Victory in Florida Feeding Case Emboldens the Religious Right

The New York Times ^ | October 24, 2003 | ABBY GOODNOUGH

[EternalVigilance]

PINELLAS PARK, Fla., Oct. 23 — Religious conservatives say that with an arsenal of prayer vigils, Christian radio broadcasts and thousands of e-mail messages to Florida lawmakers, they played a pivotal role in the legislative battle this week over whether to feed a brain-damaged woman who has been kept alive artificially for 13 years.

Now some conservatives are hoping to use similar tactics to help them challenge court rulings they opposed in other states.

Randall Terry, founder of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, said he and other conservatives intended to use what they consider a stunning victory here to pressure lawmakers elsewhere to chip away at court rulings allowing abortion and banning organized prayer in schools and the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools, among other issues.

"Finally, a governor and legislature had the courage to stand up to judicial despots because of an overwhelming call by the public," Mr. Terry said.

Mr. Terry, who had largely retreated from public life since the aggressive and sometimes violent abortion protests of the 1980's and early 90's, stood with the parents of Terri Schiavo as they pleaded for her life on television last week and lobbied legislators in Tallahassee before their vote on Tuesday. That vote gave Gov. Jeb Bush the authority to order that Ms. Schiavo, 39, be provided nourishment, six days after her feeding tube was removed.

"It's a crack in the wall," Mr. Terry said, "and it shows that we can return to self-government, where it is three separate and equal branches of government."

The religious right was out in force in the days leading up to the vote: outside the hospice here where Terri Schiavo lay dying, pickets from around Florida and the nation waved signs quoting biblical verse and accusing Mr. Bush of murder. On Christian radio, talk show hosts implored listeners to hold Mr. Bush and state legislators responsible if Mrs. Schiavo did not survive. And thousands of e-mail messages opposing her death on religious grounds jammed those lawmakers' computers, warning that they would be sorry if they did not stop the court-ordered removal of Mrs. Schiavo's feeding tube.

"The Republican Party wants to present itself as the pro-life, pro-family party," Mr. Terry said. "This pro-life, pro-family governor could not afford to not intervene in some way."

Mr. Terry attended an important meeting last week between Governor Bush and Mrs. Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, during which the governor promised to try to stop Mrs. Schiavo's death. Mrs. Schiavo's husband, Michael, had persuaded the courts that she would have wanted the tube withdrawn.

Mrs. Schiavo's heart stopped beating briefly one night when she was 26, and she has been severely brain-damaged and unable to eat or drink on her own ever since. She can, however, breathe on her own, and her parents insist that she responds to them.

Michael Schiavo has sued the state, saying the new law is unconstitutional.

The legislative vote broke largely along party lines: in the House, 67 Republicans and 6 Democrats voted for the law, while one Republican and 23 Democrats voted against it and 22 members did not vote. In the Senate, 20 Republicans and 3 Democrats voted yes, while 6 Republicans and 9 Democrats voted no and 2 members did not vote.

"I have never had a worse day as a senator," said Senator Tom Lee, a Republican from Brandon who said he voted reluctantly for the bill. "You could feel how rotten people felt having to vote on this."

Mr. Bush is in his second and last term as governor, but many politicians believe he may run for president in 2008. In the meantime, he is the point man in Florida for his brother's presidential campaign. And after 2000, when George Bush carried Florida by only 537 votes, the Republicans are doing everything they can to ensure a decisive victory next year.

Meanwhile, State Representative Johnnie B. Byrd Jr., a Republican who is speaker of the House, is running for the United States Senate on a far-right platform, and he was eager to claim much of the credit for "Terri's Law."

Two weeks ago Mr. Byrd announced that he was leaving the Episcopal Church and becoming a Baptist because of the recent Episcopal vote to allow the consecration of a gay bishop. He also pushed unsuccessfully this fall for a special session to vote on a measure to require parental notification for minors seeking abortions.

State Senator James E. King Jr., a Republican who is president of the Senate, has less at stake: he cannot seek re-election after his current term is up, and has not hinted at other political ambitions. But while Mr. King said he had qualms about bringing the Schiavo bill to a vote — he was one of the strongest supporters of the right-to-die law that the Legislature passed in 1988 — he allowed Senator Daniel Webster, a Republican who is challenging Mr. Byrd in the primary race for the United States Senate, to submit a rival bill to the one that the House originally voted on, on Monday evening.

Mr. Webster's bill was the one that was voted into law on Tuesday.

Political analysts in Florida said that while Mr. Byrd in particular had a political calculus in championing the law, it would be too simple to view Governor Bush's actions as pandering to his conservative base. They said that Mr. Bush, a Roman Catholic who is strongly against abortion and talks frequently about the "sanctity of life," was mostly acting on his convictions.

