Posted on 12/04/2003 3:31:09 PM PST by sweetliberty
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Who can be a guardian, 1993 letter from Bob Schindler to Michael Schiavo, Palm beach Post editorial and FReeper response, T'wit's song about Schiavo and Felos, transcript of Lee Webb's (CBN) interview with Kate Adamson, partial timeline of Terri's case, the story of Martin and Anne Shapiro and the report on Terri's birthday party,
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This thread serves as a place for posting all new general information and references, along with links following Terri's case, plus information on cable news and talk radio shows dealing with the issue, court cases and press releases. This is also the place to post contact information, prayers and general discussion.
If you have something that qualifies as BREAKING NEWS or FRONT PAGE NEWS, please post it on a separate thread in that category in order to give it maximum exposure and then post a link to the article/thread here so that it will be included in the next update of links. Also, if you post links to articles from original sources and there is also a thread on FR, please link to the FR thread. Many original links become corrupt over time and we want to be able to access the information at will.
You will notice that this thread is not specifically dated. That is because we are just going to keep this one going until we have need of another one.
A reminder: please do not post personal information on the public forum. We have lots of folks on scene down in Florida and we don't want them having any problems with the death squad.
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As Terri Schiavo turns 40 next week, her loved ones fight for her life
Suspicious Circumstances, the Strange Case of Terri Schiavo
Schiavo asks Pinellas judge to rule without trial
Michael Schiavo tries to block Gov. Bush
Michael Schiavo Again Seeks to Block New Information About Terri
Why Was Terri Denied Holy Communion?
Terri Schiavo's 40th birthday Wednesday
Florida's Bush gets report on Schiavo
Participate in Terri Schiavo's Birthday, December 3, With prayer, Mass Intentions, Cards and Notes
FR Birthday Card: Greetings, Prayers for Terri Schindler-Schiavo
New Guardian Urged for Terri Schiavo, More Evaluation of Her Condition Needed
The Guardian Speaks: Terri Schiavo's guardian files his report; there's bad news and good news.
Terri Schiavo's Family Celebrates Her 40th Birthday, Hundreds Send Cards
Changes Proposed In Right-To-Die Laws - Your help is needed NOW in Florida!
The Case of Terri Schiavo: The Human Rorschach Test
New Name, Same Old Story
By Wesley J. Smith
WHAT'S NOT IN A NAME is the question du jour at single-issue advocacy groups. First the venerable National Abortion Rights Action League (or National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League in recent years) officially dropped abortion from its name and became "NARAL Pro-Choice America." Now, the Hemlock Society, the premier assisted-suicide group, has decided to recast its image with a new name (still not chosen) and a new P.R.-driven motto: The founding slogan, "Good life, good death," has been discarded for the new and improved "Promoting end-of-life choice."
Changing the group's name is designed to put a respectable veneer over the organization's raison d'être - - legitimizing suicide. Yet, the word hemlock remains entirely apt. From its inception, the Hemlock Society has been obsessed with exercising control over death through suicide. Indeed, Hemlockers claim that assisted suicide, which they now euphemistically call "aid in dying," is the "ultimate civil right."
I became aware of the organization in 1992 when a friend killed herself under the influence of Hemlock Society literature. Frances's problem wasn't illness; it was depression over a life that had become a complete mess. When she was diagnosed with leukemia (which was not terminal), began to experience a painful neuropathy (while refusing to take her pain-controlling drugs), and learned she would soon require a hip replacement, Frances seemed to have found the pretext she needed to justify finally doing what she had wanted to do for so long. Indeed, we found out after the fact that months before she died, Frances had entered an appointment in her calendar - - the date of her 76th birthday - - for her "final passage," an appointment she kept, accompanied by a distant cousin who was reportedly paid $5,000 to be with her.
Ever organized, Frances kept a suicide file. It contained several editions of the Hemlock Society's newsletter, then called the Hemlock Quarterly. As I read these newsletters, I was shocked out of my shoes. Each Quarterly was filled with proselytizing stories about so-called "good deaths" that had been facilitated by Hemlock members. For example, in the January 1988 issue, Frances had underscored the following words describing the suicide of "Sam," a terminal cancer patient:
Believe it or not, we laughed and giggled and [Sam] seemed to relish the experience. I think for Sam it was finally taking control again after ten years of being at the mercy of a disease and medical protocols demanded by that disease.
