Saving Terri's Life: What's Wrong with the "Right to Die" > by Rus Cooper Dowda
> > In 1990, Terri Schiavo's heart suddenly stopped. Before she could be > revived, her brain was damaged and she slipped into a comalike state. In > early October, the latest hearing began to determine the 38-year-old woman's > fate.
> > New Treatment is "Pointless"
> > Her parents and their doctors say Terri is responsive and deserves to live. > Her husband, who has just had a daughter by the woman to which he is now > engaged, wants Terri to die.
> > Terri received a $700,000 malpractice award in the early 1990s (doctors > hadn't done enough to diagnose the potassium deficiency that led to her > heart attack); husband Michael has been paying his legal fees out of it in > his fight to end her life. If she dies, as her husband (he has never filed > for divorce) he will receive whatever funds are left.
> > Michael Schiavo says Terri is brain dead. He wants to remove her feeding > tube and end her life. Her parents maintain that their daughter smiles, > turns her head, vocalizes and tracks with her eyes. They say she would > improve with treatment.
> > To date, the husband has refused to OK antibiotics or dental work - "Her > teeth are fine; she doesn't eat," he has said. She has not had physical, > occupational, recreational or speech therapy for years. She has not had a > mammogram or pap smear for four years. When a complete physical was ordered > for her in preparation for the current hearing, a urinary tract infection > was discovered.
> > The major issue involved in this round of the fight for her life is what is > meant by "new" treatment. The hubby says it means untried, pointless care. > The parents say they want the kind of care she hasn't gotten yet.
> > The husband's doctors maintain that she does not feel pain, yet have > prescribed pain medication for her - to make the nurses feel better, they > say. Terri's moaning and crying is only primitive brain stem activity, it's > said.
> > When she smiles at her mother coming in the room, it's just primitive stem > cell activity, say the doctors hired by Michael.
> > I attended the hearing in Clearwater, Florida to determine whether Terri > Schiavo should have her feeding tube removed. She is stable. She is not > terminally ill.
> > The hardest part of that first day was watching videos of Terri. "That could > have been me," I thought.
> > On one of the videos, a doctor asks Terri to open her eyes as widely as she > can. While she was doing this on tape, I looked around the courtroom. > Everybody in the courtroom was doing the same widening action ...including > the husband, his attorney, the sheriffs and the judge himself.
> > In the videotape of Terri, she is responding to doctors and family. > Sometimes she is responding to music. Frequently she can be seen clearly > responding to spoken requests to move parts of her body.
> > A snip of the tape was shown on Tampa's ABC-TV affiliate: At its end, the > news anchor said, "I guess it seems a matter of semantics, but it doesn't > look like a coma."
> > Cheap Sensationalism?
> > Throughout the hearing, Michael Schiavo's attorney, George Felos, has been > trying to get doctors to agree that Terri is not "with it" enough to be > allowed to continue her life. One of the doctors seemed to consider message > boards a rare thing, and claimed to have never heard of the most famous > computerized message board user of all - Stephen Hawking. While examining > Terri's videotaped interaction with her mother, he had to be asked twice to > please look at his monitor, and to put his glasses back on so he could see > his screen clearly.
> > And Ronald Cranford, a Minnesota neurologist known for his involvement in > so-called "right-to-die" cases, seemed content to testify about the tapes > without having viewed them.
> > Watching his own videotaped exam of Terri, I heard him first declare the > woman could not hear him, and then giving her a series of very fast verbal > commands. I've had neurological exams myself, but have never experienced one > as physically brutal as the one I watched Terri received on Cranford's > videotape. He clumsily poked, prodded, thumped, shoved and pinched her - she > DID seem to pull away when he approached her, he testified. He thunked her > hard between the eyebrows. She moaned. That was not a pain response, > Cranford told the court.
> > On viewing a large photo of Terri and her mother joyously greeting, Cranford > maintained Terri could not be recognizing her mother. It was only an > "involuntary subcortical response," he said. The photo was "cheap > sensationalism," he insisted.
> > Should the court base its decision as to whether Terri lives or dies on a > nose count, asked Ms. Pat Anderson, attorney for Terri's parents, in her > closing argument. No; credibility of the medical experts who'd testified was > the key, she said.
> > Intellectual Disconnection
> > Yet none of those saying Terri should die had any patients like Terri, she > told the court, nor did they - by their own testimony - keep up on advances > in rehabilitation. Anderson reminded the court that Terri's current > attending physician has for years spent only spent ten minutes with her > every four months.
> > What about the "untried" therapies for Terri? Much of the therapy Terri's > parents want for her, Anderson said, has been standard therapy for a good > while - but somehow never for Terri.
> > The experts speaking against Terri, she said, practiced an "intellectual > disconnection" that filtered Terri's humanity through the sieve of what > people with such disabilities are not expected to be able to do. "Is it fair > or equitable to keep saying that we are not going to help you because 'you > have brain damage'?" she asked the court.
> > "Terri has shown us her spirit and tried as hard as she can under the > circumstances to say, 'I'M STILL HERE!'
> > After the hearing, I reflected. Those videotapes of Terri interacting with > her environment had been both good and sad to see. Physicians who current > treat people with disabilities like Terri - and everyone else in the > courtroom - can clearly see her voluntary responses - to balloons, pain and > humor. If you are fortunate enough to have a loving relationship with your > mother, then it is very easy to see the love that passes between mother and > adult child when Terri's mother enters the room.
> > The other side says that what we are seeing is merely an uncontrolled brain > stem reflex - that just coincidentally happens every time she sees her > mother.
> > Terri has never been given standard speech and communication therapy to > enable her to tell us what she thinks. Because of that, she has lost the > speech she is said to have had even after her injury. Now that same lack of > therapy is being used against her.
> > The judge will wait until Thanksgiving to announce whether Terri lives or > dies.
> > (Editor's Note: Judge George Greer of the 6th Judicial Circuit Court in > Clearwater, Fla., has just ruled that Terri "has no hope of recovery" and > that her feeding tube should therefore be removed on January 3. Attorneys > for Terri's parents plan to file a notice of appeal and a motion for a stay > of Greer's ruling pending the appeal.) > > Rus Cooper-Dowda is a minister and freelance writer in St. Petersburg, > Florida.
"Rev. Rus Cooper-Dowda, a minister, journalist, and free-lance writer in the St. Petersburg area, takes this case personally as well as politically.
"In 1985, my situation was much like Terri's. The hospital staff and my (ex) husband had written me off as being as good as dead, as someone who would never regain any kind of 'meaningful' function. Since then, I've earned a Master's degree and had a son. Having a son would have surprised them, too, since those same physicians had earlier pronounced me sterile."