The Side Effects of Witnessing Murder (Terri Schindler Schiavo) (by Cheryl Ford RN)

OpinionEditorials ^ | April 21, 2005 | Cheryl Ford, RN

[exDemMom]

Shiavo and Greer were so intent on killing Terri that I don't think a living will would have saved her unless it had very specifically stated that a feeding tube was not to be removed under any circumstance.

No, that wouldn't have saved her either. No matter what a living will might have said, the death lovers would have interpreted it in such a way to make it justify killing her. Greer, obviously, hates the disabled.

[FairOpinion]

"Translated: losers with no lives got obbsessed with something that was none of their business"


First they came for the brain damaged, but I didn't care,"it was none of my business", because I wasn't brain damaged, right now at any rate...

But tomorrow Terri Schiavo could be you...

Then they came for the disabled and infirm, but I didn't care because I was young and vital.

But it's only a moment that could separate you from becoming disabled mentally, physically or both...

Then they came for... ME and judicial murder became so common, that there was nobody to stand up for me.

[ClancyJ]

You are right. See how much trouble is caused when you no longer can depend on people to do the moral thing. You have to have laws, judges, police, checkers, more laws, more judges, more police, more checkers.

[bjs1779]

She was dead, the only person in a place to make patient-care decisions decided it was time to let her go, and it is no one's busisness but his.

Pay particular attention when Terri's father mentions her mother about 35 seconds into the video. Turn the volume up so you can hear her say, "huh" in the sweetest voice you ever heard.

Terri with her father after 10 years of NO THERAPY.

[Republic]

HOGwash.

When the guardian has been sexually active with a concubine (refusing to divorce his ward first), has fathered two children, sought millions to REHABILITATE his ward for THREE YEARS, then got the big money, AND THEN ALMOST IMMEDIATELY, within days, PUTS A DO NOT RESUSITATE ORDER on ward's chart, when the guard uses REHAB money to pay a death lawyer, when a guardian ORDERS that his ward can no longer go outside into the sunshine in her wheelchair, in fact, CANNOT leave her room in her wheelchair AT ALL..........for YEARS and YEARS and YEARS...and when the this guardian slams his ward into a HOSPICE, or a place where the TERMINALLY ILL with SIX MONTHS OR LESS TO LIVE go,...............and KEEPS her

in a DEATH HOUSE for FIVE YEARS................

Well jude24...you are so WRONG it hurts...........better BELIEVE it is time for the parent's, the friends, the legislature the PRESIDENT to step in.......our CONSITITUTION IS AGAINST EVERYTHING felos and michael the monster did to KILL TERRI.

NOT ALL GUARDIANS ARE EQUAL! Most are loving, but some are MONSTERS.

Our laws need to protect those who cannot speak for themselves from the MONSTER GUARDIANS. In Florida...the law does NOT protect those who would be victems of EVIL GUARDIANS.

[Aussie Dasher]

Acceptance may be an important part of grief, but we must never accept what happened to Terri.

My anger will continue until my dying day.

How can such barbarity exist in the United States is a question that remains unanswered.

[DLfromthedesert]

You know; where I work we've taken care of many babies who were brain damaged due to an in-utero accident which cut for blood supply to the brain, or due to a difficult birth.

Guess how they are treated? They get g-tubes; their parents are taught how to care for them, and they go home with a very poor prognosis. There never is an option to starve and dehydrate them since they will be such a burden to their families.

And the parents love them and give them GREAT care. Not easy, but life is not always predictable or "fair".

[Fred Nerks]

"I part with many FReepers in believing that the worst threats to our Judeo-Christian ways of life lie within, not from the Middle East. Terrorists can also kill innocent people, a terrible thing, but they have no way of altering the fundamental values of our society in the way that Felos is intent on doing*. If anything, the Islamics galvanize values against their own interests, even in the absence of mass terrorism (The Netherlands and Islamic immigration come to mind). Felos and Co., however, operating in a more seductive (to some people) and insidious form, have the ability to make right wrong and wrong right in the consciences of many people."

