You misread what I wrote...probably because I tried to avoid a large recital of the facts. I think Greer's clear and convincing evidence bar was so low that an ant couldn't have crawled under it. And I further think that anyone who sees his ruling as a victory for the rights of self determination so far misses the mark it makes my head spin.
I disagree...the appeals court looked at Greers Ruling's AND the evidence that lead him to conclude as he did.
The Schindlers did appeal, and the Second District determined that while a surrogate decision-maker should err on the side of life, the trial judge had sufficiently clear and convincing evidence to determine that Terri would not wish to continue the life-prolonging measures she needs to live. The appellate court explained:
[T]he Schindlers argue that the testimony, which was conflicting, was insufficient to support the trial court's decision by clear and convincing evidence. We have reviewed that testimony and conclude that the trial court had sufficient evidence to make this decision. The clear and convincing standard of proof, while very high, permits a decision in the face of inconsistent or conflicting evidence. See In re Guardianship of Browning, 543 So. 2d at 273.
In Browning, we stated:
In making this difficult decision, a surrogate decisionmaker should err on the side of life… In cases of doubt, we must assume that a patient would choose to defend life in exercising his or her right of privacy.
In re Guardianship of Browning, 543 So.2d at 273. We reconfirm today that a court's default position must favor life.
The testimony in this case establishes that Theresa was very young and very healthy when this tragedy struck. Like many young people without children, she had not prepared a will, much less a living will. She had been raised in the Catholic faith, but did not regularly attend mass or have a religious advisor who could assist the court in weighing her religious attitudes about life-support methods. Her statements to her friends and family about the dying process were few and they were oral. Nevertheless, those statements, along with other evidence about Theresa, gave the trial court a sufficient basis to make this decision for her.
In the final analysis, the difficult question that faced the trial court was whether Theresa Marie Schindler Schiavo, not after a few weeks in a coma, but after ten years in a persistent vegetative state that has robbed her of most of her cerebrum and all but the most instinctive of neurological functions, with no hope of a medical cure but with sufficient money and strength of body to live indefinitely, would choose to continue the constant nursing care and the supporting tubes in hopes that a miracle would somehow recreate her missing brain tissue, or whether she would wish to permit a natural death process to take its course and for her family members and loved ones to be free to continue their lives. After due consideration, we conclude that the trial judge had clear and convincing evidence to answer this question as he did.