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From Missouri:

Bringing in Cruzan with a little slice of Colby...

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Denise Swenson of the coalition’s local chapter said the death of Terri Schiavo in 2005 in Florida, who, like Cruzan, had her feeding tube removed after a protracted legal battle, has helped put end-of-life preparation back in the public eye.

“The Terri Schiavo issue in Florida really brought the issue to the public attention,” she said. “It’s an excellent example of how bad it can get. No one was named who could make those decisions on her behalf. There was no completed documentation on who she wanted to make that decision.”

Snip...

“It’s not really about the law,” Colby said. “It’s about talking with your doctor and people you care about about some hard and important issues.”

Discussion to focus on end-of-life issues... Advocates say end-of-life planning is vital to avert contentious litigation.

8mm

T'wit, I find your post on the writing of Amy Green refreshing and a great encouragement. Thank you, Amy Green, if you are lurking, and somehow I think you may have visited the Terri Dailies.

A year has now passed since the starvation/dehydration death of Terri Schiavo, and the debate surrounding her case, though never insignificant, is becoming ever more pertinent in a world increasingly obsessed with "quality of life." Last Wednesday, renowned bioethics writer Wesley J. Smith visited the College to deliver a lecture about the growing trend to consider certain human beings "disposable" based on their perceived "quality of life" and their value to society. In his numerous books and television appearances, Smith has lamented that, in modern bioethics, sentience is no longer sufficient to prove "personhood." Patients must also demonstrate rationality -- a dangerous theory that in 1997 led doctors from the International Forum for Transplant Ethics to propose that patients deemed to be in a "persistent vegetative state" (PVS) should be considered dead and have their organs harvested. The bottom line, however, is that doctors still know too little about the regenerative capabilities of the human brain to reliably diagnose PVS (which is not, contrary to some assumptions, the same as brain death).

Supporting life

8mm

>> Cruzan the first right-to-die case ever heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

It wasn't a right-to-die case. It was a right-to-kill case, sought by the parents for their own benefit. Nancy Cruzan never asked to die. On the contrary, as she was dying in agony, Nancy evidently reached out to a law enforcement officer for help. But he was not permitted to save her.

>> Denise Swenson of the coalition’s local chapter said... "No one was named who could make those decisions on her behalf. There was no completed documentation on who she wanted to make that decision.”

Decision?!? What decision? Terri wasn't dying. She didn't ask anyone to kill her. Lady, you're talking about committing murder but you call it a "decision."

Ooooh! What have we here!?

>> Bill Colby, author of “Long Goodbye: The Deaths [? sic] of Nancy Cruzan” and “Unplugged: Reclaiming our Right to Die in America,” ... the attorney who represented Cruzan and her parents in front of the Supreme Court, ... said... “If she [Nancy Cruzan] had talked to her family for five minutes, she’d have spared those people all the public strife they went through.”

This was the crusading lawyer who engineered Nancy Cruzan's death. I think he just obliquely confessed to murder. That case was built on the testimony of several people who supposedly called the Cruzans to say, "You don't know me but I knew Nancy" and told them, in effect, she'd want to die. That was the "clear and convincing" evidence Colby used to kill Cruzan.

But what is Colby saying here? That Nancy could have avoided all this strife if she'd talked to her family for five minutes. Colby is admitting THEY DIDN'T KNOW HER WISHES! There was no evidence she wanted to die. The whole thing was rigged.

No wonder the POS is doing a Lady Macbeth. He has Nancy's blood on his hands.

Further to the previous, we can deduce a few other interesting details. For one, George Felos was no pioneer. He followed Colby's blueprint to the letter, including the rigged hearsay.

For another, Colby's offhand comment is actually a break in the case -- an admission that there was no "clear and convincing" evidence in the case (because Nancy had not spent the five minutes telling her family her wishes). Could it be that the fancy lawyer played a little trick on the court in order to kill a helpless woman? I don't think officers of the court are supposed to deceive judges. They aren't supposed to put disabled women to death either.

And if, sixteen years later, we have a break in the Cruzan case, how safe are Scott and Joan Schiavo with those things they "remembered" in meetings with George Felos? Both of them know they helped kill Terri. Will they stay silent? Will Jodi?

If Nancy Cruzan's attorney can let a key secret slip, how safe is Michael Schiavo? How safe are Felos, Bushnell and Greer? They all conspired to kill an innocent woman.

Sooner or later, somebody is going to blab. It may be nothing more than a slip of the tongue. Or maybe someone with an aching conscience will say something that sets off an avalanche of confessions. Who will it be?

Who will it be?

A last comment. Here's Colby, one more time:

“If she [Nancy Cruzan] had talked to her family for five minutes, she’d have spared those people all the public strife they went through.”

Did I say he was a POS? Here he is blaming a murder victim for not sparing the murderers such inconvenience and "strife."

Nancy, you bad, bad girl, putting your parents through all the strife of killing you. If you had been a good girl, Nancy, you would have told them in advance to kill you. Then they wouldn't feel so bad. And you know what else? Then I wouldn't have had to find some cheesy hearsay testimony to fool the court into approving your death order. You let us all down, Nancy.

Mr. Cruzan is the only one who understood. He committed suicide.