Posted on 08/22/2003 1:50:08 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The Florida Supreme Court on Friday declined to get involved in the legal fight over a brain-damaged woman, clearing the way for her husband to have her feeding tube removed so she can die.
Terri Schiavo, 39, has been at the center of a long battle between her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, and her husband, Michael Schiavo.
Michael Schiavo contends his wife would not want to be kept alive in what doctors call a persistent vegetative state. The Schindlers believe she can be rehabilitated and have fought her husband's efforts in the Florida courts.
"The Florida Supreme Court has, in essence, said `We will not intervene,'" said George Felos, a Dunedin attorney representing Michael Schiavo.
The brief order said "no basis for jurisdiction exists" and that no motion for reconsideration would be allowed. All seven justices signed the order.
Felos said the order will be formally transmitted to Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge George Greer at 3 p.m. Monday.
Greer said he likely will set a hearing for around the first week in September to set a date to have the feeding tube removed. He said he didn't know how soon after the hearing that could happen.
"I won't have any idea (about the date) until the hearing is concluded," Greer said Friday. "I need to hear from both the lawyers."
The attorney for the Schindlers, Pat Anderson, said she was consulting with other lawyers to plan her next move.
"Obviously, the family is devastated," Anderson said. "We're just evaluating our options, and no decisions have been made yet."
Terri Schiavo was 26 in 1990 when she suddenly collapsed in her home after her heart stopped from what doctors believe was a potassium imbalance.
Doctors said the loss of oxygen to her brain left her in a state where she can breathe on her own but is reliant on a liquid nutritional supplement and water delivered through a tube.
Although the Schindlers appeals have blocked Michael Schiavo's efforts, Florida courts have so far sided with his legal arguments. Most recently, the 2nd District Court of Appeal decided in June that the feeding tube can be removed.
The Florida Supreme Court previously declined to review the case in April 2001.
In both cases the parents had unrealistic expectations of what therapy could accomplish. The guys had essentially been in a vegetative state for 2-3 years. Both families seemed to believe that if only the young men received enough therapy they'd be back to some semblance of normal. Medicaid and most insurance companies won't pay for treatment that doesn't document true functional progress. I find it really hard to believe that Terry had NO MEDICAL TREATMENT at any point in her course. I'm guessing she had a few weeks of therapy, made no observable progress, was reevaluated to see if anything had changed periodically through the years without much change.
One of the young men we had at the facility had a father who believed that medical science would some day bring his son back. He envisioned a brain transplant, not realizing that if such were possible it would be a body transplant, and the son would become whoever the brain had been in.
The zealousness of the "life at any cost" that kept Baby Jane Doe alive usually is a very emotional but ignorant one.
Without really knowing all the details obviously I'm not an expert as to what condition Terri is in. Judging from the videos though, I'm not convinced she's truly communicating or experiencing pleasure. The so-called laugh or grin looked more like a spasm/grimace.
Surprisingly, sometimes that happens. We had a woman at the nursing home where I worked where the family decided not to replace the the feeding tube at its usual changing time. She had been nonresponsive, without change for months, maybe years. Once they took out the tube and tried to feed her she started to swallow, became more alert, and actually was able to participate some.
That's the nicest thing that could be said of him.
We went through a similar situation in our family. The family member had clearly stated she did not want life prolonging treatment and actually went so far as to put that in a living will, specifically stating she did not want to be tube fed. When she became incapacitated, one family member insisted she be kept alive by tube feeding.
It was horrible to see this woman we once knew and loved reduced to a barely living motionless form, unable to give or recieve joy. We decided not to go to court to enforce the living will because we did not want to have our family divided further.
The person being tube fed lived over two miserable years like that. She was suffered from bed sores. She laid there in a diaper, unmoving, unspeaking, glazed expression.
We could not understand why the one family member went to such great lengths to prolong the life of someone whose life was so obviously over. In the end we decided she was a cruel and self-centered person.
Last I heard on WND the priest was not allowed to see Terri. He was almost thrown out of the hospital on the husband's demand.
God Bless and Keep Terri.
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