Terri Schiavo's Next to Last Day: A Look Back, "I Want to Live"

Life News ^ | 3/30/07 | Steven Ertelt

[wagglebee]

St. Petersburg, FL (LifeNews.com) -- Terri Schiavo's family will never forget the next to last day of her life two years ago. It started with a Supreme Court ruling and a judgment by a federal appeals court, and ended with the knowledge that their daughter wanted to live.

The U.S. Supreme Court, on that Wednesday, issued a decision allowing Terri Schiavo's painful starvation death. It wound up being the last legal decision in the long battle between Bob and Mary Schindler and Terri's former husband Michael.

The once-sentence ruling was issued just hours after the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals again voted 10-2 not to get involved in the case and reviewing a decision by a local judge to have Michael kill Terri.
The Supreme Court offered no explanation for turning back the latest request and provided no vote tally of members to determine if any wanted to take the case.

"We're watching a black mark in American history," David Gibbs, the lead attorney for the Schindlers, said afterwards.

The Schindlers also faced another setback that day when the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Florida upheld Judge George Greer's ruling preventing the Florida Department of Children and Families from taking Terri in to protective custody.

The state agency hoped to do that while it investigated allegations of abuse and neglect against Michael.

CBS News also angered its viewers and Terri Schiavo supporters that day.

It came under fire for prewriting and posting to its news web site a story claiming Terri Schiavo had died.

The article, penned by Christine Lagorio, claimed Michael was with her when she died and was posted on the CBS News web page three days before her actual death, according to radio talk show host Glenn Beck, who discovered it.

CBS News spokeswoman Sandy Genelius told LifeNews.com that the story was "a draft that was stored on the web site" but not intended to be accessible to the public.

The day before, euthanasia advocate George Felos, Michael's attorney, said Michael had changed his mind and would allow an autopsy to be conducted on Terri. The altruistic statement declared Michael wanted to exonerate himself on accusations he abused Terri and to show Terri is very severely brain damaged.

Yet, the decision to conduct an autopsy had already been made when Felos spoke with the media -- and not by Michael or Felos.

Jon Thogmartin, medical examiner for Pinellas and Pasco counties, told the St. Petersburg Times newspaper he made the decision to conduct an autopsy if necessary and said it had nothing to do with Michael's change of heart.

Terri's parents ended the day before Terri's death with the knowledge that their daughter wanted to live.

Just before representatives of Michael's removed her feeding tube Terri Schiavo reportedly told an attorney for her parents that she wanted to live.

"Terri, if you would just say, 'I want to live,' all of this will be over," Barbara Weller, one of the attorneys for Terri's parents Bob and Mary Schindler, said.

Weller said Terri desperately tried to repeat her words.

"'I waaaaannt ...,' Schiavo allegedly said. Weller described it as a prolonged yell that was loud enough that police stationed nearby entered the hospice room.

"She just started yelling, 'I waaaannt, I waaaannt,'" Weller explained.

Terri's parents filed a legal motion to try to get her planned euthanasia death reversed, but to no avail.

Related web sites:
Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation - http://www.terrisfight.org

[wagglebee]

You're insane.

WHY am I insane?
- Am I insane because I have serious doubts about how a healthy woman who was asleep in bed somehow wound up lying in the hallway with an injured back after her husband came home late?
- Am I insane because I remember that Michael Schiavo wanted his wife to live prior to Terri's settlement?
- Am I insane because I find it suspicious that immediately after TERRI was awarded a million dollar settlement?
- Am I insane because I believe that a "living will" that is not in writing should be substantiated by people other than those who benefit from the person's death?
- Am I insane to disbelieve a man who abandons his wife to cohabitate with another woman in impregnate her?
- Am I insane to point out that Terri's rights under the Florida Constitution were totally ignored?
- Am I insane to believe that FOOD AND WATER are not "extraordinary" life support?

On second thought, I could care less what you think of my mental state. Why don't you go back to the new non-conservative forum that many of you have joined to bemoan how conservatives have "ruined" the Republican Party.

[TAdams8591]

"The hysteria shown by some religious conservatives over this issue and their willingness to call in Big Brother as "

It was Michael Schiavo who began the court proceedings in Terri's case. Family disputes have been resolved in court since the inception of our nation. It is nothing new and has nothing whatsoever to do with the rise of big government.

Furthermore, Liberals have been using the courts to push through their agenda for several generations at least beginning with the welfare state and moving along to issues such as abortion, homosexual marriage and euthanasia. The very Liberal Euthanasia lobby was prominent in Terri's case and just as in Roe vs. Wade and so many other issues, they succeeded in establishing a horrible precedent.

While Terri's case garnered much publicity, very few Americans were all that concerned about it and it has nothing to do with Giuliani's popularity mostly among Republicans. It is concern for the WOT among Republicans, which has inspired Giuliani's support, which I predict will wane when more people learn his stand on the issues, and the popularity of the candidate I am supporting, Mitt Romney, will grow.

[Vision]

Please add me to the ping list.

[wagglebee]

Maybe some of the people who accuse us of "hysteria" can answer this:

If you were an invalid and your spouse decided to abandon you, move in with another person and have children with them and began using YOUR money (Michael Schiavo was never awarded a penny) for purposes other than the judge allocated it, would you be of the opinion that your "spouse" was acting in your best interests?

[TAdams8591]

From beginning to end, Terri's case is the worst injustice I have ever publicly witnessed in the United States.

I do believe however, in the future, if at all possible, we must learn to fight with a much, much better sense of PR.

