Posted on 10/17/2003 2:03:11 PM PDT by mr_griz
AFTER ALL THE YEARS, ALL THE fighting, all the bitter recriminations, there were remarkably few tears on Oct. 15 when Terri Schiavo finally had her feeding tube removed. Maybe the crowd of 80 or so gathered outside the hospice facility in western Florida were too angry to cry, or too numb.
For her part, Carla Sauer was just too tired. "I've been pulling for Terri since 1995," she said as she sank uncertainly onto a three-legged stool to rest the sandal-clad feet she'd been standing on for five hours. "I still can't believe it's come to this."
"This," apparently, is the end of the line in the long fight to keep Ms. Schiavo alive. A Florida judge on Oct. 14 refused two final appeals from her parents, clearing the way for the removal of the feeding tube that's kept her alive for a half-dozen years. Without the tube, the 39-year-old will slowly starve to death. It should take about 14 days.
That's precisely the outcome her husband, Michael, has been pushing for. Claiming that Terri has been a vegetable since she collapsed after a heart attack in 1990, Mr. Schiavo says he is simply honoring a request made by his young bride: That he not allow doctors to prolong her life through artificial means.
Terri's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, doubt she ever made such a request. But even if she did, they argue that a feeding tube is not the same as artificial life support. Her vital organs function on their own, she smiles and laughs at the sound of her loved ones' voices, and she has no terminal illness that threatens her life. If she simply has someone who cares enough to feed her, she could live for another 50 years—a condition not terribly different from that of thousands of other severely disabled persons.
"She's not a vegetable," Ms. Sauer insisted as she rested her tired feet. "She knows voices, she responds. She can follow commands, and she tries to communicate by blinking her eyelids 'yes' and 'no.'" And then there's the most important detail of all: "We used to feed her with a spoon, and she swallowed on her own."
That was seven years ago, when Ms. Sauer was a nurse at a rehab facility in Largo, Fla. At that time, Ms. Schiavo was getting physical therapy and full-time attention from skilled nurses. But the facility charged $4,000 a month, as Ms. Sauer recalls, and Mr. Schiavo soon chose to discontinue his wife's therapy and move her into the much cheaper hospice system. She's languished there for six years, tethered to a feeding tube while a fierce legal battle swirled around her.
The Schindlers argued that they should be named as Terri's guardians, in part because Mr. Schiavo now has a new girlfriend and a young child. Just because he's ready to move on with his life, they said, he should not be allowed to end Terri's. When a series of judges sided with Mr. Schiavo, the Schindlers appealed to the court of public opinion: They smuggled a video camera into their daughter's room—against a judge's orders—to show the world she could still laugh and smile and respond to affection.
With Terri now dying slowly, that video may be the Schindlers' final memory of their daughter. Rather than watching by her bedside, they are parked in a camper across the street. Bob Schindler has been charged with contempt of court, and he and his wife cannot visit their daughter without Mr. Schiavo's permission—or his lawyer.
The family tragedy, as painful as it is to watch, is only a part of a larger picture. Advocates for the disabled fear that Terri Schiavo's death could set a chilling precedent. "This is deplorable," Joni Eareckson Tada told WORLD in the midst of a whirlwind of press conferences and rallies. "What's happening here is just a part of a larger effort to class persons with severe cognitive disabilities as non-persons. Terri is not brain dead, she's not in a coma, she's not terminally ill. We have people who attend our weekend retreats who are more severely disabled. Yet the courts have washed their hands of this. Medical personnel are forbidden to deliver any food or water. She's being denied her right to humane treatment under state law.
"This case is a watershed for people with disabilities," Mrs. Tada said. "Removal of the feeding tube means you are promoting active euthanasia. As a quadriplegic woman, that's a frightening precedent."
I know if it were me...I would do it just like that...and upon arriving would ask those in the vigil to join in and support us by simply entering the hosptial with us.
If 100 people come down that hall intent on getting her out of there...I seriously doubt the police will shoot at the time. If it were me...I would go ahead with it enven if they did shott...and then God have mercy on them because as long as I could draw breath I would still keep coming to get my daughter out.
The state is killing her. Plain and simple. They are doing it on the say so of her husband who obviously is not interested in or committed to Terri's survival or honor. His testimony and motive are suspect at best.
Those killing her, regardless of their state affiliation or sanction are criminals. I wish I were in a position like Hannity or Geln Beck or one of those guys. I would contact the family and ask if they wanted help getting her out, and then mobilise 10,000 people to show up to take her out of there and dare the authorities to do anything about it.
In the end...I believe the government would relent, like the did at Klamath Falls when push came to shove and it was clear that people were willing to risk their life and all to do what was right.
Yes.
And you know this how?
It's been documented to timbuktu and back, which you'd know if you'd done any research on the matter.
You are only embarassing yourself by demonstrating your ignorance when you shoot from the hip.
Don't come breezing into town at the eleventh hour and try to go pumping sunshine up our asses, OK?
I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but your combination of ignorance and arrogance is not appreciated at the moment.
And your point is what?
That those kind of folks are not allowed to speak out for Terri, who had no living will?
I am against the death penalty.
Am I allowed to say Terri should not be dehydrated?
Plenty.
You're late to the game. Not to offend you, but the best thing you can do if you want the answer to that is to go to Terri's website and read the documents posted there over the past two days -- documents that spell out exactly what he can do -- written by the best legal minds in the country, AT HIS REQUEST.
You'll excuse us if we're not exactly overjoyed over his duplicity. You see, he first said that if there was ANYTHING he could do, he'd do it -- and, that he'd asked these folks to let him know what he could do.
So they did.
And he didn't.
Spineless, gutless, Bush Wimp Factor at work.
Link?
In order to go into Hospice a doctor has to certify that the patient has a "terminal illness" and that if the illness runs it's normal course the patient will die within 6 months.
Someone in Medicare is not doing their job if they haven't looked at why this patient has been on Hospice for 6 years
Conservative attorneys urging Bush to intervene in Schiavo case
No wonder Judge 'kill'um' Greer shouted, "I don't want anyone feeding that girl," when Terri's sister showed up with a cup of pudding for her visit with Terri recently!
1. I am not a lawyer. I am a writer.
2. I am in Michigan, not Florida.
3. I am physically disabled, costing Blue Cross upwards of fifty grand a year, making me a prime candidate for... "treatment", when it becomes legal to "balance the books" using the techniques under discussion.
You call for Bush's head on a pike, yet you have nothing to show for your efforts.
What a snotty accusation to make.
You have no idea of what I've to show for my efforts, as you've no idea what my efforts are. And you won't know, either, because they're none of your business. What I do for the Schindler family is between me, them, and their representatives.
I'm sorry, but I don't seem to see you in that picture.
BINGO !!!
I agree.
As someone in the medical profession, I know that stopping feeding and hydration occurs rather frequently. The long death vigil then begins. The family suffers two weeks of mental torture. The patient, those who claim to know say, "feels nothing".
I honestly don't know what the patient feels.
Maybe they don't feel anything. Maybe, in between the bouts of morphine drip induced sleep, they wake up to a semi-conscious state where they feel a raging thirst before drifting off again.
I have come to a conclusion about what I want at the end of life and it is not to be starved or dehydrated to death. If I am to be killed, I want to killed by turning up the morphine drip.
If society is going to decide to terminate life, then society should be up front about it. If you are going to do it, then do it quickly and humanely.
We don't starve dogs to death at the pound. My choice, when I go, is that I want to be treated as least as well as a dog.
What? So she was in rehab? As you say, the stories keep changing.
I am assuming she had no idea that any comment she made would lead to her being put through an awful death like this.
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