Posted on 04/07/2005 8:16:31 AM PDT by amdgmary
Judge George Greer, the Florida county jurist at the center of the Terri Schiavo case, ruled against a woman who was fighting to keep her husband alive in 2000.
While Greer has ruled consistently with husband Michael Schiavo, who seeks to terminate his wife's life by depriving of her of food and water, the parallel case suggests the judge may have a predisposition to removal of any life-support devices rather than an inclination toward the legal guardian.
The 2000 case heard by Greer involved the life of St. Petersburg lawyer Blair Clark, a University of South Florida professor. After suffering a heart attack Sept. 9, 2000, his children, who stood to inherit much of his estate, claimed they wanted to honor his wishes to remove him from a ventilator and feeding tube and allow him to die. His wife, Ping, however, believed his condition could improve with therapy and claimed only one month later treatments had not been given enough time.
Unlike Terri Schiavo, Blair Clark, 58, had a living will, which stated: "If the situation should arise in which there is no reasonable expectation of my recovery from severe physical or mental disability, I request that I be allowed to die and that life-prolonging procedures not be provided."
However, his wife believed there was still a reasonable expectation of recovery.
"His living will did not say, 'Don't save me, just let me die,'" his wife pleaded. "They want to kill Blair and I don't know why. I want to ask, 'What's the rush?' I'm the only one who wants to save him. Every time I say yes, they say no. I had to go to court to give him blood."
But on Oct. 24, 2000, Greer ruled in favor of the children and against the wishes of the wife, ordering all mechanical ventilation and intravenous nutrition stopped.
Ping Clark, of Chinese descent, argued that four days of Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture treatments had showed promise. She asked only for 30 more days of ventilator support and treatments.
Clark relied heavily on the opinion of neurologists, some of whom claimed Clark's chances of recovery were no greater than one in a thousand.
"If you love somebody, one in 1,000 is a chance worth taking, argued Dennis Rogers, Ping Clark's attorney.
After the ruling, Clark's wife was distraught and couldn't bear to visit the hospital to watch him die.
"I cannot see him die," she cried. "I know how much he wants to live. They'll be guilty their whole lives for killing Blair Clark."
Clark died a week after the ruling, Oct. 31, 2000.
Schiavo's feeding tube was removed Friday by order of Greer at the request of her estranged husband, Michael Schiavo, who contends Terri had expressed a wish to not live under her present condition. Parents Robert and Mary Schindler dispute the court's finding that their daughter is in a "persistent vegetative state," citing numerous physicians who believe she is responsive and could benefit from therapy.
After centuries of litigation over wills and estattes lawyers have yet to make one bullet proof.There is ALWAYS interpretation and review if the heirs think it is worth it.
Nobody is safe with the death advocates roaming the courts.
One never knows in these things, without seeing the papers. But if this was a second wife, and children from a first marriage that ended in divorce, you can guaran-darn-tee that there's bad blood between them.
What is the source of your quote? I certainly don't agree with that. What the heck if the 'Bioethics Network'?
The Courts can and do enforce the wishes of the declarant. They should not become the instrument of some 'social policy' either way. I hope we can agree on that.
One thing I was wondering when I originally read this article was whether or not Ping was the mother of those children. I could picture them as the offspring of perhaps a first wife, and Ping as the man's next and last wife.
That might also partly explain the animosity between the children and the wife.
You're probably right. A number of other posters suspect the same thing.
Obviously, there was no 'murder.' And Terri's 'smile' was reflexive not cognitive. So, the answer is: Were I in Terri's state, there is no question I would want nutrition and hydration withheld -- and anything else -- to end that terrible state.
This and the Schiavo case are exact opposites in terms of situation, but parallel in principle. The issue with Terry Schiavo is that she didn't have a living will, but her guardian Michael Schiavo said that her wishes were clear, that she would want to die in this situation, and provided flimsy evidence to support his position. Greer bought that argument and sided with him over his nonguardian parents to pull the plug.
In this case there WAS a living will, but Clark's guardian Ping Clark said that her husband's wishes were clear that he wouldn't want to die in this situation, that there was reasonable hope of recovery, and provided evidence was no less compelling than Schiavo's for that conclusion. Yet, Greer sides with the nonguardian children in favor of pulling the plug.
