Posted on 03/24/2005 5:26:02 PM PST by Congressman Billybob
By the time you read this, Teresa Schiavo may be dead of starvation as required by Florida Judge George Greer. Thousands of people have produced millions of words on this subject. I should write nothing, unless I have more to offer than the MSM (mainstream media). I do.
Personal experience colors what I say. On 1 January 1994, my mother was taken to Mission Memorial Hospital in Asheville with serious injuries from an auto accident. She’d suffered both a heart attack and a stroke after the accident. She was in a coma, but still alive.
Seven years before, her life was saved in that same excellent hospital, by emergency surgery to repair an aorta aneurism. She spent a week in intensive care, and told both her sons that she did not want to be “hooked up to tubes again.” In 1994, my brother was in a different hospital after the accident; decisions on my mother’s care rested on me alone.
Four different medical specialists were called in. I took their advice. I talked to all the grandchildren. Ultimately I made not just one decision, but a series of them, leading directly to my mother’s death, four days later.
I have not yet steeled myself to write the complete history of those four days. Someday I should, because advances in medical care mean that many more Americans will face similar decisions about family members. I understand what Terri Schiavo’s family are going through except the extraordinary time those burdens have been on their shoulders and their hearts.
That said, what can I offer on this subject? For the best medical discussion, I recommend Charles Krauthammer’s excellent column this week. On the legal side, events now are a direct consequence of a legal failure seven years ago, and the arrogance of judges who cannot admit error and merely dispense with the case, rather than take the tougher path and decide it.
The attorneys for Terri’s family should have filed for her divorce from Michael Schiavo seven years ago. He was clearly guilty of adultery. She was clearly blameless. I’m unaware of any divorce action brought by a “next friend” for a woman who cannot speak. But I am aware of divorces the other way – husbands and wives who obtained divorces from spouses who were profoundly disabled, or in prison, or who had disappeared. Turnabout is fair play.
Had Michael been removed as the husband, he would not have been named, or continued, as her guardian. Therefore, what is happening now would not have occurred.
Then there are Michael’s reasons for bias. He had three personal reasons at home (a “wife” and two children). He had hundreds of thousands of reasons in the bank (a million-dollar malpractice settlement). But Judge Greer also had reasons for bias.
In Florida, judges are subject to retention elections. In his last election, Judge Greer received substantial contributions from at least five lawyers who have represented Michael over the years. This is a matter of public records in Florida. None of the MSM have bothered to research and report on this.
Speaking of bias, ABC had its own mini-Rathergate this week. ABC touted a “memo circulated among Republican Senators” which sought to make political hay from Terri Schiavo. The memo is a fraud. It contains references any Senator or staffer would have known not to use concerning legislative business. It also lacks the standard cover sheet and initials of sender for all intraSenate memos. This fraud story was broken by www.Powerline.com; they have the details.
Like CBS, ABC rushed to broadcast with a forged document because it didn’t ask competent experts whether it was false. ABC was in a rush (dare we say biased?) to attack the Republicans. The bias has continued in an ABC poll that misstates the facts of the Schiavo case to produce false results. A day after this memo was exposed as a fraud, Lanny Davis cited it as true on Fox News. Given Davis’s history, that was predictable.
Lastly, on the Internet I’ve seen a brain scan of Terri Schiavo She has a larger gap of fluid than in a normal brain. But I’ve also seen the scan of a woman with a similar void – who was given up for brain dead – who recovered, and who corresponded with me and others and released her medical records, to present an alternative to the assumptions of “experts.”
What we have here is a gross failure of common sense and decency in state and federal courts. Terri Schiavo should be in the physical custody of her parents, who love her, not in the hands of her “husband,” who wants her dead. Her soul now and forever is in the hands of God.
About the Author: John Armor is a First Amendment attorney and author who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
Thanks John!
BUMP! for Life! Thanks, Billybob!
BTTT
I know exactly how you feel and my suggestion may not help, but if you want to hear the Dims wail and gnash their teeth about "those merciless Repuglican bastards," listen to an hour of Err Amrica.
Did you know that Democrats are gutless pukes and lapdogs against the might of the all-conquering Republican Party? That we break the law and use our fearsome army of jack-booted Christian Soldiers to crush peaceful demonstrations? That we break budgets and shovel mountains of money to corporate fat cats and polluters?
Yes, YOU TOO can feel the power when you hear Jeanine Garafalo and Al Franken whine and moan on Err America!
I just told you the truth. If you don't like it, then like you tell everybody else, TOUGH ON YOU.
In Florida, judges are subject to retention elections. In his last election, Judge Greer received substantial contributions from at least five lawyers who have represented Michael over the years. This is a matter of public records in Florida. None of the MSM have bothered to research and report on this.
Speaking of bias, ABC had its own mini-Rathergate this week. ABC touted a “memo circulated among Republican Senators” which sought to make political hay from Terri Schiavo. The memo is a fraud. It contains references any Senator or staffer would have known not to use concerning legislative business. It also lacks the standard cover sheet and initials of sender for all intraSenate memos. This fraud story was broken by www.Powerline.com; they have the details.
Thanks for pinging me to this.
There is just so much information that is covered up, that it's mindboggling.
A friend of mine has a son with smooth brain syndrome. He is very severely disabled. Recently, they have been having trouble getting enough nutrition in him to maintain a healthy weight. He can swallow, but not chew.
She told me today that the Dr.'s are contemplating a feeding tube for him. She said it is not unusual for a person to gradually lose the ability to swallow after having a feeding tube placed.
A shiver went down my spine. They didn't know he had problems until he was 6 weeks old. As far as she is concerned, he was here, he was hers, and there was no choice to be made. She is loving and devoted and fierce in making sure this child gets the care he needs. As a society, we would condemn her for anything less than that.
But 10 years from now, will some number cruncher, some Dr., or society, determine that this child is worthless, too costly, or in need of being "allowed to die naturally"?
WE demand that she invest her whole heart in that child. To turn around, years later, and demand she starve him would be unbelievable cruelty. I have no doubt, after today, that it will eventually happen.
Thank you for this article. It's OBVIOUS there are no scales on YOUR eyes.
So Carla Iyer reported also. Thank you for independently confirming the credibility of her testimony. Now you also can learn and accept the truth of her observations about Michael.
I appreciate your point but there's something about Greer that goes down to bedrock somehow. He is fighting like a little banty rooster. His rulings are so transparently prejudiced, he knows and you know he's taking fairly desperate career chances. Yet he keeps getting more frenetic and bizarre. This does not compute for me that he's doing it to protect some cushy deal with the hospices. I sense something bigger and a lot meaner. He seems to have his heart in it too, in some odd way, otherwise I'd suspect blackmail.
A mystery -- and a very interesting one!
Whew! That is potent information! Thanks.
Armor says in this column that Greer took money from Michael Schiavo's lawyers! But I guess that's legal since the appellate courts found no conflict of interest on Greer's part? Or did they not look at that possibility???????
My instinct remains that this is something more than a few dollars -- or even a lot of dollars. Something much more sinister.
Thank you.
No, you are not sorry...you are delighted in an opportunity to bash a Bush.
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