Posted on 05/28/2007 9:33:12 AM PDT by wagglebee
The Christian attorney who fought to keep Terry Schiavo alive says the three leading GOP presidential candidates don't understand the important disability issues involved in the widely publicized 2005 case.
During a recent Republican presidential debate in California, the candidates were asked whether Congress was right to intervene in the Terry Schiavo case by attempting to prevent the state of Florida from removing the disabled woman's feeding tube. The answers varied.
Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, said he thought it "was a mistake" for Congress to get involved and the matter should have been left at the state level. Senator John McCain said Congress "probably acted too hastily." And former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani called the case a "family dispute."
David Gibbs III of the Christian Law Association says the United States gives greater due process to convicted murderers than to innocent disabled people. The former attorney for Schiavo's parents argues that Congress did the right thing when it intervened to provide her those rights.
"Many of the candidates are following the political wind, if you will, instead of showing leadership and saying, 'You know what? That was good public policy back then. We need to stand up for the disabled. We need to stand up for the senior citizens,'" Gibbs says. "We need to have that compassion for vulnerable people as opposed to taking the mindset that those people that just don't matter," he notes.
It is disingenuous, the Christian attorney contends, for candidates to claim they are pro-life but not be willing to grant due process rights to the disabled. "If you're pro-life, you have to be pro-life at every step," he says.
"Please understand: our founding fathers understood that you don't have any liberty, our Constitution doesn't matter, if you don't protect the innocent life of the citizens," Gibbs explains. "That's why they talked about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- your free speech, your freedom of religion, your right to own a gun or [receive] due process of law," he says. "If the government can kill you, you have no true liberty."
When Rudy Giuliani visited Florida he initially said he was in favor of assisting Terry Schiavo but later backpedaled from those comments, Gibbs points out. And in the recent GOP presidential debate, he says, only Kansas Senator Sam Brownback and Congressman Duncan Hunter of California got the issue right when they were asked about the Schiavo case.
I believe the swallowing tests, which said that she couldn’t swallow.
I am sorry for your son’s troubles but I also know there are times that hope colors perception; I must conclude that is the case for those around Terri Schiavo, based on the CT scan and autopsy report. And again, dehydration does not mean that the neuropathologist couldn’t assess her brain tissue - I have yet to see a credible medical source who asserts that. If you know of a neuropathologist who can flatly assert that, please cite.
Ok, then maybe we will find out one day from the Cold Case file held in the Homicide division of the S. Petersburg police if it ever is allowed to see the light of day. For now, it is blocked according to them by Judge Greer and others of the law as they see it. Maybe you can tell them a Probate Judge is not usually authorized to issue a death sentence on an innocent human.
According to the visitors, it was not a death sentence, Greer was following Terri’s clear wishes.
After hearing conflicting news reports, I wanted to see as much of the medical information for myself as I could. I've looked at or read as much of the actual medicine as I could find. I concluded that sometimes people want to believe so badly that they ignore the facts, and misinterpret random movements and sounds. I've see it before in medicine, and it's always very sad.
I don't know any of the players personally, and had no preconceived notion of what I would find. I lost a loved one to cancer, and I personally know how much I preferred to believe one thing and not another, but my training made me look at it all. There were difficult decisions along the way, and I recognize that slightly different circumstances could have made those decisions much more difficult.
I do have a perspective - I can respect those who argue on moral grounds that hydration shouldn't have been withdrawn. I can not respect those on either side who misrepresent the science to bolster their arguments.
Rudy was right on this one.
Which time?
LOL
Don't try to couch this to me in touchy-feely terms of hope. It doesn't always work on people with the experience we have. I have seen this condescension of doctors before and shrug it off as just a little embarrassing for the doctors because it is so obvious.
Perhaps if you claim intellectual honesty you may consider both sides of the matter and not write off any opposing views as emotional. It looks to me that you are a bit blinded by bias.
