Posted on 09/21/2003 12:13:53 PM PDT by pc93
Terri's Call to Action Part 1 is over 5000 posts. If you don't want to get caught up to speed at Part 1:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/971896/posts?q=1&&page=5167#5167
Simply visit Terri's official web site at:
http://www.terrisfight.org
There are contact numbers at her web site for her core media team, legislators, media and for press updates.
See flash movies of Terri interacting with her mother, responding to a physician and see for yourself that she's not in PVS "persistant vegetative state").
In addition to access a text file with a lot of information see:
http://bellsouthpwp.net/p/c/pc93/FedCourtDktCaseNo8_03-cv-1860-T-26TGW.txt
If you want to join Terri's fight, it's important for us to CONTACT BUREAUCRATS, THE MEDIA and also your friends and family. It's up to you how you choose to Help Terri.
Pinellas Pasco Judge Greer set October 15, 2003 at 2:00 p.m. for her feeding tube to be removed. There's something wrong with Florida's exit protocols and the way the courts handle new information re: criminality (misrepresentation, attempted murder, etc.) affecting a case. There was no living will, only the assertion of a very suspect, so-called husband, his brother, etc. that Terri would not want to live on life support. Terri is not on life support, she is not comatose or PVS and she is not living "artificially". She does get sustenance from a feeding tube but only because she has been denied rehabilitation by her so-called husband after he won a malpratice lawsuit three years after her collapse (cause unknown but probably due to strangulation or physical abuse, or both) which is why Terri needs an army of supporters to spread her story from coast to coast. Terri has retained rights that are being sidestepped because she is disabled and has been denied rehabilitation! The technologies of rehabilitation have greatly improved exponentially yet Judge Greer has not let Terri have a chance to learn to eat or to be able to learn to speak/communicate again. Also new information bearing on the case which shows criminality on husband's side has not been considered by the 2nd District Court of Appeals who handed down Mandate for termination of Terri's feeding based upon testimony of criminal husband and brother as above stated. Who is next?
Let's make a difference! Thank you for your efforts.
A Minnesota family's decision to stop medical treatment of their son has erupted into a public battle over the rights of disabled people in the United States. Jamie Butcher was 17 when a car crash left him unconscious in October 1977. Five years later Ronald Cranford, a neurologist from Minneapolis, diagnosed Jamie as being in a persistent vegetative state.
The Butcher family continued to care for Jamie, first for seven years at home and then in a nursing home. This year, almost 17 years after the accident, his mother, Pattie Butcher, announced that the family had decided that Jamie would never regain consciousness, and they asked doctors to remove his feeding tube.
The family contacted Dr Cranford, an expert in the persistent vegetative state, and went through standard procedures to assess whether this was the best course of action for Jamie. The procedures included a neurological re-evaluation, consultation with an ethics committee, and further family discussions. Unlike many states, Minnesota generally leaves patients, families, and their doctors to decide when to withdraw treatment.
Dr Cranford said that he had no reason to think that Jamie's case would cause a legal problem. But the local prosecutor was concerned about a state law that was designed to protect the rights of so called "vulnerable adults"--those who might be unfairly treated because of some disability. The courts quickly decided that because Jamie was in a persistent vegetative state he could not be classed as vulnerable and that he had loving parents to protect him.
But at the last minute two groups that represent disabled patients asked the courts to reconsider and to appoint an unrelated guardian to represent Jamie's "best interests." The state court may rule this week, and Dr Cranford is confident that the family's wishes will prevail. But he and others fear that the case may be the first of many. "These 'pro-life' advocates have been losing ground in the US Supreme Court on the abortion issue, so what we're seeing is a turn toward more violence, such as the murder of two doctors at a Florida abortion clinic and cases like this one, involving decisions at the other end of life," said Dr Cranford.
Jane Hoyt, the leader of those groups opposing the withdrawal of treatment, says that patients in a persistent vegetative state are vulnerable and that suffering families may not be the best people to decide what is in these patients' best interests.
