Posted on 03/27/2005 1:30:00 PM PST by Gondring
For 13 years Terri Schiavo has been in a coma - with her husband, her parents, the Christian right and now the president's brother locked in a bitter struggle over her fate. This week could see a final decision on whether she lives or dies. Suzanne Goldenberg reports from Florida
The woman's eyes are open in the video. She slowly rolls her head along the pillow, keeping up a constant low moan, as a man's arm dangles a metallic balloon overhead. "Look over here, Terri," a male voice says. "Can you follow that at all?"
The medical community and Florida's courts are convinced that Terri Schiavo can't, and, indeed, that she will never be able to recapture even this degree of cognitive ability. So too is her husband, Michael Schiavo. Over the years, he has tried three times to remove her feeding tube.
But Terri's parents, Mary and Robert Schindler, say she can improve, and have collaborated with the Christian right in America to turn this very private tragedy into a national pro-life pageant. Using the internet, press and Christian radio and television shows, anti-abortion groups have turned Terri's catastrophic loss into a major political gain, expanding the parameters of the pro-life debate.
This week could provide the last act. After a decade of exhausting every legal measure - and all the furore the Christian right can rustle up - the Schindlers have arrived at the final round of their struggle with their son-in-law for control of Terri's destiny.
A judge is deliberating whether to strike down so-called "Terri's Law" - a last-minute reprieve pushed through the Florida legislature by the state governor and presidential brother, Jeb Bush, that forced the hospital to resume feeding Terri two weeks ago.
Terri's Law, condemned by civil libertarians, the legal and medical community, and queasy state legislators, was the Schindlers' last hope. If it fails, the feeding tube will be removed, and Terri will slowly starve to death.
None of this has penetrated through to Terri. In February 1990, aged 26, she suffered a heart attack, brought on by acute potassium shortage caused by bulimia. By the time the ambulance arrived, her brain had been deprived of oxygen for six minutes. She has remained in what doctors call a persistent vegetative state ever since. Her eyes are open, her limbs are contracted, she smiles and grunts occasionally, but without any sense of purpose, according to the majority medical opinion presented to the courts.
But even in that seemingly senseless form, Terri's parents were able to discern a remarkable power within their semi-comatose daughter. Over the years, as successive judges refused their demand to be put in control of Terri's destiny, the Schindlers have enlisted the support of the Christian right to challenge court verdicts that have gone in her husband's favour. In the process, they have turned her into an unwitting heroine for the pro-life movement, and a convenient foil for Governor Bush.
With a year to go before the 2004 elections, Brother Bush has been keeping a weather eye out for causes that would mobilise the pro-life movement. Earlier this year, he outraged legal opinion by intervening to prevent a severely disabled woman, who had been raped in a state institution, from obtaining an abortion. Terri's case has proved as enticing a cause - and the Schindlers are extremely cooperative.
From their rented camper van across the road from the hospice, they have presided over prayer vigils and power rallies, pumping up the emotions in the campaign to keep their daughter alive by smuggling out videos of Terri in her bed, and making them available on the internet. Although her father, Robert, claims that he hates the circus that has developed around his daughter, he seems well practised at delivering his pitch. The fight for her life, the argument goes, is the fight for disabled people across America.
"People are being executed every day. I don't mean by the law. I mean executed by being starved to death - mainly the elderly, and people with Alzheimer's," says Robert. "There is a big, dark secret out there."
His other daughter, Suzanne Carr, who is five years younger than Terri, is more expansive. "This whole notion of doing away with a group of people who don't contribute to society or who can't feed themselves or who are expensive to maintain, that is bizarre, that is crazy," she says. "You might as well put down handicapped people."
It is difficult to know quite what Michael Schiavo makes of all this. As the Schindlers sit in their camper van discussing TV talkshow schedules, he has been all but silent, granting one interview in two years. And so, while one version of Terri's life - the one peddled by the Schindler family - remains well known, there is nothing forthcoming from the person who arguably knew her best: Michael, her husband of six years.
To hear the Schindler family tell it, the trajectory that led to Terri's tragic existence can be traced to her years as an awkward, overweight teenager in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Suzanne produces a sheaf of pictures of a chubby child and teenager, smiling at the camera from behind large spectacles. In the family's authorised version of events, the extra weight made Terri painfully shy.