Suicide promoted as uplifting and enjoyable sickened me. But what really infuriated me was the "how to" sections of the newsletters. In one issue, a list of drugs was provided, with their relative toxicity. Frances had underscored the drugs that were the most poisonous.
I realized that this group, made up of people who didn't even know Frances, had been, figuratively speaking, whispering in her ear for years. First, they gave her moral permission to kill herself, fostering a romanticism about suicide that helped push her toward consummation. Then they convinced her she would be remembered with warmth for her act of taking "control." Finally, they taught her how to do it. I felt then, and do today, that while Frances was responsible for her own self-destruction, morally, if not legally, the Hemlock Society was an accessory before the fact.
In the years since Frances's suicide, Hemlock has gone through some outward changes while remaining steadfast to its dark ideology. It changed the name of the Hemlock Quarterly to Timelines, recently renamed again, this time to End of Life Choices. Its leadership changed, too, as the group struggled to appear less fringe, more mainstream and professional. But the more it tried to project a respectable image on the outside, the more obsessed with suicide the group seems to have become on the inside.
No longer satisfied to publish literature teaching people like Frances how to kill themselves or assist the suicides of others, several years ago Hemlock began to train volunteers to visit suicidal Hemlock members to counsel and, it would seem, hasten their deaths through its "Caring Friends" program. According to a tape transcript from the January 2003 Hemlock Society National Convention, the group's medical director, Dr. Richard McDonald, is present at many Caring Friends suicides and extols the use of helium and a plastic bag as a "very speedy process that has never failed in our program."
One need not be dying to qualify for Caring Friends' services. According to the November 1998 Timelines, access to Caring Friends is available for Hemlock members with "an irreversible physical condition that severely compromises quality of life," which could include a plethora of illnesses and disabilities that are not terminal.
The Winter 2003 End of Life Choices reports proudly that 32 Hemlock members "died with Caring Friends information, support, and presence" in 2002. Knowing that Hemlock members are fascinated by the methods used, the article catalogues them: "Thirty used the inhalation method and two used the ingestion method."
Choices also informs us that 15 of these suicides were in hospice at the time of their deaths. If so, then Caring Friends interfered with proper medical treatment of these patients. When I was trained as a hospice volunteer, I was explicitly told that suicidal ideation was a medical issue that hospice could often address successfully in dying patients and instructed to inform the hospice team of any expressed desire to self-destruct. Of course, Caring Friends is not about assuring that dying patients receive proper medical treatment.
The radical scope of Hemlock's ideological agenda is demonstrated by its financial and moral support of Dr. Phillip Nitschke, the Australian Jack Kevorkian. Nitschke is an out-and-out advocate of death-on-demand, who is infamous Down Under for his plan to purchase a passenger ship, which he intends to steam into international waters on one-way euthanasia death cruises. Nitschke has been paid tens of thousands of dollars by the Hemlock Society USA to invent a suicide formula that uses common household ingredients: a potion Nitschke calls the "peaceful pill."
In a 2001 Q & A on National Review Online, Nitschke was asked who would be eligible to receive his suicide concoction. His answer is macabre, even by surrealistic Hemlock standards:
All people qualify, not just those with the training, knowledge, or resources to find out how to "give away" their life. And someone needs to provide this knowledge, training, or resource necessary to anyone who wants it, including the depressed, the elderly bereaved [and] the troubled teen. . . . The so-called "peaceful pill" should be available in the supermarket so that those old enough to understand death could obtain death peacefully at the time of their choosing.
For anyone with any moral sense, Nitschke is clearly a crackpot. But he remains a hero to members of Hemlock. He was an honored guest at the organization's 2003 national convention in San Diego, where he was invited to unveil his most recently invented suicide machine. Despite being deprived of the chance to ooh and ah at Nitschke's handiwork when Australian customs authorities seized the contraption, attendees gave him a rousing standing ovation.
Which brings us back to the pending name change. According to an article in the latest issue of Choices, the name change is designed "to increase membership, to accelerate name recognition and approval, and to [facilitate] work with legislators sympathetic to our mission, who find the name Hemlock offensive and difficult to explain." In other words, the name Hemlock Society must change because it is descriptive and accurate.
