Posted on 10/10/2005 5:53:09 PM PDT by wagglebee
Americans have a short attention span, and it's even shorter for the news media. Although we've stopped talking about Terri Schiavo, the debate over her fate that gripped the nation for weeks in March didn't end with the death of the 41-year-old brain-injured Florida woman.
The discussion over the right to die versus the right to life, and feeding tubes representing extraordinary medical intervention versus basic, humane care is not over. Every day, families across the country continue to grapple with this complex issue quietly under the radar screen of inquiring journalists.
Proceeding outside of the media spotlight may not be all bad for these cases, given the track record of news organizations covering the Terri Schiavo story, and the numerous unreported, under-reported and misreported facts. Columnist Nat Hentoff called the shoddy and inaccurate reporting the worst case of "journalistic malpractice" he'd seen in 25 years of covering right-to-die cases.
At the age of 26, Terri Schiavo mysteriously collapsed at home in 1990. Her heart stopped, which robbed her brain of oxygen for several minutes, causing brain damage. Initially, she fell into a coma and was hooked up to a ventilator to help her breathe. Within the first three months after her brain injury, Terri came out of the coma and became able to breathe on her own.
After she failed three swallowing tests, with the last one administered in 1992, doctors concluded she required a gastric feeding tube to deliver nourishment to her body directly through the wall of her stomach. Over the subsequent 13 years, she was denied any follow-up swallow tests to assess her current condition.
In February, when Pinellas-Pasco County Circuit Court Judge George Greer affirmed his 2000 ruling ordering the removal of the feeding tube, he also barred oral nutrition and hydration from Terri. The feeding tube was removed March 18 and she died of "marked dehydration" 13 days later, according to the medical examiner who performed the autopsy.
All journalists got the basic fact that both sides of Terri's family were embroiled in a seven-year legal tug-of-war over her life, with her husband, Michael Schiavo, seeking to end her life and the Schindlers, her parents and siblings, fighting to preserve it.
From there, most news articles accepted the position of Michael Schiavo, that his wife was no more than a "shell of someone I used to know," that prior to her incapacitation she had expressed wishes to not be kept alive under such circumstances, and "letting her die" was the compassionate thing to do. Accordingly, the Schindlers, who believed Terri exhibited responsiveness and attempted to communicate, were portrayed as being in denial and selfish in wanting to "prolong" Terri's death against her will.
"The media's killing us, and they're killing her, frankly," Terri's father, Bob Schindler, lamented at a press conference in October 2003.
In rare agreement with the Schindlers, Michael Schiavo also found the news reports lacking.
"Once again, you guys don't divulge any of the truth. I'm sorry, but you don't," Schiavo scolded reporters at a press conference in August 2003. "Because you don't have the questions. You sit there and listen to the Schindlers, and it's just crazy."
Even the wall-to-wall coverage on the cable news networks over the final weeks of Terri Schiavo's life consistently failed to report salient facts of the case, including the following:
* Terri Schiavo was not dying but had a life span estimated by the medical examiner to be another decade.
* Terri Schiavo was not suffering but was relatively healthy according to her treating physician.
* Although Michael Schiavo, his brother and his brother's wife testified Terri made casual statements years prior to her incapacitation that she would not want to be kept alive by artificial means, the Schindlers claim their testimony was fabricated and "out of character" for the practicing Catholic whom they said believed in the sanctity of life.
* Several witnesses, including two former girlfriends, filed sworn affidavits with the court suggesting Michael Schiavo perjured himself by testifying his wife told him she would not want to live under her current circumstances.
* Michael Schiavo didn't recall his wife's alleged end-of-life statements until three years after he started living with another woman referenced as his "fiancée," and with whom he had fathered a child. He would later father a second child with this woman.
* Michael Schiavo didn't recall his wife's alleged end-of-life statements until six years after he testified under oath in court that he needed millions of dollars in order to be able to take care of Terri at home for the rest of his life, and after receiving more than $1.5 million from the courts for that purpose.
* Six months after receiving the $1.5 million, Michael Schiavo attempted to end Terri's life by ordering doctors to not treat her for a urinary tract infection that would have developed into the fatal condition of sepsis.
* When a doctor reportedly suggested to him in 1993 he should remove Terri's feeding tube Michael Schiavo replied: "I couldn't do that to Terri."
* After taxes and other debts were paid, $776,254 was put into a trust fund to cover Terri's future medical care and rehabilitation. Michael Schiavo spent 59 percent of this sum on attorneys' fees in his effort to end Terri's life.
* Within the first three years after Terri Schiavo suffered her brain injury, Michael Schiavo admits to melting down her wedding and engagement rings in order to make a ring for himself.