To be consistent, Greer should have either went with the guardian both times, or basing the decision off of the living will (or lack of it). It does look like bias.
No, legally, the two cases are quite different. In the first (Terri's), the Court was required by law to determine her wishes factually. It had nothing to do with 'siding with the guardian.'
In the second, the Court was required to enforce the living will which provided, "If the situation should arise in which there is no reasonable expectation of my recovery from severe physical or mental disability, I request that I be allowed to die and that life-prolonging procedures not be provided." In order to do that, the Court had to decide whether there was a "reasonable expectation of recovery" based upon the acupuncture and Chinese herbal therapies. The testimony was "no more than 1 in a thousand." The wife's lawyer apparently accepted that testimony and argued, "If you love somebody, one in 1,000 is a chance worth taking."
While that is the value judgment the wife (guardian) might have made, the Court's obligation was different. Was a "1 in a 1000" chance a "reasonable expectation of recovery"? Judge Greer rightly found it was not. Would you really contend that one chance in a 1000 is a 'reasonable expectation of recovery'? I didn't think so.
Didn't the subject have a right to have his living will enforced, even if the wife wanted to punch him with needles and feed him herbal tea for another 30 days? Of course, he did.
So, the answer is: Were I in Terri's state, there is no question I would want nutrition and hydration withheld -- and anything else -- to end that terrible state.
Free Republic Opinion Poll:
Was it wrong to kill Terri Schiavo?
Composite Opinion
Yes 84.4% 4,298
No 10.2% 519
Pass 3.3% 166
Undecided 2.2% 110
100.1% 5,093
http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/poll?poll=91
The source of the quote was unsourced document posted by mercyme on another thread. However, there was another later thread that did provide source information in the body of the thread. Don't know the other thread-tried to bookmark it last night but could not find how to do FR bookmarks and lost the thread.
Here is the summary of the document and the part above is in the last paragraph I think.
Summary-
"When Michael Schiavo first asked Judge Shames to allow him to remove terri's feeding tube in 1997, and then again in Judge Greer's court in 1998, the law at the time was not enough to let Greer order the removal of Terri's feeding tube under Terri's circumstances, so the law had to be changed in favor of Michael Schiavo.
In 1998, the florida legislature created the Florida Panel on End-of-Life Care for the purpose of revising the 765 statute for end-of-life issues. They were charged with coming up with the findings for changes in the law for the Florida legislature. Their findings were made law
Bill CB/CB/SB 2228, which revised the 765 as of October 1, 1999, also gave the authority to the End-to-Life panel to make findings for the legislature and that these findings were to made into law.
The legislature essentially gave them the authority to dictate to the legislature what changes to put in their bills. So the role of End-of-Life panel was not simply to make recommendations, but had the authority to determine what changes would be made into law.
The 765 law was revised in 1999 to include "end-stage condition" as a reason to withdraw life prolonging procedures along with persistant vegetative state and terminal illness. This was also put into law. Geldart also redefines terminal illness as not just conditions that cause death, but "irreversible" conditions or conditions "with no reasonable chance of recovery". Felos used this definition for the argument that Terri is terminal because she has a "irreversible" neurological condition with no "reasonable hope for recovery".
Geldart also details the the change in law that permitted nutrition and hydration to be considered medical treatment and the changes to life-prolonging procedures in the absence of advanced directives. Project Grace member William Leonard then points out a common scenario in Florida in his article: an elderly couple moves from out of state to Florida and then one spouse dies within a year 's time. Leonard then expands the definition of family to a neighbor, friend or caregiver who is now in the position of articulating the wishes of the elderly person to withdraw medical treatment, rather than "some distant relative".
And indeed the 765 law was changed to allow an "friend" to say that the person wanted life-pronging procedures withdrawn without a written directive. This also effected the outcome of Terri's case. Authors of Project Grace advocate for terminal sedation (Basta), withdraw of nutrition and hydration (Basta), and the refusal of physician to provide "futile" treatment as unethical even with advanced directive asking for treatments (Doty).
They also state that advanced directives providing for treatment should not carry the same weight as directives withdrawing care, and advanced directives should not compel the physican to provide them, regardless if the patient needs them (Doty). Doty is part of the Florida Bioethics Network as well as Project Grace. One of the changes in the law in CB/CB/SB 2228 includes the Bioethics Network as part of the process of withdrawing care. "
Next the insurance companies will use the living will to release them from any responsibility in tending to the needs of the patient.
