What's the Rush?

ProLifeblogs ^ | June 27 2007 | plb

[8mmMauser]

That's the question Bobby Schindler asked in the case involving Jesse Ramirez, the Arizona man whose case paralleled that of Schindler's sister, Terri Schiavo, until Ramirez woke up. The Arizona Republic reports:

...Bobby Schindler of the Florida-based Terri Schindler Shiavo Foundation placed the blame on a medical establishment quick to dismiss patients with brain injuries.

Schindler is the brother of Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged Florida woman who died in 2005 after a decades-long court battle.

"What is the rush?" he asked. "This is not the first time we've heard of cases like this where doctors want to write off the chance of recovery, and the family, when they're told this, will make a decision to end a person's life.

"In the case of Mr. Ramirez, he'd be dead now."

Why is Jesse alive? His family sought legal intervention with the help of the Alliance Defense Fund:

His siblings and parents refused to give him up for dead, and today, Jesse Ramirez is alive and conscious.

Two weeks ago, he was the center of a family battling over of whether he should live or die.

Now, he can hug and kiss, nod his head, answer yes and no questions, give a thumbs-up sign and sit in a chair.

Related:

A Miracle for Jesse Ramirez and His Family

Jesse Ramirez Conscious, Moved To Rehab Facility

Accident victim awakens

[T'wit]

How can even a reporter say anything this stupid? -- "Schiavo made headlines when her husband received court permission to remove her feeding tube while she was in a coma."

Terri was not in a coma. Even the dreaded PVS is not being "in a coma" but rather, a condition after you wake up from a coma.

[T'wit]

>> Could we suggest Charlie and the Chimps are a team?

The team would have all the trolls around here who lobbied so fiercely for Charlie before they marched off to their wanking new site.

[8mmMauser]

ProLifeBlogs posted this on Bobby...

..................................

Healthcare providers stopped feeding Terri Schiavo for the purpose of ending her life. Terri's brother, Bobby Schindler, and Presidential candidate Sam Brownback called this "killing" today at West Des Moines' Crossroads Fellowship Church (this article ). I agree with them. "Her life remained sacred to the very end," Brownback was quoted by the Desmoines Register as saying. "Whether it's a child in the womb or it's somebody that has had a very difficult situation...she nonetheless remains a person and she shouldn't be artificially, or by humans, terminated. Instead, we should protect these lives."

Was she killed or not?

8mm

[8mmMauser]

That might be Charlie, Chimps, and Chumps...

[8mmMauser]

Diago has a good one, on this thread on Sanger...

Thanks for the ping, diago.

We do not know exactly what Margaret Sanger said at the Silver Lake Klan Rally when she spoke there 81 years ago, but if she could have predicted the devastation her organization would bring upon the Black community, the racists would have gone away very happy. If the goal of the Ku Klux Klan 81 years ago was to wreak havoc and death upon the African-American community, Margaret Sanger could proudly report today: "Mission Accomplished!"

Margaret Sanger to Ku Klux Klan 81 Years Later: "Mission Accomplished!"

8mm

[T'wit]

Must take my leave for the moment. Later....

[T'wit]

Was she killed or not? (Hint: you bet she was killed!)

Here's a final installment from law Professor Snead discussing the reversible legal error Greer made about Jackie Rhodes's testimony, and the four pathetic statements by Michael Schiavo, his brother and his sister in law, that he used to execute Terri Schiavo. Not one of these statements holds up to the required legal standards. Taken together, they are a farcical case. All of them were coached by George Felos, and they all appear to be shaped to Felos's legal "kill" strategy rather than being genuine recollections. The comments by Joan Schiavo were a scatterbrained cascade of illogic that sounded like a skit by Gracie Allen and "I Love Lucy."

Quite a bit of reading here, but it's worth it for those who take an interest in the law and the truth. (To save space I omitted numerous legal footnotes.)

