Posted on 09/27/2005 12:47:03 PM PDT by Crackingham
Terri Schiavo's parents and siblings are writing a book about their struggle in the epic end-of-life case that divided the country and captured the attention of everyone from the Pope John Paul II to President Bush, their publisher said Tuesday. The yet untitled memoir by parents Bob and Mary Schindler, brother Bobby Schindler and sister Suzanne Vitadamo will be published in March to coincide with the first anniversary of the death of the brain-damaged woman, whose feeding tube was removed after her husband won a court order to do so.
"This book is the moving story of an ordinary family caught up in extraordinary circumstances, and it will set the record straight for the first time," said Jamie Raab, senior vice president and publisher at Warner Books in New York.
The Schindlers' book is likely to compete for space on the shelves with a memoir by Terri Schiavo's husband, Michael, who fought his in-laws in court for eight years to end her life, arguing she would not have wanted to be kept alive in what doctors called a persistent vegetative state. Michael Schiavo said he is collaborating on the book with author Michael Hirsh. The 280-page book is titled "Terri: the Truth," and is planned for release in March by Dutton Publishing.
The Schindlers will donate profits from the book to a foundation they established when they were fighting to save Terri's life, Warner Books said. The foundation now is dedicated to protecting severely disabled people.
The press release announcing the book said Terri Schiavo's parents and siblings "fought simply as a caring family and never the ideological zealots depicted by the mainstream media.
"For the first time ever, they will share their love and sorrow, joy and pain, and some shocking revelations as they honor Terri's life, mourn her death, and finally tell the whole story, the true story, of an innocent woman who met a needlessly premature death."
I am glad your family members have a living will. Terri did not.
I am my brother's keeper, therefore, I have an obligation to help those who cannot help themselves.
I'm sorry, but there is no guarantee that it won't happen to anyone you love. It happened to someone that Bob, Mary, Bobby, and Suzanne loved very dearly. They couldn't stop it, and the day may come that you won't be able to stop it from happening to someone you love. My neighbor's friend was loved by her family and friends, but they were powerless to stop it from happening to her.
Not when it overrides the express enumerated powers of the federal government as outlined in the US Constitution it doesn't.
If it upsets and concerns you please inform your state legislature, get a petition started, and get a bill passed within your respective state to handle and deal with this issue
OK, I'll tell it to you, but it won't be the truth.
This will never happen to anyone ever again! You should just ignore it! ;-)
Thanks. The world looks so much prettier with my head in the sand. I think I'll just leave it up to everyone else to decide what's right, and what's wrong. I'll just become one of the lazy few who keep spouting "Move on!"
Okay. I tried it. It's not for me.
God's laws override any law passed by man. And believe me, this would NEVER happen in Oklahoma. The people would NOT stand for it!
Sticking my head in the sand hasn't worked very well for me either. I didn't think a whole lot about terrorists before 9/11, and I didn't think euthanasia was a big deal before Terri. My head's no longer in the sand.
More like murder. Just tell me who did it, and we can procede from there.
That said, there are assumptions in here that should be questioned. Do you believe no one should ever have a ventilator disconnected, even when they are clearly brain dead (No EEG function whatsoever, no special circumstances)?
I don't think dead bodies should be kept functioning. That doesn't mean that disabled people should be labelled as dead.
Your description sounds more like medical error than actual policy. It doesn't excuse it, not at all, but you're implying this is related to the decisions about Terri Schiavo, and I can't see that's the case.
Sadly, no one can promise that someone won't misread an order, mix up two patients, etc. There are more and more checks introduced to decrease human error, but it won't ever be prevented entirely.
Then I guess I didn't describe it very well. Somebody turned off the respirator. Those in charge of her care were unaware of this for about 20 minutes. This was not doctor's orders, or official policy. This was somebody taking it upon themselves to do what the advocates of forced euthanasia keep telling everyone is the right thing to do. They did what the death cultists said should have been done to Terri early on. That is the attitude we are fighting against. You will always find some difference between one situation and another. True, this woman's name was not Terri. True, she wasn't put in this situation as a victim of domestic violence. There are more differences than there are similarities. But the similarities are still important. She was killed by someone who shares your attitude toward the quality of life. And who ever did it, will probably never be prosecuted. Partly because of the attitude among some law enforcement officials that this is not a crime worth pursuing, because the victim was someone they find repulsive. The attitude that disabled people are so repulsive they should be killed, and should be so repulsed by themselves that they should want to be killed, is a very dangerous attitude.
One of the problems with Terri's case is that there was often misinformation about Terri's condition from the media, and it was used by her husband's side from day one. The misinformation was rarely corrected, even if it was blatantly wrong. It took a lot of letter writing to get even the most basic information to be reported accurately, as you have pointed out in the cardiac arrest V. heart attack dispute.
Something we had to contend with was it the commonly-reported idea that Terri was in a coma, when in fact, she recovered from her coma about six weeks after her collapse in 1990.
Another misrepresentation was that Terri was brain dead versus brain damaged. If Terri had been truly brain dead, she would not have been able to live without a ventilator or other equipment for a day, much less 15 years.
Some of us have just had it with the poor journalism going on, and in this case, it caused the death of at least one person. Many people have been needlessly confused about what was going on here, because of misrepresentation. While Michael's side may not have been responsible for the errors, they did nothing to try to get the public perception of Terri's case to be accurate.
This is but another example of how the media uses its influence by misrepresentation on a daily basis. You can see it in the reporting of the events surrounding Katrina and the war in Iraq. It's another reason why I appreciate Free Republic and other non-MSM outlets so much.
Source please. Where in the U. S. Constitution does it state that the federal government has the right to kill citizens for the crime of being disabled? Where does it state that this federal right overrides the God given right to life?
I'll not go into this again with you two. Especially after yellow's statement "God's laws override any law passed by man.". That is indeed true. However, our nation of states was established as a nation with no overriding Christian denomination at the national level, for very apparent reasons. Therefore, the Framers were clear that as to issues that 'concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people' those rights and limitations lay at the state level.
The federal government has no right to 'kill citizens for the crime of being disabled', nor does it have an enumerated right to interfere with the internal affairs of the state or the 'lives, liberties, and properties of the people'. Of course that was the original intent as understood by the Framers. Are you now questioning their logic as well?
What truly frightens me is that someone comes into power at the national level, destroying any and all aspects of federalism, and establishing what you feel is the correct form of religion and government. As evidenced by their writings and Madison's little document called the US Constitution, it is clear the Framers were concerned as well
Please don't take this wrong;but, ladies and gentlemen, the price for produce just went up.
Indeed.
Indeed.
No, I'm questioning yours. Their intent was clear. They recognized the God given right to live. Why don't you? Our Constitution does not grant any branch or any level of government the right to kill citizens for the crime of being disabled. Previously you suggested that the federal government has that right. Now you're backing out of that, and saying the state governments have that right. You're still wrong.
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