Parents ask judge to let Schiavo divorce husband/Jacksonville

The Florida Times Union ^ | 3/1/05 | PAUL PINKHAM

[cyn]

A Jacksonville victim rights group and a state legislator urged Gov. Jeb Bush on Monday to launch a criminal probe into events that put Terri Schiavo in the hospital with severe brain damage 15 years ago.

Justice Coalition founder Ted Hires also asked the state Department of Children & Families to take Schiavo into protective custody and Florida's attorney general to initiate a civil rights investigation into her treatment and efforts by her husband to have the feeding tube that keeps her alive removed. . . .

Her parents said they filed the divorce proceedings because of Michael Schiavo's "total disregard for Terri as his wife." ....

[tutstar]

Conversation with Terri

Just had my teen watch this and I asked...Did you hear Terri laugh? the reply was "I'm not deaf".

[Nightshift]

No, you are being politically correct. thats your problem. You have not read or seen what is really going on. You need to take a little more time and get your info straight or is it that you are in agreement with judge greer, who is not just legally blind, but blind legally.

You will find there is a lot more to this story than just her husbands statement (who by the way took 8 years before seeing that her so called wish would be done). So if her wish was not to be left like this why would Michael wait 8 years? Money? hoping she would die before she could say anything? Terri has been responsive and that has scared him. Why? Thats why there is now an investigation about injuries that judge greer seems to be trying to hide.

[CindyDawg]

What did you think of the photo of Terri that EternalVigilance posted?

[tertiary01]

There certainly has been a slew of them (trolls) lately, but I think at this point we are talking to the hand.

They come to these threads having purportedly analyzed the scans and EEG's as if they are physicians in the ER, and accept them as the gospel truth, while testimony and personal observations are regarded as so much prejudiced heresay. They all follow the same pattern, with the last one being the most classic example of how to disrupt and distract other posters.

[Chocolate Rose]

A fate unclear, a legacy assured

By CHRIS TISCH
St. Petersburg Times
28-FEB-05

CLEARWATER, Fla. -- Fifteen years ago, the feeding tube that kept Nancy Cruzan alive was removed from her stomach.

Cruzan, who lay in a persistent vegetative state after suffering severe brain damage in an auto crash, died 12 days later. Her family was by her side while protesters and a crush of media waited outside the hospital.

The three-year court battle waged by Cruzan's family against the state of Missouri to remove her feeding tube established landmark law for people teetering at death's door, especially those unable to communicate their wishes. Partially because of Cruzan, those kinds of decisions are now usually left to family members.

To this day, Nancy Cruzan's is the only end-of-life case the U.S. Supreme Court has considered.

More than 1.5-million American families decide every year to withhold or withdraw medical treatment that could keep a loved one alive for days, months or years. While the Cruzan case helped establish a legal standard about end-of-life decisions, the case of Terri Schiavo has challenged that existing consensus.

The case has dragged on for seven years, more than twice the time it took to resolve the Cruzan case. It has featured intense political pressure, relentless media scrutiny, creative lawyering, religious fervor and a family torn over a wife and daughter's wishes.

For these reasons, experts say, it's likely the Schiavo case will be remembered in much the same way as those involving Cruzan and Karen Ann Quinlan, whose removal from a respirator in 1976 also is considered a landmark court decision.

"It certainly is an important case in that it has commanded an inordinate amount of attention," said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. "They are fighting the consensus that has been entrenched for at least a decade."

Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge George Greer has ordered Schiavo's feeding tube to be removed March 18. Schiavo's tube has been taken out twice before, only to be reinserted by court order both times. If a court decides the tube should remain, modern end-of-life law could be turned on its head.

The most significant difference between the Cruzan and Schiavo cases are the women's families. The parents and siblings of Cruzan, who was not married, supported removing her feeding tube. Schiavo's family is split. Her husband wants the tube removed, while her parents and siblings want it to remain.

Cases of families at odds about end-of-life treatment are rare. When there is strife, it mostly hinges on family members struggling with an early prognosis that becomes more clear in a matter of days, said Steven Miles, a professor for the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota's department of medicine.