About 14 000 Americans are believed to exist in a persistent vegetative state. Federal courts have given each state the power to choose its own course regarding these patients, and many have chosen to make it difficult for families to stop medical treatments. It was thus ironic that Minnesota, considered to be one of the most liberal states, found itself in a legal bind over a law meant to protect vulnerable patients (such as those who are mentally ill) and to ensure them "food, shelter, clothing, and health care."
A similar law exists at federal level: the Americans with Disabilities Act, which ensures that disabled people will not be "unfairly discriminated against." Legal experts disagree about definitions, but many say that "disabled" means to have limits, and that a person has to have some awareness of those limits to qualify as being disabled. Patients in a persistent vegetative state have no awareness.
"It is these well-meaning laws that now are being turned around and misapplied in the courts by the 'pro-lifers,'" said Dr Cranford. He said that these patients did not have "interests" to protect since they had no working cerebral cortex.
Most of them had families who were willing to make painful decisions quietly among themselves. "But now they are being thrust into the public and legal arenas by 'pro-life' lawyers and advocates," he said. Although only a handful of cases have arisen similar to Jamie Butcher's, Dr Cranford expects many more.
Is that a fact, or your opinion?
That call is up to the judge, not Terri's team.
How very sad. They have my deepest sympathies.
Third, the Court will conduct a hearing on the Plaintiff's Motion for Preliminary Injunction on Friday, October 10, 2003, at 1:30 p.m., in Courtroom 15B, United States Courthouse, 801 North Florida Avenue, Tampa, Florida. At the hearing, the parties shall be prepared to address whether Robert and Mary Schindler have standing to claim a deprivation of their daughter's constitutional rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, see, e.g., Coon v. Ledbetter, 780 F. 2d 1158, 1160-61 (5th Cir. 1986)(and cases cited), and, if not, whether this Court should appoint a guardian ad litem or next friend to prosecute the claims of their daughter under Rules of Civil Procedure, in this case. See Gardner v. Parsons, 874 F. 2d 131 (3d Cir. 1989).From another website
Gardner v. Parson, 874 F. 2d 131 (3d Cir. 1989).
More recently, in Gardner by Gardner v. Parson, 874 F.2d 131 (3d Cir. 1989), and Cok v. Cosentino, 876 F.2d 1 (1st Cir. 1989), the Courts of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the First Circuit agreed that a guardian ad litem has absolute quasi-judicial immunity for acts undertaken as guardian. In Gardner by Gardner v. Parson, supra, Patricia Levins was appointed the guardian ad litem of a retarded teenager. The grandmother later sued the guardian for § 1983 violations regarding the teenager's care. Again relying on Briscoe and Kurzawa, the court held that a guardian ad litem, as an officer of the court, was immune from civil rights liability:We would agree that a guardian should be absolutely immune when acting as an "integral part [] of the judicial process." . . . Furthermore, Supreme Court precedent in analogous cases and reasoning of the soundly decided circuit cases, discussed above, counsel the adoption of a functional approach to determining whether a guardian ad litem is absolutely immune. Under this approach, a guardian ad litem would be absolutely immune in exercising functions such as testifying in court, prosecuting custody or neglect petitions, and making reports and recommendations to the court in which the guardian acts as an actual functionary or arm of the court, not only in status or denomination but in reality. This does not exhaust the list of functions which would be absolutely immune, and each function would have to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis.
...Coon v. Ledbetter, 780 F.2d 1158 (5th Cir.1986) (recognizing the constitutional claim of arrestee's daughter, who suffered only emotional trauma in the defendants' assault on the family trailer home).
Newbies, please visit terrisfight.org.
They have blogs where they diary encounters with Jesus fish.
Limbaugh is a blessing to uncover what's been going on under our noses. Terri is just one example of how organized they've become.
Darn, Glenn's doing a show tomorrow about whether a labrador lives or dies. What a waste of a program. I thought it was possibly going to be about Terri.
Well, I guess I'll be emailing Glenn today to REMIND HIM ABOUT TERRI SCHIAVO'S LIFE IN THE BALANCE!
Realize it's not only members of FreeRepublic taking part in this battle with government, and American civilians don't take kindly to a 'dog' tag.
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