Not surprisingly, the magic word "choice" is likely to be part of the new name. Among the current contenders are: End of Life Choices America (EOLCA), Voices of Choice at Life's End (VOCAL), the Final Exit Society, and the Promoting Options for a Peaceful End, which translates into the sarcastic acronym POPE.
But a simple name change won't heal what really ails Hemlock. What these death-obsessed folk just don't get is that the word hemlock isn't what offends people; it is their nihilism. Hemlock can change its name to anything it wants to. But that won't change the fact that a deadly poison perfectly conveys the heart, soul, and purpose of the organization.
Editor's note. After this essay was written, Hemlock changed its name to End of Life Choices.
Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and an attorney. This article first appeared at National Review Online and is reprinted with permission.
Too bad the Heaven's Gate folks offed themselves. The Hemlock cult could have used them for Public Relations.
One need not be dying to qualify for Caring Friends' services. According to the November 1998 Timelines, access to Caring Friends is available for Hemlock members with "an irreversible physical condition that severely compromises quality of life," which could include a plethora of illnesses and disabilities that are not terminal."
The Hemlock suicide cult is perverted.
"Regarding how their efforts will directly affect patients, Gomez said, "Anything we can do to educate doctors to the needs of patients is good. We will teach them to discuss pain control and alternative treatments with their patients. During the dying process, a doctor should be encouraging and bolstering his patients. We hope to have a very direct impact on patients' lives." Gomez speculated that the next five or six years will tell if they are successful."
"The AMA has watched, with great interest, doctor-assisted suicide in The Netherlands expand to include euthanasia even without a patient's knowledge or consent. Doctors in The Netherlands often resort to euthanasia when it appears that their efforts to cure the patient have been unsuccessful. The AMA does not want to see a repeat of this situation in America. Holland has shown that once the doctor has accepted the fact that he can end life, no amount of rules or regulations will protect the public."
Comments from Fr. Johhansen's blog on the "Duty to Die":
Monday, December 08, 2003
Nat Hentoff wrote another great column last week exploring the implications of the Terri Schiavo case. He has noted that when they first began their efforts, so-called "death with dignity" advocates championed the rights of patients and families to make decisions about providing or withholding treatment.
But now, what was once dubiously called the "right to die" has been transformed by some clinicians and bio-ethicists into what amounts to a "duty to die". He quotes Nancy Valko, a nurse and expert on medical ethics:
This theory [that some lives are no longer worth living] has now evolved into 'futile care' policies at hospitals in Houston, Des Moines, California and many other areas. Even Catholic hospitals are now becoming involved. . . . Thus, the 'right to die' becomes the 'duty to die,' with futile care policies offering death as the only 'choice.' . . . A poor prognosis, which can be erroneous and is seldom precise, will become a death sentence.
Not too long ago, standard medical ethics coincided with Catholic teaching in granting a "presumption in favor" of medically assisted nutrition and hydration. But, as I have researched the Terri Schiavo case, I have discovered that a revolution has been going on for the last 10-15 years. The "presumption in favor of medically assisted nutrition and hydration" found in Catholic teaching is being undermined by an alternative presumption, which is based on redefining the boundaries of what constitutes medical "treatment". Dr. Ronald Cranford was the principal medical witness for Michael Schiavo. He testified that Terri is in a PVS and will never recover. He also tesitified to that effect in the Nancy Cruzan case. But in the Cruzan case, the patient did not require a feeding tube. She could be fed by mouth. Nevertheless, he was willing to redefine even spoon-feeding a patient as "treatment". By this principle, practically anything a health-care provider does for a patient becomes "treatment".
Another attempted redefinition lies in the meaning of the term "futile". It is a commonplace of medical ethics, as well as Catholic teaching, that one is under no obligation to continue, and may indeed be obliged to withdraw, treatment that is "futile." Cindy Province, RN, MSN, Associate Director of the Bioethics Center of St. Louis, has written that a treatment has typically been considered "futile" if it has no benefit or desired effect whatsoever. Food has not been considered treatment because no one expects food to have any "direct curative effect". Furthermore, Province explains, in a patient like Terri tube feeding can be considered effective because it "clearly achieves the objective of maintaining a good nutritional state." But this kind of common-sense thinking has been rejected by much of the medical community:
...This view has been largely replaced by a more general view of the nature of nutrition as treatment... in that it has not enabled the patient to recover from his underlying condition.
