Posted on 07/08/2005 2:59:50 PM PDT by summer
LARGO - In what could be a final chapter in the legal saga of Terri Schiavo, Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe says he could find no evidence that Michael Schiavo caused his wife's collapse 15 years ago.
In a June 30 letter to Gov. Jeb Bush, McCabe suggested ending the state's inquiry into the case.
Bush responded Thursday in a two-sentence letter to McCabe: "Based on your conclusions, I will follow your recommendation that the inquiry by the state be closed."
Bush asked McCabe last month to investigate Schiavo's collapse on the morning of Feb. 25, 1990. He cited questions left unanswered by an autopsy and inconsistent statements from Michael Schiavo about the time he found his wife on the floor of their apartment.
McCabe appointed two of his most seasoned prosecutors to review the evidence. They found nothing to indicate Michael Schiavo hurt his wife....
(Excerpt) Read more at sptimes.com ...
Good point. Be bold.
Yes ma'am!
PS: Michael Schiavo caused Terri's death, maybe in 1990, but for sure in 2005.
Still, no ones a liar for that, even if made deliberately. Why? Because -- as summer has said -- that's how he read the story and how he felt it could be summarized in the limits. His mistake is in interpretation, yet the headline is still a lie.
And love alone has few ethics or morality. At least what the low-grade warm fuzzy comfort love you seem to espouse. For example, Jimmy Cagney's bad guy in White Heat had a whole lot of that love for his ma.
Sorry about that. Others often get my gender wrong too. (I don't mind so much when they assume I'm a man, but sometimes they pick up on the feminine clues and then insinuate I'm gay!)
Not just your view, but also the view of many others...it's the conservative and Christian view.
Once again we delve into the murky waters that illustrate why mixing religious "marriage" with the civil "marriage" is not a good thing.
What kind of religious "marriage" would not make the spouse legal guardian? Perhaps not Christian...
What is a civil "marriage," if it does not make the spouse the legal guardian?
I fail to see how "living will" is an oxymoron. It is an indication of your will while you are living and unable to express it directly.
It should be honored.
Well I 'm admittedly not feeling well and honestly not able to concentrate on this a lot.
What would you have put for the title since the whole thing wouldn't fit?
I have not read Fuhrman's book, so perhaps you can enlighten me. Is it really "by all accounts" or is it just from looking at the testimony of Mr. Schiavo, who woke in the middle of the night to find his wife in bad shape? I know I can rarely remember what time I wake in the middle of the night!
And doesn't the medical evidence say that if Mrs. Schiavo had actually lain there for those 40 minutes, she'd have been fully dead? It's tough to be in cardiac arrest for 40 minutes and survive, so it seems like Mr. Schiavo just estimated times and got some wrong.
I'm no fan of his, and perhaps he's guilty, but I don't think the timing is the problem. Even the body position questions are not that compelling.
True. When it was decided legally what Mrs. Schiavo would have wanted, it didn't rely on Mr. Schiavo's testimony alone. In fact, Judge Greer stated that the court would NOT decide just based on his claims.
Of course, that opens up the question of...why not?
Why Not Sign a Living Will Instead of the Will to Live? From the National Right to Life
Many people who simply do not want what they see as a lot of medical technology prolonging the last few hours or days of their lives when they are terminally ill sign living wills. If you do, in many states you may not know what you're really signing.
Webster's Dictionary defines "terminal" as "of or in the final stages of a fatal disease." And this is what the ordinary person thinks: that somebody who is "terminally ill" is someone who will inevitably die, whose death cannot be prevented by medical treatment.
But in many states, that is not what it means. Instead, for the purposes of the living will you are legally in a "terminal condition" even if your life could be saved--so as to live indefinitely--by medical treatment, so long as you would still have a permanent disability of some kind.
If you sign a legal document you ought to be able to expect that the words in it mean what they are generally understood to mean. If you sign a contract selling your "car" you should not later discover that a legislative act has defined "car" to include "house" and that you're now homeless. But that is exactly what the laws in many states have done with the wording of their living wills.
Another example: Many people who would not want what they consider the extremes of medical technology would be horrified at the idea of being starved to death. But the laws of most states define the medical treatment that is refused by their living wills to include food and water. While a few states at least have a "check-off" so you can choose whether or not to be starved, in the majority you have no indication in the living will you sign that you are agreeing to starvation.
One widely used "Living Will Declaration," states, "If I should be in an incurable or irreversible mental or physical condition with no reasonable expectation of recovery, I direct my attending physician to withhold or withdraw treatment that merely prolongs my dying." This is broad indeed.
If you walk with a limp that can't be corrected, you have an "irreversible ... physical condition." If you have grown forgetful, with some irretrievable memory loss, you may well have an "incurable ... mental condition." If either of these happens to you, and--having signed the "Living Will Declaration"--you become unable to speak for yourself, that means you will be deprived of all medical treatment and food and water (possibly including what you could be spoon fed) except pain medication and treatment to keep you "comfortable." Any irreversible disability qualifies as a basis for death.
The term "merely prolongs my dying" may sound as though it limits this, but it really doesn't. No time frame is given, and the truth is that we are all "dying." Literally every life-saving medical treatment "prolongs dying," in the legal sense.
The bottom line is this: if you are someone who doesn't want medical technology to prolong your last hours, but who also doesn't want to be starved or allowed to die just because you have a disability, your wishes will be far more likely to be respected if you sign a properly prepared Will to Live than if you sign a living will.
That was very interesting. Thanks for posting.
Re your post #93 - Oh, don't worry about it. I'm not. :)
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