"Jeb Bush has certain core values that are extremely important to him, and this is one of those values," said Jim Kane, director of Florida Voter, a nonpartisan political news and polling service. "It doesn't matter if it could win the state for his brother for the next two elections running. He wouldn't do it if it violated his belief about the sanctity of life."

Mr. Kane said that after Mr. Bush lost his first bid for governor, in 1994, he urged Mr. Bush to temper his public enthusiasm for the anti-abortion movement. "Whenever you look like you are extreme on the pro-life, pro-choice issue, that is when you lose in Florida," he said.

But Mr. Bush did not do so. Earlier this year for example, he sought to have a guardian appointed for the fetus of a severely retarded woman in Orlando, an action many people saw as an effort to water down abortion rights laws.

Mary Parker Lewis, chief of staff for Alan Keyes, the conservative Republican who ran for president in 2000, said she and other conservatives did not view the Schiavo law as a coup for the religious right in Florida so much as a victory for anyone who thinks the courts wield too much power.

"All these so-called culture wars reflect this incredible disconnect between an out-of-control, despotic, high-handed elite in the courts and the two other branches, which still seem to have some responsiveness and some accountability to the electorate," Ms. Parker Lewis said. She said Mr. Keyes had not been more involved because he had been in Israel.

Mr. Terry said he was strategizing on Thursday with other conservatives about how to use the Schiavo victory to make progress on other issues, at both the state and national levels. Among the other conservatives, he said, was Phil Sheldon, who runs a Web site called Conservative Petitions.com that collected tens of thousands of electronic signatures in support of the Schiavo bill and sent them to Florida legislators.

"It's like the first kid to stand up to a bully in a courtyard," Mr. Terry said of the Legislature's actions. "That kid might get beat up, but he is going to inspire courage in the rest of the kids on the playground to stand up to the bully."

Susan McManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida at Tampa, said that while the religious right might seize on the Schiavo case, it resonated with a much broader constituency. While some lawmakers may have voted for the law for political reasons, Professor McManus said, most appeared to be voting their conscience.

"In a close state like ours," she said, "both parties have to keep their base and try to expand it. And of course the papers have been rife with commentary saying some of these conservative groups didn't vote last time out and the Republicans don't want that to happen again."

Professor McManus added, however, that it was not only the religious right that mobilized around the Schiavo case but "a groundswell from all kinds of people who responded to this in a very personal way."

While Mr. Terry and other conservatives said the law was an invaluable tool to help them attack other court rulings, they emphasized that the victory was primarily for Mrs. Schiavo, her parents and her siblings.

"This was a huge victory for one innocent woman," Mr. Terry said, "and it was a small victory for the return to self-government."

[EternalVigilance]

Yes, petitioning our government is one of our basic liberties; and is the duty of a self-governing people when a grave injustice against the weak and helpless is being perpetrated.

Sorry you are too blinded by your prejudices to see that.

[Atticus]

The phrase "religious right" is pejorative and inflammatory. You will never find a NYT article in which the writer refers to the "religious left." That is because the biased, unreliable NYT is not threatened by gay episcopal bishops, Martin Sheen, and charlatans like Rev. Jackson, Rev. Sharpton and Minister Farakan.

[EternalVigilance]

True.

[At _War_With_Liberals]

Once again, the NYT tries to scare the base into outrage by claiming that the religious Republicans will overturn 30 years of their agenda because of this one outcome.

Yawn....

[EternalVigilance]

ping!

[EternalVigilance]

It doesn't require an MD behind your name to know that it is wrong to starve a human being to death.

[EternalVigilance]

ping!

[EternalVigilance]

ping!

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

If you had been following Terri's case you would know that out of a dozen physicians who submitted evaluations of her status, all but one stated she was NOT in a vegetative state. The crooked judiciary only accepted the testimony of one. Guess which one?

[Gelato]

Father: Brain-damaged daughter responsive

PINELLAS PARK, Florida (CNN) -- The father who has fought for more than five years to keep his brain-damaged daughter alive said when he visited her Thursday, she turned down his kisses, saying, "Uh-uh."

"I was in front of her and I'm kissing her on the cheek, and she doesn't like that," said a smiling Bob Schindler after visiting his 39-year-old daughter Terri Schiavo.

He said he then asked, "'Do you want me to kiss you again?' She goes, 'Uh-uh. Uh-uh.' That's what I got from her."

Terri Schiavo's brain was damaged in 1990 when she collapsed from heart failure, the result of doctors' misdiagnosis. She recovered from the heart attack, but oxygen was cut off to her brain, leaving her in what doctors call a "persistent vegetative state."

