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.
Ok, yes, I went back and looked again. I didn't read every article on the page - there are some others from the same time period.
In fact, the only closed head injury which usually may cause bleeding inside the skull involves a fracture of the temporal bone, with rupture of the underlying artery.This is incorrect, as this explains. The two most common types of traumatic intracranial bleeding are epidural, which is usually, but not always associated with fracture, and subdural:
Subdural hemorrhage is often associated with blunt trauma without skull fracture.I have no idea about who did what to whom, but I have to debunk misinformation like this.
Thanks, and good point. All I've been able to find is affidavits. The one I looked at had medical internal contradictions, such that she either looks she doesn't know what she's talking about, or isn't telling the truth. An attorney who had checked out some medicine would have taken those statements apart.
I'll leave the legal part to someone who knows more than I do, but from a medical viewpoint, she isn't very credible when she claims that Terri Schiavo was "alert and oriented." That means something very specific medically. It means that someone has given you name, place, and date. Yet she then describes
Terri spoke on a regular basis while in my presence, saying such things as “mommy,” and “help me.” “Help me” was, in fact, one of her most frequent utterances. I heard her say it hundreds of times. Terri would try to say the word “pain” when she was in discomfort, but it came out more like “pay.” She didn’t say the “n” sound very well. During her menses she would indicate her discomfort by saying “pay” and moving her arms toward her lower abdominal area.Carla Iyer's description of those few simple words doesn't square with Terri Schiavo then saying "Terri Schiavo, convalescent center (I'd accept "hospital"), June 13th 1995."
She failed three swallowing tests, in 1991, 1992 and 1993.
You jumped to a false conclusion that I read the part you refer to. I didn't. What I replied to was some bit about Dr. Thogmartin and Dr. Nelson being co-equal on this case, which they were not.
You remember wrong. The state responded to a complaint that she was TOO credible -- that she had revealed material about a patient that fell within "patient confidentiality." The complaint would have been absurd, had she lied. The matter was dropped.
I wasn't excited :-) I was just chortling at your perplexity that her 2000 testimony wasn't the same as her 1996 testimony. That's pretty easy to explain, sir. They were different.
I also wondered why you didn't mention what the 2000 testimony DID say -- about the fight between Michael and Terri. That is important information! Doctors have to be alert for domestic abuse and violence. You spoke only of what wasn't there -- because you couldn't find the right document -- and obviously missed the critical information that WAS there.
The doctor in question did the brain work for Terri's autopsy. When his competency is called into question due to his past mistakes, it certain casts doubt on his findings in the Schiavo case. (The newspaper item referred to lawyers suing to reopen cases where this doctor's now questionable pathology work had sent their clients to jail.)
Indeed, one of his findings was almost certainly wrong, namely, concerning cortical blindness. This is a clinical, not a postmortem, diagnosis, and the clinical tests a few years earlier did find her sighted. Dr. Nelson's work on this was challenged as a "sampling error." It is also possible, though unlikely, that the discrepancy could be explained by the dehydration Terri experienced destroying what limited vision she had.
>> Good question!
It was a smear, doc.
Pathetic. Here you guys show up within minutes of each other, -- surprise! -- after a long absence, and you still can't come up with anything but ad hominem horse puckeys?
I just quoted the thing, sir. It was from a left-wing (not medical) source criticizing the no-foul-play ruling by the M.E. I gather this story was soon after the event, and may not have had all the facts straight. I quoted them again in #1390 (a different story by the same source, I think it was a year later). In fact, this story was all over the leftist pubs because the congressman was Republican and the circumstances were suspicious.
It does seem passing strange to find a healthy young woman dead with a 7-inch skull fracture and a fist-sized hematoma, among other injuries, in a congressman's office -- and rule out foul play just like that. Sounds more like somebody got her with a baseball bat.
Was her testimony offered in court subject to cross exam or only by affidavit or in her book?
I believe there were a couple of nurse's aides or some such (not sure of titles) whose stories were deemed not believable by the court, and thus not admitted. Was Iyer one of those? My memory is abominable, but I'm thinking there was something along those lines in the GAL report. Will check later if I have time.
Am I correct that "failing" a swallowing test means that she cannot safely take hydration and nutrition orally? That she might aspirate?
It doesn't mean that she can't swallow at all, correct? She did swallow her saliva, of course, and could do so from different positions. She did not drool.
My understanding is that swallowing therapy techniques have improved a lot since 1990. A number of doctors and therapists came forward to say that she should have been given this improved therapy. But Judge Greer wouldn't allow her any testing or therapy.
Yes.
That's all it takes. The judge says, "I don't believe you," and a sworn, first-hand-experience account is tossed down the memory hole.
For the record, though, Judge Greer's court is adjourned and he himself is in the dock this time in the court of history. It is his rulings that are now being examined closely. In the search for truth, Carla Iyer will finally be allowed to tell of her experiences with Terri and with Michael.
As the doctor knows, swallowing is a very basic function. I have pointed out before, our son was at a much lower function level than Terri for all of his 26 years. The doctors and medical staff would try to insist on tubes, but we insisted on trying to feed him. It would have been easier for them if he were on tube. We succeeded.
Never, never, could we dream of his not swallowing, anymore than breathing or blinking, etc. Of course she could swallow. We just wished our own son would have had the level Terri maintained to the end.
They know it, we know it, but they push the falsehood anyway perhaps if long and loud enough someone just might believe it.
So you had a lot of first-hand experience. Thanks for the info.
Let me guess. This will have lots of stuff in it that you didn't read in the media.
Father Rob Johansen's interview with the Schindlers (refers to 1996 Jackie Rhoades [sic] testimony)
I never heard that definition of the term "oriented." It's not in my Webster's dictionary software nor in the top 50 Google links for "oriented." Are you sure it was in use in Florida in 1996?
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