Posted on 06/15/2006 7:44:45 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback
Recently, I told you about Michael Schiavo’s new book, Terri: The Truth. I compared reading the book to “falling down Alice’s rabbit hole and ending up in a new and bizarre world.” This world is “a scary place” where “survival of the fittest” is taken to a whole new level—a world that Christians must never stop fighting against.
Now, I stand by everything that I said about Michael Schiavo’s book, but there’s something that I said about his late wife that I need to take back. I’m embarrassed, not only because of the mistake I made, but also because I was had and should have known better.
In the earlier commentary I said that “the autopsy showed that [Terri] had been brain-dead.” This “finding” did not affect my belief that it was wrong to take her life. My concern from the beginning was with the process we followed and its implications for the sanctity of human life.
My calling Terri “brain-dead” was based on what the media said about the autopsy. For instance, MSNBC began its report this way: “an autopsy on Terri Schiavo backed her husband’s contention that she was in a persistent vegetative state . . .”
Well, I should have known better than to take the media’s word. Terri’s brother, Bobby Schindler, thanked me for the commentary but drew my attention to what the autopsy report actually said.
That report said that there was no evidence that Terri suffered, as had been widely reported, from an eating disorder. The medical examiners were unable to determine what caused the heart attack that left her brain-damaged.
Damaged, not dead. In fact, the autopsy report referred to her receiving morphine, which would not have been necessary if she were brain-dead or in a persistent vegetative state. The report, while it noted “severe brain damage,” said nothing about Terri being in a persistent vegetative state.
What’s more, persistent vegetative state is a clinical diagnosis, made through observation and, as such, is a matter of interpretation. So reports like MSNBC’s were, at best, highly misleading. If she had not been deliberately starved, Terri, in the estimate of the medical examiner, “could have lived easily for another decade . . .”
As bioethicist C. Ben Mitchell puts it, the autopsy confirmed “our worst fears.” Terri didn’t die from any illness but “at the hands of her husband and his lawyers.”
As I said, I’m embarrassed about this mistake, but more than that I am angry. It’s not enough that the legal process sentenced her to death, but the media deliberately or negligently got the circumstances of both her life and her death wrong.
As a result, the “culture of death” has taken several steps forward. Instead of giving life the benefit of the doubt, we are all-too-ready to choose death. As Mitchell said, “Terri Schiavo should be alive today and in the loving embrace of her parents.” Instead, she has become a symbol of the “scary place” our culture is headed: a place where everybody is on the lookout for signs of death, not life. And as for those who defended Terri Schiavo and have been pilloried in the media, well, in the cold light of day, we now know we were right after all.
I'm so sorry.
Thanks.
Beware of cocky, swaggering, know-it-all doctors and nurses (and lawyers like Felos), whose answer for any poor suffering soul is morphine.
>> Terri didn’t die from any illness but “at the hands of her husband and his lawyers.”
The truth at last
~~~
That's always been the truth. She didnt "die" either, she was murdered.
We got to watch it. Hope M. Schaivo rots in hell too. Toss in that Judge too.. and the lawyer..souless people.
Thank you for the post & the ping.
Knock it of, M. Some folks just don't see this the way we do. That doesn't mean they don't care about terri. Save your ammo for the fR death apolgists who call us "life fetishists"" because we don't want to watch a woman die of thirst.
YOU sound precisely like the BASH Bush press. But it's what I've observed about many of your posts.
BAM - as that chef guy would say. It didn't matter, the judge and Michael knew from the start that her condition was based on clinical findings and not a true medical diagnosis. Michael wanted her dead, I suspect on grounds and/or reason of monetary value. He put a price on her "clinical diagnosis" and for diabolic reasons, was determined to see her dead. Pity the poor guy, when he dies he will have much to answer for and no amount of money will buy him out of eternal damnation.
What I always found most appalling about her death, was that there was never an adequate investigation into exactly what happened the night of her alleged collapse and that the entire system knuckled under to one potentially abusive husband and near blind probate judge.
Terri never received a fair shake, as far as I'm concerned.
The heck I don't. Do you think I can't read simple English?
You have no respect, period. And particularly you will never have my respect.
This is an important issue to me, but you lay the blame in the wrong place.
Are you really this confused?
Ms. Schiavo's autopsy was performed by one person who may not have been a disinterested party. Zarqawi's autopsy, on the other hand, was performed by two people.
if it would make your mother happy to see you happy, and you would be happy to have her around in any state... then you have nothing to cry for...
terry had people willing to care for her... the courts overstepped and an innocent woman died...
that is what one should cry for... keep your mother as long as you can...
teeman
When do you start being a living "human being"....
And
When do you stop being a living "human being"...
Is a physical reality not subject to whim or and arbitrary technicality for lawyer to lose or win?
Because human being's have rights that are not granted by government or laws of men
But if government or laws of men can control and or slide the definition of "living human being"...
Then was we have no right other then what is grated by government or laws of men
Government law parsing definition of who is and is not a living "human being" is a scary way to live
Bush did everything legally possible...do you think he is KING of Florida??
Terri Schiavo was a human sacrifice by the priests of Darwinism.
___________________
The true priests were the members of the cult of Scientology who consider anyone not elevated to their status deserving of death.
Michael and his lawyer and, apparently, Judge Greer are members of this macabre cult of death. The sheriff, owners of the nursing home where she was murdered and other bit players are also apparent participants in this grisly barbarity as members of a cult that the Germans have had the sense to ban from their territory.
This was nothing less than a conspiracy by members of a vicious inhumane organization to bring about another death of an innocent young woman. They absolutely must be stopped.
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