Posted on 03/01/2005 4:12:35 AM PST by 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." ....
(Excerpt) Read more at jacksonville.com ...
Why, these trolls are getting so good at reading Xrays EEGs and CT scans, I think they must be almost qualified to do some surgery by now!!
:o)
Thanks for posting that here! The basic info and facts can not be repeated enough. I see things with new eyes everytime, things fit together in new ways for me. Lurkers, anyone coming on this later will see it, too.
jbane served a good purpose here, as 'everyman' who does not understand, whether innocently or, as in his case (as revealed in post#66), deliberately. jbane's post #66 revealed a nasty, vindictive, malicious nature out of proportion ... interesting.
Thanks, JimRob, for FR.
AG, as I'm trying to understand and work in this latest battle in the culture war, I mull over and am encouraged and strengthened by what you, the DC chapter, Jeff, and others have done in the past. Thank you for this wonderful legacy. When an aspect seems tough, I know others have dealt with it before with determination and a strength and wisdom not their own.
GREAT -- thanks for posting that. Interesting points raised. Now back to bed for me.
If Terri dies, he stands to get more of that money, not to mention the fact that Terri will never have any opportunity to improve and possible shed light on some of the other causes of her current condition.
The parents clearly love and want to care for their daughter. The husband does not. Unless you are a parent and have faced the prospect of losing the child you love, particularly when there is hope of some recovery (and there are just as many saying that there is some hope as there are saying there isn't), then please do not talk to me about how the parents feel, or how they are inflicting more pain on their daughter. That is so bassackward it is pathetic. They do not want to starve her to deat...she is clearly jappy to see them when they get to visit her.
The law says there must be a living will and written, legal instructions in cases like these. Terri left none. That law is there in most places to help avoid just this sort of horror.
The doctors that the court appoints say one thing (and Greer is an activist, liberal judge) other doctors say something entirely differently.
The videos of Terri speak for themselves. She is definitely not brain dead or permanently a vegetable to anyone with a lick of common sense or sincerity.
The right to life trumps all other rights. Our founders deliberately put it first in the list they enumerated. When in doubt, when there is any question, LIFE should get the benefit of the doubt. In this case, much like abortions, that is being cast aside. As individuals and as a society, we do so...we cast aside the most basic moral foundation of our liberty at great peril. Certainly for those who are being killed, but equally for us all. That is the real reason this case is so important.
Keep working hard and have faith. The Lord's hand is over this and it is His will that will ultimately be done...either to the blessing of our society, or to its shame.
IMHO, what is needed is a leader to stand up and throw off political expediency, career aspirations, etc. and simply do what is so obviously right. Our laws and our judicial system are being made a mockery of. The right to life is being trampled. I pray the same prayer that I had at Klamath, that a leader will force the fight into a court on constitutional basis of the Executive against activist judges that are trampling the clear rights of citizens under color of court "rulings"...and spare the people themselves the pain.
It didn't happen there and it ultimately took a few hundred people litterally risking everything, including potentially their freedom, to make such an issue of it that it got the public's attention and made the politicians ultimately do the right thing.
I hope it doesn't come to that there...but Terri and the entire principle is worth it IMHO if it does.
God bless, I wish I could get over there and be actively involved on site like ay Klamath and Jarbidge out here. If I can find a way, I will.
As I see it, there are basic gold nuggets of truth that need to be brought out and repeated at every opportunity. These are the two I see:
To repeat: No one is calling Bob Schindler a liar for saying Terri responds to him in his visits. Nor are they calling Cheryl Ford, R.N., David Gibbs, Esq, or the other atty. who wrote a similar acct of her Christmas visit with Terri liars.1) Terri is responsive. The Schindlers and others including, but not limited to, an RN and two attorneys, have told of her responding in their visits. Most recently, notably, and humorously, the account that I will try to post below of Terri responding to the auditory and visual stimuli of atty. David Gibbs.
To deny or ignore the above information is to call those eyewitnesses liars. I did not hear anyone call Mr. Schindler a liar at the Jax press conference. H'mmm.
2) Terri's current guardian has denied Terri the ordinary care that any other patient in her condition would be allowed to have, in things big and little. I'm not even referring to rehabilitation or therapy here -- the denial of which is incomprehensible to me -- but ordinary daily care given to any other patient in her condition.