Eight years later, her husband and legal guardian, Michael Schiavo, filed a court petition to remove his wife's feeding tube as he claims his wife wanted, according to the St. Petersburg Times. The woman did not have a will.

Terri Schiavo's family fought the move, maintaining that their daughter responds to them and should be kept alive with a feeding tube.

Schindler said Wednesday his daughter is "alert, active, a live human being" and said videotapes that showed her condition moved Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to act on her behalf.

Michael Schiavo claims Terri did not want to be kept alive artificially. Doctors said last week she would have died within two weeks without the feeding tube.

A court seemingly ended the five-year legal battle when it ordered the tube removed last week. But the state legislature quickly passed a law giving the governor the right to intervene, which he did Tuesday. The feeding tube was reinserted Wednesday.

Michael Schiavo's attorney, George Felos, said the law allowing Bush to order her feeding tube reinserted is unconstitutional. His attorneys asked a circuit court judge in Pinellas County Tuesday to grant an emergency injunction preventing the re-feeding of his wife.

The judge rejected the request, but gave attorneys five days to file paperwork for a permanent injunction.

"Each of us -- and the Florida Supreme Court has said this -- has a right to control our own body," Felos said. "We have a fundamental right to make our own medical treatment choices, and the state doesn't have a right to override our wishes."

Michael Schiavo has not allowed the family to see Terri Schiavo's medical reports, but Wednesday he allowed them to visit her.

Schindler said when he saw his daughter Wednesday night she looked withdrawn, but "today it's just the opposite."

An ambulance returned Terri Schiavo to hospice care in Florida on Wednesday evening.

He said his daughter looked a little weak from not having food for a week, but "other than that, she really looks good, I mean, too good.

"She looks like she did before this incident with the tube," he said, adding that the family is trying to get access to medical reports on her current condition.

Asked if the husband may finally give in to the family's demands and just walk away from the entire case, Schindler said he was unaware of any such possibility, but would definitely welcome it.

"Michael Schiavo is not our primary concern," the father said. "It's to see her back to the condition she should be in."

Independent guardian to be appointed

A Pinellas County Circuit Court judge this week ordered lawyers for both sides to agree within five days on an independent guardian for Terri, as required under the law signed by the governor.

The new guardian would become Terri Schiavo's advocate in legal proceedings, but Michael Schiavo would remain the decision-maker.

If an agreement cannot be reached, the judge said he will appoint Dr. Jay Wolfson, a professor of health and law at Stetson University, as the guardian. Wolfson also works for the College of Public Health at Florida State University and the College of Medicine at the University of South Florida.

Terri Schiavo

Terri Schiavo's parents have accused their son-in-law of selfish motivations. Michael Schiavo -- who has a girlfriend with whom he has a child -- won $1.2 million in a malpractice case against his wife's gynecologist and another $250,000 in a settlement with her general practitioner. Most of that money was to go toward her treatment.

In addition, he received $300,000 for pain and suffering and loss of consortium.

Michael Schiavo has declined to comment on whether there is an outstanding life insurance policy on his wife.

CNN correspondent John Zarrella contributed to this report.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/10/23/coma.woman/

*******************

If Terri is responsive, it doesn't matter what doctors label her. We have a duty to keep her alive!

[First Amendment]

Ah I see, you are one of the armchair neurologists who thinks he or she can divine from a few seconds of videotape what Terri Schiavo's Doctors apparently are deluded about.

Could you reveal to us why you are so vehemently slavering for Terri Schindler Schiavo to be forcibly starved and thirsted to death? All of a sudden you are all over these threads spouting bravado in a most arrogant and unpleasant manner. So YOU are a neurologist and you have visited Terri, tested her, viewed all the available medical documents, viewed every second of videos, taken care of other patients in similar conditions, etc?

You aren't related to M. Puke Schiavo by any chance, are you? I notice you just signed up on FR a few days ago.

[EternalVigilance]

Amen!

[EternalVigilance]

How does it feel to be a poster-boy for the heartless pro-death Left?

[AUH2OY2K]

The left whines about the treatment of the terrorists at Gitmo who, on the US taxpayer's dime, are gaining weight. At the same time, the left wants to starve to death an American citizen.

[Gelato]

"This was a huge victory for one innocent woman," Mr. Terry said, "and it was a small victory for the return to self-government."

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Again, you fail to grasp this. It is not difficult.

Read it again and think.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Why are you so invested in torturing and killing this woman?

Is Michael giving you a cut of the profits?

[not-an-ostrich]

Ah those lacking of souls gear up quick to fight those who do.

[Gelato]

Do you mean to tell me that the Courts accepted the testimony of Terris Doctor over the testimony of the shills hired by the Schindlers specifically to contradict Terris Doctors testimony? How dare they!