Consider this if moral grounds are important to you. Before they started the exit protocol, she was happy, surprisingly cheerful considering she was kept locked in a room with sensory stimulus at zero, was denied any attempts at all to make her life more pleasant, not to even get sunshine. Her parents and siblings loved her and cared for her and were barred most of the time from even being with her. Even through all this, she retained some cheer. And except for the dehydration part, you think their actions are moral? Maybe your training can have you look at all here, too.
Like you, we have had our own tragedies, quite a few, and we weather them, not through fuzzy feelings, but through Faith. It works fine.
It is practical knowledge we have on feeding and some of our son's doctors lacked that. I won't engage a debate with you on medical matters where you have the weapons of words. I will leave that to others who may engage the topic if you wait with patience. But it is doctors like we faced with our son, and with those with a vested interest in the negative outcome like the successful killing of Terri who give your profession a bad name in my book.
ping...
I’m basing my knowledge on the medical issues, and the swallowing tests and autopsy results said the same thing.
You fed your son successfully, and I commend you. Terri Schiavo was on a feeding tube, not sucessfully fed. According to the GAL report “The clinical records within the massive case file indicate that Theresa was not responsive to neurological and swallowing tests. She received regular and intense physical, occupational and speech therapies.” She had three swallowing tests: “The recognized gold standard test is the modified barium swallowing test, generally done in a hospital or at a facility that has radiology equipment. Theresa’s three previous tests were barium swallowing tests.”
I do not dispute that doctors make errors, or that patients can do what doctors don’t expect. Yet that isn’t the norm, it’s the exception. If your son had three barium swallow tests and had all three indicated he couldn’t swallow safely, and you had him on tube feeding and were able to convert him to oral feedings, he was the exception.
As for choices, I don’t know what choice I would have made. I can see the difficulty of the issues. I have certainly seen where care was continued long past futility, and the feeling that medicine was tormenting someone for no purpose. I don’t feel that I could or should choose for others in their individual situation, and won’t try. I would not have wanted others to dictate their choices for me and my family.
I am interested in the medicine, and am wary of seeing misinformation posted as fact.
I appoint you as judge. Terri never had a swallowing test since 1993. You have read testimony from caregivers that she is able to swallow years after that date. Now, before you order that Terri not be allowed not to try oral nutrition, would you order another swallowing test?
I think you and I have gone over this in the past. She had swallowing tests in 1991, 1992, 1993. I would not expect her to improve at that point, and the testimony you refer to is much disputed. Might I personally have wanted another? Perhaps. Would I expect it to show me anything different? Not really.
It wasn't disputed. Since I appointed you as the judge, you just threw it out, just like Greer did.
Yes, Food and water, who need these artificial means to prolong life?
You are being absolutely ridiculous..I mean..didn't you hear that dying of thirst is euphoric! -sarc.
I’m actually shocked that this thread has over 100 posts and nobody has tried to say that Terri was “brain dead.”
Come on now...that's Michael was just using the latest slang...-sarc.
It is some government of ours where someone could get arrested for trying to give a dying woman a drink of water. This is where absolute libertarianism fails us all.
Of course, there's still the lack of explanation as to how someone who is "in a permanent vegetative state and totally unaware of anything and unable to express anything" can experience complex emotions like euphoria.
I have to agree. I've spent the last 13yrs working with pediatrics... specifically "medically disabled" children. I can't tell you of ONE family in all those years ...who would have willingly stopped any of their feedings (they were tube fed) or considered their living life, "futile". Some of these children were profoundly retarded...some were quite capable of walking and talking... but every one of them responded positively to being held, touched, stimulated visually or spoken to in a kind manner.
Each child/person has their own level of conciousness... when brain injured...but the one thing that baffles science is the presence of a strong "spirit". It can't be measured with tools...it can only be observed and experienced.
I believe God has a purpose for creating each and every person, undetermined by mere man. To pick and choose who is worthy or unworthy of receiving medical care.... then trying to relieve our consciences by determining they were a "body in a bed anyway" or "usurping valuable resources", is treading thin ice IMHO.
Tell that to a Holy and Righteous God when you stand before Him upon judgement...(and we all will) when He was the one who told us "And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward." /rant.
The brain dead know who they are.
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