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."
In the end, that is the only way for right to be advanced IMHO...we have been living for many, many years on the sacrifice of those who went before who were willing.
The time may soon be coming when it will be our turn to either show that commitment...or lose our liberty and way of life. Things like this make me believe that the time is more nearly upon us than most imagine.
Excuse my ignorance, I have not seen anyone indicate that Teri made her wishes clear in a way that we can see, other than the claimed statement made to her husband. Please point me to anything where she indicates she wants to live in this state.
Your protestations about my questions, without an answer, leave me to belive you were using your opinions in place of her's.
I there isn't...then society must err on the side of life in such cases. She has relatives who will take care of her. She is not comatose or unconscious. To kill her without that clear evidence that this is what she wants is tatamount to murder.
Even if she did want it...in this case, with her physical situation being what it is, it would be assisted suicide which is illegal in Florida I believe.
The burden must be on those wanting to kill her...not the other way around. Otherwise we have already bought full into the culture of death and much worse is not far around the corner IMHO.
I have stated what I would do if I were in the same circumstances with one of my own. I pray someone there can get something done short of that...and if not that they will have the fortitude and moral clarity to do more and force the government's hand.
Unfortunately, that is what it is going to take IMHO.
That is what it took in Klamath.
At the risk of getting slammed by another one of you, I would like to point out how dangerous it is to rely on stories told by only one side of a issue.
I hesitated before posting what I posted, because I believe that the person who sent me the information is of the same mind.
There are times I am really leery of reading between the lines. I ask myself what I would say if the worst had happened. Well, turns out I very well might say what I was told above, given the broken heart as I said it.
I just don't know. I'll report back with any updates I get.
Gee, ya think maybe that might be why I aimed the guy at the other side? The side other than the one that's filled his head with mush?
Ya think?
Having said that, and having done my own reading...my own opinion is that this woman is being killed by the state in a manner that is unfit for an animal...and that it is being done for suspect reasoning and motives at the best.
Without compelling evidence (and I have seen none) that it was her own wish that the food be turned off under these specific types of conditions...and without a real medical effort being made to ascertain if that is still her desire (and I have seen no evidence that any impartial effort has been made to ascertain such information), then she should clearly not be killed...not starved and dehydrated to death
If there are those who will assume responsibility for her (and there are) and if there are those who do not want to continue to support her life (and there are apparently those as well), then those who will support her, particualrly her family, should receive the legal authority to do so and then everyone should move on.
That the husband is unwilling to do this only increases the suspect reasoning for his motives IMHO.
At least then we could be reunited under God's care knowing we had been true to one another, true to clear moral principle and true to Him.
That is the type of thing we did in the Klamath Basin Water Crisis and it worked, thank God without bloodshed.
But that is me...they will have to make their own decisions and I pray God's blessing on their rightous desires and efforts to help and to save their daughter.
The husband has clearly, IMHO, made a different decisions for entirely different reasons.
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