Replies

----- Original Message -----
From: Dyckman@sptimes.com
To: (name redacted)
Sent: Friday, May 07, 2004 1:57 PM
Subject: Re: Terri Schiavo Coverage

Dear (name redacted):

I empathize with your situation. You have made the choices that are right for you. That is all that Mr. Schiavo wanted for himself and his wife until the governor and legislature intervened in violation of the Florida Constitution.

However, I must tell you that as a person who knows the names of distant kin murdered by the Nazis, I am insulted whenever anyone attempts to equate the issue of Ms. Schiavo being allowed to die a natural death with the deliberate genocide they practiced.

No reply is necessary.

Martin Dyckman
Associate editor and columnist
St. Petersburg Times
336 East College Avenue
Tallahassee, FL 32301
850-224-6394

______________________________________________________________________
THIS IS THE LETTER SENT TO MR. DYCKMAN FROM A FIGHT4TERRI ACTION GROUP VOLUNTEER REQUESTING FAIR AND EQUAL COVERAGE OF TERRI.

I am writing to you to express my disappointment with the manner in which your newspaper covers Terry Schiavo. As a mother of a child who would be
described as being in a persistent vegetative state and is also fed by feeding tube, I am fully aware of the needs a person like Terry has.

I think it would be a good idea for your paper to educate its readers on exactly what caring for someone diagnosed as PVS is like. From your
reportage PVS could be misconstrued by your readers to be a coma-like state, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth, and particularly in
Terri's case. Perhaps you could interview parents of a child with PVS to learn exactly what kind of quality of life such a child has. I would be
happy to be interviewed for such a story.

In my case, my child who is 8 would be described as being in a PVS. She was vaccine-damaged at the age of 4 months and her development was arrested. She lost her swallowing reflex and has been unable to eat adequate amounts of solids and so is dependant upon a feeding tube for her nourishment. The past 8 years have been the most intense I have ever experienced; filled with joy, laughter and sadness. The idea that a judge could decide whether my child live or die is just abhorrent to me. My daughters contribution to her family, friends and neighbours, in terms of the love and happiness she brings could never be measured and is priceless.

Like Terri, my child does not communicate verbally, but there is an unspoken communication between us, it is usually easy to determine what she needs or why she might be unhappy. Likewise, it is very easy to know exactly what makes her happy. With therapy my daughters condition has improved and I
believe that anything is possible with the right care and attention. Reading Terri's parents testimony to her present condition, one gets the impression that Terri is a very upbeat woman who is cognitive and responsive. I find it incredibly cruel that her life could be used in the way that it is being done so in the state of Florida to encroach on the sanctity of life. It is ironic that we try to preserve the rights of unborn embryos and yet in the case of Terri, we encourage the practise of euthanasia. Is this because her life has no utilitarian function deemed worthy of preserving? And who is entitled to make that decision?

It reminds me of the nazi euthanasia programme that saw the disabled killed because they were not considered useful to society, this was accepted by
German society at the time. Unfortunately, this notion of utility did not stop with the disabled but over time grew to include able-bodied humans that
society felt were of no value; the chronically sick and elderly, those considered pararsites, political dissidents and finally culminating in the holocaust in which millions of jews were incinerated. The holocaust could never have occured without first convincing society that it was compassionate to kill the disabled because they had no "quality of life".

Admittedly, caring for Terri is going to be expensive, Terri's parents are fully aware of this but they love their child dearly and are battling to protect her from harm because she is very precious to them. If we are prepared to commit euthanasia despite the wishes of her parents, where precisely do we draw the line and say, this life is worth preserving and that one is not?

It is really important that your paper address these issues. Your readers need to understand that Terri does feel. Removing Terri's feeding tube and
allowing her to starve to death, when she is in such a vulnerable state, is the cruelest idea imaginable. It has been suggested that she is incapable
of feeling and yet she is clearly delighted by the presence of her parents when they visit her in hospital.   Michael Schiavo says that removing her
feeding tube would allow Terri to die with dignity. However, starving to death would cause her enormous pain, physically and emotionally.

It is said that a society can be judged by how it treats its weakest members. Allowing Terri to die in this way would not reflect well on the state of Florida. I have always found that a good rule of thumb is "what if the shoe were on the other foot". It has been claimed by Michael Schiavo that Terri would wish for the "plug to be pulled". Is it not strange that she would never have expressed this opinion to her parents and best friends?

I really do not think that removing Terri's feeding tube is a line that we who are presently able-bodied, should be ready to cross.

Please endeavour to show the human side of the plight of Terri and her parents. It is extremely sad and troubling that some 60 years after the
holocaust that we are ready to embark once more with a euthanasia programme on the very same platform that was used by the nazis - i.e. compassion - and when we know so well the experiment ended in the gas chambers.

I look forward to seeing more positive and humane coverage of Terri in the future.

Yours sincerely

(name redacted)

~ping~

Just another disgrace from Florida.

This is a serious, blatant and outrageous encroachment on freedom of speech and no newspaper in this country has the authority to limit editorial or opinion content based on their own PERSONAL set of opinions. No, it is NOT an encroachment on the 1st Ammendment. Editorials are the opinions of the media source's owner or manager. That is what an editorial is! 1A restricts the GOVERNMENT from censorship. Not newspapers or private individuals (who may happen to own a newspaper. So many people do not understand the 1st Amendment.

The fact of the matter is that no journalist is ever, or ever can be, an objective observer, in an age where media can affect an event as it is happening.

Beautiful letter. I must rethink my response to this person.

My email to Mr. Dykman....

Dear Mr. Dyckman,

I am writing to you because I am completely stunned at your response to Cheryl Ford. She and I do not personally know each other, however many of us have developed bonds during our fight to save Terri's life. She is good person, and a total professional.

Sir, imagine a time where your boys are grown men. Unfortunately one is injured in an accident. No life support, save a feeding tube, is needed. However he has a wife looking at a huge insurance policy, should her husband, your child, dies. You know that your son can be rehabilitated. He won't be the same, but he'll be there, and he knows who you are. All of a sudden, the wife decides that you can't see your son anymore, and tries to remove his feeding tube. Terri Schiavo lasted 6 days of starvation, before Governor Bush intervened and her feeding was resumed. As a parent, could you last through 12 years of this nightmare?

We don't know what really happened to Terri on that
day, Michael Schiavo wants to make sure no one knows. I do know that when you are faced with evil and you turn away, you share some guilt because you didn't do anything. A lot of Germans have that problem about concentration camps such as Auschwitz. We've always castigated civilian Germans for not stepping forward earlier. Is Terri any different from your distant kin? It starts with her, and God knows who it ends up with.

Please sleep on this, and do the right thing.

Sincerely,

TheSpottedOwl