Posted on 08/27/2006 10:41:23 PM PDT by goldstategop
Florida voters have a chance next week to avenge the cold-blooded, public execution of a handicapped woman by depriving her of water and food for 13 long, harrowing days that captivated not just the attention of the nation, but the whole world.
Instead, I fear, too many Americans have forgotten Terri Schiavo and all her killing represented about the declining moral standards of our nation and the cowardice of our public officials.
Tuesday, Sept. 5, is Election Day in Florida. A primary vote is being held to determine who will be the candidates for governor, succeeding Jeb Bush.
The leading Republican candidate, Attorney General Charlie Crist, currently ahead in polls by some 20 points, played an instrumental role in the official neglect that snuffed out the life of Terri Schiavo.
I can tell you many Republican voters and activists have already forgotten Crist's role. Some "conservative" media outlets have gone so far as to endorse Crist.
Let me remind you about Crist's role in the dehydration death of Terri Schiavo.
Terri's father, Robert Schindler Sr. has this to say: "Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist let my daughter die. He had it within his authority to save her life, but he turned a blind eye to her suffering. Even worse, he worked to ensure her death."
Crist, like many Republican politicians, likes to play the role of "defender of life." But actions speak louder than words. You can always tell the phonies on this issue by what they do rather than what they say.
But even what Crist says on this issue is worth noting.
Crist has even denounced Jeb Bush's meager efforts to avert the killing of Terri.
"There are some decisions that ought to be left to God and family," he said last spring. "Had I been governor, I would not have done the same thing (as Bush)."
As attorney general of Florida, Crist was constitutionally charged with protecting the civil rights of the state's citizens. Yet he did nothing to protect the life of an innocent handicapped woman wrongly and unjustly committed to a horrible death sentence by a rogue judge.
Crist is the kind of power-hungry, ambitious politician we don't need in America. He will evidently do or say anything to achieve power. For instance, when he ran for U.S. senator in 1998, he thought it would serve his purposes to be "pro-choice." So he ran as a "pro-choice" – meaning pro-abortion – candidate. He lost.
Now he's back again because he has discovered he really needs to be governor of the state. Now he says he's pro-life.
Crist is running, not just for governor. He is running away from his shameful and decisive role in the death of Terri Schiavo. He was the guy who told the public there had been no complaints of abuse to the state Department of Children and Families. Such a complaint had been personally handed to him and returned without action.
"Hoping to save my daughter's life, our family sought the help of Attorney General Charlie Crist," reminds Terri's father. "Not only did Charlie Crist refuse our family lawful access to the assets of his office, but he violated his oath of office by actively cooperating with thos in positions of political and judicial authority who denied us legal access to the police and regulatory systems meant to protect the weak. Multiple sworn agents from responsible police and regulatory agencies who found probable cause to investigate allegations of abuse in Terri's judicial and physical care were ordered to shut down those probes."
Remember Judge George Greer – the black-robed god who ruled from on high as a county official to enforce Terri's death? Crist honored Greer and the other judges who backed his hideous decisions by saying: "You are heroes to all of us, and your defense of the judiciary and what is right is beyond admirable."
Every day, people ask me what we can do about the problems we all see within our political class. If only Americans would hold their elected leaders accountable for their actions, we could drive out many of the impostors – the purely political creatures who seek only their own empowerment.
Florida voters have a chance to remember Terri Schiavo next week. They have a chance to make their voices heard about a matter of life and death – not just Terri's, but many future Terris. They have a chance to send one of those responsible back home to earn an honest living and think about his actions.
I urge Floridian Republicans to support Crist's opponent, Tom Gallagher, to be their next governor.
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
Gallagher blew whatever chance he had with his inept campaign and tying himself to the worst elements of KH's campaign, which may be without precedence in FL history in its incompetence. As for poor Terri, I lay the blame at the real culprit, her despicable piece of human debris husband.
Crist will win precisely because he refused to involve the State in what most Floridians, by a large majority, considered a private family matter. I predict that he will receive 67% of the vote. The same percentage that Judge Greer won re-election to his position with.
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
In the final analysis, the difficult question that faced the trial court was whether Theresa Marie Schindler Schiavo, not after a few weeks in a coma, but after ten years in a persistent vegetative state that has robbed her of most of her cerebrum and all but the most instinctive of neurological functions, with no hope of a medical cure but with sufficient money and strength of body to live indefinitely, would choose to continue the constant nursing care and the supporting tubes in hopes that a miracle would somehow recreate her missing brain tissue, or whether she woul wish to permit a natural death process to take its course and for her family members and loved ones to be free to continue their lives. After due consideration, we conclude that the trial judge had clear and convincing evidence to answer this question as he did.
Affirmed. IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA
SECOND DISTRICT
The release of the Sixth Circuit medical examiner's report on Terri Schiavo's autopsy answered many questions. It also left some significant questions unanswered, and it offered one surprise. After taking some time to examine the report closely, here are my thoughts.
