Posted on 04/22/2005 10:18:32 AM PDT by amdgmary
WASHINGTON(BP)-Disabled Americans feel vulnerable in the wake of Terri Schiavo's death and need societal and legal changes if their lives are going to be protected, leaders of two disability organizations said.
In the hours after Schiavo died March 31, both Joni Eareckson Tada and Diane Coleman said the brain-damaged Florida woman's death and the events leading to it do not bode well for other severely disabled people unless some changes are implemented.
Schiavo, 41, died nearly two weeks after the tube that provided her with food and water was disconnected at a state judge's order. For years, her parents and her husband had been in a legal struggle over whether she should live or die. Acting as her guardian, Michael Schiavo, her husband, gained court approval for the removal of the tube, saying she did not want to live in a severely disabled state, though no written direction from his wife existed.
Though Tada said she prays God will use Schiavo's example "to stave off this terrible culture of death and give us a fresh re-energizing to build a culture of life," the popular evangelical Christian author and speaker also said her death "alarms me deeply."
"The death of Terri Schiavo will adversely impact literally thousands of Americans who have severe mental incapabilities whose legal guardians might not have their best wishes at heart," Tada said on the April 1 radio broadcast of Focus on the Family.
Coleman, president of Not Dead Yet, told Baptist Press, "[W]hat we are seeing here is the dismantling of the constitutional rights of people in guardianship. No longer will there be the presumption for life.
"The social presumption that [Schiavo] would be better off dead appears to have influenced the decisions in the case," Coleman said. "We feel threatened by this, almost as if there is a cognitive test for personhood under the law."
Joni and Friends is a Christian ministry to the disabled that Tada started in 1979. She became a quadriplegic in a diving accident at the age of 17. Her testimony of God's work in her life has become well-known among Christians throughout the world.
Coleman, a lawyer, founded Not Dead Yet in 1996 to combat assisted suicide and euthanasia on behalf of the disabled. She was disabled at birth and has used a wheelchair since she was 11.
Both of their organizations agree some steps need to be taken to protect the rights and lives of the disabled. They recommend, in statements on their Internet sites, there should be:
• Federal review in state cases of contested decisions about withdrawing feeding tubes when there is no advance directive or personally chosen guardian.
• State-by-state reform of laws governing guardianship and healthcare decisions in order to protect against involuntary euthanasia.
• A moratorium on the removal of food and water from severely disabled people when the latest diagnostic procedures are unavailable.
In all, Not Dead Yet has listed eight steps on its Web site, www.notdeadyet.org, that it says need to be taken to guard the disabled. Joni and Friends also calls for a change in terminology in a statement on its site, www.joniandfriends.org. Society must stop using the phrase "persistent vegetative state," Tada said.
"There's just too many people with significant disabilities who have been called vegetables, and this must stop," Tada said on Focus on the Family, which was taped the day Schiavo died. "That is beyond demeaning. It is dehumanizing, and when people with significant disabilities are labeled like that, then the discussion all too quickly next turns to death, pulling their feeding tube or warehousing them in a hospice.
"Something else that has bothered me as I have listened to the national media - everybody has been talking about whether or not Terri is 'going to get better someday,' as though that fact was a criteria for her life," Tada said. "However, millions of Americans with disabilities will 'never get better' by today's standards, and we believe that a quality of one's life should never be a criteria to put them to death. Life is the most irreplaceable and fundamental condition of what it means to be human. It's a gift of God, the Author of life; and disabled people, no matter how significant their handicapping condition, have that right to life."
Coleman told Baptist Press her organization would not have filed three friend-of-the-court briefs on behalf of Terri Schiavo had she chosen her husband as her guardian and made clear her intentions regarding her care. The court's willingness to grant the guardian his request in the Schiavo case contrasts with reports of parental abuse and neglect when society expects the government to intervene, Coleman said.
"Unfortunately, people with disabilities are not so valued [as are children]," Coleman said. "We share a social devaluation that is so strong that most people are sure we are living a fate worse than death and that they would never want to live" that way.
"[W]hat we've learned like any other minority group, you might say, is you can't trust majority culture... In some cases you can't even trust your own family ...," she said. "While many caregivers are wonderful and value us, not all do.
"The most telling thing is [Schiavo's] guardian forbade qualified people from giving her swallowing tests, swallowing therapy" the last seven years, Coleman said. "She might not have needed a feeding tube really. A lot of people in nursing homes are on feeding tubes, not because they cannot eat but because there is not enough staff to feed them. That's the context we are in."
For Not Dead Yet and at least some other disability organizations, this is a civil rights issue, not a sanctity-of-life or culture war issue, Coleman said. Her organization is as concerned about conservatives cutting Medicaid and Medicare funds as it is about liberals wanting to kill the disabled quickly in the name of compassion, she said.
A bill to legalize physician-assisted suicide has been introduced in California, and Tada fears what happened in the Schiavo case will embolden its supporters in the state legislature.