I can say it no better so I will repeat it. Your very fine comment explains that sinking, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

[TheSarce]

Pinging fellow eyewitnesses to a very accurate and powerful article. We will never be the same as before we met in this battle. But while stunned and sadder for the experience, we are also stronger for having gone through the unthinkable and for having watched all the institutions we've always counted on fail Terri so completely and so callously. We were there, we saw it in its full 3-D Technicolor hideousness, and know better than most how much work there is to do.

We have now been forged in fire. We will go on from here stronger and wiser and with our vision newly unobstructed.

[EternalVigilance]

Well said.

[EternalVigilance]

They get g-tubes; their parents are taught how to care for them, and they go home with a very poor prognosis. There never is an option to starve and dehydrate them since they will be such a burden to their families.

And the parents love them and give them GREAT care. Not easy, but life is not always predictable or "fair".

That would be my precious little Hannah Marie.

She only lived 7 months, but I wouldn't have traded one day of her life for anything.

[ClancyJ]

They are promoting the end of the medical profession as a source of healing. They will make it a killing field and people will run from doctors rather than run to them.

Which, again, will be true justice as all the doctors sit idly by with no huge fees, no respect, no elite lifestyle.

Why go to a hospital where you may become the newest euthanasia patient rather than to get well?

[ClancyJ]

I just read the headline of another judge (in England) I think, ruling that a baby's feeding tube must be removed.

This is absolutely a horror for a mother. Give her the baby until she sees that it cannot live - never strip it from her arms. Let God handle it.

Why must man be so cruel to those that love those in their families?

[ClancyJ]

So sorry for your loss - I know it was so very hard.

I cannot imagine what that mother in England will feel as they pull the tubes on her baby and let it die. Wonder why that is not a family decision? (I have not read the article - not up to another heartrending case of murder)

[DLfromthedesert]

Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't know you lost a baby. Yes, they are all precious angels, and some are not meant to spend a long time with us, but I'm sure little Hannah is watching over you.

God Bless You

Donna

[DLfromthedesert]

We live in a fallen world, and people are easily tricked into seeing evil, and calling it good.

[Nowhere Man]

Thanks for posting this article. I am one of the thousands who finds themselves lying awake at night, still thinking about Terri and asking myself how is it possible, how did they get away with murdering a young woman by denying her food and water. I lie there and cannot go back to sleep, and I am an Australian, not an American. I cannot imagine how the US will come to terms with this evil deed.

Well, I live here in the US and I wonder about these same things as you do. I think we have blown our credibility in telling others about their human right abuses by not leading by example. I'm glad we did save another lady in Georgia from a similar fate, she is 81 and her ganddaughter wanted to starve her to death but it was stopped. So maybe Terri's death woke up people although we have a long road to haul. Before we can go back and lead the world on how to live, we need to do some soul searching ourselves and clean house.

[Nowhere Man]

I fear the truth is, that we have changed as a nation, and are so selfish and self centered, we won't respond to our neighbors in trouble. It's too easy to just let it happen, and too hard to change anything. I still only have 1 vote, and my whole family, friends, and church, votes the same as me, and it won't seem to change. We have 90% of America as red states, red counties, red cities, but still no changes. I'm reminded how bad it would be if we turned blue, but I want to take ground, not just hold what we have. Something has to change for the better or what they say is true, "There isn't a dimes worth of difference".

I think if we make a comparision, borrowing from another Freeper I can't remember who, but if we compare America 1979 to America 2005, in many ways, America 1979 was superior, even with President Carter, a Democratic Congress (yeah, they were tax and spend, but they haven't gone too loopy yet at that time), inflation and so on, but unlike America 2005, we are not wrestling with homosexual marriage, TV wasn't as smutty, we didn't snuff people out by judical fiat, and so on. Republicans hold the top positions but we are still losing. Like you, I'm not interested in holding ground or losing anymore but we need to start gaining ground. I hope Terri is a wakeup call and there are some encouraging signs it was but we got al ong fight ahead of us.