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
Unfortunately, I believe the options in the Courts have run their course, and due to incompetent counsel, they were waged on the wrong issues and were lost before they even got off the ground.
One of the disturbing things to me is that the Schindlers have had lousy lawyering from the start. They were manipulated and mislead by groups with political agendas of their own.
They should have retained a top flight Constitutional lawyer like Alan Dershowitz or Davis Boise who have expressed great sympathy and understanding of Terri's plight, instead of a using emotional, inexperienced, political idealogues
IMO the special interest groups with their own agenda
(even though I might agree with parts of that agenda) have hijacked Terri's interest and given her representation by an idealogue instead of a top Constitutional lawyer and that doomed Terri.
I also believe that these idealogues would have never ceded the spotlight to Dershowitz, Boise, or Ted Olson, even though they are the only kind of lawyers who would have had a ghost of a chance to save Terri.
A well-written article overall. I agre with the author's basic premise. The Schindlers' lawyers really bungled the case badly, from most of what I've read. They also expressed their sympathetic understanding of Michael Schiavo's adulterous co-habitation with a girlfriend, which may have resulted in his getting away with flaunting a Florida statute against adultery.
Of course, Greer's conflict of interest (campaign contributions from Felos) should have come into play, as well as Felos' logtime activism with the Hemlock Society, et al. What a mess.
I agree that the Schindlers were out-maneuvred! They should have gone to real well-known pro-life groups, instead of what appears to be a lame-duck one and gotten real help. There's plenty of groups out there to help and would've jumped at the chance. The lawyer they were given didn't see what hit them...and I still think hasn't figured it out.
6 Q. Now, when you were examining Terri, did
7 you palpate her neck?
8 A. I don't believe that I did, no.
9 Q. Did you observe Dr. Hammesfahr's
10 palpation of her neck on the videotape?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Did you observe him lifting her head,
13 neck and upper shoulders off the bed simply by
14 lifting up with his hand behind her head?
15 A. Yes, I observed that.
16 Q. Would you consider that an abnormal
17 finding?
18 A. Yes, and consistent with her current
19 neurological status.
20 Q. Now, why is her neck so rigid?
21 A. Well, it's like asking me why is her
22 entire body so rigid. You know, this sort of
23 injury to the brain, as I've mentioned
24 previously, one of the characteristics is
25 dramatic increase in tone in various muscle
302
1 groups of the body. Part of what we refer to by
2 the term spasticity.
3 And, in fact, it could be so profound
4 that it can lead to the development of
5 contractures as it has in her case. This also
6 applies to the neck itself and the term
7 opisthotonus is used to describe this --
8 Q. Would you spell that for the court
9 reporter.
10 A. I anticipated that.
11 O-P-I-S-T-H-O-T-O-N-U-S.
12 Q. M or N-U-S?
13 A. N-U-S.
14 Q. Opisthotonus.
15 A. Opisthotonus. Now, that's a term
16 that's used to describe her other conditions.
17 For example, individuals who have received a
18 certain -- excessive amount, sometimes a standard
19 amount of a certain medication they can also
20 develop that.
21 Q. Did you happen to be provided with an
22 admission record at Northside Hospital when she
23 had her collapse back in February of '90 that
24 noted that on admission she presented with a
25 rigid neck?
303
1 A. I believe I do recall that, correct.
2 Q. So she may, in fact, have had this
3 rigid neck all these years?
4 A. Yes, she may have.
It was wrong to kill her. No other "facts" matter.
I'm afraid that the lack of credibility with judges mattered a lot.
Judges' lack of credibility matters alot, too.
Their credibility is well nigh clear gone.
Why do you think they ignore the Fifth Amendment and article one section two of the state constitution? Have they been snipped out of their copies?
I'll come back tomorrow morning for your sure to be entertaining reply...
BUMP.
L
Out lawyered, bad witnesses, poor testimony, not enough facts... sadly, the wrong judge.
Sigh.
It's too bad they didn't move to a different county and get a new judge.
"I'm afraid that the lack of credibility with judges mattered a lot."
Please, what we have witnessed here is there is NO credibility of any of these judges!!!!!
Take away guardianship.
Take away stated or otherwise wishes.
Take away brain condition.
Take away doctors' evaluations and labels.
Take away hospital/hospice care received.
Take away family dynamics.
Take away politics.
Take away law, lawyering, and judges' rulings.
Take away any and all debate.
An innocent, defenseless, living, breathing human being is purposefully being starved to death. They are not pulling any true life support *plug.*
Any member of a decent society rightly considers death by starvation to be cruel and inhumane. There is simply no way around that very base, simple, naked statement.
And further, Michael's words on Terri's true wishes (not stated until seven years after her collapse and the monies banked,) have been fogged and contradicted by himself on national TV. Terri's body was not shutting down already on its own. And that Judge Greer's ruling expressly included nothing by mouth including ice chips, beyond the removal of the feeding tube, is so very revealing.