Good point.
I would not be surprised to find out WHO is involved in the death culture move on America. Medicare..Medicaid...insurance companies...euthanasia addicts...scientology members.....liberals.....etc.etc.etc.
It may well be that this is another issue that will need to be pushed by the grassrooters because of the political lobbyists.
Greer sounds like a legal serial killer to me.
With reference to our earlier post - here is the thread where this information was posted and the sourcing is done throughout the thread plus many additional links and information. Have not had to chance to read all but some FReepers have been mighty busy.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1371538/posts?q=1&&page=51
Thank you for your thoughtful and very thorough response.
While I suspect you and I would disagree about the correctness of the Court's determination of Terri's wishes, we certainly do agree that her wishes HAVE to be paramount. I certainly don't favor a tyranny of physicians. Such end-of-life decisions MUST be focused entirely on the wishes of the person involved and not those of their relatives, friends, etc.
There is of course an intersection with the medical establishment in determinations of "medical irreversibility", "medical certainty", etc. These determinations are often factual predicates of the instructions or wishes of the subject, i.e. "If I am ever in a condition with no reasonable expectation of recovery ...." Well, anyone trying to make such a decision, whether the person himself (assuming he is able) or his guardian or surrogate (if he is not), has to know if the condition is in fact 'irreversible' or if in fact there is 'no reasonable expectation of recovery'.
In practice these decisions are seldom made in the first week, or month or even year of the condition. So the judgments of 'irreversibility' or 'expectation of recovery' are usually made with a substantial history of unchanged condition as evidence of 'irreversibility.' As with Terri, goes the argument, if the condition hasn't changed in 8 years, what's to make us think it will change in the future?
So, I think as a practical matter most people are wise enough not to put too much trust in the pronouncements of the medical establishment.
SW: I wasn't aware the law or morality was based on your view of what value others put on their own lives.
No, and I don't suggest that. As you can see in reading the quotation from my post which you yourself reproduced, I am only contending what I would want for my own life.
And that, after all, is the whole issue here. I think we would agree that we each should be able to specify (and have an expectation that our specification will be enforced) what we want done to us when we can no longer control such events for ourselves.
We can and should debate (i) what kinds of evidence of our desires should be required, (ii) who should make the decisions as to the existence (or non-existence) of the factual predicates of our instructions, and (iii) who (in terms of degree of familial relation) should be allowed to trigger such a third party determination through disagreement.
But I just don't see that any of us on a conservative website can disagree that our desires for our own lives should control. Agreed?
You touch on some very interesting questions. Suppose two opposite hypotheticals, both assuming that I have a living will and it is specific and 'iron-clad'.
Hypo #1: My living will provides that in the condition in which I am found, I definitely DO want to be kept alive, but my physicians are in complete agreement that the medical maintenance which would be required to do so, isn't "medically necessary" to treat the disease or condition from which I suffer (and from all agree that I cannot recover), but rather are necessary only to prolonging my life. My insurance company declines to pay for such maintenance activities in light of my physicians' opinion. My guardian sues saying that, nonetheless, it was my wish. Assuming the genuiness of my wishes are not disputed, who should win?
Hypo #2 My living will provides that in the condition in which I am found, I definitely DO NOT want to be kept alive, and my physicians are NOT in complete agreement that the medical maintenance which would be required to do so, isn't "medically necessary" to treat the disease or condition from which I suffer (and from most though not all agree that I cannot recover). (Some (a minority) of my physicians think there is a small possibility of my recovery.) My insurance company offers to pay for such maintenance activities in light of my guardian's desire to keep me alive and the split among physicians' views on 'medical necessity.' Other premium payers of my mutual-type insurer sue my insurer saying that, in light of my clear direction, the maintenance cannot be 'medically necessary' even though some physicians think there is some small possibility of my recovery. [Their argument is they are damaged in higher premiums by such very expensive maintenance efforts and that the insurer is breaching its contract with them by paying for such efforts when I have clearly said I don't want them.] Assuming the genuiness of my wishes are not disputed, who should win?
Interesting stuff, either way.
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