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Schiavo's Parents Not Swayed by Autopsy

June 16, 2005 Associated Press

LARGO, Fla. - An autopsy that found Terri Schiavo suffered from severe and irreversible brain-damage has done nothing to sway her parents' position that she deserved to live and may have gotten better with therapy.

The long-awaited report Wednesday found Schiavo's brain had shrunk to about half the normal size for a woman her age when she died March 31 after her feeding tube was disconnected. The autopsy also determined she was blind.

Bob and Mary Schindler disputed the results, insisting their daughter interacted with them and tried to speak. Their attorney said the family plans to discuss the autopsy with other medical experts and may take some unspecified legal action.

"We knew all along that Terri was profoundly brain damaged," said Schiavo's brother, Bobby Schindler. "We simply wanted to bring her home and care for her. It all goes back to this quality of life."

The findings vindicated Schiavo's husband in his long and vitriolic battle with his in-laws that engulfed the courts, Congress and the White House and divided the country. Michael Schiavo and court-appointed doctors have said she had no hope of recovery. She died at age 41.

The autopsy also found no evidence that Terri Schiavo was strangled or otherwise abused before her sudden 1990 collapse — countering allegations by the Schindlers that she was abused by her husband.

Yet medical examiners could not say for certain what caused the collapse, long thought to have been brought on by an eating disorder.

George Felos, attorney for Michael Schiavo, said the findings back up their contentions made "for years and years" that Terri Schiavo had no hope of recovery. He said Michael Schiavo plans to release autopsy photographs of her shrunken brain.

"Mr. Schiavo has received so much criticism throughout this case that I'm certain there's a part of him that was pleased to hear these results and the hard science behind them," Felos said.

The Schindlers fought their son-in-law in court over their daughter's fate for nearly seven years, battling to the end with conservatives at their side.

The autopsy counters a widely seen videotape the Schindlers released of Schiavo in her hospice bed. The video showed Schiavo appearing to turn toward her mother's voice and smile. She moaned and laughed. Her head moved up and down and she seemed to follow the progress of a brightly colored Mickey Mouse balloon.

Schiavo's parents said that showed she was aware of her surroundings, but doctors said her reactions were automatic responses and not evidence of thought or consciousness.

"There's nothing in her autopsy report that is inconsistent with a persistent vegetative state," said Dr. Stephen J. Nelson, a medical examiner who assisted in the neurological portion of the autopsy.

The cause of death was dehydration from removal of the feeding tube, but the underlying reason for her brain damage was officially listed as "undetermined."

The autopsy included 274 external and internal body images and an exhaustive review of Schiavo's medical records, police reports and social services agency records.

Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner Dr. Jon Thogmartin said that the autopsy produced no conclusion on what triggered the temporary heart stoppage that caused her collapse and brain damage. He said there was no evidence of drug use, though he cautioned that Schiavo was not tested in 1990 for every conceivable substance that could have been in her blood.

He said there was no proof she suffered from an eating disorder such as bulimia, which can disrupt the body chemistry with lethal effect. The main piece of evidence cited for an eating disorder — the low levels of potassium in her blood in 1990 — could have been caused by the emergency treatment she received at the time, Thogmartin said.

While she had lost more than 100 pounds since high school, Schiavo never confessed to an eating disorder, she did not take diet pills and no one had witnessed her purging food, the medical examiner said.

He discounted the possibility that she had overdosed on caffeine from drinking large amounts of tea in an effort to keep her weight down.

In addition, the autopsy found no traces of morphine in her system at her death, although she had been given two doses in the days before she died. The Schindlers had contended that morphine might have been used to speed their daughter's death.

In Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the autopsy did nothing to change President Bush's position that Schiavo's feeding tube should not have been disconnected. He had signed a bill, rushed through by Congress in March, that was a last-ditch effort to restore her feeding tube.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050616/ap_on_re_us/schiavo_autopsy

CWA Responds to Schiavo Autopsy Report: No Excuses for Dehydrating the Disabled

WASHINGTON, June 15 /Christian Wire Service/ -- Concerned Women for America (CWA) responded to the autopsy report on Terri Schiavo, released today by a medical examiner for Florida's Pinellas-Pasco County, which confirmed that the "removal of [Terri's] feeding tube resulted in her death."

"Terri Schiavo's autopsy results confirm what was feared – she was disabled, and her death was due to the deliberate denial of hydration," said Wendy Wright, CWA's senior policy director. "The autopsy report described Terri's medical history and condition in detail, but the cold reality of the truth is that her cause of death was 'dehydration.' Terri Schiavo died because the court ordered the removal of the instrument that provided her water.

"There is no medical condition or disability that should ever be championed as a justifiable reason to deny water to a human being. Every human life has worth and a purpose apart from its 'merit' to society that must be vigorously defended and upheld, not crushed."

"While people may personally dread becoming handicapped, people with disabilities deserve mercy, not malice. Only a calloused society in moral freefall would deny a disabled person her most basic need – water," said Wright.

Concerned Women for America is the nation's largest public policy women's organization.

http://www.earnedmedia.org/cwfa0615.htm

"In addition, the autopsy found no traces of morphine in her system at her death, although she had been given two doses in the days before she died. The Schindlers had contended that morphine might have been used to speed their daughter's death."

That strikes me as a little odd. If she were properly examined, why didn't they see ANY trace of morphine?

David Gibbs III, attorney for the Schindler family, told the Witness the autopsy report still leaves America with the question of whether it will return to its historic position that “all life is sacred” and worthy of protection.

“We are still on the turn in the road,” Gibbs said. “Tragically, the medical examiner did not provide anything to deal with the legal and moral issues. Much of what he said we already knew. She was significantly brain injured. He answered some questions but he created many others.”

For instance, Gibbs said the medical examiner referred to times when Terri was given morphine for pain, despite the notion she was a “vegetable” and had no cognizant thoughts. The attorney also said he wondered if therapy would have helped Terri to learn to swallow during the last 12 years, despite Thogmartin’s findings that she could not have swallowed given the “atrophy” of those muscles at the time of the autopsy.

Gibbs said he also believes it is up to Michael Schiavo to step forward with details about what happened in the early morning hours the day Terri collapsed—since he reported on Larry King Live and to the medical examiner that the time of Terri’s collapse was at 4:30 a.m., but said he did not call paramedics until 5:40 a.m.

Read the article at Florida Baptist Witness

Excerpt from my e-mail from Father Pavone of Priests for Life:

"I will never forget my hours with Terri, both before and after her feeding tube was
removed. She responded to me, and she
responded to others who visited her. She laughed, she tried to speak, she returned
her parents' kisses, she followed us with her
eyes, she closed her eyes when I prayed with her and opened them when we were
finished. Medical examiners can offer their
conclusions because of what they saw, but none of that changes what we saw. But both
we and the medical examiners were
looking in from the outside. Any honest medical expert will admit that there is so
much about the human brain we still don't
know. What Terri experienced on the inside is a mystery that only she and God know."