Posted on 04/22/2005 10:18:32 AM PDT by amdgmary
WASHINGTON(BP)-Disabled Americans feel vulnerable in the wake of Terri Schiavo's death and need societal and legal changes if their lives are going to be protected, leaders of two disability organizations said.
In the hours after Schiavo died March 31, both Joni Eareckson Tada and Diane Coleman said the brain-damaged Florida woman's death and the events leading to it do not bode well for other severely disabled people unless some changes are implemented.
Schiavo, 41, died nearly two weeks after the tube that provided her with food and water was disconnected at a state judge's order. For years, her parents and her husband had been in a legal struggle over whether she should live or die. Acting as her guardian, Michael Schiavo, her husband, gained court approval for the removal of the tube, saying she did not want to live in a severely disabled state, though no written direction from his wife existed.
Though Tada said she prays God will use Schiavo's example "to stave off this terrible culture of death and give us a fresh re-energizing to build a culture of life," the popular evangelical Christian author and speaker also said her death "alarms me deeply."
"The death of Terri Schiavo will adversely impact literally thousands of Americans who have severe mental incapabilities whose legal guardians might not have their best wishes at heart," Tada said on the April 1 radio broadcast of Focus on the Family.
Coleman, president of Not Dead Yet, told Baptist Press, "[W]hat we are seeing here is the dismantling of the constitutional rights of people in guardianship. No longer will there be the presumption for life.
"The social presumption that [Schiavo] would be better off dead appears to have influenced the decisions in the case," Coleman said. "We feel threatened by this, almost as if there is a cognitive test for personhood under the law."
Joni and Friends is a Christian ministry to the disabled that Tada started in 1979. She became a quadriplegic in a diving accident at the age of 17. Her testimony of God's work in her life has become well-known among Christians throughout the world.
Coleman, a lawyer, founded Not Dead Yet in 1996 to combat assisted suicide and euthanasia on behalf of the disabled. She was disabled at birth and has used a wheelchair since she was 11.
Both of their organizations agree some steps need to be taken to protect the rights and lives of the disabled. They recommend, in statements on their Internet sites, there should be:
• Federal review in state cases of contested decisions about withdrawing feeding tubes when there is no advance directive or personally chosen guardian.
• State-by-state reform of laws governing guardianship and healthcare decisions in order to protect against involuntary euthanasia.
• A moratorium on the removal of food and water from severely disabled people when the latest diagnostic procedures are unavailable.
In all, Not Dead Yet has listed eight steps on its Web site, www.notdeadyet.org, that it says need to be taken to guard the disabled. Joni and Friends also calls for a change in terminology in a statement on its site, www.joniandfriends.org. Society must stop using the phrase "persistent vegetative state," Tada said.
"There's just too many people with significant disabilities who have been called vegetables, and this must stop," Tada said on Focus on the Family, which was taped the day Schiavo died. "That is beyond demeaning. It is dehumanizing, and when people with significant disabilities are labeled like that, then the discussion all too quickly next turns to death, pulling their feeding tube or warehousing them in a hospice.
"Something else that has bothered me as I have listened to the national media - everybody has been talking about whether or not Terri is 'going to get better someday,' as though that fact was a criteria for her life," Tada said. "However, millions of Americans with disabilities will 'never get better' by today's standards, and we believe that a quality of one's life should never be a criteria to put them to death. Life is the most irreplaceable and fundamental condition of what it means to be human. It's a gift of God, the Author of life; and disabled people, no matter how significant their handicapping condition, have that right to life."
Coleman told Baptist Press her organization would not have filed three friend-of-the-court briefs on behalf of Terri Schiavo had she chosen her husband as her guardian and made clear her intentions regarding her care. The court's willingness to grant the guardian his request in the Schiavo case contrasts with reports of parental abuse and neglect when society expects the government to intervene, Coleman said.
"Unfortunately, people with disabilities are not so valued [as are children]," Coleman said. "We share a social devaluation that is so strong that most people are sure we are living a fate worse than death and that they would never want to live" that way.
"[W]hat we've learned like any other minority group, you might say, is you can't trust majority culture... In some cases you can't even trust your own family ...," she said. "While many caregivers are wonderful and value us, not all do.
"The most telling thing is [Schiavo's] guardian forbade qualified people from giving her swallowing tests, swallowing therapy" the last seven years, Coleman said. "She might not have needed a feeding tube really. A lot of people in nursing homes are on feeding tubes, not because they cannot eat but because there is not enough staff to feed them. That's the context we are in."
For Not Dead Yet and at least some other disability organizations, this is a civil rights issue, not a sanctity-of-life or culture war issue, Coleman said. Her organization is as concerned about conservatives cutting Medicaid and Medicare funds as it is about liberals wanting to kill the disabled quickly in the name of compassion, she said.
A bill to legalize physician-assisted suicide has been introduced in California, and Tada fears what happened in the Schiavo case will embolden its supporters in the state legislature.
