouldn't be too hard to twist everything they did into something negative. For instance, why did they wait until after the settlement to "suddenly" accuse Michael of abuse and attempted murder? They were all living together and supporting each other for quite a while after Terri's accident, which to me indicates there was love, trust an mutual respect. Without haveing been there, how do we know that money was the reason Michael "suddenly" remembered Terri's wish not to be left alive like this? How soon after the settlement did Michael bring this up? Hours? Days? Months? Years? Maybe it was something he tried to discuss with the Schindlers over the years but they couldn't discuss it rationally together. Maybe Michael himself refused to acknowledge his wife's wishes until one of his friends/family members who were with Michael and Terri when she said she wouldn't want to live like that reminded him. By ALL accounts (including the nurses), he was very devoted to her for years and evidently still visits her.
I've also read on this thread that they had an argument and he was very angry about her having spent money insinuating that was reason to kill her. I'm betting there aren't too many couples who haven't argued about money during their relationship. That's just not proof enough that he was responsible, especially when you consider there's medical evidence that she had bulimia. Whether he hopped around from job to job is pretty irrelevant. Lots of young (and middle-aged) people do that until they find their niche.
As a wife, I do know there's NO WAY I'd want my husband, as young as they were, to not go on with his life. I love him to much to want him to live in limbo for years and years. Still, if there are more in-depth tests that haven't been done to assess Terri's condition, they should be done. Terri's faith and the practices of her church should be respected, though and I don't know if they have. If the parents are willing to take care of her they should be allowed to...I say this in spite of being thoroughly sickened by the lengths they would go, cutting off limbs, etc. to keep her with them, there is a time to "let go and let God"...reminds me of that bizarre movie, Boxing Helena.
It bothers me, however, that people think that in order for the Schindlers to be right, Michael has to be evil. Maybe he's just wrong.
Cindie
If you think I have lost my way because I disagree with people making unsubstantiated charges on FR for all the world to see, perhaps I have lost my way.
"Fact" has given way to rumor mongering, out and out lies, and name calling.
I'll honor your wishes ..
just want to say they are wrong
Good article. If any of these four situations actually applied in this case, maybe more would be supporting the "removal of artificial life support".
However, Terri Schiavo does not fit any of these. And frankly, the loving husband schtick just doesn't fly, what with the new wife-to-be and kiddies.
He has to kill her as opposed to divorce her? Yikes!
I'll say it again. Starving an animal to death is a FELONY? But we can starve this disabled person? Sickening.
Mr. Watson, I read your article and the ensuing flame war. Maybe you weren't responding but it turned into one giant "pile-on-Edward". So many people here at FR have let their concern for Terri cause them to turn on people who probably agree with them 99% of the time.
My advice is not to try and post your story here again, even though it is very relevant. As you say you might get kicked out of FR altogether and it's not worth it. Of course, you'll have to answer yourself the question of whether it's worth it to stay at all with what this place has turned into.
It has to do with the Banality of Evil.
There are libraries of books on the matter.
I think it's nothing short of mind-boggling that Schiavo has allowed a newspaper article to come out showing just how "banal" he really is.
BTW, if you want to discuss evil in this world you need to read Hannah Arendt as well as the Mahabarata (which was written several centuries ago in India).
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