"At the January 2000 trial, the court heard from five witnesses who recounted past comments by Ms. Schiavo ostensibly relating to her end-of-life preferences. Two witnesses, Mary Schindler (Ms. Schiavo’s mother) and Diane Meyer (Ms. Schiavo’s childhood friend) testified that, based on conversations with Ms. Schiavo about the widely publicized Quinlan case (involving a dispute about termination of life sustaining measures), they believed that Ms. Schiavo would not, under the circumstances, elect to decline artificial nutrition and hydration.43 An additional witness, Jackie Rhodes, testified that in the many times she and Ms. Schiavo had visited her grandmother in a nursing home, Ms. Schiavo never expressed to her that she would wish to decline artificial nutrition and hydration were she ever to fall into a profoundly dependent condition. Three witnesses: Michael Schiavo, Scott Schiavo (Mr. Schiavo’s brother), and Joan Schiavo (Mr. Schiavo’s sister-in-law) testified that Ms. Schiavo had, at various times, expressed her desire to decline life sustaining measures under certain circumstances.

"In making its decision, the court discounted the testimony of Rhodes, Schindler, and Meyer. Judge Greer deemed the Schindler testimony to be unreliable based on his understanding that Ms. Schiavo’s comments weremade in 1976 (the year in which Judge Greer thought Ms. Quinlan had died), when Ms. Schiavo was only 11 or 12 years of age.44 In fact, Judge Greer’s understanding of the Quinlan chronology was mistaken -- Karen Ann Quinlan died in 1985, which would suggest that Ms. Schiavo’s remarks could have been made when she was between the ages of seventeen and twenty (as Ms. Schindler had originally asserted at the hearing). Similarly, Judge Greer discounted the Meyer testimony based on the same error; he regarded Meyer’s testimony as uncredible because Meyer implied that Karen Quinlan was still alive in 1982.45 Judge Greer was “mystified” by Meyer’s testimony, and concluded that the conversation must have taken place in the 1970s, when Ms. Schiavo was a child.46 But this, of course, was not necessarily so. Thus, Judge Greer discounted evidence that Ms. Schiavo would not choose to decline artificial nutrition and hydration, based in significant part, on an easily verifiable factual error about a historical event.

"Far more troubling than what the Florida court discounted as credible, was what it took to be “clear and convincing.” Judge Greer’s conclusion that Ms. Schiavo would want, under the circumstances, to decline artificial nutrition and hydration, relied entirely on four statements she allegedly made regarding her own treatment in the event that she should become profoundly disabled. First, the court relied on Mr. Schiavo’s testimony that many years prior on a train ride, Ms. Schiavo stated that if she “ever had to be a burden to anybody like [her uncle was to her grandmother], [she didn’t] want to live like that.”47 Ms. Schiavo’s uncle had been in a car accident, and was disabled: his right arm was paralyzed, he walked with a severe limp, and had slurred speech.48 Ms. Schiavo’s elderly and ailing grandmother was the sole caretaker for the uncle. Second, Mr. Schiavo testified that he and Ms. Schiavo watched documentaries involving disabled individuals who were profoundly dependent upon others. In response to the suffering of these patients, Ms. Schiavo purportedly asked Mr. Schiavo not to “keep her alive on anything artificial.”49

"The third statement relied upon by the court was the testimony of Scott Schiavo that in 1986, at the funeral following the death of his grandmother, Ms. Schiavo made remarks indicating what her views were regarding life sustaining measures.50 Scott Schiavo’s grandmother had been maintained at the end of her life solely by a host of life sustaining machinery against her clearly stated wishes. According to Scott Schiavo’s testimony, the interventions sustaining his grandmother included “something that is breathing for you . . . [and devices that] pump blood [into your heart] and oxygen to your brain and everything else.”51 He described the machinery as “lifting [her] off the bed for air. . . [and causing] her chest [to] pump[]up.”52 At the funeral for his grandmother, all of the grandchildren were expressing their anger that the grandmother had been “kept alive on a machine” against her wishes, “after she was gone.”53 According to Scott Schiavo, Ms. Schiavo added her thoughts in response to the suffering of the Schiavo grandmother, and stated, “if I ever go like that, just let me go. Don’t leave me there. I don’t want to be kept alive on a machine.”54 This comment – made at the reception following the Schiavo grandmother’s funeral – was the only remark Scott Schiavo ever recalled Ms. Schiavo making about life sustaining measures.55 Curiously, Scott Schiavo failed to mention this one instance to anyone until nine years after Ms. Schiavo became severely cognitively disabled and profoundly dependent.

