Posted on 03/30/2005 7:20:50 AM PST by thomas16
Edited on 03/30/2005 7:48:11 AM PST by Sidebar Moderator. [history]
For 13 years Terri Schiavo has been in a coma - with her husband, her parents, the Christian right and now the president's brother locked in a bitter struggle over her fate. This week could see a final decision on whether she lives or dies. Suzanne Goldenberg reports from Florida
Tuesday November 4, 2003
The woman's eyes are open in the video. She slowly rolls her head along the pillow, keeping up a constant low moan, as a man's arm dangles a metallic balloon overhead. "Look over here, Terri," a male voice says. "Can you follow that at all?"
The medical community and Florida's courts are convinced that Terri Schiavo can't, and, indeed, that she will never be able to recapture even this degree of cognitive ability. So too is her husband, Michael Schiavo. Over the years, he has tried three times to remove her feeding tube.
But Terri's parents, Mary and Robert Schindler, say she can improve, and have collaborated with the Christian right in America to turn this very private tragedy into a national pro-life pageant. Using the internet, press and Christian radio and television shows, anti-abortion groups have turned Terri's catastrophic loss into a major political gain, expanding the parameters of the pro-life debate.
This week could provide the last act. After a decade of exhausting every legal measure - and all the furore the Christian right can rustle up - the Schindlers have arrived at the final round of their struggle with their son-in-law for control of Terri's destiny.
A judge is deliberating whether to strike down so-called "Terri's Law" - a last-minute reprieve pushed through the Florida legislature by the state governor and presidential brother, Jeb Bush, that forced the hospital to resume feeding Terri two weeks ago.
Terri's Law, condemned by civil libertarians, the legal and medical community, and queasy state legislators, was the Schindlers' last hope. If it fails, the feeding tube will be removed, and Terri will slowly starve to death.
None of this has penetrated through to Terri. In February 1990, aged 26, she suffered a heart attack, brought on by acute potassium shortage caused by bulimia. By the time the ambulance arrived, her brain had been deprived of oxygen for six minutes. She has remained in what doctors call a persistent vegetative state ever since. Her eyes are open, her limbs are contracted, she smiles and grunts occasionally, but without any sense of purpose, according to the majority medical opinion presented to the courts.
But even in that seemingly senseless form, Terri's parents were able to discern a remarkable power within their semi-comatose daughter. Over the years, as successive judges refused their demand to be put in control of Terri's destiny, the Schindlers have enlisted the support of the Christian right to challenge court verdicts that have gone in her husband's favour. In the process, they have turned her into an unwitting heroine for the pro-life movement, and a convenient foil for Governor Bush.
With a year to go before the 2004 elections, Brother Bush has been keeping a weather eye out for causes that would mobilise the pro-life movement. Earlier this year, he outraged legal opinion by intervening to prevent a severely disabled woman, who had been raped in a state institution, from obtaining an abortion. Terri's case has proved as enticing a cause - and the Schindlers are extremely cooperative.
From their rented camper van across the road from the hospice, they have presided over prayer vigils and power rallies, pumping up the emotions in the campaign to keep their daughter alive by smuggling out videos of Terri in her bed, and making them available on the internet. Although her father, Robert, claims that he hates the circus that has developed around his daughter, he seems well practised at delivering his pitch. The fight for her life, the argument goes, is the fight for disabled people across America."Playing God" continued
No comparison.
So, her kidneys were failing and she was 79 and the Guardian wants to paint Mr. Shindler as acting in a hypocritical fashion? I don't see it.
Interesting twist. Pot, Kettle, Black.
A ventilator is not the same as a feeding tube.
POINT?????
He lost his mind in the interval.
This is the same thing they tried to do to Tom DeLay and his father. No comparison there either.
A feeding tube is not a disease like failing kindneys.
Terri was not even "sick".
I'll say.
Hmmm... based on all the theories I'm seeing on Michael Schiavo's "motivations" in wanting to end life support for Terri, I guess it's only fair to ask what Mr. Schindler's "motivations" were when he decided to end life support for his mother...
Sounds like an entirely different situation.
"A feeding tube is not a disease like failing kindneys.
Terri was not even "sick"."
Terri is not being "allowed" to die. They are causing her to die, and that is killing.
A VENTILATOR, extraordinary means is NOT a FEEDING TUBE, ordinary means!!!!!!!!
How many times must this be said??????????
Even if one thinks these 2 situations are comparable, the argumant could be made that perhaps Mr. Schindler regrets his previous choice and has vowed not to do the same thing again.
In Florida, both are considered 'life support'. Period.
Don't like it? Get the law changed :)
I don't see it either.
It seems to be an attempt to snooker unaware people into lining up against the Schindlers
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