Posted on 03/25/2005 4:33:23 AM PST by ex-Texan
Jeb Bush may take Terri Schiavo into state care
The war over the fate of Terri Schiavo was entering its final stages today as her parents clung to two slim hopes of preventing their severely brain-damaged daughter from being allowed to die.
The 41-year-old has been without food or water for almost seven days, after her feeding tube was removed last Friday on the orders of a Florida state judge.
Friends and lawyers say she is showing signs of dehydration - flaky skin, dry tongue and lips, and sunken eyes. Doctors have said she would probably die within a week or two of the tube being removed.
"It's very frustrating. Every minute that goes by is a minute that Terri is being starved and dehydrated to death," said her brother, Bobby Schindler, who said seeing her was like looking at "pictures of prisoners in concentration camps".
But Brian Schiavo, the brother of Mrs Schiavo's husband Michael who has argued for her to be allowed to die with dignity, strongly disagreed, telling CNN that Terri Schiavo "does look a little withdrawn" but insisting she was not in pain. He added that starvation is simply "part of the death process".
One of the final hopes of Mrs Schiavo's parents lies in the federal courts. Last night Bob and Mary Schindler went back before a federal judge in Tampa, filing another emergency request that the feeding tube be reattached while they pursue claims that their daughter's rights are being violated.
District Judge James Whittemore previously rejected an almost identical request on Tuesday. He promised to work through the night to issue his new ruling.
The second and more dramatic hope lies in the hands of Jeb Bush, the Governor of Florida, who was last night considering the politically explosive step of ordering state officials to force their way into the hospice where Mrs Schiavo lies motionless and take her into state custody, in defiance of the US courts.
A Florida judge yesterday rejected a request by Governor Bush to allow the state to take custody of her, but the governor's aides afterwards refused to rule out further action.
The possibility emerged on Wednesday night, when Governor Bush declared that Mrs Schiavo - who court-appointed doctors say has been in persistent vegetative state for 15 years - had been misdiagnosed. He based his assertion on "new information" provided by William Cheshire, a Florida neurologist, who says that she may only be in a "minimally conscious" state.
Although Dr Cheshire, a leading member of the Christian right-to-life movement, did not examine Mrs Schiavo, he observed her for an hour on March 1. Governor Bush maintained that his testimony was compelling enough for the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) to take her into protective custody.
On Wednesday night, amid reports that Florida state officials were "mobilising" outside Mrs Schiavo's hospice, Florida Circuit Judge George Greer issued an emergency restraining order prohibiting DCF agents from seizing her.
Judge Greer then formally rejected Governor Bush's custody request yesterday. Last night he refused to hold a new hearing to assess Dr Cheshire's claims.
He also ordered the local sheriff's department not to allow state officials into Mrs Schiavo's hospice - but, under Florida law, the governor has the power, without court clearance, of taking a citizen into custody for a 24-hour appraisal if it is suspected they are in jeopardy.
Very long article . . Click Here to Read More
Yes he could, and then what...we would go back to the courts and the whole thing would start over again.
The only way Terri could be saved is if she were somehow taken out of the country.
Even if she was taken to another state, she would eventually be returned to the state of Florida and Florida courts.
With all due respects, if you are only willing to join a fight someone else has started, and not stand up for what you see as wrong on your own or start the fight because you see the injustice, then you truly lack the courage of your convictions.
1)There is a fair amount of evidence that the estranged husband abused Terri and may have, in fact, been involved in her original medical problem.
2)The husband has an enormous conflict of interest in deciding Terri's fate. Her demise not only frees him to marry the mother of his two bastard children but also it provides an inheritance to him.
3)The judge who heard this case has an enormous conflict of interest since it is reported that Greer accepted campaign contributions from lawyers who represented Schiavo.
4)A number of nurses have come forward to report that the estranged husband halted therapy for Terri and asked 'when is the bitch going to die'.
5)One of the nurses claims that the estranged husband shot Terri up with insulin behind closed doors on at least one of his visits to her.
6)The parents have hope and want her to be kept alive. Since Terri was with them for 21 years and the estranged husband for only 5 years, it seems that they would know far better as to what Terri wants.
Reinserting the feeding tube is now a matter of preserving evidence for a criminal case against the estranged husband...... And Jeb Bush should immediately act to preserve Terri as evidence so that Michael gets his 'fair' day in court.
There's got to be hundreds of churches in that area. I keep wondering why the church members aren't at the hospice. There's one lady in a wheelchair whose been there everyday, even iin the rain, God Bless her.