"The final comment relied upon by Judge Greer to support his conclusion regarding Ms. Schiavo’s wishes was reported by Joan Schiavo, Mr. Schiavo’s sister-in-law....56 Joan Schiavo testified that: We had watched a movie one time on television. It was about somebody. I don’t remember. It was about a guy who had an accident and he was in a comma [sic]. There was no help for him. We had stated that if that ever happened to one of us, in our lifetime, we would not want to go through that. That we would want it stated in our will we would want the tubes and everything taken out.57 Joan Schiavo further testified that she thought that the character in the movie was sustained on a “breathing machine” or a “feeding machine.”58 Joan Schiavo added, however, “I don’t remember the movie. I really don’t remember the movie.”59 Nevertheless, she seemed to recall that the character’s condition was terminal, and that he died within “months to a year,”60 though she added again that she wasn’t sure about this aspect of the movie either.61 Joan Schiavo... failed to mention this conversation until nine years following Ms. Schiavo’s collapse and disability.

"These four statements were the sum and substance of the evidence upon which Judge Greer based his conclusion that Ms. Schiavo would want to terminate artificial nutrition and hydration under the circumstances presented. That such evidence would be regarded as “clear and convincing” is nothing short of astonishing. To the contrary, all of the foregoing comments are paradigmatic examples of statements that courts routinely deem to be presumptively unreliable. First, all of the four statements were “general, remote, and made in casual circumstances.” All of the statements were made at least five years prior to Ms. Schiavo’s collapse. Two of the four statements were made while watching television or movies; one was made during a casual conversation on a train; one was made during an informal (and highly emotionally charged) conversation at a reception following a funeral. Each statement could also fairly be characterized has an “off-hand remark about not wanting to live under certain circumstances made by a person when young and in the peak of health.”

"Most damningly, all of the statements attributed to Ms. Schiavo were “made in response to seeing or hearing about another’s prolonged death,” a category of comment that courts regularly dismiss as unreliable. Compounding this error, all of the statements were made in response to circumstances factually dissimilar to Ms. Schiavo’s. Ms. Schiavo’s condition was non-terminal. She was not in a coma. Most experts have described her condition as a “persistent vegetative state,” characterized by “the absence of cognitive behavior of any kind, and an inability to communicate or interact purposefully with the environment.”62 She was not maintained on a ventilator or other “machine.” She did, however, receive artificial nutrition and hydration by means of a PEG tube.

"By contrast, Ms. Schiavo’s uncle’s condition was nothing like hers – he suffered from paralysis in one arm, difficulty walking, and slurred speech. Likewise, Ms. Schiavo’s condition did not resemble those of the terminally ill comatose character from the movie she and Joan Schiavo purportedly viewed together (to the extent that Joan Schiavo was able to recall the details of this film). Nor was Ms. Schiavo’s condition like that of the Schiavo grandmother, who was terminally ill and required all manner of invasive machinery to sustain her life. Finally, it is not clear at all that Ms. Schiavo’s condition matched those of the individuals in the documentaries that Mr. Schiavo claimed that they watched together. If Judge Greer had followed the well-developed body of persuasive authority for interpreting such evidence, he would have been compelled to conclude that these statements were not sufficient to support a decision to terminate life-sustaining measures for Ms. Schiavo.

"In another departure from the well-established jurisprudence in this area, Judge Greer chose to rely on statements that were near verbatim examples of comments that courts uniformly deem presumptively unreliable. Specifically, Judge Greer pointed to Ms. Schiavo’s remarks that she “would not want to be a burden,” and that she would not want to be sustained “on anything artificial” or “on a machine” as a basis for his decision to withdraw her PEG tube.

"Finally, in crediting the testimony of Michael Schiavo, Judge Greer relied on evidence that was patently “equivocal and contradictory.” Mr. Schiavo’s testimony that his wife would want to cease life-sustaining measures, based on his recollection of prior conversations, squarely contradicted his own testimony given under oath in prior judicial proceedings. First, during the damages phase of a medical malpractice suit brought on his wife’s behalf shortly after her collapse, Mr. Schiavo requested compensatory damages sufficient to care for her “for the rest of [his] life.”63 Indeed, he testified that he was studying to become a nurse so that he could care for her for the rest of her life, which was not expected to be cut short by her disability.64 At this trial he made no mention of the fact that, based on her prior expressed wishes, he would shortly thereafter decide against sustaining her life by artificial means. But this is precisely the decision that Mr. Schiavo made – a fact that caused Guardian ad Litem Richard Pearse to view with deep skepticism the entirety of Mr. Schiavo’s comments regarding his wife’s wishes.65

