Terri Schiavo Before dehydration
Posted on 03/26/2005 4:12:10 PM PST by wagglebee
PINELLAS PARK, Fla. (AP) - After another round of losses in the courts, Terri Schiavo's parents kept watch over their dying daughter Saturday, seeking permission to give her Easter communion as their attorneys acknowledged the fight to reconnect the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube was nearing an end.
Attorneys for Bob and Mary Schindler decided not to file another motion with a federal appeals court, essentially ending their effort to persuade federal judges to intervene - something allowed by an extraordinary law passed by Congress.
But at least three more appeals loomed by the Schindlers and Gov. Jeb Bush. Schindler attorney David Gibbs III appealed an unfavorable ruling Saturday with a last-ditch plea to the Florida Supreme Court to get the feeding tube reinserted.
"Time is moving quickly and it would appear most likely ... that Terri Schiavo will pass the point that she will be able to recover over this Easter weekend," Gibbs said. He filed an emergency petition arguing that a Pinellas County judge ignored new evidence of Schiavo's wishes and her medical condition.
Paul O'Donnell, a Roman Catholic Franciscan monk, said the family is urging Schiavo's husband to allow his wife to receive the sacrament of communion at sundown Saturday, when Catholics begin celebrating their holiest feast of the year. Schiavo, who cannot swallow, would have a minuscule piece of bread and a drop of wine placed in her mouth.
Earlier, Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer rejected the family's latest motion. The family claimed Schiavo tried to say "I want to live" hours before her tube was removed, saying "AHHHHH" and "WAAAAAAA" when asked to repeat the phrase.
Doctors have said her previous utterances weren't speech, but were involuntary moans consistent with someone in a vegetative state. Greer agreed.
Scott Schiavo, the brother of Schiavo's husband, Michael, said the family was pleased to see the Schindlers' efforts nearing an end.
"He knows in his heart he is doing the right thing, he is doing what Terri wanted," Scott Schiavo said. "He's having a hard time understanding why people are fighting him on this, why they are calling him a murderer. It's very tough on him."
Michael Schiavo has said she has no hope for recovery and wouldn't want to be kept alive artificially. The Schindlers believe their daughter could improve and say she laughs, cries, responds to them and tries to talk.
Doctors have said she would probably die within a week or two of her feeding tube being pulled, which was done March 18 after Greer sided with her husband. Her body wracked by dehydration, attorneys for her parents said she may not last through the weekend.
"She's doing remarkably well under the circumstances," said Schiavo's father, Bob Schindler, after visiting her inside the hospice Saturday afternoon. "She has put up a tremendous battle to live. She's not throwing in the towel."
Michael Schiavo's attorney, George Felos, denied reports by the parents' attorneys that her tongue and eyes were bleeding.
"She is calm. She is peaceful. She is resting comfortably," Felos told reporters Saturday as four sheriff's deputies stood by to protect him.
Terri Schiavo's brother, Bobby Schindler, called that "absurd" and challenged Felos to allow videos and photos to be released, so the public can see Terri's condition. "They're mischaracterizing the condition today, just as they have been ... It's sick. It's heinous," he said.
Felos said earlier that allowing videos to be recorded inside Terri Schiavo's room during her death process would violate her privacy rights.
Outside the hospice, about 60 protesters maintained a subdued vigil and, like her parents, hoped for a miracle. Some said they believed it was not a coincidence that the woman would lay dying during the Easter weekend.
"Things are all done in God's timing," said David Vogel, a 47-year-old Steubenville, Ohio, musician who was arrested for trespassing last week when he tried to enter the hospice to take water to Terri Schiavo. "Does he have his hand upon this? Oh, yeah. The parallels are there with what happened to Jesus Christ. He was condemned to death, an innocent man. She's an innocent woman."
A group of 22 protesters bearing wooden crosses arrived by bus from a Christian community in Augusta, Ga., to join the fray.
"It's the most significant weekend for Christians, and God wants us to be aware of the preciousness of life," said one of the coordinators, Louis Hymel, 52. "God calls us always to the cross, and this is an example of us taking up our cross."
Schiavo was reared in the Roman Catholic church, and her parents have made heavy use of her faith as the basis for the numerous appeals to reinsert the feeding tube that was removed more than a week ago.
The Schindlers have argued, for instance, that she should be spared based on statements by Pope John Paul II that people in vegetative states have a right to nutrition and hydration. They say Terri would have obeyed the pope and would not choose to have her tube removed. That argument was rebuffed in the state courts.
Terri Schiavo has been without food and water longer than she was in 2003, when the tube was removed for six days before Gov. Jeb Bush pushed through a law to have it reinserted. The law was later thrown out by the state Supreme Court.
Many supporters of the Schindlers say Bush could simply ignore the courts and take emergency custody of Schiavo. But Bush, himself a convert to Roman Catholicism, has said he's not willing to go beyond the boundaries of his powers.
Bush and the state have two appeals pending in their fight to support the Schindlers. But the challenges are before the state 2nd District Court of Appeal, which has rebuffed previous efforts by Bush in the case.
