Posted on 03/19/2005 3:05:30 PM PST by FairOpinion
PINELLAS PARK, Fla., March 19 - The morning after Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was removed, supporters of her parents sought new avenues in their fight to keep the critically brain-damaged woman alive, while police arrested several of the protesters who gathered outside Ms. Schiavo's hospice when they tried to force their way inside.
At midmorning Saturday about 30 people prayed and waved signs outside the Woodside Hospice, and the Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, said that later in the day that he would lead as many protesters as he could gather to Tallahassee, where they would spend the next few days lobbying the State Legislature and Gov. Jeb Bush to somehow force the feeding tube's reinsertion.
Just before 11 a.m. Saturday, three protesters were taken into custody when they tried to force their way past officers guarding the driveway to the hospice and to take bread and water to Ms. Schiavo. The three men - led by James (Bo) Gritz, a former Green Beret commander from Nevada - were arrested on misdemeanor trespassing charges, police officials said.
Ms. Schiavo cannot eat or drink without a feeding tube, but the protesters said the action was meant to be symbolic.
Shortly after the arrests, a man who described himself as a spiritual adviser to Ms. Schiavo's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, emerged from the hospice to say they did not want any civil disobedience. The man, Paul O'Donnell, said the Schindlers were inside and wanted "everything to remain peaceful" adding that they were "devastated but hopeful."
Mary Schindler, who rarely addresses the news media, emerged from the hospice around lunchtime to say that Ms. Schiavo "is my life."
"I am begging Governor Bush and the politicians in Tallahassee, President Bush and the politicians in Washington, please, please, please save my little girl," she said.
Doctors removed the feeding tube from Ms. Schiavo on Friday afternoon. They said that the 41-year-old woman, who suffered extensive brain damage when her heart failed 15 years ago, could live up to two weeks without the liquid meals that were provided through a gastric tube.
She has been the focus of a seven-year fight between her husband, Michael, who is her legal guardian and says that he is fighting to protect her wish to die, and her parents, who reject court findings that she has no cognition and would not want to be kept alive artificially.
Mr. Mahoney, one of several conservative religious leaders trying to rally national protest of the tube removal on grounds that no life should end prematurely, said he hoped more people would travel here as Ms. Schiavo's condition deteriorated.
"We want a spiritual prayer witness sort of thing in Pinellas Park and a more political front in Tallahassee," Mr. Mahoney said.
He added that protesters would pressure Governor Bush to visit Ms. Schiavo at her bedside, as her husband has angrily invited him to do. Mr. Schiavo sued the governor in 2003 after the Legislature passed a law empowering the governor to order Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted six days after it had been removed.
Mr. Schiavo, appearing Saturday morning on the "Today" show on NBC, said that he was at his wife's side shortly after the tube was removed Friday afternoon and that he knew it was what she wanted.
"It felt like some peace was happening for Terri," Mr. Schiavo said in the television interview. "And I felt like she was finally going to get what she wants, and be at peace and be with the Lord."
Mr. Mahoney - who believes, as Ms. Schiavo's parents do, that she can think and feel and could improve with therapy even though the courts have accepted medical testimony that she cannot - said visiting Ms. Schiavo could prompt the governor to take drastic action.
"It's important for him as a chief executive to see what's being done to one of his residents," Mr. Mahoney said. "Governor Bush might be her last practical hope. We believe he could take her into protective custody or otherwise use his executive privileges."
Mr. Mahoney and Randall Terry, the founder of the antiabortion group Operation Rescue, said they would continue lobbying Congress to pass a bill that would require a federal court hearing in cases like Ms. Schiavo's to evaluate whether the state had followed all requirements for judicial due process. They also said they still hoped the Florida Legislature would pass a law requiring the tube's reinsertion or forcing the replacement of Mr. Schiavo as his wife's guardian.
For those who haven't followed the case, and want some info, go to Terri's Fight
Question: Can President Bush write and sign an Executive Order keeping her alive?
You can symbolically light a candle for Terri at this site if anyone is so inclined:
http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/light6.cfm
Go away.
The law is certainly being upheld into unconsciousness.
I've ignored your posts up to this point, but do tell me: Are you praying for Terri right now? Are you praying over the pain she is in? Do you feel any grief and compassion for her parents? Is there any tenderness, any compassion, in your heart for those being wrongfully executed?
Suggest you change screen name to adolph.
It seems to be a troll who relishes in dancing around on threads hoping to upset Freepers who care about Terri. I've been watching it too. On most threads we have posters who are passionate about Terri, and then a small handful of disrupters (most of them newbies, btw) who aren't passionate about anything other than upsetting the rest of us.
I have been weeping and half sick for two days now, and these trolls are enjoying making it worse.
"Question: Can President Bush write and sign an Executive Order keeping her alive?"
I was wondering about that myself, after all the President and even the governor has the power to commute death sentences of criminals and pardon them, why can't they pardon an innocent woman and save her from death?
I cannot understand the heartless people who want Terri Schiavo to be starved to death.
There are laws against starving animals, but this court is ordering a disabled woman to be murdered.
Didn't you know? There is no rule of law anymore. So, exactly which law would be upheld? Oh, is that the new one the judge invented?
All Hitler's henchmen just "followed the law" too.
Himmler had better regard for human life than you.
The same people who are happy to starve this innocent woman to death, would be terribly upset at the "cruel and unusual punishment" if criminals would be starved to death, as a way of carrying out their death sentence.
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