(3) Before exercising the incapacitated patient's rights to select or decline health care, the proxy must comply with the provisions of ss. 765.205 and 765.305, except that a proxy's decision to withhold or withdraw life-prolonging procedures must be supported by clear and convincing evidence that the decision would have been the one the patient would have chosen had the patient been competent or, if there is no indication of what the patient would have chosen, that the decision is in the patient's best interest.
The husband's hearsay evidence seven years after the fact is not clear and convincing evidence. Did you read Diane Meyers affidavit? Did you read Judge Greer erroneous decision in the case on this issue? He said that Diane Meyer gave compelling evidence and he believed that the incident happened, but that Terri use the present tense when speaking of Karen Ann Quinlen in 1982, so therefore Diane must have been mistaken and that the incident had to have occurred in 1976, since Karen Ann Quinlen died in 1976. So according to Judge Greer, Terri would have been 12 or 13 at the time that she and Diane Meyers were together and said "Where there's life, there's hope" and also said "doctors didn't know everything". Diane also testified she said something callous about Karen Ann Quinlen and Terri jumped all over her about her callous remark about the brain damaged woman. So Judge Greer claimed that the only hearsay evidence when she was an adult was the husband's. He was wrong. Karen Ann Quinlen lived until 1986. This was caught a few months ago and went back to Judge Greer, as reversible error. He denied the motion and said it wouldn't have affected the outcome, even though he had used erroneous information in making his decision in the first place.
The law does not say that the patient can be denied food and water orally. In fact another law says you can not withhold water and nutrition from the disabled. There are affidavits from nurses that Terri was originally taking food by mouth, sometimes a baby bottle was used. She was also fed jello and pudding by mouth. Michael Schiavo would not allow the nurses to continue feeding Terri by mouth.
765.404 Persistent vegetative state.--For persons in a persistent vegetative state, as determined by the attending physician in accordance with currently accepted medical standards, who have no advance directive and for whom there is no evidence indicating what the person would have wanted under such conditions, and for whom, after a reasonably diligent inquiry, no family or friends are available or willing to serve as a proxy to make health care decisions for them, life-prolonging procedures may be withheld or withdrawn under the following conditions:
(1) The person has a judicially appointed guardian representing his or her best interest with authority to consent to medical treatment; and
(2) The guardian and the person's attending physician, in consultation with the medical ethics committee of the facility where the patient is located, conclude that the condition is permanent and that there is no reasonable medical probability for recovery and that withholding or withdrawing life-prolonging procedures is in the best interest of the patient. If there is no medical ethics committee at the facility, the facility must have an arrangement with the medical ethics committee of another facility or with a community-based ethics committee approved by the Florida Bio-ethics Network. The ethics committee shall review the case with the guardian, in consultation with the person's attending physician, to determine whether the condition is permanent and there is no reasonable medical probability for recovery. The individual committee members and the facility associated with an ethics committee shall not be held liable in any civil action related to the performance of any duties required in this subsection.
So they passed that food and water were life-prolonging procedures in 1999, then proceeded to pass laws, year after year that allow assisted suicide of the disable with a wink and a nod.
This doesn't pass the smell test either; Felos and Martha Lenderman (sister of judge John Lenderman, associated with Greer) used to be on the Board of that Hospice where Terri was killed. Also, John Lenderman, Judge greer's fellow judge on the 6th circuit court, joined the Advisory board of the Hospice of the Florida Suncoast for the year 2000. How does that NOT present questionable intent/influence/impartiality???
My word, they passed laws that allow assisted suicide/Euthansia/murder! Euthansia is illegal in this country yet states are doing it legally. I don't get it!