In Terri's case, there is a veritable plethora of bright red flags. And because so, I stand with President George W. Bush that we must *err* on the side of life.
And fellow FReeper Dolphy wrote this food for thought, (which I think, is more for those who think that a feeding tube, in reality, constitutes true life support,) on another thread yesterday:
"More specifically, it is about who gets to substitute judgment for the incapacitated or incompetent in the absence of a written directive. In Florida the law says that evidence of ones desire to end life prolonging treatment must be clear and convincing. I agree with that but I remain unconvinced, by the publicly available documents, that Greer met that standard."
I'm not taking the bait, EV.
You know I didn't support the decision, either.
If y'all think it's wrong for freepers to point out disinformation, just because the disinformation is thought to support the favored agenda, well... I'm disappointed at the hypocrisy, but I've done my part, my life is larger, and I'll live on fine.
What I don't think is fine is how it hurt Terri's chances to get fresh therapy and testing. Even if Greer and the others were spawns of Satan, they shouldn't have been handed an excuse to deny her chances.
Even if ignorant Americans and the liberals are evil, they shouldn't be given all this ammunition to discredit conservatives and those who support her parents, and thereby scoff at every claim made about her condition, or the message as a whole.
That's my opinion. FWIW. I'm done. 'nite.
Lots of things that aren't true have been flying around the rumor mills throughout this manmade tragedy. You are right to point those things out.
But I hope you show as much rectitude about pointing out disinformation from other quarters.
You might start with some that came from the Governor's camp...
Or not.
It's seems to me, Jim, that as heartbreaking and sickening as this case is, the lines have been drawn and the pro-euthenasia crowds legal techniques are now exposed. We now have a blue-print of what not to do, are more clear who of the elites are pro-death, and finally, we know now what laws have been passed and how they are faulty/horrific and have a better idea of what to replace them with.
When the inevitable books appear they will of course of adherents to each camp. But the truth from the "right side" will slowly but surely seep through and will be used to defend the next defenseless victim.
I'll be there and I know you will too.
Yes, they have. I've been an activist and rabble-rouser since Barry Goldwater, and I stumped the streets of Brunswick twice for the President in past elections. My 2 cents?
A sense of shame requires a soul, a conscience. These people have neither.
The original Project on Death in America site was eliminated and PDIA was incorporated into OSI in December 2003, but today the original was accessible again and has a current date of March 31, 2005.
Dr. Peter Bambakidis - 'Independent' doctor appointed by Judge Greer to examine Ms. Schiavo.
Peter Bambakidis, M.D. Dr. Bambakidis earned his bachelor's and master's degree in music at the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Dr. Peter Bambakidis testimony that heart attack wasn’t cause for Terri’s collapse
Google-Case Western Reserve University + Peter Bambakidis
Google-Case Western Reserve University + Project on Death in America
Bambakidis Links to Ira R. Byock
Ira R. Byock - Involved in various Soros groups
Ira Robert Byock - 1984-2003 University of Montana
Ira Byock, Director, Practical Ethics Center, University of Montana Note: he is Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation National Program.
Dr. Ira Byock Biographical Info
Byock Missoula Quality of Life Index (MVQOLI)
**For further information contact:
Susan Bruno
Director of Institute Outreach
The Hospice of the Florida Suncoast
Byock Links to George J. Felos
George Felos / Partnership for Caring Not Dead Yet info Robert Wood Johnson Connection
George J. Felos - Attorney for Michael R. Schiavo. Numerous connections to Soros related groups. Student of Byock.
George J. Felos Profile from book publisher - Note: Board Chair of Hospice of the Florida Suncoast
Hospice is for Caring ... or is it for Killing? Felos Student of Byock
Byock links to Mary J. Labyak
Public Policy Florida Hospice 7- 22 C Byock/Labyak AARP interview on Hospice. Link to 6/98 AARP Bulletin not available
National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization NHPCO Pre Conference Institutes September 5 and 6, 2003 Mary Labyak/Ira Byock Speakers
NHPCO / Project on Death in America Schedule of conferences on Project on Death in America site
New at Project on Death In America - Current as of March 31, 2005
Mary J. Labyak - CEO Hospice of the Florida Suncoast. Numerous connections to Soros related groups. Links to Mary Labyak:
Mary J. Labyak CEO Letter Hospice Florida Suncoast
Rallying Points - A Last Acts Initiative
BOARD OF DIRECTORS PARTNERSHIP FOR CARING:AMERICA'S VOICES FOR THE DYING
George Soros - Through foundations, institutes and projects all the above link to Soros
Project on Death in America Reflections On Death In America A speech given by George Soros on November 30, 1994 for the Alexander Ming Fisher Lecture Series at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center
The death related institutes and projects are infinite.
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