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
Thanks for those links! Much appreciated!
You're welcome!
Two Decades to an American Culture of Death Lifetree.org html
Missoula Demonstration Project (which later became Life's End Institute) is founded in Missoula, Montana, by Ira Byock and Barbara Spring. Initial funding came from Nathan Cummings Foundation and Project on Death in America. In addition, Mayday provided $150,000 (1996-1999) for Missoula's "Pain as the Fifth Vital Sign" project, conducted by Linda Torma, MSN. In 1999, executive director Barbara Spring would be replaced by bioethicist Mark Hanson of the Hastings Center. Hanson would also become interim director of the Practical Ethics Center at Univ. of Montana (Promoting Excellence headquarters).
Sean Morrison- Project on Death in America Newsletter Fox frequent guest week of Terri Schindler death
Soros' first round of Open Society Institute and Project on Death in America Faculty Scholars include:Diane Meier, Judith C. Ahronheim, Jane Morris, Sean Morrison OSI Scholars at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in NY-Andrew Billings ( OSI Scholar, MGH/Harvard)-Wm. Breitbart (OSI Scholar, Memorial Sloan-Kettering/Cornell)-Nicholas Christakis (U.Chicago)-Stuart Farber (U. Wash.)-Carlos Gomez (U.Va.)-Sarah Goodlin (White River Junction, VT and Dartmouth)-Steven Miles (U.Minn.)-Thomas Smith (Va. Commonwealth)-James Tulsky (Duke)-Charles von Gunten (Northwestern)-David Weissman (Med. Coll. of Wisconsin)
Reflections On Death In America - Soros November 30, 1994
"In three years we will have a leader and role model in place in one-fourth of the countrys medical schools."
Project Summary: Development of faculty from all clinical departments to be palliative care consultants and role models.
Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC)
Sean Morrison - Fox News Interview
Dr. Sean Morrison, a professor of geriatric and internal medicine at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York, said that while coma patients recover, patients in a persistent vegetative state do not.
He also said it was wrong to characterize Schiavo's death as starvation.
"What happens is she loses fluid from her body, she enters a peaceful coma and she gradually passes away, very gently and very peacefully," he said.
The Debate Over Terri Schiavo Congressman Dave Weldon-Dr. Sean Morrison - Partial Transcript O'Reilly Factor 3-21-05
Found your comment regarding Dr. Sean Morrison and Mt. Sinai Medical Center on Google and thought you might be interested in Post #124.
Thank you. I have been avoiding many of these threads, so I wouldn't have seen it.
"I have been avoiding many of these threads"
You're welcome!
Wise move. But for occassional perusal and response/info posts, I've tried to do the same in recent weeks.
The solution to the tyranny of the JUDICIAL OLIGARCHS is to get candidates in Republican executive branch primaries to promise to do what Jeb Bush refused to do - to use the constitutional power the executive holds equal to the other two branches to NULLIFY unconstitutional laws and judicial decisions by not enforcing or countermanding them. EXECUTIVE NULLIFICATION, practiced by Presidents Jefferson and Jackson, has atrophied from disuse since the early days of the republic. The trend was set by enforcement of the widely unpopular in the north Dred Scot decision (1857) by a northern Democrat president (Buchanan) who was friendly to slavery which led to civil war. Plessy and the busing cases after Brown were equally unconstitutional as was removing prayer from schools, but we all had to bow and scrape because we have been led to believe the courts were the final word, no matter how wrong and unjust.
We should not fear that Democrat presidents and governors would do the same. Errors by chief executives are only until the next election. Errors by the Supreme Court are for the lives of the justices and often beyond through stare decisis and the interest of members of the courts, regardless of by whom appointed, to conserve and accrue their own power.
It is interesting to note that when Judge Greer enlisted the willing assistance of the Pinellas County Sheriff's executive police power for enforcement of his concentration camp which Governor Bush used as and excuse for not acting because of a possible armed conflict that Governor Bush had the Florida constitutional power to resolve the dispute in his favor by suspending and replacing both the sheriff and Judge Greer for interfering with the lawful duties of the Department of Children and Families but he did not use it.
FLORIDA CONSTITUTION
ARTICLE VIII - County Government
Section 1
(d) COUNTY OFFICERS. There shall be elected by the electors of each county, for terms of four years, a sheriff, a tax collector, a property appraiser, a supervisor of elections, and a clerk of the circuit court;
ARTICLE IV - Executive
SECTION 7. Suspensions; filling office during suspensions.--
(a) By executive order stating the grounds and filed with the custodian of state records, the governor may suspend from office any state officer not subject to impeachment, any officer of the militia not in the active service of the United States, or any county officer, for malfeasance, misfeasance, neglect of duty, drunkenness, incompetence, permanent inability to perform official duties, or commission of a felony, and may fill the office by appointment for the period of suspension. The suspended officer may at any time before removal be reinstated by the governor.
ARTICLE III - Legislative
SECTION 17. Impeachment.--
(a) The governor, lieutenant governor, members of the cabinet, justices of the supreme court, judges of district courts of appeal, judges of circuit courts, and judges of county courts shall be liable to impeachment for misdemeanor in office.
====
Three threads (mine) that should come to everyone's attention are these:
Why Judicial Appointments Do NOT Matter (Schiavo)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1371395/posts
OPEN LETTER TO HUGH HEWITT RE: TERRI SCHIAVO and the JUDICIAL OLIGARCHY
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1368633/posts
SCHIAVO v. SCHIAVO - "Conservative" Judge Birch Proclaims JUDICIAL OLIGARCHY (full opinion)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1374897/posts
A point which I drew from this last one is in my comment after the judge's opinion:
Judge Birch fails to appreciate when he states, "An act of Congress violates separation of powers if it requires federal courts to exercise their Article III power in a manner repugnant to the text, structure, and traditions of Article III."[" - ] that that necessarily implies that Congress and the President are likewise not bound by decisions of the courts that conflict or usurp their Article I and II powers or are repugnant to the plain language of other parts of the Constitution they are sworn to uphold and enforce. It is more evidence that judicial appointments of the "right temperament" will not curb the excesses of the courts as the position of all-powerful judge seems to corrupt absolutely in the absence of will and true independent action of the other supposedly separate and equal branches.
Thank you! BTW I am reading a biography of Margaret Sanger right now looking for other background information that might provide clues; I will let you know if I find anything significant.
"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? "
- Jim Robinson
The parents may have seen this as a religious issue, but when you deal with the courts, you need to find another angle. This reality makes legal battles very difficult for truly devout people.
It's best to find an attorney who respects your position but will work hard to present another argument to the court.
Sad, but true. Religious arguments fall on deaf ears.
The article was written by someone else.
To: Trinity_Tx
It was wrong to kill her. No other "facts" matter.
The right to life side lost because the game was rigged.
Just a mistake on my part.
It is a good article though. When we let the law
and courts decide issues, we have to realize that there
is a way to deal with the courts that may lead to victory.
It is a mistake to think the courts will understand
and sympathize with our moral and ethical positions.
>> |
To: Trinity_Tx
It was wrong to kill her. No other "facts" matter. 46 posted on 03/31/2005 3:54:00 AM EST by Jim Robinson
|
Short and sweet. Thanks Jim! |
Terri ping! If anyone would like to be added to or removed from my Terri ping list, please let me know by FReepmail!
This is so wonderful. You have said so much in one post, that really needed to be said. I know this post is after the fact - but you are so right about all.
It is time to rebuild that America - that's where I grew up - and it is time to bring her back.
Thank you for your words. JK
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