* The very first guardian ad litem appointed by the court in 1998 to represent Terri Schiavo in the court case raised concern over Michael Schiavo's conflict of interest due to his status as heir of Terri's money upon her death. He recommended the feeding tube not be withdrawn. The judge ignored his findings and ordered the apparatus removed.
* In 1998, when Michael Schiavo filed his petition to remove Terri's feeding tube, Florida statutes did not allow it. State legislators working in conjunction with the hospice industry and other special interest groups changed the law a short four months before the court hearing on Schiavo's motion, paving the way for the feeding tube to come out.
Writer and attorney Wesley Smith suggests these basic facts consistently ignored by the mainstream media amounted to a "conspiracy of silence."
"By siring two children with another woman, Michael effectively estranged himself from this marriage. Surely, thinking people would want to know this fact," Smith commented in the Weekly Standard.
WND reported an analysis conducted Oct. 25, 2003, by this reporter found network news outlets across the board -- ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and NPR -- as well as prominent newspapers such as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Baltimore Sun, Cincinnati Enquirer, Miami Herald, New York Times and Washington Post -- misreported the facts of the Terri Schiavo case.
Specifically, news outlets repeatedly and erroneously referred to Terri as being "in a coma" or "comatose," and one even asserted she was "brain dead," which subtly endorsed the right-to-die position that Terri's life pointlessly was being maintained wholly through artificial means.
The term "life support" was also routinely used, which misled readers and viewers to believe Terri was hooked up to a respirator or ventilator. Terri Schiavo was not hooked up to any machines but could breathe and maintain blood pressure on her own. She relied on a feeding tube for nourishment in the same way as approximately 125,000 other American adults and 10,000 children who continue to lead what they consider to be normal lives.
A survey of news coverage six months after her death reveals continued usage of "comatose," "brain dead," and "life support."
Among the other distortions and misreporting of the mainstream media's coverage of the Terri Schiavo case are the following facts:
* Contrary to media reports, Terri's collapse was not due to a heart attack and the medical examiner debunked the unproven theory it came as a result of a low potassium level induced by an eating disorder such as bulimia. The cause of Terri's collapse remains a mystery to even the medical examiner.
* Doctors believed she remained in a vegetative state. But her parents, siblings and several witnesses outside her family -- including some of her caregivers -- testified she exhibited awareness to the extent that she recognized the presence of her loved ones and attempted to communicate, forming the words "yes," "no," "stop that," "pain," "mommy," "momma" and "help me" over the years.
* Although it was reported by the mainstream media that doctors had all concluded Terri Schiavo was in a permanent vegetative state, or PVS, the court determination made in 2002 was based on the testimony of two neurologists hired by Michael Schiavo -- one of whom is a renown right-to-die activist -- and one court-appointed, independent neurologist who testified he relied, in part, on Michael Schiavo's attorney for information and assistance with his testimony. Some 40 medical experts from across the country, including neurologists, rehabilitative therapists, speech pathologists and a brain surgeon filed sworn affidavits disputing the PVS ruling and questioned whether the more accurate diagnosis was MCS, or minimally conscious state. The distinction is important because Florida law does not provide for the removal of feeding tubes from MCS patients.
* Studies have shown the error rate in the diagnosis of PVS is as much as 43 percent. Eminent neurologist Dr. Bryan Jennett, who co-coined the phrase "vegetative state" back in 1972, emphasizes PVS is a difficult diagnosis to make and that no one can ever be completely certain of the level of awareness of another person.
* PVS is purely a clinical diagnosis and there is no radiological appearance that is diagnostic of this state. Thus, it is erroneous to assert, as most in the press did, that the autopsy of Terri Schiavo "confirmed" the diagnosis of PVS. The medical examiners stressed this fact, while merely stating their post-mortem findings were "consistent with" a PVS diagnosis. They also stated the findings didn't rule out a diagnosis of MCS.
* It was commonly reported in the mainstream media that 19, 40 or "dozens" of judges looked at the case and all concluded that Terri was in PVS and it was her wish to not be kept alive under these circumstances. In fact, 36 judges adjudicated a variety of aspects of the case begun when Michael Schiavo filed his petition to remove the feeding tube in 1998. However, only four judges specifically addressed the core issues of Terri's wishes and her medical condition. Of those four, only one trial judge had access to the witnesses and evaluated the evidence in the case and the other three appellate judges essentially rubber-stamped his ruling according to the standard of appellate review, which holds that rulings get overturned on appeal only in instances where the trial judge abuses his discretion.
* Right-to-die advocates promote death by dehydration as free of pain and "peaceful," but this characterization is predicated on the assumption that the patients are sedated, and also because they slip into a coma before death. Terri was minimally sedated, likely because of the media scrutiny.