He said 80 percent of all family disputes over end-of-life decisions are resolved within three days. Except for rare cases, a judge doesn't get involved.

Over the past 30 years, Miles said, no more than 5,000 end-of-life cases have ended up in court. No more than 60 have gone on to an appeals court in that time. Cruzan's was the only one to go the United States Supreme Court.

If there is a dispute, one side usually relents, Caplan said.

In her hospital bed, Nancy Cruzan was unable to swallow, though her eyes were open and she could blink. She would sleep and moan or sigh.

Doctors told the Cruzans their daughter was in a persistent vegetative state. Brain scans showed her dead brain cells were being replaced by liquid. Doctors said she could live in that condition 30 years or more.

Four years later, the Cruzans decided the feeding tube should be removed, but had to fight the state to make it happen.

The first judge to hear the case sided with the Cruzans. But the Missouri attorney general appealed. The state Supreme Court reversed the ruling, 4-3, and said the state's duty to protect its citizens outweighed a person's right to refuse treatment.

The Cruzans took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices ruled 5-4 that the Cruzans did not have an automatic right to insist that hospital workers stop feeding Nancy. But the court also said the Cruzans could get the tube removed if they proved by "clear and convincing evidence" that she would want to die.

Though the ruling didn't allow the immediate removal of Nancy Cruzan's feeding tube, it affirmed that incapacitated people whose wishes are clearly known can have their treatment ended.

Prompted by the case's publicity, two of Nancy Cruzan's colleagues from a school for deaf and blind children said that in talking about disabled children, Cruzan had said she would not want to be kept alive by machines.

Armed with the new evidence and buoyed by the U.S. Supreme Court decision, the Cruzans again asked a judge to order the tube removed, and he agreed. Cruzan's legacy was set.

Nancy's parents considered the decision a victory, even as they mourned her death. Right-to-life protesters called the Cruzans murderers. They stormed the hospital in an effort to reinsert the tube. Nineteen people were arrested.

Nancy Cruzan died of dehydration on Dec. 26, 1990.

The case took a terrible toll on the Cruzans. Six years later, Joe Cruzan hanged himself from his carport. Joyce Cruzan was diagnosed with cancer in 1998. She refused chemotherapy and died a few months later.


(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com.)

[jbane]

The problem with these videos is that they don't perform an actual test to see if the actions are voluntary.

In this video, if he stopped talking, it is as likely as not that she would keep making that noise. The fact that they don't demonstrate that transition tells me a lot. What you see is staged.

If they could show her doing something on command, stopping when told to, and then doing it on command again that would be impressive and I would be on the side to keep her alive. And probably so would the doctors and the courts.

[tutstar]

There is a video showing Terri responding to commands.

You can watch it at www.terrisfight.org but this the still of it. There are other videos at terrisfight, one of them shows her following a balloon.

From video Terri Big Eyes; see it at www.terrisfight.org-- http://www.terrisfight.org/

Terri starts out apparently asleep. A doctor wakes her to start his tests.

Doctor: Terri. Open your eyes up...

Terri: (Startled at hearing her name. She starts moving her mouth and fluttering her eyes, like a person who is just waking up)

Doctor: Open your eyes, Terri open your eyes

Terri: (slowly at first, Terri struggles to open her eyes, then turns toward the doctor, and opens her eyes a normal amount)

Doctor: There you go, good.

Terri: (then, either to show off(?) or wanting to perform well, she leans further forward toward the doctor, looks straight at him and opens her eyes as WIDE AS SHE CAN. >> Note the WRINKLES ACROSS HER FOREHEAD caused by her also RAISING HER EYEBROWS as high as possible )

Doctor: [now obviously impressed] GOOD!! GOOD JOB! GOOD JOB YOUNG LADY! Good Job.

[jbane]

Excellent post.

Suppose Terri had left instructions to withhold treatment. And suppose that her parents objected.

Would there still be protests and outrage from those that "support" her?

[tertiary01]

The problem is you only see what Michael wants you to see or what the Schindlers have been able to get out on their own. Micheal believes that with disinformation he distributes and the lack of interest and/or education of the the American public, he will eventually get his way.

