Terri Can Eat With A Spoon

World ^ | Bob Jones

[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."

[Pan_Yans Wife]

If God decided that Terri should go home to Him at this hour, no man could stop it.

[Saundra Duffy]

They are murdering her with morphine, those bastards!!!

[BSunday]

Schiavo has got to be the most vile creature ever to draw a breath. The most shameless, in your face murdering dog in U.S. history.

I tried to find someone in history to compare him to, but failed. He is truly in a class of one.

[Saundra Duffy]

If Kervorkian is rotting in jail - THANK GOD - why aren't the medical personnel who are murdering Terri also going to rot in jail.

[UnsinkableMollyBrown]

Well, why don't we let Him decide when to take her home. And in the meanwhile, we just offer her the same courteousy that we all receive while waiting our appointed hour... food and water. sheesh

[protest1]

I am sorry to say, yes I think we have become that weak and fearful, or at least many of us have. I live in the UK or I would also be outside the hospital.

I think it is fear of taking action, from the Governor down, that is the failure in this case. Good men doing nothing. Out of fear? Her family must go get Terri what are they afraid of? Terri will die in any case if they stand by and wait for "law" to save her.

Proverbs 29:25 The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe.

[Spyder]

A lot of things are wrong with the stories now out. One group claims Terri never got therapy, yet this story claims she was getting it 6 years after her brain injury. Does that mean she'd been receiving it for 6 years? If so, someone was paying for it, as Medicare/Medicaid will only pay for such services for so long... the individual has to be shown to be making progress. While most therapists can document progress made with just about anything, to keep it up for 6 years with no more achievements than being able to swallow boggles the mind.

Having worked with some pretty low-functioning individuals (and their family members) I know how hard it is for them to let go of the idea that there could be a miraculous healing (and that would be the ONLY way at this point that Terri would improve).

One father even held on, hoping for the day that brain transplants would be doable so that his son could be normal again - he couldn't be convinced that following a brain transplant the body would no longer be his son but that of whoever's brain was transplanted.

If God wishes to work a miracle he'll work it in the next couple of weeks - hanging on for 20 more years in hopes of one isn't going to change His thoughts on the matter.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

I agree with you. But God can also circumvent any nutrition that she receives. He can and will determine when it is her time to die, for He is with her now.

[TheOtherOne]

Schiavo has got to be the most vile creature ever to draw a breath. The most shameless, in your face murdering dog in U.S. history.

Would you feel the same way if you knew she had requested not to be kept alive under these conditions? (I know we cannot know, but it seems many here disagree with her right to have that decision carried out even if she did make that decision)

[Pan_Yans Wife]

One father even held on, hoping for the day that brain transplants would be doable so that his son could be normal again - he couldn't be convinced that following a brain transplant the body would no longer be his son but that of whoever's brain was transplanted.

God bless him!

[Cinnamon Girl]

Starving a person to death is murder.

[paulsy]

I'm wondering why a large group of people don't just enter the facility and remove her to a safe place. Aside from 1st degree criminal trespass, what crime would there be in this? Trespassors could then plead the necessity defense. Is there an army guarding her or something?

[Pan_Yans Wife]

There are police stationed at her door. I assume that they will not allow anyone to enter, without permission from Schiavo and his attorney.

[paulsy]

"There are police stationed at her door. I assume that they will not allow anyone to enter"

What will they do, shoot? They might be as upset as people pushing in. It will be too late once she's gone. How will history view this?

Does this woman WANT to live?

[philetus]

This is court sanctioned murder. Starving someone to death is not the usual outcome of "pulling the plug".
I can see the next step coming.
Retarded kids. They'll never have a normal life, so we might as well........

Isn't it about time for Americans to tell the "Judges" to go to hell?

[Pan_Yans Wife]

You'll have to ask others why they do not storm the hospice and take Terri by force.

I am not able to travel to Florida, but I wish them all luck.

I suspect NO ONE will try this. And, from what I have read, I cannot find anything that says Terri's family wishes for that to happen.

[SwordofTruth]

The more I know men, the more I love animals.

The same could be said about women by men and it would still be wrong.

Certain people are evil, their gender has nothing to do with it.