1. Persistent Vegetative State. In the second trial regarding Terri's medical condition, medical doctors offered by Michael, an independent specialist appointed by the court, and the trial court itself found that Terri was in a persistent vegetative state with no reasonable hope of recovery. Evidence to the contrary was rejected as not credible. The medical examiner's report explains that whether someone is in a persistent vegetative state is a clinical diagnosis that his office cannot evaluate after her death. However, the report does offer findings that are relevant to the PVS diagnosis.
a. The medical examiner from the Tenth Circuit served as a consultant neuropathologist. He found that Terri's brain was very much atrophied. It weighed half of what a normal brain would weigh and approximately 75% of what Karen Ann Quinlan's brain weighed at her death. Karen Ann Quinlan spent 10 years in a persistent vegetative state.
b. The surprise I mentioned at the start of this post concerns Terri's vision. The consultant neurologist's report finds the tissue volume loss in Terri's brain to have been worst in the bilateral occipital lobes, and the Sixth Circuit medical examiner concluded Terri suffered from cortical blindness. If I understand this correctly, she was not blind in the sense her eyes could not see, but the portion of her brain that would receive information from her retinas did not exist. I'll leave it to the physicians out there to say for sure, but it would seem that these results support the court's finding that any eye tracking Terri performed was at best reflexive and not the product of conscious thought. Her eyes could perceive light, but the portion of her brain that would process those perceptions did not exist.
2. Ability To Recover. I don't read the report as directly addressing whether Terri had the ability to recover, but in the press conference given by the medical examiner with the report's release, the medical examiner succinctly said that Terri could not recover. The damage to her brain was extensive and irreparable. This supports the trial court's decision that there was no reasonable medical probability that Terri's condition could improve to the point where she might change her mind about withdrawing the feeding tube.
3. Trauma. Of the high profile issues in the Schiavo saga, the one addressed with the greatest certainty seems to be the trauma issue. The report finds the evidence inconsistent with the notion physical trauma caused Terri's collapse or had been inflicted at the time of the collapse. The report relies on medical examinations conducted at the time, as well as observations of Terri's body at her death. The examiner's conclusion was not based on a mere lack of evidence of trauma but on evidence that was affirmatively inconsistent with trauma.
These findings provide a medical complement to what we have already seen from both the court system and law enforcement. Those who have suspected or accused Michael of abusing Terri and causing her collapse would seem to be without support.
4. Ability To Eat. The trial court concluded that Terri could not be fed orally. The medical examiner's report agreed, concluding that Terri was dependent on her feeding tube, and had she been fed sufficient food to sustain her, she certainly would have aspirated it. Without naming anyone, the report mentions caregivers' claims they had fed Terri orally at times, saying such feedings were "potentially harmful or, at least, extremely dangerous" to Terri.
5. Cause Of Collapse. A sizeable portion of the medical examiner's report is appropriately devoted to what may have caused Terri's collapse. The medical examiner rejected bulimia because the best evidence to support that theory -- very low potassium levels observed after her collapse -- could have been explained by the treatment she received to revive her. The medical examiner also rejected strangling and physical abuse, as discussed above, and found no evidence of cardiac anomalies.
People have already written me to ask whether these findings undermine the results of the 1992 malpractice trial. Recall that Michael brought malpractice claims against Terri's physicians. Terri had been trying to become pregnant, but her monthly cycles had stopped, and supposedly proper tests by those treating her could have brought the bulimic situation to light and avoided her collapse. One doctor settled and another went to trial. A jury agreed with Michael's theory and awarded damages, finding Terri partly responsible, and the case then settled for a lesser amount while it was on appeal.
I do not think the medical examiner's conclusion that insufficient evidence supports a finding of bulimia undermines the trial's result. The medical examiner did not rule out that Terri's dieting habits, such as taking pills with caffeine or drinking substantial amounts of iced tea, could have caused or contributed to her collapse. He found that the evidence that would prove or disprove such a finding had not been collected or maintained, but in the malpractice trial apparently there was little or no challenge that Terri collapsed due to her dieting habits and a low potassium level. The jury agreed Terri's dieting habits caused her collapse based on the evidence and arguments presented.
In the end, the official cause of Terri's collapse remains undetermined. It might be emphasized, though, that the cause of her collapse was not directly at issue in the litigation over whether she would want her feeding tube removed and whether some treatment might help her substantially improve to the point where she would not want the tube removed. Concerns about the cause of her collapse were injected into the feeding tube litigation in 2002 -- twelve years after the fact and after two trials on her wishes and her condition -- through claims that Michael attacked Terri and provoked the collapse. Those claims were intended to discredit Michael and cast a criminal pall over the situation, which to an extent is what happened. But one of the medical examiner's strongest findings was that the evidence is inconsistent with the notion anyone caused her collapse by beating or strangling her.
When everything is said, the medical examiner's report substantiates that the court system did its job well in handling Terri's case.
You can find a copy of Terri Schiavo's autopsy report here. http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/autopsyreport.pdf
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
What angers the religious right which has fixated on this case is that the trial court ignored their dictate for what should happen in this case. If Crist had stuck his office's nose into it I don't think he would be 20 to 25 percentage points in the lead.
Forget it. There's no use trying to reason with those who supported Terri's death.
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
He's going to lose his ass to Davis.
Saw a commercial tonight where he called himself a Reagan Republican.
My jaw hit the floor so hard it still hurts
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
Then you must renounce War...and the death penalty.(We have no right to play God?)
Liberty has always trumped life as a guiding principal in this country. Think of the sacrifices it took to form a government that puts liberty ahead of all other principals...All the dead patriots in all our wars. What did they put first...their life?
I see you're very familiar with the candidates...who's TOM Crist????
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