[supercat]

Suppose Terri had left instructions to withhold treatment. And suppose that her parents objected.

Would there still be protests and outrage from those that "support" her?

That would depend, I suspect, on two factors:

1. Whether the evidence of Terri's wish to have food and water withheld would be considered clear and unambiguous by a reasonable examiner. There should be no reasonable doubt as to the evidence's authenticity or the actual intentions of the ward when the wishes were expressed.
2. Whether the evidence was clear and unambiguous that Terri was in fact in a persistent vegetative state, with the proviso that the evidence can only be considered clear and unambiguous if people who want Terri to live are offered full opportunity to examine Terri and her records.

Both of those conditions would have to be met for Terri's dehydration to be justifiable. Neither has been met to the standard that a reasonable fact-finder should require.

[jbane]

Just watched the video.

You'll notice that the person giving her orders wakes her up (and she opens her eyes and turns her head). Then he starts to tell her to close her eyes and the video is cut off. Most likely she doesn't respond to that command because she is only waking up to the noise.

This is typical of PVS patients.

[ArmyTeach]

"It certainly is an important case in that it has commanded an inordinate amount of attention," said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.

I see a few differences here between Cruzan and Terri. Terri has a level of cognition which enables her to respond. She is in fact healthy and in no way terminal.Her condition has been exacerbated by neglect and isolation.

[Alamo-Girl]

Kudos to you, mommy23! Thank you for your kind words, cyn!

[gopheraj]

For the ones who said she couldn't track anything - that it was just reflexive eye movement needs to see the video of her tracking a balloon as it was passed back & forth on front of her. Good grief, how can anyone starve this poor girl to death!

[floriduh voter]

BREAKING RADIO NEWS: Representative Dennis Baxley just talked about Bill 701. He said he would INSURE THAT IT WOULD APPLY TO TERRI SCHIAVO! WFLA RADIO 11:32 p.m. est

[windchime]

"This is an important find."

YES! Post #45 bump!

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

I read most of your responses and have only one thing to say to you. Even if Terri were PVS (and I don't believe she is), does that mean she deserves to die of starvation? Is that how you would want to die? What kind of person would starve another living human being to death? What harm can there be in MS giving her a divorce and letting her go home with her parents?

You need to read a very important book, The Power of the Powerless. I wonder if you'd understand what the author was trying to say.

Here is an excerpt of the article that starts the book:

Power of the Powerless: A Brother's Lesson
By Christopher de Vinck

I grew up in the house where my brother was on his back in his bed for almost 33 years, in the same corner of his room, under the same window, beside the same yellow walls. Oliver was blind, mute. His legs were twisted. He didn't have the strength to lift his head nor the intelligence to learn anything.

Today I am an English teacher, and each time I introduce my class to the play about Helen Keller, "The Miracle Worker," I tell my students about Oliver. One day, during my first year teaching, a boy in the last row raised his hand and said, "Oh, Mr. de Vinck. You mean he was a vegetable."

I stammered for a few seconds. My family and I fed Oliver. We changed his diapers, hung his clothes and bed linen on the basement line in winter, and spread them out white and clean on the lawn in the summer. I always liked to watch the grasshoppers jump on the pillowcases.

We bathed Oliver. Tickled his chest to make him laugh. Sometimes we left the radio on in his room. We pulled the shade down over his bed in the morning to keep the sun from burning his tender skin. We listened to him laugh as we watched television downstairs. We listened to him rock his arms up and down to make the bed squeak. We listened to him cough in the middle of the night.

"Well, I guess you could call him a vegetable. I called him Oliver, my brother. You would have liked him."

... Even now, five years after his death, Oliver remains the weakest, most helpless human being I ever met, and yet he was one of the most powerful. He could do absolutely nothing except breathe, sleep and eat; yet he was responsible for love, courage and insight.

The rest of the aricle is here and elsewhere on the internet:

The Power of the Powerless

[pc93]

Bump!

[pc93]

BTTT. ;=]

[pc93]

Yup.. and medication.