Posted on 12/26/2005 4:49:42 PM PST by FairOpinion
As the yearslong battle between Michael Schiavo and Bob and Mary Schindler came to a head in March, the case drew in Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court, the Vatican and the White House. National TV networks chronicled every twist of the hot-button issue.
Michael Schiavo wanted to carry out what he said were his wife's wishes not to be kept alive artificially. The Schindlers disputed their daughter had such end-of-life wishes and had held out hope that she could have improved with therapy. They said she had interacted with them.
The dispute nearly created a constitutional crisis. Congress, the president and Florida lawmakers moved to block the court order that Schiavo's feeding tube be removed. The courts rebuffed political efforts to undermine its authority and the separation of powers.
Terri Schiavo died of dehydration at a Pinellas County hospice on March 31 following the removal of her feeding tube 13 days earlier. Her death came after the courts repeatedly blocked the efforts of the Schindlers, Congress, Gov. Jeb Bush and his older brother, President Bush, to resume her feedings.
For his part, Michael Schiavo didn't stay in the background long, either. In early December he announced that he formed a political action committee to retaliate against politicians who opposed efforts to end his wife's life, particularly House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
(Excerpt) Read more at gainesville.com ...
"My wife has made he wishes to not be kept alive in this kind of situation very clear to me."
Good. And when you say "made clear to you", I hope you mean in writing, with a formal medical power of attorney. If she has just done it verbally, you won't be protected from the "self-aggrandizing" (I agree with your observation about that).
If that's what you think.
Also, if Terri had made her request in writing, then I would have agreed with you. It would have been clearly expressed by her and, even though I disagree with the whole "death with (so-called) dignity" movement, I would have respected that.
Unfortunately, the only thing we had was the words of her legal husband who had gone on with his life, shacked up with another woman and their children together, who had sued for malpractice in Terri's care, claiming he wanted to rehabiliate her then, when he got the money, suddenly he "remembered" that she didn't want to live this way.
Sorry, but that raises questions in my mind about the credibility of this "legal husband".
If your view is so obvious... just look at what you have to do to to arrive at your conclusions: the husband lied (because he must have), the autopsy was incorrect (because it must have been done by a quack), she didn't say she would want to live that way (because if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it fall, then it didn't fall), and she didn't wake up once in the decades because she was going to wake up later. Mental gymnastics an olympic sport? You'd get gold.
Food and water are NOT extraordinary means. Ventilators and heart machines however are. IF we are to believe the testimony of the four Schiavo's (and I don't) Terri said upon learning one of the Schiavo relatives was placed on a ventilator, she would not want to exist that way. Feeding tubes at that time were NOT an issue and it is highly unlikely she was even aware of them let alone was referring to them when she allegedly made those comments. Nor did she say she wanted to be starved and dehydrated to death. Furthermore, she made comments which contradict the testimony of the Schiavo's such as those regarding Karen Ann Quinlin, where she said, "Where there's life there's hope."
With such contradictory testimony and NOTHING in writing, you don't put someone to death. We don't even sell homes or property without written documentation, but we should put people to death without it?
Sorry, bub, when the issue is the serious matter of life and death, and where there is genuine doubt as there was in this case, and no documentation, the assumption should be life, NOT death.
A lack of outside corroboration to her husbands assertion of her wishes should not even be considered enough evidence to get into court, much less mount a protracted legal battle.
I realize that this leaves open the possibility of someone deciding to end their spouses life support for purely selfish reasons. Thus my warning about who you marry.
Apparently I must retract my earlier statement about "not getting into this again", as it's obvious I have.
It would have been more humane to put a slug in her head than let starve like she did. Try this with horse or a dog and PETA and every lefty organization would be all over it.
Cheshire examined Terri on March 23, 2005 for 90 minutes and several times used the term MINIMALLY conscious.
Another thread on this topic...oh boy here we go.
I agree. However our opinion of the matter is irrelevant. The fact is that under Florida law, feeding/hydration tubes are considered life support.
With such contradictory testimony and NOTHING in writing, you don't put someone to death.
There was nothing in writing stating she wanted to be kept alive this way ether. That's the entire point. There was NO evidence of her wishes either way. Since there was not, the authority rests with the husband.
Sorry, bub, when the issue is the serious matter of life and death, and where there is genuine doubt as there was in this case, and no documentation, the assumption should be life, NOT death.
Doubt is not evidence. That's what the courts are for. To establish what is credible evidence. The "no documentation" part is irrelevant. There is a proscribed legal process for handling this, and "no documentation" is not enough evidence to take the legal right from the one who was entitled to it. I won't begin to try and say the husbands motives were pure in this case. But it doesn't matter what his motives were. I would be more concerned if his legal right to speak for his wife were removed without evidence simply because her parents made a media circus out of the whole mess. I for one will NOT question a next of kin's decisions in end of life matters of this sort without solid proof. I do NOT want the government intervening in my family business simply because some group can make enough noise.
If these people who showed up to protest this family's decision really cared about the issue, we'd see them all over the country, where this kind of thing happens every day, protesting and raising a fuss, much like people do with abortion clinics. They're not, and it's instructive. It was a media event, and they wanted to use it for there own means.
I agree. Unfortunately active euthanasia is not legal in the United States. I do not doubt that the same people who are decrying how painful it is to die of dehydration (if she could have felt it, of course, which she was almost certainly incapable of) are the same sort of people who also decry active euthanasia.
I believe they gave her morphine in the end, to comfort the family rather than Terry herself.
He visited her, he did not conduct anything resembling a medical examination.
All of the doctors who actually EXAMINED her, save one, William Hammesfahr, agreed she was in an untreatable PVS. William Hammesfahr is a shyster.
??? What an unintelligible post.
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