Now, since food and water, redefined as treatment, do not help the patient to recover from his underlying condition, it can be labeled as "futile." Having deemed feeding the patient, by this sleight-of-hand, as "futile", it is a short step to justifying its withdrawal. By means of these redefinitions, those who want to help the sub-functional to depart this life a little more quickly have obtained an infinitely fungible, increasingly meaningless and arbitrary set of boundaries within which to do so.
I hardly think that the Governor of the State of Florida can be considered simply a member of the general public.
By Jeff Johnson
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
December 09, 2003
(CNSNews.com) - A Pinellas County, Fla., teacher - who is disabled and works with disabled students - claims she is being fired because she voiced her support for another disabled Florida woman: Terri Schindler Schiavo.
Rus Cooper-Dowda told CNSNews.com Tuesday that the Pinellas County School Board was set to fire her Tuesday night for sharing her opinion about the Schiavo case in response to a reporter's question. The school board responded that no reason was needed to fire the probationary teacher.
Terri Schindler Schiavo is the 39-year-old woman who suffered a severe brain injury under questionable circumstances in 1990. Doctors hired by her husband, and a court-appointed expert who reviewed Terri's medical records, believe she is in a "Persistent Vegetative State," while doctors employed by her parents and unpaid experts have said that Terri's condition could improve with therapy and rehabilitation.
Terri's husband, Michael Schiavo, received court permission to have Terri's feeding tube removed so she would die by dehydration and starvation. But the move was blocked, initially through legal actions brought by Terri's parents and, then, by a law passed by the Florida legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Jeb Bush.
Schiavo is currently challenging the constitutionality of the legislation, dubbed "Terri's Law" by its supporters.
After a Florida court gave Schiavo permission to let his wife die in early October, Cooper-Dowda responded to a question from a local television reporter about the judge's decision.
"I did a very brief interview, offsite, on my own time, not identifying as a teacher, where I said, 'As a disabled Floridian of faith, female, with disabilities, this is scary,'" Cooper-Dowda explained. "And I was really clear that 'you cannot say I am a teacher' and the reporter was disappointed because I teach special ed[ucation], but agreed."
What the 26-year-veteran teacher could not have known at the time was that many of the students at Bay Point Middle School - where she taught children with behavioral, emotional and learning disabilities - were watching the local news that evening for extra credit. Word of Cooper-Dowda's "stardom" traveled quickly.
"The next morning I came in [and] there was a [regular monthly] faculty meeting, the Christian faculty who saw it ... said it was 'a really great, life-affirming interview,'" Cooper Dowda explained. "Then, for the first time, I started hearing, 'Well, you don't fit in. Teachers with public opinions like that don't fit in.'"
Cooper-Dowda said she was also called a "religious wacko" on more than one occasion, even though she only mentioned her religious beliefs in passing during the interview.
"The principal, various teachers, my supervisor, aides, paraprofessionals, everyone was saying, 'Teachers aren't allowed to have opinions, especially about Terri Schiavo, and especially if you're already a seminary grad[uate],'" Cooper-Dowda alleged. "And I'm thinking, 'Wow! I thought this was America?"
The situation went from bad to worse, Cooper-Dowda claimed, when several copies of a booklet she had written detailing the similarities between her experience and that of Terri Schindler Schiavo appeared on campus. At age 30, the teacher contracted a severe case of lupus that left her unable to speak and with very little control over her motor functions. She listened helplessly as doctors incorrectly diagnosed her as being in a Persistent Vegetative State, the same condition some physicians believe afflicts Terri, and described her chances for recovery as "hopeless."
"I could hear all that," Cooper-Dowda recalled. "It took a huge effort to finally communicate, 'I'm in here!' And I barely survived."
Though she could not speak, Cooper-Dowda would use her finger to write the word "no" in the air when doctors discussed removing her life support. Those same doctors diagnosed her attempts to communicate as "seizure activity" and sedated her. According to Cooper-Dowda, the harder she tried to communicate with her caretakers, the more heavily she was sedated.