Terri Schiavo suffered brain damage in 1990 when her heart stopped briefly from a chemical imbalance believed to have been brought on by an eating disorder. She left no living will.
I don't think that there is anything necessarily wrong with the law in Florida. It requires, as it applies to this case, that the person be either PVS or terminal and in the absence of a written directive, clear and convincing evidence of their wishes. I think Greer, who established the evidentiary record, erred horribly and he has compounded that with his arrogance ever since.
Judge Greer and his court are beneath contempt.
fine....but if he erred, why is every single court appeal denied or refused to be heard as in the SCOTUS....you can't be telling me this is now a judicial conspiracy.....appeals get heard all the time for the right reasons....
Unfortunately, I am too old and 3,000 miles away and can do nothing to change the outcome. But let me tell you what I have done. I am a twice wounded vet who has worked tirelessly to elect conservatives and men of action to represent me in government affairs and to make sure that the rights bestowed on us by God, not by judges, bureaucrats, legislative bodies and officials, are secured. I fear that in this I have failed and have been failed. I fear that the sacrifices made by so many for freedom are dying with Terri.
That is my favorite picture of Terri--with her mom and just smiling so big----
NO ONE will ever convince me that that smile is a reflex--and that she doesn't even know what is going on around her!
"Good afternoon Mr. Schindler...remember....."
"No Water, No Food, No Cameras, No Bibles, No Rosary Beads, and absolutely NO TOUCHING!!"
"Any VIOLATIONS will result in PERMANENT EXPULSION from the facility, and CRIMINAL PROSECUTION, order of Judge Greer!"
"Enjoy your visit at Woodside Hospice!!!"
(Seething Anger at the audacity of this entire farce. Ghoul Greer and his henchmen will have Pew Seats in He@@ for their actions, /imo)
"Sometime in the next few weeks I want you to go out to a veterans cemetary and contemplate all of the fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines burried there and in cemetaries all over the globe who have given all of their tomorrows so that a day like today would never visit the US."
Well said. It makes me wonder what all these G.I.'s in Iraq are giving there lives for. What kind of "freedom" is the US exporting to the rest of the world when in your country it is apparently both legal and acceptable to murder innocent people by starvation on the say-so of judge nobody? No wonder the muslims don't want the U.S. version of freedom!
Is there any indication that the people who wrote your constitution intended it to be used to "legalise" murder by the state?
Do you honestly believe that the founders would have stood by and allowed a backwater judge to condem a disabled woman to death by starvation?
I'm about half way through that link you sent... very poignant for me as I have lived through this (sort of) for the past three years. My aunt's husband had a heart attack and was clinically dead for 3 to 5 minutes... brought back by heroics but today he is alive... not himself, he doesn't know anyone, but he walks around - like a child or an old man (he's 53). I am very close to my aunt because she has no kids and I know that she is always feeling guilty because she wonders would it have been better had the medical teams not intervened... I could go on and on but the responsibility is tremendous and the sorrow and pain are constant and present each and every day. There's always a crisis, always a sense that your life is on hold - waiting, waiting for something bad to happen - and then not knowing whether you'll be happy or sad when/if it does.
Anyway, after a while, I finally figured out that these damaged folks have the ability to make other people saints... bring out the unselfish and total love that you have because your life becomes a sort of sacrifice to them due to all the care and time you spend with them. So that may be their purpose, I don't know - but I haven't seen a better explanation.
Of course, this will become more and more common because medical advances are unbelievable... and if they weren't used on those like Miss Cruzan or my uncle Ed or Terri, we'd be outraged and maybe some would sue. But the medical advances do have a cost to them.
But you know Marmema, I could never starve my daughter to death... and I know that because I have a severely brain damaged person in my family - and they won't starve uncle Ed either.
If the answer should be No, then Americans need to impeach everyone of these judges and completely overhaul the system of tri-partite federalist government as it now exists.
The only way I see that happen is if there is a rebellion, a revolution, a war, or a series of such calamaties that the governmental systems are irretrievably destroyed and must be built again from the ground up.
Did you just see the press conference given by the Catholic priest that is representing the Shindlers?
He just said that the Shindlers were so distraught that they would no longer give interviews---
He then challenged Jeb Bush to come down and take Terri into protective custody---and that by denying her communion, she was being denied he constitutional right of freedom of religion---
Just heartbreaking stuff...
The butcher Judge Greer and the appellate whore judges look at that picture and pretend it doesn't exist.
The elephant is not in the room.
They ignore what their eyes see, because they want to.
They are murderers.
When I see Felos I think of him as evil incarnate.
It is the South of the 19th Century and she is his property to do with as he wills. A score of judges signed on to her execution.
"Do you honestly believe that the founders would have stood by and allowed a backwater judge to condem a disabled woman to death by starvation?"
No, I don't. But a lot of people around here seem to think that the "constitutional separation of legislature and judiciary" is more sacrosanct than Terri Schiavo's life.
What could Bush be prosecuted for if he took charge of the case and had the food and water restored? Is saving someone's life a criminal offence in the U.S.?
I fail to see how not receiving Communion today, seeing as how she just received Communion last Friday via her feeding tube, violates her First Amendment Rights to practice her religion. This is a specious claim.
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