Posted on 12/07/2005 5:02:27 PM PST by eartotheground
Terri Schiavo's husband starts a PAC devoted to defeating the Bible-thumping politicians who used his comatose wife as a football.
By Michael Scherer
Dec. 7, 2005 | At the height of the battle, Michael Schiavo appeared to be a reluctant cultural warrior. His wife, Terri, lay comatose, in her 15th year of vegetative slumber, connected to a feeding tube, but well beyond resuscitation. Around her hospice, a political hurricane swirled.
In Terri's name, President George Bush interrupted his vacation, Sen. Bill Frist played doctor from the Senate floor, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush launched a flimsy criminal investigation, and Rep. Tom DeLay issued ominous political threats to the judiciary. The religious right had turned Terri into a symbolic beachhead in the battle for a "culture of life," and the Republican Party had answered the call.
But Michael Schiavo, who legally controlled his wife's fate, never showed any predilection for the limelight. In fact, he wished that everyone would just leave his family alone. "People are removed from their feeding tubes every day across this country," Schiavo told CNN's Larry King, in a rare interview last March. "The government chose this one to pander for their religious right, pander for their votes."
But now, as the one-year anniversary of Terri Schiavo's death approaches, Michael Schiavo is changing his approach and preparing to enter the political fray. Terri's fate has already been decided. Now her husband wants to claim her legacy. "For 15 years, I have been watching the politicians working their ways into my case. I felt I needed to do something when this was all said and done," Schiavo told Salon on Tuesday. "I didn't ask for this fight, but now I am ready."
This week Schiavo will roll out a new political action committee, called Terri PAC, with the hope of raising money to defeat the politicians who tried to intervene in the legal battle between Schiavo and Terri's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler. "Whatever I can do, I am going to do," says Schiavo, who works as a nurse in the Pinellas County Jail in Clearwater, Fla. Starting in January, he plans to change his work hours to three 12-hour shifts a week, allowing him more time to work on politics.
At the same time, Schiavo is putting the finishing touches on a book, "Terri: The Truth," which is scheduled for release in March. His former in-laws, the Schindlers, have also announced plans to publish a book with their side of the story in March. The Schindlers have been working to establish their own legacy for their daughter. This summer, the couple gave their support to a new seminarian scholarship in Terri's name at the Ave Maria University. "We feel that Terri was chosen by God to combat evil," Bob Schindler told a Catholic news service. "What a fine way to pay tribute to her life."
Terri PAC will not be the first time Schiavo has inserted himself into politics since his wife's death. During this year's Virginia governor's race, Schiavo volunteered his support for the victorious Democrat, Tim Kaine, after his Republican opponent, Jerry Kilgore, said he did "not agree to the forced starvation of any individual." Though Kaine did not trumpet the endorsement, the amount of press coverage it received was encouraging, says Derek Newton, a political consultant at the November Group, in Coral Gables, Fla., who is working with Schiavo. "From the PAC's perspective, Kaine's win was very important," Newton said.
One Florida Democrat, Rep. Robert Wexler, who represents parts of Palm Beach, says that Michael Schiavo could have an impact going into the 2006 midterm election. "Terri Schiavo and Michael Schiavo were some of the most prominent victims of the Republicans' abuse of power," said Wexler. "Michael Schiavo's effort is not only appropriate and timely, but it is also extremely important."
In addition to funneling money to certain political campaigns, the PAC will name those politicians who supported government intervention in his wife's case, as well as those who opposed intervention. Schiavo also hopes to use the Web site to educate people about the importance of living wills. Newton said that Schiavo has no plans to run for political office himself; the two have not yet discussed whether Schiavo will collect a salary from the PAC for his efforts.
In the interview, Schiavo mentioned Rep. DeLay, R-Texas, Sen. Frist, R-Tenn., and Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., as primary targets of the effort. He also said he wanted to be involved in the upcoming Florida governor's race. "We are going to focus on holding these people accountable," Schiavo said.
I have always visualized the Paulson guy (who ran for President) looking like this (the guy on the left - do you know who the guy on the right is?:
http://www.alan.com/photogallery/1996/pat_paulson.jpg
Because that's what you would have had to do to overturn Greer's opinion -- a proper legal decision with which you happened to disagree.