"Moreover, Mr. Schiavo’s account of his wife’s wishes directly contradicted comments that he made in a November 1993 deposition in which he discussed his decision not to treat his wife’s urinary tract infection. Mr. Schiavo stated that it was his desire at that point to allow Ms. Schiavo to succumb to the infection, because this is what she would have wanted under the circumstances.66 However, when asked why he refused to take the advice of a physician who suggested that Mr. Schiavo remove her feeding tube (because, according to the physician Ms. Schiavo had “died four years ago”), Mr. Schiavo responded “I couldn’t do that to Terry [sic].” [emphasis added]

[T'wit]

As we have just seen, Professor Snead was aghast at the Greer Court's complete lack of legal standards for killing Terri. But the case is much worse than even he painted it.

1) Prof. Snead missed Judge Greer's illegal order to deny Terri food or water orally. The law allows only the removal of the PEG tube, not denying the patient water, food, or ice chips in the mouth to relieve her agony. In other words, Judge Greer issued an illegal order to execute Terri.

2) Professor Snead also missed the impossibility of Terri being able to make an informed choice. He did point out that informed choice is central to the whole concept of patient autonomy, so it's surprising he let this one get by. Feeding tubes were not extraordinary care when she was injured (and shouldn't be now!). The law was changed after her injury. Terri therefore could not possibly have made an informed choice for the option of removing the PEG tube and dying the horrible death of dehydration that she was subjected to.

3) Prof. Snead (I suppose rightly in a legal essay) omits the affidavits by Michael's girl friends and Terri's nurses indicating that Michael did NOT know Terri's wishes and was getting rid of her out of spite and for the money. ("I'm going to be rich! Isn't that b*tch dead yet?")

4) I won't tax him for it, but Prof. Snead innocently wrote that Terri "collapsed" back in 1990. However, the odds are very high that she was the victim of assault by the very man who was putting her to death in court.

And after all the years of Michael swearing up and down that Terri would have wished to die, look at the two dinky remarks by her that Michael was able to come up with in his testimony. Two trivial, inadmissible off-the-cuff remarks that meant nothing. This was his ENTIRE case that Terri wished to die and that he was just being a loving husband! This is what he came up with many years late, after testifying to exactly the opposite, and after the malpractice award was made giving him a huge financial interest in her death.

[T'wit]

>> the reversible legal error Greer made about Jackie Rhodes's testimony

Sorry, it was Diane Meyer's testimony about Quinlan, not Jackie Rhodes's.

[floriduh voter]

Charlie Crist will be a one termer. He ignored the hugest civilrights case on the planet TERRI SCHINDLER SCHIAVO and now he’s betraying every other citizen of Florida. Live it up, Charlie. He’s a sociopath, wouldn’t you agree?

[8mmMauser]

Sorry, Charlie, I agree with FV.

[8mmMauser]

These people are supposed to favor science and are presumed to be smarter than us mere mortals, but they cannot see the obvious, like still swallowing that lie that Terri was on life support. It is just the opposite of what they purport, as Terri was living just fine and was given "medicine" to die.

End-of-life issues top the list of ethical dilemmas hospitals face as medical progress enables doctors to extend an endangered life to the hard-to-determine point where they may actually only be dragging out death.

Private dramas like these play out in hospitals every day, rarely hitting the headlines as did the family feud over ending life support for Terri Schiavo in the United States in 2005 or a British couple's fight to save their severely handicapped baby Charlotte Wyatt in 2003 when doctors wanted to give up on her.

These patients used to just die naturally, but now it might be doctors, hospital ethics committees or courts that decide if and when to let them. The more science discovers, especially about the brain, the harder it can get to make that decision.

"The ability of medicine to keep people alive for such long periods of time -- despite their best efforts to die -- has changed the way people perceive the end of life," said Susan desJardins, a pediatric cardiologist and member of the ethics committee at Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando, Florida.

When to let go? Medicine's top dilemma

8mm

[8mmMauser]

This is an important thread for Terri List fighters. It is a call to action by Bobby Schindler, too.

Murder pays, for some, a lot. Dr. Death makes a killing in this thread by wagglebee.

July 17, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - ACCENT, the University of Florida student government funded speaker's bureau has confirmed that Dr. Jack Kevorkian has accepted a $50,000 speaking engagement at the University.

~Snip~

One person who was especially disturbed by the information that Kevorkian was being paid a hefty sum to speak to University students is the brother of Terri Schiavo, Bobby Schindler. While in prison Kevorkian had stated in an interview that he would have killed Terri Schiavo, had her husband asked him to.