Courts can be wrong.

[EternalVigilance]

That was a great statement on Randall Terry's part, wasn't it.

[EternalVigilance]

You sound like an expert on shills.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Why are assuming the pro-death doctor was her personal physician? Michael, is that you?

[Zack Nguyen]

That is because the biased, unreliable NYT is not threatened by gay episcopal bishops, Martin Sheen, and charlatans like Rev. Jackson, Rev. Sharpton and Minister Farakan.

Hear, hear.

[EternalVigilance]

The left whines about the treatment of the terrorists at Gitmo who, on the US taxpayer's dime, are gaining weight. At the same time, the left wants to starve to death an American citizen.

Indeed.

Never any shortage of hypocrisy on their part, that's sure.

[EternalVigilance]

Keep posting, please.

You're a vivid illustration of what we're up against in this country.

[Gelato]

That was a great statement on Randall Terry's part, wasn't it.

As is this:

"It's like the first kid to stand up to a bully in a courtyard," Mr. Terry said of the Legislature's actions. "That kid might get beat up, but he is going to inspire courage in the rest of the kids on the playground to stand up to the bully."

Liberals aren't used to two branches of government standing up to the tyranical one.

[EternalVigilance]

Liberals aren't used to two branches of government standing up to the tyranical one.

Nice to see them reduced to whining in defeat, isn't it...

;-)

[The Red Zone]

Terri's DINO looks like the pro-death shill to me.

[The Red Zone]

pathetic, drooling shell of a body

Liar, liar, your pants on fire! She is NOT drooling! She SWALLOWS her own saliva!! These ghouls, and you, would deny her the benefit of doing the same with nutrition!!!

[EternalVigilance]

The new guardian would become Terri Schiavo's advocate in legal proceedings, but Michael Schiavo would remain the decision-maker.

This is not good.

Have you read the affadavits of the nurses who have cared for Terri over the years? They have been posted on other threads, and are very telling.

This man should be stripped of his ability to make any decisions for her.

[The Red Zone]

At least the GAL will be privy to all these decisions, and will report them back both to the court and to Governor Bush. Before, a lot of these decisions were taking place in a deep dark secret black hole.

[Gelato]

I'm going to quit discussing Terri with ninnies who believe you can make medical diagnoses using a few seconds of video tape.

No one here is making a diagnosis. We're simply the defending humanity of a brain-damaged person.

[trussell]

Ping.

[Saundra Duffy]

WHAT VICTORY? Is Terri going to live?

[Pro-Bush]

So self governance is when a small segment of society pressures the Governor of a State into overruling the wishes of a legal guardian in a matter that has been litigated to death? Strange definition of self governance.

Obviously you think Terri should be starved to death, why don't you come right out and say it?

[EternalVigilance]

When Terrys Doctor is proven right, the therapy fails, the law is ruled unconstitutional, and the feeding tube is pulled, you can expect an "I told you so" post or two.

If that sad day comes, I have no doubt you will cackle with glee along with all the other devils in hell.

[The Red Zone]

When Terrys Doctor is proven right, the therapy fails, the law is ruled unconstitutional, and the feeding tube is pulled, you can expect an "I told you so" post or two

I warn you most sternly: get good and prepared to take what you are anticipating to dish out. Terri wants to hang in there -- there is a reason for this. We will get at the least yes-no answers out of her that will damn Mikey boy to hell (so to speak).

[Gelato]

Have you read the affadavits of the nurses who have cared for Terri over the years? They have been posted on other threads, and are very telling. This man should be stripped of his ability to make any decisions for her.

Unfortunately, it appears he retains power over everything about Terri but the feeding tube.

Word is the new guardian can order tests and things like that. It's better than nothing, but not what most of us had hoped for.

[Saundra Duffy]

Was talking to two friends today. They both think Terri should be done away with ASAP because they think she's a vegetable. They were basing their opinion mostly on the pictures of Terri shown on CNN and all over the media - the ones that show her looking like a pathetic mess. The camera is shooting in the most unflattering manner imaginable - she looks like a freak with buck teeth, etc. No makeup. I heard that her parents used to put makeup on her she looked pretty. It would make a difference, you know. Michael Schiavo wants her to look as bad as possible. I tried my best to convince these two friends that the media has been lying. I'll keep working on it. One of the problems is the media siding with the monsters.

[EternalVigilance]

I know.

[Saundra Duffy]

What new guardian?

[The Red Zone]

A feeding test and a therapy trial perhaps (under Dr. Hammesfahr [sp])

[The Red Zone]

Whoever the GAL ends up being, whether Dr. Wolfson or someone else that Schiavo and the family can wrangle an agreement on.