The curiosity of one nurse saved Cooper-Dowda's life, she said.
"She refused to believe that the systematic pattern of tapping and blinking and moving and moaning was not communication," Cooper-Dowda recalled. "So, when I went to Terri Schiavo's October 2002 hearing ... I saw the videos for the first time and I was writing about it and I thought, 'That could have been me,' and then I thought, 'Oh, it was me!'"
That nurse put ink on the incapacitated woman's fingertip. Cooper-Dowda was then able to write the letter "y" for the word "yes," and "n" for "no," proving that the doctors had been wrong about her condition.
Since then, Cooper-Dowda has completed a second master's degree and given birth to a son, who is about to enter college. She told CNSNews.com that after 25 years of teaching at private schools, she finally realized her dream of working with disabled students in a public school system. She began work at Bay Point Middle School on Aug. 1.
But after the television interview and the unexpected arrival of her writing about Terri Schiavo's case appeared on campus, Cooper-Dowda said it became almost impossible to do the job she so loved.
"After that I couldn't get the most accepted basic support like needed room supplies, memos about meetings, campus police help when any of my kids needed to be removed for violence or assistance for students hurting themselves regularly," Cooper-Dowda alleged. "Finally, I was given less than a day to hand deliver a resignation for 'personal reasons' or be fired for 'not fitting in.'"
Ron Stone, associate superintendent for human resources and public affairs for Pinellas County Schools, told CNSNews.com that Cooper-Dowda has no recourse other than Tuesday night's scheduled appeal to the board.
"She is a probationary employee and under Florida law all teachers are hired under a 97-day probationary contract as at-will employees and at any point during that 97-day period, the principal can make a recommendation to discontinue the probation," Stone explained. "Essentially, that's what's happened here, and we don't have to have reasons for that."
Cooper-Dowda believes that her termination is being expedited to make sure that it is completed before her probation expires, but she has been in contact with several public interest law firms who say that the appeals process will move her past the probationary period and make her eligible for the protections afforded to regular staff teachers.
The Pinellas County School Board meeting, at which Cooper-Dowda is to be fired, will be telecast live on the local cable system. Because of the abbreviated holiday programming schedule, it's expected that the meeting will be replayed several times over the next four to six weeks.
"They threatened me with this. They said, 'If you don't resign for personal reasons, you're gonna get fired over and over and over' because the school board meeting runs on TV through the December holidays when everyone turns to them for the student concerts," Cooper-Dowda alleged. "They thought I would go, 'Oh, geez, I'd better resign.'
"Instead, I went, 'If Terri's supporters talk, their witness is going to run over and over and over through December," Cooper-Dowda said cheerfully. "There's a reason this is happening to me."
Cooper-Dowda hopes the public and media focus will quickly shift from her story to Terri's plight, but she acknowledges that the altercation with Pinellas County school officials has changed her life forever.
"I'm going to be so sad. I've wanted to be a public school teacher since I was five and I finally got in, in August. It took me 43 years to get here," Cooper-Dowda said. "I probably will not teach again."
http://www.wftv.com/news/2696590/detail.html
Do you agree with Michael Schiavo's lawyers that "Terri's Law" violates Florida's constitution?
Choice Votes Percentage of 6425 Votes
| Yes | 2532 |  39% |
| No | 3792 | 59% |
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Let's keep that solid lead! vote NO
Gov. Jeb Bush's Press Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Statement By: "In our criminal courts, defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. When evaluating constitutional challenges, the law is presumed constitutional until proven otherwise. In this case, however, the actions of the trial and appellate judges make it clear they presume just the opposite, that the law passed by elected lawmakers must be proven constitutional. "A judge who demonstrated his or her presumption that a defendant was guilty until proven otherwise would be disqualified from ruling in that case. We believe the same principle holds true in constitutional challenges, regardless of issues involved. "The implications of this case reach beyond the life and death of the young woman in this heart wrenching tragedy. The law ensures Floridians who cannot speak for themselves will have an independent, neutral representative to advocate for their interests and wishes. If we abandon the law, we accept a dangerous precedent with the power to erode the rights of self-determination of people with disabilities."
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