Posted on 04/01/2005 8:05:46 PM PST by FairOpinion
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Polls leading up to the death of Terri Schiavo made it appear Americans had formed a consensus in favor of ending her life. However, a new Zogby poll with fairer questions shows the nation clearly supporting Terri and her parents and wanting to protect the lives of other disabled patients.
The Zogby poll found that, if a person becomes incapacitated and has not expressed their preference for medical treatment, as in Terri's case, 43 percent say "the law presume that the person wants to live, even if the person is receiving food and water through a tube" while just 30 percent disagree.
Another Zogby question his directly on Terri's circumstances.
"If a disabled person is not terminally ill, not in a coma, and not being kept alive on life support, and they have no written directive, should or should they not be denied food and water," the poll asked.
A whopping 79 percent said the patient should not have food and water taken away while just 9 percent said yes.
"From the very start of this debate, Americans have sat on one of two sides," Concerned Women for America's Lanier Swann said in response to the poll. One side "believes Terri's life has worth and purpose, and the side who saw Michael Schiavo's actions as merciful, and appropriate."
More than three-fourths of Americans agreed, Swann said, "because a person is disabled, that patient should never be denied food and water."
The poll also lent support to members of Congress to who passed legislation seeking to prevent Terri's starvation death and help her parents take their lawsuit to federal courts.
"When there is conflicting evidence on whether or not a patient would want to be on a feeding tube, should elected officials order that a feeding tube be removed or should they order that it remain in place," respondents were asked.
Some 18 percent said the feeding tube should be removed and 42 percent said it should remain in place.
Swann said her group would encourage Congress to adopt legislation that would federal courts to review cases when the medical treatment desire of individuals is not known and the patient's family has a dispute over the care.
"According to these poll results, many Americans do in fact agree with what we're trying to accomplish," she said.
The poll found that 49 percent of Americans believe there should be exceptions to the right of a spouse to act as a guardian for an incapacitated spouse. Only 39 percent disagreed.
When asked directly about Terri's case and told the her estranged husband Michael "has had a girlfriend for 10 years and has two children with her" 56 percent of Americans believed guardianship should have been turned over to Terri's parents while 37 percent disagreed.
How do you know?
Terri's brain was damaged beyond repair. She wasn't coming back.
Maintaining her in this state of limbo for years could very well have been more cruel than just letting her go now.
By the way...if the day should ever come (God forbid) when you must make a decision like this for a loved one, what right to second guess you do I have?
If your son had told you that he never wished to be sustained alive by artificial means, what power on Earth could stop you from carrying out his wishes?
I can answer that question for myself.
Not you, not anyone on this forum, not the government, not the weight of the entire Catholic Church.
As long as I acted within the letter of the law, no one could stop me from carrying out his wishes.
I'll answer to my God for the decision...but not to anyone else.
I'm glad you and some (many) others have noticed this. I do not consider this to be irrelavant.
Michael should never have been allowed to be Terri's guardian. There was a clear conflict of interest from the start, and it became more more clear with every day.
Disgusting.
Hopefully she is now in a better place. This place has its limitations.
Sirs, Jeb Bush signed said law in question (the pulling the feed tube for PVS patients law).
What evidence is there, other than her own say-so, that Michael's sister-in-law was ever Terri's best friend?
What does the Declaration of Independence (Which by the way IS NOT THE LAW OF THE LAND) have to do with when life support is pulled from terminal patients? And yes Terri was deemed terminal because she was in a PVS. Happens dozens of times each week in America.
To his shame. It sounds as though he relied on the word of a deceitful medical advisor. To be fair, it would have been difficult to follow without viewing it in context -- laws like this typically read as "section X is deleted and replaced with verbiage Y".
Actually, Michael's girlfriend is divorced, so that kind of blows the whole idea that he couldn't get a divorce and still have a church wedding out of the water.
Did the law allow for denial of hydration "by natural means" as Greer decreed?
These sort of meanspirited comments are unecessary.
You should watch carefully for fanatics who would maintain your existance in the most horrible state of suffering, because they think by not letting you go they are being pro-life heros.
Only a guardian may file a divorce action on behalf of an incapacitated ward. The fact that grounds existed for divorce implied a conflict of interest with Michael's guardianship and should have disqualified him as guardian. Unfortunately, King George refused to let the guardianship challenge move forward.
NAZI doctors at Auschwitz determined that we could exist for 18 days by being starved in a hole during a series of experiments.
I suggest we stop the people that want to bring back those things. The NAZIs successfully desensitized the German population in the late 1930's to mass murder. That is why the camps were tolerated a few years later.
Christians, Jews, Catholics and Muslims better pay very close attention to this. Anyone could be in the next group for extermination.
By that standard, what class of disability do they call those people on a slab in the morgue, life-challenged? soul-deprived? Exceptionally dead?
She showed no evidence of suffering anything more than normal aches and pains, until she was starved.
She showed no evidence of suffering anything more than normal aches and pains, until she was starved.
We found something we agree on .
I don't disagree with the standard, I disagree with the interpretation of what met that standard.
Are you aware that, in 2003, when michael had Terri's feeding tube pulled, that Jeb went to the legislature and they passed "Terri's Law" that made them put the tube back in - on the 6th day.
Now -there was your legislative law, legally passed.
Later, Greer threw it out!
Judges have no right to throw out or make laws. That's for the legislature.
Judges are to enforce the law - not negate them
Why yes! It was pigeonholed as "unwarranted experimental treatment."
Goebbels would be proud.
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