Posted on 03/30/2005 10:15:58 PM PST by freespirited
With the impending death of Terri Schiavo, US euthanasia advocates have scored a public relations hat-trick. Within a single month Clint Eastwood won an Oscar for Million Dollar Baby and The Sea Inside, about a quadriplegic who commits suicide, was feted as the best foreign film.
Now, after more than a decade of litigation, a 41-year-old brain-damaged Florida woman is slowly dying at her husband's request. What's more, recent polls show that most Americans are so confused about end-of-life treatment that they think that this is a good thing.
Who is to blame for this fear of extreme disability? Pro-lifers might plausibly blame "left-leaning media" for the Oscars. But the fate of Terri Schiavo is an own goal. Their lawyers were outsmarted at every turn by George Felos, the lawyer for Schiavo's husband.
Felos was the heavy artillery of the right-to-die movement, a cunning strategist who had won Florida's most influential right-to-die case in 1989, and who is a media-savvy talk-show guest.
Schiavo's death warrant was effectively signed in 2000, with a decision by Florida judge George Greer that she would have chosen to have her tube removed. It is this judgement that was upheld time and time again by superior courts. Pro-life bloggers have demonised Greer. But they ought to read some of the evidence.
First of all, the Schindler family were tricked. They are loving and compassionate people, but they were manoeuvred into giving a incredibly distorted picture of what the Catholic Church teaches about patients in a persistent vegetative state.
Her brother said that it would be a joy for him to see Schiavo alive - in a respirator or with limbs amputated.
Her mother stated that discomfort or pain was not a factor in discontinuing life support. The mother and the brother and sister all agreed that if they were in Schiavo's situation and had gangrenous limbs that had to be amputated, they would choose that rather than die.
But Catholics are not masochists. Their church has always taught, in the words of a 1980 Vatican document, that patients can "refuse forms of treatment that would only secure a precarious and burdensome prolongation of life, so long as the normal care due to the sick person in similar cases is not interrupted".
To compound the confusion, Felos wheeled out a hospital chaplain, Father Gerard Murphy, as "an expert in the area of the Catholic Church's position on end of life care". Father Murphy said that removing Schiavo's feeding tube was consistent with his church's teaching. This is nonsense, of course. The Pope, also an expert on the Catholic Church's position, recently stated that "a sick person in a vegetative state . . . still has the right to basic health care (nutrition, hydration, cleanliness, warmth, etc)." But given the uncertainty about Schiavo's religious beliefs and the apparent insensitivity of her family, Greer found Murphy's testimony sympathetic and "completely candid".
Still worse were the medical experts. Felos easily found two "clear and convincing" neurologists who testified that Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state. With all of the American medical profession a phone call away, the Schindlers' team wheeled out two duds.
One was a Dr William Maxfield, who was not even a neurologist, but an expert in hyperbaric medicine - breathing pressurised oxygen.
The other was a Dr William Hammesfahr, a neurologist whose garish website touts him as a "Nobel Prize nominee". Nobel Prize winners normally publish papers in major journals, unlike Dr Hammesfahr, whose publications are few and obscure. However, he was a 1992 keynote speaker for the Alabama Academy of Osteopathic Physicians. You get the picture: one random and one shonk.
To break the tie, Greer engaged a fifth neurologist, Dr Ronald Cranford. He is well spoken and highly convincing. He is also a spokesman for the right-to-die movement. His testimony tilted the scales.
The fundamental problem with the case mounted by the Schindler family is that they depicted Schiavo's plight as a religious issue.
In fact, it is a human rights issue. Schiavo is not in pain and is not dying. She is not on life support. Her care is not expensive. Why does her disability deserve a death sentence?
The American disability lawyer and activist Harriet McBryde Johnson put it clearly: "This belief that withdrawing a feeding tube is different than other killing - why is that a reasonable distinction? I haven't heard anybody say it would be OK to kill Terri Schiavo if she weren't on a feeding tube."
Given that US law favours living wills, even though studies have shown that they often don't work, the fight to save Schiavo's life was bound to be difficult. But it could have been won if it had been fought by professionals. It wasn't.
Michael Cook is the editor of BioEdge, an email newsletter on bioethics. mcook@australasianbioethics.org
Bump that, Jrabbit! Love your wording!
There's a dark, bubbling, rank, septic, noxious, fatback laden Ugly Pot that's been festering down in South Sand Land for YEARS. And it needs to be immediately quanatined and labbed for its unknown, suspicious, toxic, virulent INGREDIENTS.
"Well, guess what? I just set the temperature for Broil."
Good!
I don't know with certainty when the site was reactivated. I posted at 8:39:37-3/31/05 and found it shortly before that. I do know active 'original PDIA' sites disappeared in December 2003.
But for trying to find links for old material with dead ones, I wouldn't have found it today, if ever.
Amen!
Ollie is just GREAT right now with what he's saying.
Evil bottomfeeders who worship death.
me too.
It's back up. This is an ominous sign.
Well, well, well. Why are most of us not surprised, since our guts and noses told us this thing was rotten to the core.
I would be interested in what Fuhrman and Dunne would come up with. Not that there aren't party switchers who are sincere, but so many Republicans in our state are former Democrats who couldn't get elected otherwise.
Yes, it is. That the date coincides with the events of today is chilling.
AMEN, Jim!
HiTech RedNeck wrote: ""Wasn't there a Bambakidis-Felos liaison before he was brought into the case?"""
One conflict of interest and possible link between Felos and Bambakidis is this->
The doctors brother and Felos both belong to the same Greek organization. Unfortunately, I don't have the name of the organization right in front of me, at the moment.
Also, I'm wondering about the Schindlers new attorney, David Gibbs. Does anyone know what took place for him to become their new lawyer? From what I've read, he has made many huge errors, which may have cost Terri her life, due to the denial of a new trial, which is what congress wanted for her.
Also, I've heard on other threads, that Mr David Gibbs, refused help from excellent attorneys. At this point, I have no way of knowing what is true and what is runor. Does anyone know??
Hi Kenth~~
I agree with you!! Dr. Ronald Cranford is a horrible subhuman being. The MSM, has paraded him non-stop on all their talk shows. He's a ghoul of the 10th degree.
I'm sure the paid expert will drum up more deals to testify in more Right ot Die, court trials. He is very dangerous to those who wish to have a RIGHT TO LIVE!!
I can't believe how the MSM, allows him to spew his BS without question. Hannity is the only person, who nailed him on his barbaric remarks. What kind of a world do we now live in, when one disgusting man can decide who lives or dies. How gross and scary is that?
Answer-> Extremely!!
With the obvious satanic junk coming through felos, I am not surprised that the good guys found themselves really dumbed down. I think the whole spiritual warfare side of this struggle was tragically downplayed. I think Jay Sekulow, a devout evangelical in tune with this type of issue, would have done it a lot better than Gibbs.
All the MSM cares is that it makes a sensation and sells news media. The ghastly truth, which would cause people to turn off their TVs and get on the horn with their politicritters, wouldn't be any PROFIT to them.
Washington_minuteman wrote:
"Why the pro-life lobby lost a do-or-die battle"
Your post was excellent and I fully agree with fear and trembling. :( :(
I've heard that David Gibbs refused the help of Jay Sekulow, an excellent Constitutional lawyer.
Who the blank is David Gibbs, anyway? I'm really upset about what I'm hearing about him on these threads.
I too, wish the Schindlers had the help of Boyce and Dershowhitz. What a crying shame, they didn't have their help early on.
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