Period.
He may have been a bad husband, he may have been a great husband. I don't know. No one knows. What we do know is that he was her husband. Her husband did what he said she would have wanted. Her relatives had no standing because there was a closer family member willing to make the decisions - her husband.
I am shocked over and over that people who say they are pro-family but are so willing to throw the concept of marriage away with both hands because they don't like what this particular husband did.
If there was credible evidence of a crime that this husband committed, it would have been acted on. But there wasn't. I have trouble with the "vast conspiracy" theory that he harmed her and the evidence of it is clear, but there was a vast, far-reaching conspiracy to hide his actions by every judge, District Attorney, doctor and police officer involved.
I vastly prefer that two married people are a unit unto each other, to the alternative: the relatives getting a say in the lives of a married couple. If they ever do, what will stop them from deciding all sorts of issues that should remain between husband and wife?
For the record: I do not agree with what he did, but it weakens the institution of marriage to allow people who don't agree with the spouse to interfere and take over the decision making process.
In Fred Thompson's daughter's case, she had no husband and her dad was her closest family. That was never the case in the Schiavo case.
Period.
No, not period. And that is not "that is the way it has always been."
Spouses have been removed as legal guardians by courts, many times.
The fact that Judge Greer did not remove Michael Schiavo as guardian does not mean there weren't grounds to do so. What happened, in this case, was that Judge Greer obviously (1) was biased against Terri's parents and (2) favored Felos and the euthanasia movement.
Florida law includes provisions by which a guardian can seek a divorce on behalf of an incapacitated ward. If Terri had an honest guardian, such a divorce would have been sought and granted. As Terri's guardian, however, Michael refused to allow such action to be taken on her behalf.
Florida law has procedures by which guardianships may be challenged; the guardians must then justify their actions under oath. Judge Greer initially scheduled the guardianship challenge after Terri was supposed to be dead. When she wasn't killed, he granted a continuance. When the hearing rolled around, Michael's lawyer showed up to say Michael wouldn't appear since Greer hadn't served him in writing. Greer rescheduled for a few weeks out, and again Michael didn't show (because again, he hadn't been notified in writing). Does something not smell funny?
This was lead story in today's St. Pete Times:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1916227/posts