[Vision]

IMHO she was killed by the state.

At the very least it was controversial, so nothing should have been done.

[wagglebee]

The left has been pushing for euthanasia for decades. They decided that they would use Terri to further that agenda. To that end, the media deliberately lied to the public about Terri's condition, Florida law and Michael's estrangement from her.

[TAdams8591]

We agree and I said the same in post #62. : )

[MHGinTN]

You are wrong, Michael. Terri was not brain dead, not even close. Her ability to follow an object passing in front of her is proof she was not brain dead. And before you cite a foolish claim of her brain weight at autopsy, the dehydration over so many days reduces the fluid volume in the brain. I'm astonished that you would make such an inane comment, frankly.

[T'wit]

>> (Michael Schiavo was never awarded a penny)

Only Terri's therapy and care award was used to kill Terri. We should distinguish here because Michael himself was awarded $600,000 for "loss of consortium." Not that he lost any consortium, mind. (Consortium is something wives can do for husbands, but you can also find it on the street, which is how Michael started making babies out of wedlock with Jodi Centonze.) The lawyers and taxman took a big piece of that award, but Michael received over $300,000 as his rake-off from Terri's terrible disability, and celebrated by buying a new gold Acura the very day he got the check! Yee-haw! Her injuries got me a sports car!! Michael is a sweet, sentimental fool like that.

Not one penny of HIS money was ever spent for the legal case to kill Terri. No, sir! Michael was very fussy to use only Terri's therapy money to kill her. (That's "fraud on the court," incidentally.)

By the way, Michael was just as sentimental the day he finally killed her. Three hours -- hours! -- after Terri was safely dead, he and death lawyer Debbie Bushnell raced to court to file a claim for her estate.

[T'wit]

>> Family disputes have been resolved in court since the inception of our nation.

True, but remember, this wasn't a family dispute at first. Michael went to court to ask permission to kill Terri without telling the Schindlers. Unbelievable! He did not tell the Schindlers that he had petitioned a court to kill their daughter. (Eventually, his attorney, Deborah Bushnell wrote the Schindlers to say so, probably for fear of a wrongful death lawsuit or something of the sort.)

For all those who preach to us that this was a private family decision that the government should stay out of -- where were you in 1998 when Michael himself asked the government to intervene? Where were you the next seven years? During all of those years, it was the government that kept Terri's FAMILY from having any say whatsoever in her private medical decisions.

[TAdams8591]

"It was Michael Schiavo who began the court proceedings in Terri's case."

As I said above my friend, it was Michael Schaivo who first approached the court. No matter the particulars, it became a family dispute over whether Terri would want to live or die and had nothing to do with conservatives invoking BIG BROTHER as has been alleged.

Unfortunately, it was also another instance of Liberals pushing their agenda, this time FOR EUTHANASIA, through the courts, which I agree was the motivation from the day Michael first filed his case.

[T'wit]

>> it was Michael Schaivo who first approached the court.

Sure. I just wanted to add that revealing detail that Michael neglected to tell the family. Actually, that's not quite strong enough. It wasn't an oversight or "neglect." He REFUSED to tell the Schindlers. He acted out of hatred for her and hatred for them. He said so, too, in sworn testimony. Felos had to step in and rescue him at the end of his harangue.

The visitors get so preachy about those things -- that it's all a private family matter, yadda yadda. We didn't hear a peep of protest out of them until the last few days of a drama that went on for 15 YEARS. Not a peep about the government butting into intimate private business back when the state intervention began in 1998. Not a peep that the family should make the decision when the government was preventing it all of those years.

I agree (of course) with your point that the euthanists seized on Terri's case to advance their agenda. As has been said her more than once, they set out to kill her precisely because she was NOT eligible to be killed under the law.

[wagglebee]

I agree (of course) with your point that the euthanists seized on Terri's case to advance their agenda.

And Michael's alliance with them was quite likely to obstruct justice.

[TAdams8591]

Excellent, excellent point.

[montag813]

So, you won't accept the word of an officer of the court, but you will accept the "recollection" of Terri's estranged, adulterous spouse years after the fact when he realized that he could be rid of her and walk away with a million dollars?

Who said I take anyone's word. You think King Solomon would be satisfied with someone's claims that she said "I wannnnnt"? Where's the video? I want evidence, dammit. If it exists, it is damning and should make its way onto YouTube et al.

[wagglebee]

There is an audio tape out there.

But let's do it your way, in the absense of verifiable proof that Terri wanted her husband to kill her off, the presumption must be that she didn't

[Mr. Jeeves]

I swear there is mental illness in this forum.

Well, certainly a lot of "Christians" who don't seem to actually believe in eternal life nor the soul, and think it is somehow an act of mercy to keep one chained for decades to a useless physical form. Like atheists, they seem to believe our brief physical incarnations on Earth are the only lives we have.

[wagglebee]

No, we simply don't believe that an estranged, adulterous "husband" should have been permitted to play God and kill someone off because she was a inconvenience to him.

[now you people out there]

If Terri had climbed out of bed, and in a clear voice asked for a burger and fries her estranged, adulterous "husband," his lawyer Felos and his willing accomplice Judge Greer would have still found a way to put her to death.

The Terri Schiavo story is certainly one that people could take many sides. However the above is beyond the pale and certainly less than true. Whatever high, moral and for that matter Godly ground you may have had prior to that statement was eroded away when you wrote that. There is none left.

For that, all concerned are or should be sorry.