"There will be those who will look at the situation of Terri Schiavo and turn it on its head," Tada said. "Pro-euthanasia advocates ... will say, 'Oh how awful that this woman had to linger so long toward her death. She should have been aided with a lethal injection of three grams of phenobarbital to hasten her death more quickly and more compassionately.'"
Tada said she was lying on her back as she was interviewed for Focus on the Family. She had recently recovered from pneumonia and had been mostly in bed for four or five days with a pressure sore. Shortly before the interview, a friend had fed her by hand.
"It underscored how much people like me and people like Terri Schiavo depend on strong advocates to be by our bedside to fight and to protect and to safeguard the protections around people with severe disabilities," Tada said.
You really think that was their only agenda? I suspect it was a little larger than just about wills. I suspect they support euthanasia and made the public feel that it is perfectly fine to kill an innocent woman for the sake of mercy. I guess I am much more cynical.
Yes it would be great to be able to find out if there was any insurance money and who was the benefactor. I don't think that will never be uncovered. Amazing how this man was able to get away with doing in his wife in broad daylight.
She's definitely become a bold instrument of the Lord.
You are aware, are you not, of the recent case (sorry don't know the name) of the woman who, just like you, had her living will properly drawn, notarized etc.? Her family was also fully aware of her wishes. However, a granddaughter decided on her own to override grandma's written and stated wishes, and had the feeding tube removed. It took other family members 10 days to get the tube reinserted. The average person lives 10 days following the removal of the feeding tube.
I don't know the answer, but simply believing that a living will is sufficient is wrong.
Rush may have the right idea. His will states that anyone who 'pulls the plug' on him cannot inherit any of his estate.
Please ping your lists, etc. Spread the word. Can anyone make a new thread?
Rally for Impeachment of Judge Greer
Monday, May 2nd at the capitols on Washington, DC and Tallahassee. Starting at 9:00am going all day!
SHOW the Bushes, etc. that we ARE NOT GOING AWAY!!
Greer is an illegal judge. Why do the Bushes tell others not to investigate?
Schiavo Death Order Void Due To Greer’s Lack of Jurisdiction
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/
FL House Speaker Allen Bense:
“Governor Bush began to champion Terri’s cause very early on, and he used every appropriate power at his disposal to try and save her. He deserves the appreciation of those on both sides of this debate for how he has respected both the sanctity of life as well as Florida’s Constitution throughout this situation.
“This issue will now slowly fade from the front pages of our newspapers and the news tickers at the bottoms of our TV screens. However, I hope the concerns it raises at the forefront of our public consciousness so that more people will see the need for clearly expressing their desires on end-of-life issues”.
At 76, I'd be inclined to go just the other way...
anyone insisting the tube REMAIN would be disinherited!
<>g<>
Hanging onto life isn't the greatest vision senior
citizens have. Saving the family unnecessary grief,
burden, emotional upheaval is far more important.
I should hate my young GreatKids' memories of me to be
overshadowed with ugly visions of a helpless, sickly, comatose old Thing. I've had enough experience with
friends/family "hanging on" for much longer than 10 days.
When my time comes, I prefer to meet my Maker with
some semblance of the great health, mental acuity, and spirit I have thanks him for Him all my days.
But then, old folks gradually acquire a strange longing
to glimpse the next phase in Eternity. As for Terri
Schiavo, one can only hope that her soul is happy to
be resting in His grace.
You only put animals out of their misery. People suffer and are enobled by it. We do not presume to know the will of God or what is going on inside a persons mind. That is why we do not put people to sleep like dogs or horses.
Why is it different now? It has to do with the same mentality that thinks a man can't keep it in his pants or be expected to use birth control. That we're nothing but animals and good only as far as our animal urges take us. And if we're nothing but animals, why not put us out of our misery when there's nothing more medically that can be done?
I heard a lot of talk about Terri's brain. Very little about her Soul.
You're an ignorant fool. If you think a living will is going to protect you then you need to have a chat wih Ora Mae Magourik.
Example: "SIGN THE FORM YOU GREEDY OLD B!TCH!!! Nobody wants you, nobody cares about you, nobody even remembers you, SIGN! SIGN IT NOW, NOW, NOW!!! We don't need the DNR you know, we don't need it. We will just say it was natural causes. Why don't you make it easy on your relatives and sign the papers, hmmm? We've all got to go sometime, don't we? It's time for you to go and be with Jesus... don't you want to go and be viss Jesusss??? ZZINE ZEE BLOODY PAAAPAHS, SIGN ZEM NOW, DO YOU HEEAH ME OLD VOMAN? ZIGN!
You can never prove a thing on these slimey weasels either. They failed to treat my mothers infection properly and try to get any pressure on them! Ha!
"Disabled fear Schiavo death may hasten euthanasia"
Ya' think?
1997 Wesley Smith on Germany's slippery slope slide from devaluing some human life to a little euthanasia/ killing to mass killings
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-3abe1cF6ac7t2U1%40individual.net
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