[Robert Drobot]

Thanks for the ping. I just sent off an e-mail to the article's author, Phil Brennan. It reads:

A great article. You wrote:

"....if anybody has seen a video of Schiavo available on "Terrisfight.com", the video shows they will see that she is no way unconscious. An unconscious person is utterly unreactive – in fact that’s how it’s basically defined in Florida law."

"On one video a doctor is shown asking Terri, who has her eyes closed, "Please open your eyes, Terri" – and her eyes flutter and open.

"In another video her mother comes over to her bed, leans down and says, "Hi, sweetie, how are you?" and Terri looks over, sees her mom and gets a huge smile on her face.

That, says Smith, is not a mere reflex; "that is recognition of a mother and the enjoyment of being loved. To say that she’s unconscious is unconscionable."

Mr. Brennan, your readers will not/can not view the video on "Terrisfight.com", because the actual website is "terrisfight.org.".

Any chance you can let the NewsMax readership know where they can see for themselves the video you describe so well in your article?

Terri deserves it, and NewsMax readers do too.

[supercat]

"....if anybody has seen a video of Schiavo available on "Terrisfight.com", the video shows they will see that she is no way unconscious. An unconscious person is utterly unreactive – in fact that’s how it’s basically defined in Florida law."

I haven't seen the videos, but I tend to be somewhat skeptical of video evidence in such cases because there's no way to know what has ended up "on the cutting room floor".

That having been said, however, I find the behavior of those seeking Terri's elimination to be rather interesting. I'm curious, though, how the legalities of divorce would work in a case like this.

If Terri dies while still married to Mr. Schiavo, I think it's pretty clear that her husband inherits all the joint property. What happens if he divorces her first?

Playing devil's advocate here (and I'd welcome people explaining thoroughly why this does not apply) is it possible that Mr. Schiavo and/or his attourney perceives that Terri's family wants to snatch up Terri's portion of Mr. and Mrs. Schiavo's property? It would seem that if Mr. Schiavo were to divorce Terri, then a court would award her half of their combined wealth, and inheritance rules would hand it off to Terri's kin.

There are a number of scenarios I can see here:

1. Terri's family is using Terri as a pawn to get their hands on her money; from Mr. Schiavo's point of view, he was dealt a cruel blow by the loss of his wife, and is trying to get his life back together.
2. Terri's family has Terri's best interests at heart, but Mr. Schiavo doesn't trust them; he was dealt a cruel blow by the loss of his wife, and the family is trying to make it worse by taking half the wealth he and Terri had worked to build.
3. Terri's family and husband would both have Terri's best interest at heart, except that the husband's lawyer has manipulated him into thinking the family is out to grab half the marital assets; consequently he has put Mr. Schiavo into a very bad position where he cannot at this point divorce Terri without losing half the assets.
4. Terri's family has her best interests at heart, and the husband is a murderous SOB who wanted her dead even before her initial collapse.

Certainly the facts fit #4 very well; do they fit any of the others?