She emerged from her shell only after slimming down in high school, and was still not entirely sure of herself when she started at a local college in the Philadelphia area. Within a few months, she had met Michael and fallen deeply in love - although perhaps not enough for Suzanne's standards. "He was the first guy to pay attention to her, the first guy to say, 'I love you', and so she married him," she says.
Nowadays, the Schindlers can barely avoid mentioning Michael's name without writhing in hatred. They have reinforced their accusations that he is neglecting Terri by suggesting that he tried to murder her, and that she was a victim of domestic violence.
The Schindlers' lurid accounts of abuse and neglect don't seem to tally with past events. In the early years of their marriage, Michael appeared to be on good terms with the Schindlers. The young couple lived in the Schindlers' condo after settling in Florida in the mid-80s. After Terri's accident, Michael and the Schindlers shared living quarters and the burden of care for Terri.
Those family bonds snapped in 1993 - the same year that a court awarded Terri $1m in a medical malpractice suit, and granted her husband authority over the money to use for her care. Each party now accuses the other of trying to get their hands on the funds. The cash question became even more urgent four years later, when Michael arrived at his momentous decision to end his wife's life. If Terri died, he would inherit the funds remaining in the malpractice suit; so long as she lived, the Schindlers had a hope of challenging his guardianship over Terri, and his control of the money.
By 1997, when Michael was set to remove the feeding tube for the first time, the stage was set for an epic confrontation. It is unclear what led to the change of heart, but Scott Schiavo, Michael's elder brother, says he arrived at the decision soon after the painful death of his own mother. "It sort of woke him up when he was watching my mother die," he says. "One day he just stood up and said: 'I can't do this any more. I can't do this to Terri.'"
Six years later, it has come down to this: videos of a stricken woman on the internet, accusations of murder, and lining up television interviews in a rented trailer.
Today, the Schindlers are spending much of the afternoon with a crew from the Christian Broadcasting Network, operated by the evangelist Pat Robertson. There is no question which side the CBN is on. "There is a spiritual battle going on. There is a pro-death movement out there right now, and it nearly killed Terri," says reporter Wendy Griffith. "From our perspective, it is a spiritual battle. It basically comes down to good and evil, life and death."
Outside the Christian right, such clarity over Terri's fate - or indeed the best recourse for any person condemned to live for years with virtually no brain function - is generally difficult to obtain.
But, given the vehemence with which he has been fighting to prolong Terri's life, it is a little surprising to learn that Robert decided to turn off the life-support system for his mother. She was 79 at the time, and had been ill with pneumonia for a week, when her kidneys gave out. "I can remember like yesterday the doctors said she had a good life. I asked, 'If you put her on a ventilator does she have a chance of surviving, of coming out of this thing?'" Robert says. "I was very angry with God because I didn't want to make those decisions."
wholesale obfuscation alert.
Exactly.
Greer ruled within the law as to life support and guardianship in the State of Florida.
If you don't like the law, change it.
"Greer ruled within the law as to life support and guardianship in the State of Florida.
If you don't like the law, change it."
Nice "within" but not REQUIRED. He had the opportunity to do the RIGHT thing but yes he's covered because he stayed within the "LAW".
Terri was NOT IN A COMA...
Big LIE ..thanks Dr. Goebels
I don't remember any talk of family members opposing it. Joe's name was on the lawsuit because he was her legal guardian by default.
"I haven't read much on that case- but wasn't her father only opposed by the state?"
This is going back a ways, but the State of Missouri Attourney General was the chief opposition. There may have been other factions involved, but the legal portion of it was between Joe and the State. From there it proceeded through the Federal system to the Supreme.
Why not change the law so it says that parents have more say than spouses in marital affairs?
Also, there was no hearsay in this. Another propaganda point. Spouses often "stand to gain from [a spouse's] death"...shall we just treat them all like they're criminals, in absence of charges or conviction?
What this underlines is the importance of both filing your wishes, as well as respecting the wishes of others, so you can know yours will be respected.
I don't know. Please post your sources about the credibility of these 4 nurses (who filed legal affidavits subjecting them to perjury charges). Which of them was charged with perjury?
You might check out the Biersack ruling on 12/06/04 in Ohio. The appellate court said that Ohio law doesn't require evidence{written} of specific focus on food and fluids, and that witness testimony was sufficient. Mrs. Biersack had no living will and it was only the testimony of her family that would allow the feeding tube to be removed. The court did say it would still require 2 doctors to agree on this though and didn't find that in this case. Interpretation of the law is an amazing thing, huh?
