To: Theodore R.
I wish I had been able to keep the letter I just emailed, in case it brought you some ideas. But I lost it after sending it on one of those places where you type into a box. But I mentioned Terri and gave her website, and I brought up all the people who had already been killed that I could think of at the time, and I spoke about how cruel it was and how we had advanced from patients in a coma who were unresponsive, to patients who were conscious and some able to ask for food and water.
Feel free to give my FR profile page out as a place to read many stories.
I also made the point that this might not be something you care much about until it is your daughter lying in the bed about to be killed. I spoke about the horror facing the Schindlers, I said that I could only imagine what they were dealing with, and I tried to put forth a verbal picture of them going to see their daughter daily knowing she was dying from a lack of something as simple as water, available in every household in this country.
I said that it is against the law to do this to a horse or a cat but is happening to the mentally ill, elderly and confused, probably much more often than we know.
I said that only the cases in which the family disagrees or the nursing staff contacts the media are we able to know about these situations.
Hope this is of some help.
I gave the link above for the Act in Illinois and quoted the parts that Deo quoted.
And I said that I was a republican and a Christian..
3,663 posted on
09/13/2003 1:49:16 PM PDT by
MarMema
(KILLING ISN'T MEDICINE)
To: MarMema
Those lawyers have got to go back into Judge Lazzara's courtroom Tuesday and argue for all it's worth the following from the Amended Complaint (in my humble, legally-challenged opinion, since I'm a law school dropout!)
78. The state court proceedings and the minimal quality of proof required to
establish clear and convincing evidence of Terri's supposed intent to refuse food and
water as medical treatment constitute insufficient due process for protection of her federal
constitutional right to life.
79. Terri's Fifth Amendment right to life is also violated by the ex post facto
application to her situation of a 1999 Florida statutory amendment which by its terms
operates only prospectively, adding food and hydration to the categories of medical
treatment a patient has the right to refuse under that state's Living Will Law and that
state's Constitution.
80. There was no evidence in the state court proceedings that Terri ever referred
specifically to food and hydration in her alleged remark about "nothing artificial" made at
a time when Florida law did not allow for termination of food and hydration.
Supposing (and that's a big IF) she told Michael that she didn't want anything "artifical", she CERTAINLY DIDN'T SAY SHE WANTED TO STARVE TO DEATH AND DEHYDRATE AND SHRIVEL UP!!!! Where's the proof of that, Michael??
AND, even if she had, the State of Florida would not have let her, since it was ILLEGAL until 1999.
Terri never had the chance to consider the 1999 statutory amendment. A court may only assume she meant the "artificial means" that were in the law's definitions at that time. How can a court presume to 'read the mind' of a person regarding food and water, WHICH WERE NOT DEFINED in 1990 as "extraordinary" or "artifical" treatments.
(They still aren't in many states, including ILLINOIS).
IN FACT, food and water were considered ORDINARY means of sustenance in 1990 in Florida. That's what the people of Florida knew them to be. It was common knowledge. It's reflected in the statute. How does the court "know" that Terri considered them "artificial"? How did Judge Greer discern that? He's never even visited Terri!
How does he know something about Terri's wishes is 1990 that the Law didn't even contemplate?
The law MUST apply to her and her situation in 1990, NOT 1999. In 1990, depriving a patient of food and water was ILLEGAL. It's STILL ILLEGAL to do this to Terri. If she had collapsed a day after the 1999 amendment was signed into law, it might be a different story.
THIS IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
They're going to deprive her of her Fifth Amendment rights to life EX POST FACTO.
They don't even deprive condemned prisoners of their lives EX POST FACTO.
"Judge Lazzara, You MUST NOT allow this to happen. You are a FEDERAL JUDGE, and YOU DAMN WELL HAVE JURISDICTION when a state judge is hell-bent on violating a person's FIFTH AMENDMENT RIGHTS. Those are FEDERAL RIGHTS!
What do you say, Your Honor?"
3,666 posted on
09/13/2003 3:24:43 PM PDT by
Deo volente
(God willing, Terri will live.)
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