I support Terri Schiavo. Have been supporting her for two years. If I had been the governor of Florida, I would have acted early in 2004. Perhaps Terri might be getting the rehabilitation she needed today, perhaps her husband would be under arrest, and perhaps I would have been impeached. Instead, we got high profile political football and pathetic sound bites.
Life is tough! Wake up, Jeb, and something!
CNN had a documentary about how the poor Polar Bears in the North Pole are starving. POLAR BEARS. They waste their sympathies on bears but not on people. These liberals and their MSM make me ill!
When did we become a nation of laws? I thought we were a nation of soveriegns? Even the Florida Constitution acknowleges that ALL power rests with the people. Just because some a$$hole judge makes his own law doesn't mean he has the power to do so, and that the law need be obeyed.
Due process has been denied. Someone is being deprived of life without due process. That alone is reason enough for a governor to act.
That is no better than the person who says, I can't help it if I smoke, it's big tobacco's fault.
Greer, once again, is a conservative Republican. Take alook at his overall record.
The Bush 41 appointee to the 11th circuit court voted against the TRO and a further hearing. The Clinton appointee, one of them, voted in favor of putting the tube it. Doesn't that tell you that this is an issue of LAW?
This is not a Conservative vs. Liberal issue. It is not a GOP v. Dems issue.
Don't you realize that by blaming the liberals and MSM you are as guilty of politicizing this event as they are!
Stick to the issues
Some things precede law and work as a structural adjunct to achieving stasis.
I don't care where you stand on this issue (Terri) and I don't much care what you want to say about it..but your last two sentences really burned my b*tt.
Don't even go there with the vegetative states in the nursing home. I have had two grandmothers die with ataxia..its long..its debilitating..and its frustrating. And yes..YOU would call them vegetative..I call them trapped.
What IS the point of nursing homes ..WHO should they be full of? Are we just supposed to shoot whoever comes up physically or mentally lame? Gee whiz. We all gotta get outta here somehow. Some of us are gonna go quick..and some are gonna be like Terri and my grandmothers.
Is it fun to watch? No..so what. Is it gut wrenching? Yes..so what. Is it the price we pay for being born, loved and or human? Yes..and its worth it.
I am not calling you a coward, but wouldn't a knight recuse fair maiden, then worry about the rest?
As for McVeigh, I am not confusing the two. Elevate McVeigh's actions to the level of principle is like say Charles Manson struck a blow against the evils of Hollywood. There was nothing noble in what McVeigh did to the 187 people. He was a coward.
If the "pursuit of happiness" were law, every druggie in the country would have used it in court.
Absolutely not because courts only have the power the legislatures give them to order the removal of "artificial" or "extraordinary" means of life support, unless they have legalized euthanasia or doctor assisted suicide. I don't think Florida has either one.
There is nothing artificial about taking food and water by mouth just like every other human being. Courts cannot go beyond that to removing even the opportunity of taking nourishment naturally. That is euthanasia or even judge enforced suicide but I would simple call it what it is -- murder by judge. What would happen if a Bush Team entered the hospice with the appropriate federal and state health officials and her parents and announced they were going to give her water orally? Who would stop them? Why obey an illegal and inhumane order? All the enforcement people there are under the governor's jurisdiction, not Greer's. Perhaps the people carring on the vigil outside should start chanting GIVE TERRI WATER!
Even the worst outcome, Terri choking and dying right then is better than what is happening now. We all know she is dying anyway and there is always the chance she might be able to handle water and later dilute food. Her parents want to give her that chance and she has the right as a human being to that opportunity.
"We the people" need to demonstrate that we are a humane people who do not stand by and do nothing while a judge enforces an illegal order to deny giving her water by mouth and Jeb or George Bush have to be the vehicle for doing this.
I would have agreed with you. I would have thought the issue would stir feelings in the disabled, as well as mothers.
But I have MS and read a couple well known MS forum boards.
You would think that the majority of people with disabilities, like MS, and possibly facing a feeding tube at some point would support the right for Terri to live, but that is not what I've found.
What happens more often is that people put themselves in Terri's place and say they would not want to live that way and therefore, sanction the removing of the feeding tube.
There are a few that stand up for "life", but not many.
Of course, these are people that have Living Wills, and Health Care Surrogate papers drawn up and are ready if the "worst case scenario" should happen.
Judging by the amount of people at the Hospice in Pinellas Park, it seems the "outrage" of conservatives is poured out on the internet and not in real life.
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