"There will be those who will look at the situation of Terri Schiavo and turn it on its head," Tada said. "Pro-euthanasia advocates ... will say, 'Oh how awful that this woman had to linger so long toward her death. She should have been aided with a lethal injection of three grams of phenobarbital to hasten her death more quickly and more compassionately.'"
Tada said she was lying on her back as she was interviewed for Focus on the Family. She had recently recovered from pneumonia and had been mostly in bed for four or five days with a pressure sore. Shortly before the interview, a friend had fed her by hand.
"It underscored how much people like me and people like Terri Schiavo depend on strong advocates to be by our bedside to fight and to protect and to safeguard the protections around people with severe disabilities," Tada said.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God...it is a more fearful thing to ASK to be fallen into his hands...but fall we must...if there is any chance that we may save our-selves!
None---
Same as the nurse how wasn't bolusing a tube feeding at night on a 20 something man in a 'vegetative' state. He was losing weight hand over fist and I was pulling my hair out, upping the volume, changing the feeding etc.
It wasn't until the Central Supply manager was doing a pick-up sweep of some back cabinets that she found about a month's worth of cans that weren't used.
>you'd be AMAZED at the number of eldery who want full codes! Which is their right. We assume they would all want DNR's, but that isn't the case
(I'm sorry, but I can't figure out how to make italics in this post editing window on internet explorer. I copied it to word and made it italics and cut and pasted it but it still doesn't look italicized)
I'm amazed that we can breeze by that statement -- "We assume they would all want DNRS". That is the problem. We assume people don't want to live. We should assume people WANT to live unless they tell us otherwise.
You shouldn't be in danger of having your life ended because you didn't take the time to say you wanted to keep living.
You've summarized it nicely. The culture of death has succeeded in turning upside down a fundamental principle which has guided our laws and framed our notions of civilized society. And that is, that life is to be valued, even if it is under difficult circumstances, over death. Our assumption has been that rational beings would choose to remain alive rather than be put to death. Now the assumption has been reversed. That presents a real danger, because in cases where there is doubt, the default position becomes "kill the person" rather than "let the person live". Time was in this country that you didn't need a piece of paper to guarantee your right to live (as flimsy as that itself is, as others have ably pointed out), it was just assumed that you had that right. Now, the assumption is that you don't have the right to live absent that piece of paper, and someone, a relative, a judge, the state, or maybe a "an interested party", can decide, ostensibly "on your behalf" or "for your own good", that you should be killed.
I had a conversation with the daughter of a Jewish doctor who escaped Germany in 1937. She was apalled by the fact that all of her family who stayed behind in Germany died in the concentration camps. However, when we spoke about Terri Schiavo, she could not understand any connection between what happened to Terri and what happened to her own family. There is no difference between what happened then and what is happening now. I am flabbergasted by the reasoning of such people. If I hear "quality of life" one more time...
THAT is the chance in focus I'm seeing in Long Term Care and the attitude towards the elderly.
The assumption that they are waiting on death, instead of living their last years.
Chilling is it not.
I'm really not surprised alot of elderly don't want a dnr. My Mom didn't (she wasn't elderly but she had terminal kidney cancer).
I'm not sure I would either, as I don't really think I want a stranger making that decision at that moment. I used to think the whole medical profession was all about compassion, but after reading alot of posts by nurses on internet sites during the Terri Schiavo case, I have changed my mind.
susie
Someone that is pro-euthanasia is NOT a conservative.
I'm sorry, I was afraid I got the year wrong. Thank you for the correction (wonder if someone's going to stop feeding me because my memory is going!?)
susie
If I had to work in such a depressing atmosphere, The FBI would have my interview on record by the weekend.
It will.
They no longer have to worry about "if".
Now they only have to worry about "when".
That is why I changed jobs.
My patients minds may be ill, but their bodies are OK. And they make me smile.
For some reason, Roxanol is the area Hospice morphine of choice....and it seems to be really rough on those with any respiratory or cardiac weakness.
I understand your intent, but I disagree. The right to Life is inalienable, which means you cannot sell them, lose them, loan them, trade them, or give them away, and the government cannot take them from you. They are permanent and unchanging. However, you can forfeit them through criminal wrongdoing.
That means the government has no authority or duty to oblige your wish to be put to death in the absence of some criminal wrongdoing on your part simply because you request it
It is very dangerous, (besides being immoral and illegal under natural rights) to give power to probate judges and doctors that allows them to kill people.
Cordially,
You have a big heart. If I ever end up in your care after an accident or something, codiene gives me chest pain, and a single hydrocodone pill gives me big poopy problems. My body rejects opiates other than dilaudid when I broke my leg. And that felt creepy. Find something else.
That means the government has no authority or duty to oblige your wish to be put to death in the absence of some criminal wrongdoing on your part simply because you request it
It is very dangerous, (besides being immoral and illegal under natural rights) to give power to probate judges and doctors that allows them to kill people.
Our system of government was founded on the concept of inalienable rights. The Founders (correctly) understood that the function of a government by the people and for the people was to safeguard (i.e., secure) those rights, not grant them. What the Schiavo case has presented us with is the specter of a branch of the government placing itself in a position of being an arbiter of what had been heretofore an inalienable right (the right of an innocent individual to live). With that, the concept of inalienable rights has been abrogated. I really don't understand why people fail to grasp the significance of that. Because once we turn over what had been an inalienable right to government dispensation, it is not longer inalienable. What the government grants, it can take away.