Suddenly one life is of less value than the other one so its OK to pull the plug on the old lady, is that it???
Is this official pro-life policy????
Maybe Dr Kennedy, Pat Robinson, Dr Dobson, the Pope, Rush, Hannity, Savage, etc would like to explain which lives are worth saving and which lives should have the plug pulled cause I'm really confused now!
One......healthy young woman, on feeding tube only, NOT life support. The other, old, terminally ill woman ON LIFE SUPPORT.
You have the gall to call someone in a PVS for 15 YEARS a "healthy young woman"?????? What planet are you from anyway???
If you wish to use "personal knowledge of her" as a gauge, no one has more of that than her own parents. Next!
Note...it's quite clear that Mrs. Schiavo is not going to "get better"...
She will never be a normally functioning human being, but some people believe that she can progress from where she is now. Terri is not the first nor will she be the last person doomed by "experts," who are oftentimes embarrassed when patients survive and/or recover.
Note...it's quite clear that Mrs. Schiavo could in no way communicate her displeasure at being force-fed.
Since you are accepting the premise of Carla Iyer's sworn affidavit that hospice staffers actually did feed her orally with no problem, you are bound to accept the further testimony that Terri did not show any displeasure at being given Jello through her mouth, and that after being alone in her room with her HINO, she showed signs of distress and often cried. Next!
Note...it's clear that many courts have ruled as to her preference.
A "preference" that only came to light after her HINO won $1.2 mil in a malpractice suit for the purpose of improving her condition. Why wasn't her "preference" discussed with anyone else up until that point? Besides, if you are going to suggest that she couldn't register displeasure with being fed orally, I can just as well suggest that she can't register disapproval of being starved to death.
Note...it was Mr. Schindler who initially said that he'd have Mrs. Schiavo's arms and legs amputated and have her cut open, all to keep her body going--even if she didn't want it!
I have heard this spouting from the mouths of the HINO and his ghoulish lawyer (who apparently thinks starving chicks are hot), but I would prefer to read the specific statements in context. I don't trust the word of the HINO, much less his highly-paid liar...I mean, lawyer.
So I think it's very relevant.
As opposed to my reply, which compared Terri's grandmother's situation to hers, you have not addressed the canyonesque differences between Mother Schindler's fatal illness and Terri's debilitating condition. It's clear why you haven't; you wouldn't be able to respond at all.
From what I've read on here, Mrs. Schiavo was like the Second Coming of Christ.
You're a liar. Link a post that says that. I dare you.
Although I think ALL people should have their rights respected, when it's a saint like Mrs. Schiavo, that must be tough.
Your smarminess and intellectual dishonesty betray your words.
deports Link at post 86 At that time, under Florida Statutes, a feeding tube was not considered artificial life support. In April, 1999, House Bill 2131 was introduced in the Florida House by the Elder Affairs and Long Term Care Committee.
Gus Bilikaris was a member of that committee - and a member of the board of directors at Hospice of Florida Suncoast with Felos---and a campaign contributor to George W. Greer. On Oct. 1, 1999, the legal definition of life prolonging procedures was amended under Florida law to add “including artificially provided sustenance and hydration which sustains, restores or supplants a spontaneous vital function.
Four months later, the Schiavo/Felos petition to remove the gastric feeding tube of Terri Schiavo went to trial without jury----to be solely decided by Judge Greer.
In any case, my husband and I will be working on our living wills (which we should have had long ago).........just to be specific, and to make it clear what we want.
Why did the state legislators vote for it and why did Gov Bush sign it?
That's what I thought - felt like being in the twilight zone the past few days and where was FR? There's always difference on something here - which is good because we are not sheeple. But the vehemence against the Bushes has reached a new low.
My prayer was that Michael Sciavo divorce Terri so that those who wanted to take care of her could. But he didn't.
I don't join with the hysterics, like Randall Terry and Patrick Mahoney, who advocate breaking down the doors and confronting the Pinellas Park police department with guns blazing.
If that's what you want, then why not get your hiney down there instead of jockeying behind a keybard?
Tom Delay really got under your skin, worried about your own personal insurance premiums.
What a stupid remark! I don't even know what it means.
Now they've got Larry Klayman and Jesse Jackson too.
Where did he get the authority to rule against her being given anything by mouth?
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