It is a travesty and unacceptable that she is a virtual prisoner in her little room (described here) and is not allowed out in a wheelchair; that her cards, flowers, personal items are removed or refused; that she has not had the mandated swallow tests since ___ . I hope CD and others will add to this w/their knowledge and experience.
Interestingly, the video clips that showed on our Jacksonville TV stations after their press conference here included the one of Michael taking Terri out to the park, pointing out the ducks. This relates to both #1 and #2.
And also: video clips show Terri getting out in her wheelchair. Why has her guardian not fixed her wheelchair or gotten or arranged to have gotten when it has been freely offered to him, a new wheelchair?
Inquiring minds want to know. Let's be honest here -- let's see who is telling the truth and who is lying or misrepresenting.
Thanks Jeff. What prevents you from being able to make it here?
Father Frank Pavone visited Terri 3 weeks ago and said she is VERY RESPONSIVE.
If you are questionsing the parents not wanting to let their daughter go you might want to ask it of the husband as well. Why do adament to let her go...if he loves her so much that he wants to uphold her wishes why does he have a fiancee and has children by her or how about. Could he also be just the slightest bit interested in the life insurance?
Does this seem like random motions that all trully brain dead people have. When I think of brain dead laughter is the first thing that comes to mind!
Last night at hospice Terri's father, Robert Schindler and Attorney Gibbs visited with Terri. Mr. Schindler was the first to enter Terri's room, approaching Terri on her right. As always, Terri was delighted to see her Dad until Mr. Schindler announced that Mr. Gibbs was with him.
Mr. Gibbs moved closer to Terri's left greeting her with, "Hello Terri."
Terri, hearing Mr. Gibb's deep voice immediately turned to her left to look at him. Terri's Dad stated that once she eyed Mr. Gibbs that was the end of his visit with her because she was no longer interested in anything he had to say to her..."she was goo-goo eyes over Attorney Gibbs."
Mr. Schindler then exclaimed, "Terri, Terri, look at me. I've come here to see you as well and now you cannot take your eyes off of Attorney Gibbs, what am I chopped liver?" Terri responded with laughter to her father's comment but her eyes remained focused on Mr. Gibbs.
Bob said,"Well, Cheryl that's the last time I will be taking Mr. Gibbs along with me since my daughter did not hear anything I had to say once he had her attention.
Government work and a serious family situation resulting in my wife and I taking care of our 3 year old granddaughter.
bump this wonderful account that demonstrates Terri's responsiveness -- see also #81 for A Visit With Terri Schiavo, an account of Attorney Barbara Weller's Christmas Eve 2004 visit with Terri.
thanks, Pegita, for posting that. May what has been hidden for so long finally come to light.
Thinking It Through by Dr. Richard ReebTerri is being denied the ordinary care that would be given to any other patient in her condition. She is not allowed up and out in her wheelchair, even though we see in a video clip that Michael took her out to a park ('91) and was pointing out ducks to her; even though we've seen the photo of her out at the mall getting her hair done, even though the St. Petersburg Times has a photo of Michael and her gazing into each others' eyes.
Thursday, March 3, 2005Terri Schiavo's husband wants her dead
http://www.desertdispatch.com/2005/110986025279241.htmlThe Terri Schiavo saga has been in court for 12 years. News articles invariably repeat the claim, accepted by the Florida courts, that the brain-damaged woman is in a vegetative state, even though her parents say otherwise. Her husband, Michael Schiavo, proposes that her feeding tube be removed, which would starve her to death in a few weeks.
Witnesses besides her parents claim that she is aware of what is going on, but is simply unable to communicate with words. Terri may not have what trendy liberals call "quality of life," but she has loving parents who are willing and able to care for her as long as she needs them.
At long last, millions of us are now seeing the face of this unfortunate woman in the media. With our own eyes we can see that, however impaired Terri Schiavo may be, she is not comatose or brain dead, but clinging to life. It is not unheard of for people long unconscious to regain consciousness, but Terri is not even unconscious. Yet MSNBC found a doctor who contended that she would feel no pain if she were starved to death.
As Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida legislature try to figure out a way to save Mrs. Schiavo, she is impaired but not comatose from causes not settled, while a state judiciary has conferred a "right to die" on her that she never asked for. The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, although not directly applicable to the case, gives us reasons for sparing her forced starvation, as her husband demands.
