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March 27, 2005

What Happened To "The Best of America"?

by Cheryl Ford RN

The realities of Terri lying in a bed as a victim being murdered on this 10th day of no food and water is incredibly difficult for many civilized people to digest. The leaders of our country have deserted not only Terri,
but all of us. My emotions vacillate; I am numb, angry, appalled, and very saddened by what is happening to Terri. I still cannot believe this is happening to her, here in America. Furthermore, I cannot understand how our
government and court system has endorsed the act of killing a person, who last week was not dying.

I ask that with all due respect to those who are terminally ill and who are wrongly euthanized each year, I implore the people of this nation not to sweep Terri's situation into the definitions of euthanasia. Euthanasia is wrong, and is happening to many who are terminally ill. However, that is not what is happening to Terri.

Terri is being murdered! To allow Terri to die with the notion she was euthanized because of a terminal illness would be another miscarriage of justice to her and to us as a society. We must acknowledge what is actually happening to Terri in order to stop this from ever happening again.

Terri is being murdered by an estranged spouse who lied to the courts with his hearsay evidence that Terri did not wish to live as a disabled person.

I cannot tolerate hearing the media repeatedly rationalize murdering a healthy human being with a disability, and then classify her killer as a caring husband. Let us not forget, aside from her brain injury, Terri is a healthy human being who could have easily lived another 30 plus years without any problems. She has a healthy heart, healthy liver, healthy lungs, healthy kidneys and could swallow her own saliva. She breaths on her own and
is not on life support. She communicates with her family and has a loving spirit.

I am outraged at the media for their ignorance and promotion of her murder. There are over 220 documented entries in Terri's medical records by physicians and therapists stating Terri could have been rehabilitated.

Murder is wrong! Once upon a time, murder was against the laws of our land and our judicial system. It is no longer. For this reason, I grieve for not only Terri, but for our entire country right now. For America to endorse murder will only bring forth the same problems here on American soil, that we are spending billions of our tax dollars trying to stop over in Iraq.

I am outraged by our government and courts who have supported the inhumane killing of an innocent girl on American soil. You should be as well. How dare they allow a healthy disabled citizen of the United States of America
to spend 10 long days without food and water and then deny the Department of Children and Family Services the right to go in and save her after they exposed her abuse and neglect?

How dare our Government and courts allow a small time Florida judge [George Greer], a death attorney [George Felos] and an evil estranged spouse [Michael Schiavo] the right to get away with the most heinous crime known to man - the torture and murder of an innocent human being by starvation and dehydration.

People can deny the facts of Terri's murder all they want. However, what we have done by allowing Terri to be starved and dehydrated, is to turn on gas in the death chambers for disabled people all over America. We have set the foundation for the construction of many new chambers soon to come. Many will now follow in Terri's wake.

I feel for my colleagues, the dedicated nurses who have compassion and respect for the preservation of life, who still have to work in hospitals and nursing homes to make a living. If society thinks the world of medicine is suffering from a nursing shortage now, wait until they see what will happen to the profession when nurses are forced to carry through with physicians orders which read, "discontinue the feeding tube on those patients who are disabled and smiling at them."

Sadly, on the clock of the Bush Administration, our President will be known for initializing future forums for legalized murder of the disabled. Thousands who have supported President Bush in his election, and hundreds
from the Pro Life organizations, have written to me in disbelief of his actions. I suppose we all had expected him to take the same stand he did when he stood on the pile of rubble at ground zero. The speech our President made on the evening of September 11, 2001, "Today, our nation saw evil, the very worst of human nature, and we responded with the best of America."

I must ask our President, is the cruel and inhumane starvation and dehydration of one innocent disabled girl on American soil, allowed by our judicial system, not as evil? resident Bush, I ask, "What happened to the
best of America?"

As for our dear Terri, while Michael Schiavo succeeds in murdering her, I know her legacy will live on. She will go down in history as the first disabled person, who was led as a martyr through the American doors of legalized murder.

The involvement of the U.S. Congress and their inability to intercede in a case involving blatant judicial homicide has helped to remind me of a time in our history when disabled people were once marched to their death.

I can now see how critical it is for me to go on fighting for Terri in the quest to stop the legalized murder of our innocent disabled citizens.

May God Bless You Theresa Marie Schindler. Though we never met, you will always remain a part of my life.