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."
Should we kill her before we find out? Or should we give the benefit of the doubt to life, and follow the Congressional bill to do a de novo investigation of her condition?
If you are right, nothing has been lost. If you are wrong, an innocent woman has been murdered by the State.
NO choice for a clear thinking person, IMO.
A person who has to be on a machine to breathe, and whose organs are shutting down due to illness is a totally different situation from a person who is simply receiving sustenance through a tube. (In fact, her nurses said she can swallow, but it takes a great deal of energy.) If I stopped giving you food and water, you'd die just like Terri is dying. She has no other "extraordinary means" of survival other than FOOD AND WATER.
You don't mind my asking, do you?
I respect the opinion of the court assigned medical experts that have physically examined Terri and ALL determined that she is in a PVS.
I also respect Terri's right to not be kept alive in this condition
I'm curious about how early your hospital could take a premature child and hope for it's survival.
20 years ago I had a girlfriend who had a baby at UofM hospital in Ann Arbor Mi. I asked the doctor how early they could keep a premature baby alive. Then they could take a baby at nearly 2 full months short of full term. That was 20 years ago at a leading medical facillity, so I imagine they can keep a very early baby alive today.
"One question, DC............why did you sign up on FR just a few days ago?"
I do not mind you asking at all. I have been a reader for about the last 4 months, but decided to sign up and start participating in the forums recently (10 days ago)
(There are nurses who have signed sworn affidavits that they fed her through the mouth.......we don't have the full story, which is why we need a new investigation with current medical testing).
May I ask if you're a conservative?
"Ah.......but Terri clearly wants to live. If she didn't, she wouldn't be surviving the painful starvation process she is being put through"
This makes no sense. Patients are given a window of 2-3 weeks before they pass away.
I am a conservative and a Christian as well as rationale.
(And as a Christian, why do you not know that those who engaged in mass murder in the name of Christianity were not followers of Jesus Christ?)
Sorry if I doubt you, but we have been invaded by many pretenders in the past week, on both sides of this argument.
You're right to doubt. I've seen some of his/her/its other posts and I am suspicious myself.
Call me skeptical. Thanks for your post.
"And you, as a Christian, are just fine with taking a non-terminal patient's life painfully over a 2 to 3 week period? One, like Terri, for whom there is NO proof that she wants to die?"
I am not sure how to answer your questions because I do not agree with things you state. I believe Terri is terminal. (ie. Permanent Vegetative State). I also believe that by law the proof is in her husbands testimony. I believe that the law should be upheld at all times and that is the very reason the that laws are created.
I am not sure whether you read all my posts relating to your second question, but if you did, you would realize I was using it as merely a comparison.
I don't know if there is an absolute line on fetal age. Survival seems to be dependent on birth weight.
Haven't you seen the Logan thread and the more recent thread on the tiny baby in Mobile, Alabama.
Both of them are FReepers babies. Logan is pretty much the unofficial mascot of FreeRepublic.
His life has been documented from birth, ventilator and months in PICU to going home, first steps, first birthday.
He was about as big as a man's palm.
He is actually that clueless!
Your arrogance is exceeded only by your ignorance.
Careful. Gondring might want them dead, too.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.