As the article points out, that's not necessarily true, and there was plenty of other evidence that there was somebody in there waiting to come back out. This is one example from an op-ed I wrote about terri last year:
A priest walks into a patient’s room on St. Patrick’s Day and offers to sing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,”…in Polish.Does that sound like a joke to you? It got a laugh out of Terri Schiavo.
Schiavo, as you’ve no doubt heard, is a patient at a hospice in Pinellas Park, Florida, who suffered brain damage after collapsing in 1990 and is the focus of a long court fight between her husband Michael and her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler. Barring a legal win for the Schindlers, her feeding tube will be removed on the 18th. Michael claims she will never recover and would want the tube removed; she’d expressed worry about being a burden or living on a machine. The Schindlers say she’s been denied treatment, has a chance to recover, and would be no burden at all, because they’ll take care of her.
One of the Schindlers’ supporters is Monsignor Thaddeus Malanowski, the Polish priest I mentioned. He filed an affidavit swearing (among other things) that Terri recognizes him, and that one Saint Patrick’s Day he really did walk into her room and offer to sing her an Irish diddy in Polish. Her response was to laugh. That’s a remarkable response from a person who supposedly is operating on little more than a brain stem, a “vegetative” person. Quick, go to the fridge and tell a cucumber a knock-knock joke! OK, did you get a laugh? I didn’t think so.
Of course, as I've said, the scary part isn't that someone who might have been rehabilitated has died. The scary part is the process that got us there.
As governor, he has the power to suspend or halt a miscarriage of justice and order a more thorough review. He can even pardon a convicted criminal awaiting death, if he so chooses.
Terri's 'collapse' was never adequately investigated, never. The proceedings in which Terri was shuffled from one guardian to another, without thorough review of either medical realities, court proceedings, or the recommendations of guardians was never adequately addressed in oversight.
The same judge who gave the orders to put Terri down like a stray pound dog appointed himself her guardian at a point in past proceedings, and released her trust funded assets to pay the lawyer of the man trying to have her put to death.
No thorough review of Terri's medical progression/digression during her disability was ever undertaken, to determine if she was losing abilities and why ... and there is clear video record of just such strange loss of abilities.
And finally, never was a law enforcement investigation done to find out whether Terri's adulterous husband was abusing her with neglect and or chemical abuse, even though there is substantial sworn testimony that he was and the medical history proves he was forcing neglect upon her! One poster above stated tht 'the girl was no longer there' ... yet earlier video proves she 'was there' prior to the court awarded monies to her and her husband. THAT gave the governor of Florida the legal power to suspend the killing and get the investigations done in a timely fashion, before the disabled person was put down and the issues became moot to the state of Florida.
Frankly, after watching the entire sickening episode unfold, I'm now convinced that governor Bush played politics and then adopted a feckless posture when he didn't get the political leverage he desired, sacrificing Terri Schiavo to avoid political fallout from media ghouls and democrat sleaze mongers. And yes, it worked because we have blind partisans defending his feckless inaction and he got reelected, wheee.
If the governor of a state will not protect the disabled in his state with the powers vested in his office, I won't even drive through such a state and I will discourage anyone in my family to avoid the state like it is plague inflicted.
It is also scary, and disgusting, that anyone can suggest with a straight face that the right to live would hang on the prerequisite that rehabilitation (to what standard?) is possible. (in whose opinion?)
What are the odds that anyone over the age of fifty will ever be rehabilitated to the state of health and vitality that they enjoyed at 25? Would anyone age 25 or younger say that they would want to live if their quality of life was degraded to a point far below what they now have? Should the opinion of a fifty yr old count? after all his/her faculties have slowed down to a point where they can't really assess what it's like to live like a 25 yr old anymore. Isn't it cruel to hold out the hope to old folks that their life can ever be like it was again? /s