With the court-ordered killing of an innocent person, Terri Schindler Schiavo, we have eroded, perhaps fatally, a fundamental underpinning of our system of justice. In such a circumstance, the Republic no longer functions in the manner envisioned by the Founders.
The Ithacan, an opinion piece.
By Kevin O’Neill ’05
Guest writer
April 07, 2005
“The right to die” and “dying with dignity” are catchphrases that were thrown around quite frequently regarding the removal of a feeding tube from Terri Schiavo, a woman who suffered brain damage 15 years ago. I sincerely doubt most of those people had any idea what they were saying.
How dignified do people consider starva-tion? When confronted with commercials ex-posing the terrible food shortage in many third world countries, “dying with dignity” is not a phrase that jumps to most people’s lips. Perhaps ignorance of what physically happens during starvation and dehydration shields some from considering the gravity of this case.
Medical doctor and ethicist David Stevens has described the process thus: the mouth dries out and the tongue becomes swollen and cracked. The lips become parched and cracked as a thick coating begins to cake the mouth and lips. The eyes sink back into the skull while the cheeks hollow and the lining of the nose begins to crack, potentially causing nosebleeds. The skin turns dry and scaly and hangs loose on the bones. Urine decreases, becoming highly concentrated, and eventually stops completely.
Then, the stomach lining dries out, causing vomiting and dry heaves. Brain cells dry out, too, causing convulsions. The respiratory tract dries out and thick secretions develop, a process that may plug the lungs and airways. Eventually, after the body suffers all these effects, all the major organs fail, including the lungs, heart and brain.
This is an extremely warped idea of “dignity.” It is illegal in the state of Florida, where Terri lived, to put a dog down this way, but for an innocent woman this death sentence will suffice. George Greer, the judge hearing this case has displayed shocking determination to see Terri die. On February 25, he stated that he would only hear motions relating to the “death process” and has denied, without hearing arguments or evidence, the Schindlers’ motion to divorce Terri from Michael and denied, without hearing arguments or evidence, the Schindlers’ motion to remove Michael as guardian.
He also heard, but did not rule on, arguments that Terri should be fed by mouth once the feeding tube was removed and many more very relevant points relating to this case.
Judge Greer skirted and ignored the law more times during this whole fiasco than are permissible to relate in polite company.
What happened in Florida last week was nothing short of murder, and to add further insult to injury, the judge denied the Schindlers’ request that Terri be allowed to receive Viaticum (Holy Communion for the dying) by mouth.
Yes, an American judge denied a citizen the opportunity to practice her religion (he also denied her “unalienable right to life,” but the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are not the rules judges play by these days).
The president has said it is always best to err on the side of life, but what happened to Terri Schiavo last week was no mistake. The unjust rulings of Judge Greer were cold, obsessively calculated, lethally relentless and sadly indicative of the attitudes society has adopted toward the weak.
FV SAYS: If you want to, please copy/paste & email the above to your US Senators and House Members and demand an investigation of ALL THE JUDGES in the SCHIAVO CASES and an investigation of the NINE SENATORS IN TALLAHASSEE who voted against Terri. Who lobbied them so they would vote against her?
Unfortunately, Mae [what's her name] and Terry Schiavo
WAITED until it was too late. Evidently, this is
becoming a hyper situation for some people. It's possible
that a Living WIll document should be made part of the wedding nuptuals...and I'm not kidding! If the marriage license is a valid document authorizing the law to grant the living spouse everything under the deceased's ownership, including power of attorney, then why not this "will" granting automatic authority to plug-pulling?
Roxinal, morphine, etc. what matters the name. Doctors
authorize hospice agents to administer these "killing"
drugs all the time. As I've said here before, my
mother was getting morphine injections (at MY OWN HANDS)
under the doctor's say-so back in 1952. She had terminal
cancer, wanted to die at home (ala Jackie Kennedy). The
doctor told me she actually died of heart failure...due to the morphine dosages. In other words, I literally killed my own mother? The practice is still going on. Am I
sorry she died sooner than later that way? No...she was at peace. Only someone who has bathed, changed, tried to feed the screaming animal that cancer's agonizing pain reduces a human to can fathom the horror of the situation. Her
84 pound body mustered extreme physical strength and became a threat to all who came near the bed. That horrible creature was NOT my mother.
And BTW, she was cremated...as per her instructions early on when she was lucid.
The difference is that doctors have a "license to kill."
Nurses don't. So what' the difference between all
doctors who prescribe morphine/roxanol and Dr. Kavorkian?
Only locale. The doctor has the sanctity of the hospice/
hospital. Dr. Kavorkian stupidly practiced his assisted
suicide inside a truck!
Breaking news crawler on headline news cnn: Gov. Jeb Bush is going to represent the U.S. at the new Pope's Inauguration. (this makes my skin crawl).
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