In that interview, the interviewee asked Kevorkian about Terri Schiavo's death by starvation and dehydration: "Do you think after watching it that America has sort of changed its mood toward what you did?" Kevorkian responded, "If they're rational, I think they would." He continued by saying that he would have killed Terri had his husband asked him earlier. "After all that long period of time in a coma, I think she would qualify," he said.

Doctor "Death" Kevorkian to Speak at Florida University for $50,000 Speaking Fee

8mm

[8mmMauser]

This thread by wagglebee is on organ harvest in the UK.

England, July 17, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Britain's Chief Medical Officer has urged that in order to meet the growing organ transplant demand, legislation should make organ donation the default for patients.

Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson stated in Britain's annual health report this year that the United Kingdom needs three times the number of organ donors on the National Health Service (NHS) register, the Guardian Unlimited reports. He referred to the present situation in the UK as a transplant "crisis."

UK Chief Medical Officer Pushes for Automatic Organ Donation

8mm

[nicmarlo]

they cannot see the obvious, like still swallowing that lie that Terri was on life support. It is just the opposite of what they purport, as Terri was living just fine and was given "medicine" to die.

Romans 1:22

Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools

[8mmMauser]

Thank goodness! Thread from wagglebee on a Minnesota court reversal...

MINNEAPOLIS, July 17, (LifeSiteNews.com) - On Thursday, July 12, the Minnesota Supreme Court handed down a ruling reversing the criminal convictions of pro-life protesters Ron Rudnick and Luke Otterstad.

The pair was convicted for displaying large signs on an overpass on two occasions in the Twin Cities suburb of Anoka, Minnesota just weeks before the 2004 national elections. One sign displayed a large color photo of the aborted infant, "Baby Malachi," while next to it was a large handwritten sign that branded a local Congressional candidate as "pro-abortion."

Minnesota Supreme Court Overturns Convictions of Pro-Lifers Who Held Graphic Signs

8mm

[8mmMauser]

Some Swiss got tired of the body bags all the time, and ousted the killing factory. They had their own gore to deal with. Thread by wagglebee...

ZURICH, Switzerland, July 17, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Swiss assisted-suicide group Dignitas has been evicted from its operation site in a suburban area due to growing complaints from neighbors.

For nine years the assisted-suicide clinic at Gertrudstrasse 84 received people who wanted to kill themselves, Spiegel News reports. The organization took up two apartments of the apartment block; but recently the owner cancelled their lease because residents were horrified by the stream of body bags that were carried out on the elevator and are frustrated by the police and ambulances that constantly come to the door.

Neighbor's Complaints Succeed in Evicting Dignitas from Residence (Swiss Euthanasia Company)

8mm

[8mmMauser]

It comes as no surprise for us, but perhaps for some who unwittingly sipped the Kool Aid. Thread from Coleus...

According to a study by the Coma Science Group of the University of Liège, Belgium, up to half the patients in an acute vegetative state regain some level of consciousness. Results of the study are also consistent with previous studies showing that at least 40% of patients deemed to be in a persistent vegetative state are misdiagnosed. “The study showed how very hard it is to disentangle the minimally conscious state from the vegetative state,” says Dr. Steven Laureys. And in cases that health workers diagnosed as minimally conscious, 10% were actually communicating functionally.

Comparing past studies on this issue shows that the level of misdiagnosis has not decreased in the past 15 years.

Persistent vegetative state misdiagnosed 40% of time; patient slated for Schiavo-style death awakens

8mm

[T'wit]

>> -- despite their best efforts to die --

Now there's a new idea. Everybody in the hospital is trying desperately to die, but the evil doctors keep them alive -- no doubt on machines that have tubes.

I have a counter offer. If you want to die, stay home. Besides, have you seen what hospitals cost these days? You'll save thousands and thousands of dollars. Leave hospitals for people who want to get well.

Another good idea would be to leave editorial writing to people who aren't sick in the head like this guy.

[T'wit]

>> “The study showed how very hard it is to disentangle the minimally conscious state from the vegetative state,” says Dr. Steven Laureys.

Well, medically it may be difficult. On a personal level, it's just a question of how much money you can steal by snuffing the patient. Sometimes you can pay lawyers half a million dollars to diagnose PVS and still come out ahead.