I agree with you totally. Michael was probably the hero in all of this. Every day families are confronted with agonizing decisions like the one he made, but thankfully most are able to make those decisions in private.
But I agree with you. Sometimes a family doesn't know, and must decide for the loved one.
But there are those on this forum who don't want the families to choose. They insist that the families have no right, that life must be maintained, and the patient must live.
They do scare me.
To think of my wife being forced to care for my shell of a body, consciousness gone, no chance of recovery. Spending time and money on a hopeless cause, having to look at me every day and be reminded of who I once was.
All so these nosy busybodies can feel good about themselves. Disgusting.
Yes, it is disgusting. I had the hardest time listening to either Rush or Hannity during the time the Schiavo thing was all over the news. I even heard Rush nearly call someone a murderer who told him that he made a similar decision about a loved one. Very scary.
When are you people going to start paying attention to facts?
I have had some obnoxious posters tell me, that because I followed my dads wishes and had no food tube surgically put into him, that I might as well consider that I had killed him...I guess there were those who felt I should have overruled my dad, dismissed his wishes, allowed the doctors to assault him with an unwanted surgery, all in an effort to allow my dad to linger in pain for a short while longer...
Certainly, most reasonable people would never feel that way...but there are always those, who think that they want is best for everyone, and enjoy poking their noses into things which dont concern them...
That being said, I still do believe that Michael Shiavo could have and should have turned Terri over to her parents(as I have never been really assured that she wished to die as she did)...but I know folks who think that so long as a person is breathing via a ventilator, even tho tests show that they are brain dead, should also be prolonged...and that is something that is abhorrent to me...brain dead does mean dead...but not to some...
My husband wishes to have everything done for him, should it come to that...and his wishes will be honored..I, on the other hand, want nothing done for me, but to let me go...and hopefully, my wishes will also be honored...and no outsiders are welcome...our loving, intact family, will make our family decisions unaided by outsiders...
Exactly as it should be.
I am curious. Did the autopsy reveal anything about bone fractures? Could it reveal the effects of suffocation that happened 15 years ago? I am not an expert, however, are there limits as to what an autopsy could detect?
I think I will check out that autopsy for myself.
Mikey would be better off staying out of sight,
---I wish he would.
robertpaulsen, I continue to be amazed by you. Who would have ever believed that anyone in the world would marry a man like you?! LOL
A poll of twelve impartial people, as is used in other cases when the state orders someone's death? Sounds like how the legal system is supposed to work, actually.
Given that the law at the time of Terri's statements didn't allow removal of food and water under any circumstances where they would provide necessary and sufficient sustenance, one would have to attribute remarkable clairvoyance to Terri to believe she'd expressed a desire to be dehydrated in the event that it should become legal.
It would be much more likely that if Terri did make the alleged statements, she was referring to what would have been considered "life support" at the time she made them, e.g. heart-lung machines, ventilators, etc.
Of course, there's also a very real possibility that Michael and his relatives (they were not Terri's relatives except via her marriage to Michael) just made the whole thing up. Too bad a jury didn't get to see them.
What was his medical condition prior to that?
"You are attacking the girls parents who fought as best they could to the end to save their daughter?"
Yes. They have used their daughter for financial gain right along. You can wear blinders if you want. I choose to see things as they really are. Did you know that brother Bobby seldom went to see his sister until this case hit the news bigtime. Then, suddenly, he was there all the time as a mouthpiece for the "cause". Live in lalaland and enjoy yourself.
If that statement doesn't pertain to you, then move on.
Yet another freeper who thinks he owns this website and can tell those he disagrees with to "move on". Does JimRob know you are dictating who should be on this website and who should not be?
-----Does he know you are incredibly rude to people for NO REASON?
"I am simply inviting someone to do what a whole bunch of other irreligious libertarian extremists and suqishy middle big tent moderates did back in the day, during the Schiavo issue."
"As a former "moderate" and former believer in the naive utopian views contained in, among other texts" (this from your own personal info page).
It appears you once were one of those squishy middle big tent moderates. So remove yourself from this conversation as you lack credibility.
But it was Michael that was greedy. Uh-huh.
Yup. You get the gold star. It was that Midas Michael. But the Schindlers? Pure altruism, don't you think?
Personally, I can't wait to see his name associated with Democrat candidates.
Break out the popcorn.
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