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."
Does the Liberal media ever dare to print the phrase "the Jewish Left"?
What is the equivalent of the word "antisemitism" when the bigotry is directed at Christians?
Suzanne Goldenberg is a left-wing witch. She was removed from her post covering the Middle East for the Guardian because of her venomous Israel-hating and her sympathy for the Palestinian jihadis.
DeLay was NOT a hypocrite EITHER.....get your facts right....the situations are NOT the same....although the MSM has been doing a good job of trying to make people believe that is so.
Rhetorical question for all:
The courts/judges are the ones who've sanctioned killing this woman, pulling her feeding tube....Who are these judges acountable to?!!!
We need to find out and address this issue with them too!!
The MSM has been misinforming the public for months about this case, so I can excuse the ignorance of a leftist Brit. Out of charity, I will presume that you are not an idiot, and really don't understand the difference. Pay attention, class is in.
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."
Terri Schiavo (or, as you call her, "Mrs. Schiavo") is NOT on life-support. Terri's kidneys are working just fine. Terri breathes perfectly normally, without the aid of a ventilator. Nurses have said that Terri can be and has been fed orally, contrary to the wishes of her HINO (husband in name only), who wants her to DIE. If Terri can be fed orally and her HINO would allow her to be, there is no reason why she could not continue living until she passed away naturally. She would not be in need of the feeding tube which Michael is denying her because it is the only way he can (legally) facilitate her DEATH.
There is no parallel in the cases of Terri and her grandmother, whose kidneys failed (you need at least one), who could not breathe on her own, and who apparently could NOT -- in answer to Robert Schindler's inquiry to her doctor -- "come out of this thing."
Do you get it NOW??? Are you going to continue to claim ignorance, or are you actually that clueless?
You know I'm not talking about pagans.
I'm talking about Christian writings....writings of such groups that also felt that priests who were corrupt and had betrayed the church shouldn't be dispensing.
Of course the Church hated that, and declared them heretics and with wonderful Christian charity wiped them out. If you are going to define as "non-Christian" anything that was later declared heretical, then it's pointless to proceed. The victor writes the history books, and I'm just pointing out that prior to Augustine of Hippo and the Council of Brega in mid-6th Century, Christians were more interested in God than Church, in Heaven than Earth.
Yet some of the Christians' carvings are still visible today, in northern Africa, where the deaths were recorded as these Christians sought to be with their Lord.
Heck, you might try to marginalize early Christians and claim they were all loonies, but even taking a look at groups like the Donatists and seeing what was done to them must make you feel a bit uneasy, doesn't it?!
Don't you love all these stories the media has drug up over the last couple of days? First, Tom Delay's father, now Robert Schindler's mother? Too bad they didn't research Terri's life quite as well and interview folks who might have heard HER wishes.
There is a big difference in 'pulling the plug' on someone who is dying and has absolutely NO chance of surviving without it, and starving someone who death, who just might be able to eat in the normal way if given a little bit of therapy. Even if the decision is made to stop feeding someone you NEVER stop giving them fluids because that is what keeps them comfortable as they die. Michael wouldn't even allow Terri that modicum of comfort in her last days.
The big difference here is that Terri is not in a coma, does not have Alzheimer's, and has not been diagnosed with a terminal infection such as MRSA. Most elderly patients with Alzheimer's end up that way.
In this case, I say it only looks like apple juice. Take a whiff.
I'm not surprised he decided to do that. His mother was severely ill.
Here are some symptoms of kidney failure
blood in stools, coma, delirium, hallucinations, confusion, vomitting blood, swelling, etc.
This will be the new ploy of the Kill-Terri crowd.-----
Find every instance "plug-pulling" by someone who supported Terri...no matter how outrageous the comparison to Terri's case.
My mother, whose kidneys are functioning at a low level, is not obligated, by anyone's morality, to go on dialysis when her kidneys completely fail.
So what? My sister-in-law's kidneys failed. She's on dialysis and will be until she can get a transplant. Why didn't Mr. Schindler demand dialysis?
THe opening line discredits the whole story."Terri Schiavo who is in a coma."
You call her "Terri," and I am going to assume you are a polite person who wouldn't do that without knowing her personally. Of course I call her Mrs. Schiavo, which is the polite thing to do until she suggests I should call her by her first name. I admit I didn't know her.
Based on your personal knowledge of her... (did you know her longer than her husband?) ...did she tell you that she'd want to have her body kept going even after her higher brain functions were gone--that her cerebral cortex (indeed, most of her cerebrum!) was replaced by fluid? Did you know her well enough to extrapolate that would be her preference?
Note...it's quite clear that Mrs. Schiavo is not going to "get better"... Years of therapy didn't help, and her body's in worse condition now.
Note...it's quite clear that Mrs. Schiavo could in no way communicate her displeasure at being force-fed.
Note...it's clear that many courts have ruled as to her preference.
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!
So I think it's very relevant.
BTW, I'm sorry you lost a dear friend. I don't mean this to detract from your personal loss. From what I've read on here, Mrs. Schiavo was like the Second Coming of Christ. Although I think ALL people should have their rights respected, when it's a saint like Mrs. Schiavo, that must be tough.
765.101 Definitions.--As used in this chapter:
Then drop on down and read the following section of FL Law....
PART IV
ABSENCE OF ADVANCE DIRECTIVE
765.401 The proxy.
765.404 Persistent vegetative state.
I believe in self-determination, but that is not the case here. There is no evidence that this woman ever said she wanted to die. If you look at the timeline, her "wish to die" was only made public by her husband some 7 or 8 years after she became disabled. And I just don't think you can count on the word of a man who can start a new fmily while his WIFE is in this state. If he truly had her wishes at heart, he would have been faithful to her until the final days.
Read Gondring'statement, it sets up the next step in the death cult's plan.IF you can't feed yourself you can be starved to death. Good bye all quadraplegics...
You're right about the coma part. I posted the whole article for completeness...but I don't think anyone is denying the veracity of the last paragraph, are they?
Judaism forbids withholding food and water from a person, if that will keep them alive.
Allowing someone to die is not euthanisia. Don't get me wrong, I believe that Mrs. Shiavo should be given a chance. The death that she is approaching is agonizing. I also know about this, as it is quite like the final days of some terminal cancer patients. My wife passed from cancer 2 years ago this week. My daughter (an RN, God bless her) and I cared for her here in the home through the process. It was her choice after all the chemo's failed. She knew the process as she was a hospice chaplain.
I think my point is that what is happening to Terry is not equatable to allowing a person die with dignity if that is their choice, and condeming her father for allowing his mother to die isn't the same as what I have read about his daughter's situation.
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