* The Schindlers, their attorneys, and their spiritual adviser described her as suffering, being in deep distress, panting and struggling to breathe, with her eyes oscillating wildly back and forth.
Public opinion outside the courtroom matters in high-profile legal battles. Polls ostensibly measuring the pulse of American hearts on controversial topics give elected officials direction. Following the release of a string of media polls indicating the majority of the public disapproved of the federal government's intervention in the case in late March, former ABC News anchor and NPR political commentator Cokie Roberts declared politicians were "stunned into silence by the polls."
Most polls, however, used leading questions that contained loaded terms like "life support." For example, a March 23 CBS News poll determined just 9 percent felt the federal government should decide life-support cases, while 75 percent indicated they want the government to "stay out."
The poll question was laid out as follows:
Role of Government in Deciding Life Support Cases:
Federal government should decideState government should decide
Government should stay out
The way this was posed distorted the reality of what the unprecedented "Terri's Law" sought to accomplish. The poll question implied members of Congress and President Bush actually attempted to make the decision themselves whether Terri should live or die. In reality, lawmakers merely gave the Schindlers the opportunity to ask a federal judge to conduct a fresh review of the facts of the case before the trial court's order was carried out. The requested de novo review resembled the habeas corpus process afforded convicted capital murderers awaiting execution.
"I was puzzled by these poll results expressing anger at the government involvement," recalls Schindler attorney Pat Anderson. "But then I started thinking about this. To those who don't know anything more about the case than what they've read in a local newspaper, which is going to be some truncated version of a wire story, the government was interfering with a loving husband who was carrying out his wife's wishes. Cast that way that would make me mad too. But that's not the facts of the case. People need to understand, they were manipulated by the media."
Great, as if there wasn't enough whining and crying over the Miers nomination....now we have to rehash revisionist history from WND.
If this woman had been your Mother, sister, or wife, perhaps you wouldn't have that kind of feeling about this. She was legally murdered, and that is a FACT.
I wonder what he did with the other 41%. No I don't. What a dirtbag.
Give it a rest, Lady. Some of us have been through this...other just like to pretend they know what it's like.
I agree with you and whats sadder is that we all couldn't save her. If Micheal was a decent caring person, he would have given Terri back to her mom who gave birth to her and loved her.
Well, then what is your story? Being as how you base your objections and derision towards others upon that story, should you not lay it out face up on the table?
Like most of the abortion crowd, they refuse to come to terms with the reality that they did something horribly, horribly wrong. Since they have chosen not to admit that they did something wrong and ask for forgiveness, the only other way for them to cope is to continually fight for government and society's sanction of their awful deed.
As you can see, he has admitted that he has "been through this." Well I "have been through this" too and I thank God every day that we let Him chose the time and the place.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Terri Schiavo was a living soul and her euthanasia was a human rights/moral issue. And to a media without God, her human rights are no different than animal rights.
I disagree, animals had more rights than Terri had!!!! May her soul rest in peace......
I know what you mean cause I think Terri was originally placed on the feeding tube for convenience sake, not because there was any swallowing test she failed.
You are right, the media cares more about animal rights them human rights. May God Bless Terri.
Another, and an important, aspect of the story is the Church of Scientology which teaches that people in Terry's circumstances do not deserve to live.
I have seen no investigation of Greer, Schaivo and the local sheriff as to their membership in this cult. It is the largest and most powerful organization in Clearwater, where Terry was "put out of her misery."
There is good reason for Germany to have banned this dangerous demonic cult. Scientology must be banned in the US. This is not a matter of freedom of religion.
Scientology is a political organization chartered to destroy every institution and individual not subscribing to its wierd, sick doctrine.
Does anyone honestly believe that H Ron Hubbard was a prophet? He was a second rate sci fi writer, a drunk and a demon worshipper, who bet a friend that he could create a religion out of the worse motivations of the human heart. He succeeded.
After working a decade in ICU's(neonatal included) pull the plug.I've seen this stories all the time.Try making that decision when the patient is 24 weeks old with a grade 4 IVH.It's the saddest thing you could see.The Terry thing was a total media circus.
Sad but true. The only thing remarkable about this case is the fact that groups on all sides seized on a family dispute to advance their agendas.
Shameful, on all counts. More shameful that groups want to keep re-hashing this to squeeze out the last drop of political gain.
It's a terrible decision to have to make under the best of circumstances, even without all the usual suspects screaming in the background. No family should have to endure that.
The whole situation was sad and was the type of situation that thousands of families face every year. She was brain dead. She had no chance of coming back. Michael S. came off as a jackass, but so did the parents. And the politicians who got involved really came out looking bad. Lots of people didn't do themselves much of a service by getting so worked up over the plight of a vegetable. Sad case, but by no means unique and not worth an emergency session of congress.
She was NOT brain dead.
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