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 yearsa 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 roomagainst a judge's ordersto 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 permissionor 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."
It seems like that because it is like that, I fear.
That sort of blind party line obedience scares the poop out of me, w/no gold nuggets.
History has not been kind to that type of blind loyalty.
Who could stop him?
Anybody with a black robe, a Judge Roy Bean Greer mask, and the ability to yell "Boo!"
No more. That's it for me. These guys are delivering the kind of nightmare that the left could only dream of getting -- because if they were in office, we'd be fighting them tooth and nail.
Instead, the "G"OP gets a pass, and goes nuts with it. If I wanted this kind of garbage, I'd have voted for the Democrats. The thing is, I voted Republican, and I got it anyway -- in spades!
No more for me, thanks. If I can't find someone worthy of my vote, I won't cast a vote. I've been a pretty dilligent voter, but I know how to stay home too, if it comes to that. A voting boycott is the easiest kind of boycott on earth. You'd think they'd know it.
If two guys -- a bad guy and a good guy -- come up to me, and the bad guy throws my kid into the ditch, and the good guy just stands there as she drowns, and explains to me how he's not licensed to do ditch work in my county, you're damn straight I'll remember that on election day.
NO ONE CAN TOUCH A JUDGE EXCEPT ANOTHER JUDGE. Face it. Realize it. Internalize it. It's over. The only constitutional power that can affect judges belongs to the legislature, which allows them to impeach a judge. And if they tried it, I have no doubt they would turn around and say they can't do that because it's unconstitutional. Who could stop them?
No one is asking anyone to "touch a judge" (ugh, what a revolting word picture you paint)
We're merely asking someone -- with the power to do so -- to stop a murder.
You talk like someone who's chickenboxed into the lawyerworld mindset. I got news for you. Things CAN happen without a lawyer -- even a ROBED lawyer -- saying "Simon Says."
That our "leaders" won't so much as fart without a "legal opinion" backing them up is a sad, sad commentary on just how far we've slid as a culture.
HOW you can say, "the real problem, [is] that the judiciary run[s] our country" -- when Bushie won't even flap his jaw without having his lawyers toss a dozen Chings for him to divine the current wind -- is so far beyond me that I can barely see it fading over the horizon.
Did Teddy Roosevelt call in the lawyers when he sent the Marines to Tripoli?
Comes a time to say damn the lawyers, full speed ahead.
It's called LEADERSHIP. There's another word for the sort of person who won't do a damn thing until it's cleared with the lawyers. I'll leave figuring out what that word is as an exercise to the reader. I'm too tired. I haven't slept in close to 20 hours, and I didn't sleep more than a few hours in the day before that. My health is shot; my heart is ruined, my spine is decomposing, and I don't do sleep-deprivation well.
G'nite, all.
It's uncomfortable to realize that even GEORGE Bush, the person we -think- is the most powerful man in the world, couldn't change a thing that this measly low-level Judge has decreed.
Well of COURSE he can't change a thing that Greer did. That would take courage.
George Greer is the Lester Maddox -- axe-handle at the ready -- of the 21st century.
And the Bushies are the...
Oops. My analogy breaks down. Back then, they had the courage to stand up to the likes of these guys.
Now g'nite.
Other Abuse related injuries found too!!! High probability of FIRST DEGREE MURDER with this stuff if this "euthinasia" is completed!!!!! Posting this to EVERY currently active Terri thread!!!!
Instead of just repeating that he never mentioned it until after the case, just admit you either know and wont say or don't know when he first made the claim. Otherwise, you really are just playing games.
Not prominent enough for me, right now. They seem shy of publicity.
Ahhhh Yes! Hypothetical threats?
Interesting excuse.
A brain scan might show no missing tissue, but that tissue has nontheless died. No way to know without an autopsy.
Perhaps in some they can see gaps in a brain scan, before the subject dies, so they'd know in that case the cortex, or cortex section, can't work. This wouldn't necessarily end hopes for rehab, if the remaining sections of cortex could handle the tasks the old section did.
I haven't read that brain scans show missing cortex sections in Terri's case. Walker, the internist & professor, says he has seen the court records, and he talks about Terri's missing cerbral cortex replaced by spinal fluid. I still don't know if he's seen that on a scan of Terri's brain, or if he just infers that.
Perhaps the scans show no missing tissue.
We may never know. Greer may seal the records and Mr. Schiavo cremate the corpse.
Your are right about that......
What we try to do on FR is argue issues with as much verbal skill and evidence as we can find on both sides.
The reality of this issue is that I have only found one person who was willing to have an exchange without insult and flames.
The reality is, that other than the court decisions there is no evidence presented on the internet media for the Michael side of this argument.
It tells me that this is a manipulated media war instituted by the girls family and that the evidence needed to justify the son in laws position is being withheld due to legal privacy concerns and lawyers advice. The fact is, that the judge knows, the medical case workers know, yet all have made their decision and are silent in the matter, with the exception of a raft of people who have sided with the family yet have no direct connection to the case.
The major media has also looked into this and they too, are not taking a position, (that I can find) nor have they found a printable story to use without the risk of being sued for printing untruths. Their stories are generic. The internet stories are one sided. And no stories exist from the Michael side.
You're right, I think it is time to get off. This is and was a family matter. It should have remained so and I have no business in it.
The courts should never be deciding these issues. Never!
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