This amendment was written to protect the rights of all persons to life, liberty and property against arbitrary state infringement. This guarantee is applicable to incapacitated persons no less than everyone else. That other people must care for them is immaterial. After all, children must be cared for years after they are born, but no one has the right to end their lives.
Yet Florida courts continue, in effect, to deny the personhood of Mrs. Schiavo.
The operative issue is: what would she want in this case? Her husband maintains that she told him she "wouldn't want to live like that." As everyone knows, she cannot speak for herself, but this is not because she is in a vegetative state. Her parents visit her daily and she appreciates those visits, becoming sad when they end. Witnesses have reported that she communicates with blinks and smiles and frowns.
Unfortunately, judges and lawyers in Terri Schiavo's case are too lazy to see her. If they did, they would learn that Terri is not comatose, or better off dead. By declaring her incompetent, the courts have reduced her to the equivalent of a nonperson, who might as well be dead. Her husband wants her dead because he wants to save the money set aside for her medical care and take it for himself.
Clarity on these factual matters is crucial to a right decision. But the Schiavo case has been shrouded in lies from the moment it became publicly known because lawyers and judges who seek to terminate "unwanted" persons are not easily deterred.
What seems especially to enrage some about the Schiavo case is that "third parties" besides her husband are involving themselves in it. These "third parties" begin with Terri's parents, who have enlisted the aid of many other people. The rage regarding "third parties" reminds me of how Abraham Lincoln characterized Stephen Douglas's argument for "popular sovereignty"(designed to prevent Americans outside the Western territories from banning slavery there): "If one man decides to enslave another man, no third man may object."
Do "third parties" not directly involved have the right to object to Mr. Schiavo starving his wife to death? Of course. As they are rightly alarmed by the possibility that a grave injustice, if not a murder, is about to occur. As long as Americans care about equal justice and their own futures, they can be counted on to take a strong interest.
Concerned Americans, then, realize that if Terri can be starved to death, so can others. If a feeding tube can be taken from a conscious person who seems not to be losing all hope for life or wishing it would end, nobody is safe. Doubtless, if Terri dies, similar "right to die" cases will be ginned up all over the country.
Is Terri in agony just because she needs to be fed through a tube? (No, but she will be while she starves.) Is her life no longer worth living? Hardly. But under the circumstances, the decision to starve her to death is not hers; it is the choice preferred by her husband, whose motives are not merely questionable but highly suspect.
Michael Schiavo has been living with another woman for two years and has fathered two children with her. He is spending the money awarded for Terri's botched medical procedure on his fight to take away her feeding tube. Mr. Schiavo has been quoted as saying, "Is that bitch still alive?" He could divorce his wife and be free of responsibility, but then he would be unable to collect the remainder of the settlement. The classical question in murder cases, cui bono? (who benefits?) is the right one to ask here.
As we have seen, Terri Schiavo is being treated as if she were not a person. Unless we are deluded by mere forms and miss the real substance of things, we can see that a man has a financial interest in his wife's death and is attempting to make it happen. Justice demands that she be saved.
Richard Reeb, Ph.D.
Richard Reeb taught political science, philosophy and journalism at Barstow College from 1970 to 2003. He is the author of "Taking Journalism Seriously: 'Objectivity' as a Partisan Cause" (University Press of America, 1999). He can be contacted at rhreeb@verizon.net
http://www.desertdispatch.com/2005/110986025279241.html
[posted on 03/03/2005 11:28:20 AM EST by Chocolate Rose]
Terri is kept away from all visitors in her darkened room. Any cards or flowers that have been sent to her have been removed from her walls and tables. Even though it has been said that she enjoys little tastes of jello, her family is "not allowed" to try to feed her.
. . . etc etc.
I pray all goes well for you, and ty for your posts.
"The line is drawn HEEA--AARRHHH!" bump.
Let me say first that I believe in "the right to die." In fact, I've got a document that says I do not want "heroic efforts" performed to keep me alive, and that if I'm ever in that sort of situation, that I should be allowed to die. My family and lawyer know about my wishes. I've made it clear to anyone involved who might be asked. There's no question that is my wish.
Now, to this case... There is NO evidence or proof that "the right to die" is really what she wanted, other than that of her (ex)husband, who's living with another woman, and has children by that woman. This isn't a "right to die" case... It's a "right to kill" case, and there are a lot of questions regarding his actions over the years.
Mark
http://www.terrisfight.org/medaffdav/Dr.Green.pdf
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