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."
Please don't tell me you are falling for the Guardian's propaganda. If you follow that logic, every single person on a feeding tube can be legally euthanized.
Not a surprise.
Next time you mention me, I'd appreciate a ping.
I don't think it sets up the next step in the death cult's plan any more than the right to keep and bear arms sets up some revolutionary plan.
I simply believe in respecting people and their preferences, not blindly insisting on "life at all costs" or whatever.
Secondly, I am against the feds interfering in a marriage.
Thirdly, I am against the feds interfering locally when due process has been more than followed.
My problem here, it seems, is that I am a conservative, not a monarchist authoritarian.
So what?!? Lex mulla, lex nulla.
The sick person in a vegetative state, awaiting recovery or a natural end, still has the right to basic health care (nutrition, hydration, cleanliness, warmth, etc.), and to the prevention of complications related to his confinement to bed. He also has the right to appropriate rehabilitative care and to be monitored for clinical signs of eventual recovery.
I should like particularly to underline how the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act. Its use, furthermore, should be considered, in principle, ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatory, insofar as and until it is seen to have attained its proper finality, which in the present case consists in providing nourishment to the patient and alleviation of his suffering.
The obligation to provide the "normal care due to the sick in such cases" (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Iura et Bona, p. IV) includes, in fact, the use of nutrition and hydration (cf. Pontifical Council "Cor Unum", Dans le Cadre, 2, 4, 4; Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, Charter of Health Care Workers, n. 120). The evaluation of probabilities, founded on waning hopes for recovery when the vegetative state is prolonged beyond a year, cannot ethically justify the cessation or interruption of minimal care for the patient, including nutrition and hydration. Death by starvation or dehydration is, in fact, the only possible outcome as a result of their withdrawal. In this sense it ends up becoming, if done knowingly and willingly, true and proper euthanasia by omission.
In this regard, I recall what I wrote in the Encyclical Evangelium Vitae, making it clear that "by euthanasia in the true and proper sense must be understood an action or omission which by its very nature and intention brings about death, with the purpose of eliminating all pain"; such an act is always "a serious violation of the law of God, since it is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person" (n. 65).
Barbarism is a lot closer to starving and dehydrating a helpless woman.
Early chritians did not do that.
Terri did not have years of therapy. At least 4 nurses have now gone public after years of intiimidation.
This is one of them. Olga, the one Terri was closest to, the one who defied Michael, is dead- car wreck.
http://www.hospicepatients.org/heidi-law-09-03-affidavit-re-terri-schiavo-michael.html
My God, these people are moral midgets if they don't understand the difference between the two situations. I think the very fact that they keep making these comparisons show just how shallow they are.
So? Does Judiasm prevent a person from leaving the faith if that's his preference, and he wishes no sustaining treatment?
If so, then it's "religion by compulsion"... if not, then it's fine...I have no problem with a person wanting to have their body kept going.
But don't make me have the same.
you say "no evidence"...and then give evidence.
Plus, there are others who heard her say it.
And finally, it was the Schindlers who encouraged Mr. Schiavo to start dating.
Well, you're talking about two different issues here. One is whether or not we have a right to suicide. The other is what it takes to establish with certainty that one is taking that option. The first point is legitimately debatable, but IMO the second one is not. There is no way that Terri Schiavo has made her wishes clear here. It's one thing to say it, and it's another thing to draw it up legally and have it signed and notarized. She failed to do that.
What is more I am of the opinion that even if one draws up a living will, one should also give a loved one a durable power of attorney that allows them to override that will if they so choose. There really is no way to anticipate every possible scenario or every possible future medical advance in a living will. So someone who is of sound mind needs to be able to make decisions in the moment. Thus the living will does not become a do-not-resuscitate order but rather a do-not-resuscitate permission slip.
Yes, I know that this increases the chance that said loved one will continue treatment past where you would have chosen it yourself. But it is also quite possible that you would have made the decision to live as well---and if you pick your guardian well, he/she may understand you well enough to know. If by God's good fortune you come out of your coma/PVS/whatever, you will thank them for being there to make that decision. And if you don't, well, you won't know the difference, frankly.
Overall however I think that any legal structure that we put in place must favor life when the question is ambiguous as it is in Terri's case.
Interesting tidbit. Thanks for the tip!
You are sadly misinformed about the early Church,there were titanic battles about the creed to mention one,way before Augustine,and bishops and believers paid with their lives. Combatting heresy did not start in the 5th century.
The law matters in a nation of laws.
Do you remember what Paul Scofield, in the character of Thomas More in "A Man for all Seasons," said to his son-in-law, who said he would cut down laws to defeat the devil?
“This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast-man's laws, not God's-and if you cut them down-and you're just the man to do it-d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.”
We don't cast aside laws when we don't like them. We change them.
On the other hand, we have extensive evidence that the state of Florida is under the tyranny of a runaway leftist judiciary.
If you truly took self determination over tyranny, you'd be on the side of life, Gondring.
I was a neighbor and friend of the Cruzans. I agonized for years in what Joe went through for Nancy. You are correct that most state laws reguarding life support stem from Joe Cruzan pursuing this to the highest courts.
Excellent point...it is amazing how we're afraid to talk about the danger of the Jewish Left in America(which is horribly evil),but we allow constant references to the "Christian Right"....What is also amazing is how people can fear people who are trying to save the innocent from destruction...Almost like trying to argue that the SS are "good guys"....and GIs are the bad ones.....I don't have a problem with Terri Schiavo or anybody else deciding that they want to book out...the problem is Michael(and virtually everything he has done including now, forbidding Holy Communion) has show that his concern(and hence his word) is worthless
I don't criticize Mr. Schindler for his mother. What I criticize are his own actions in this case.
I'm sorry for your loss and the tough situation you had to endure.
I have wondered where Dunce Scottus stands on this entire affair.
Worth repeating to ALL....
If his mother couldn't get air herself, doesn't she have the right to have it provided, if we go with the logic that Mrs. Schiavo must be force-fed through a tube if she doesn't get food herself?
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.
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