Posted on 07/30/2011 1:36:30 PM PDT by wagglebee
he death of Terri Schindler Schiavo in 2005 is a distant memory for most Americans. But for the family that spent seven years fighting Terri's estranged husband and the court system to stop the starvation of their daughter and sister, recollections of the 13 days Terri lingered without food or water before finally succumbing to death remain vivid and painful. And the knowledge that other brain-damaged patients could suffer a similar fate has propelled this once-ordinary family into around-the-clock activism.
"It was almost like there really wasn't an option," said Terri's sister, Suzanne Schindler-Vitadamo, when I interviewed her last weekend in Kansas City, Kan., at an end-of-life ethics conference sponsored by the St. Gianna Physician's Guild.
Along with her mother, Mary Schindler, and brother, Bobby Schindler Jr., Schindler-Vitadamo now works full time for the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, a non-profit group that advocates for disabled patients threatened by health-care rationing and euthanasia.
"I used to be a stockbroker; Bobby used to be a high school teacher," Schindler-Vitadamo said. Yet, after witnessing how her brain-damaged sister died on the orders of judges and medical professionals who regarded Terri's life unworthy of even the basic care of food and water, she said, "none of us could ever imagine going back."
Before his death in 2009, Terri's father, Robert Schindler, also dedicated himself to raising awareness about the dangers posed by a culture that increasingly judges the right to life on a sliding scale, a scale on which lives like Terri's count for little.
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
This is exactly what is going to happen.
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The moment the Jeb prototype of the Bush series stood aside and did nothing was the moment, for me, when the “compassionate conservatism” of this potential President shone through in all its glory.
Same here; and it was when I was done the Republican Party. I became Constitutional Conservative Independent, first....done with the faux ones with the “R” after their name.
I cannot and will not support someone who won't do everything in their power to save an innocent person from being murdered.
Exactly. I’ve posted it a few times, but Medicare pays $28 billion a year for dialysis for 500K people, regardless of age. The weaker or “less valuable” ones could be a huge target.
Me, too. I always believed that if one of them went to see her to find out for himself her condition, nothing would have happened to Terri. I mean, if Bush as president at that time would have gone to the hospice where Terri was dying, who would have stopped HIM??? I later found out that Jeb Bush was the cause of Terri's death. HE signed into law that it was ok to remove food and water from a "vegetative" person. So, HE was going to do nothing to stop it. I will NEVER get over her death - murdered by the State! In the United States of America! Unbelievable.
One of W’s last acts as governor was to sign a law that said that in TX anyone in Terry’s condition who was receiving state aid to pay their medical bills could be denied food and water/or disconnected from life support if a commitee of doctors and hospital deemed their case hopeless.
And you know what? In my opinion that is a correct law.
IF you are a believer, you know that this life is the most temporary part of your existence and that it will end sooner or later. If you are a conservative you know the government cannot spend unlimited funds and that we have to have priorities. Too many hospitals spend millions of dollars (most of it paid for by the state) to prolong people’s live for weeks or even days when they are clearly dying. Moreover the “life” they provide is a half-life of agonizing pain and semi-consciousness. In Terry’s case, the evidence is crystal clear, her “life” was no life at all, there was nothing left of the critical parts of her brain where thinking and cognition take place. The most horrifying thing I have seen my life is when I volunteered at a hospital where there was a woman who kept her anacephalic (Born without a brain-only a brain stem) baby alive (at a cost of millions of dollars) for nearly a decade because she was convinced, despite the medical impossibility of it, that her baby would “wake up” any day and be perfectly okay.
Only those who fear what lies beyond should spend so much time and energy clinging to this life; not us
Me too. They could have helped, easily.
They are all phonies when it comes to the Pro-Life cause.
You sound like one of those Nazis who wrote the treatise on “Life Devoid of Value” back in 1929.
Quis - you're wrong - she was NOT brain dead - she was interacting with her father just before she died. I saw a video of her laughing with her father - WITH her father, when he was reminding her about something she used to do to tease her mother. She was very much alert, and to slowly starve her because she could not talk is the ultimate atrocity. We have NO right to take another's life, especially if they're just disabled, and in THAT way. You wouldn't even do to a criminal, or even an animal, what they did to Terri. Atrocious and obscene!!! And evil! And, another thing, the parents were willing to care for her at THEIR expense, not the taxpayers'. Her "husband" would not let her go - fought like hell to get her murdered.
Listen newbie, since you have only been here a month there are a few things you might not be aware of:
1. Free Republic is a PRO-LIFE forum, not some place for you to spew your pro-death utilitarian crap.
2. This is the Terri Dailies thread. Many people who participate in these threads were at the hospice where Terri was murdered. They heard her scream when she was told she was about to be murdered. They know that she understood what was happening.
3. If you believe in God (as you loosely claim) you would realize that He alone decides when it ends, not us. People like you claim to believe, but what you really want to do is impose your will in place of His.
This is why nobody who claimed consciousness for Terry ever were able to show an EEG or CAT scan reading that supported their claim. It's not that they were lying, it's just that what was going on was wishful thinking. Like I've said, I've seen it up close and personal before. The Anacephalic child I observed all those years ago was literally born without a brain.(if you Google picture of the condition you will A) have nightmares for weeks and B) see how obvious it is that there is no brain inside the baby's head) However, she had enough of a brain stem to make her autonomic nervous system work, and occasionally cause twitches and movement that her parent were CONVINCED that it was her attempt to communicate with us and a sign she was going to "wake up" any day now. But that was NEVER going to happen, because it couldn't, and allthe wishing wasn't going to change that. Now, if they had the funds to pay for the millions of dollars a year it took to keep their child alive, more power to them, they have the right to hope and pray all they want and spend their money any way they want. But when its our money, tax money? Sorry but wasting money on a medically hopeless scenario is NOT being fiscally conservative. A line has to be drawn SOMEWHERE. Here's the top three line items in the federal budget: HHS: 1 Trillion Social Secuirty $750 Billion DOD: 600 Billion Here's another fact: 5% of all Medicare recipients account for 50% of the total spending it does every year. There comes a time when we have to ask whether it really is worth it for medicare to cover a $100,000 prostate cancer drug that prolongs lives an average of only 4.1 months longer than the placebo ( http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/medicare-will-pay-for-prostate-cancer-drug/ ) Scientists tell us that ALL men will eventually get Prostate cancer if they live long enough. And everybody has to die of something/ This country is trillions in debt because we are unwilling to make hard choices that previous generations accepted as simple facts of life.
ObamaCare is about them coming after the weak with their death panels.
If I don’t protest, then who will protest when they come for me. (with a nod to Martin Niemoller)
Let me know when he’s zotted.
It’s so sickening that people come here and lie like the death loving liars that they are.
Cue the music!
I vote that you are morally dead. And deserve zotting.
We’ve all read the actual autopsy. Most of us have copies of it on our hard drive. We don’t need to rely the lies of a troll.
I don’t understand why they hate Terri Schiavo so much. She’s been dead over six years, but somehow, she can never be dead enough for them. They can’t resist an opportunity to bad mouth her.
IBTZ
Hey troll, why don't you go for two weeks without food or water and we can see how your brain looks.
Here are the FACTS:
1. Terri was conscious and alert when she was murdered.
2. Terri's murder was nothing more than a dress rehearsal for death panels, death panels that YOU SUPPORT.
3. All of your talk about money is meaningless. Terri had plenty of money, money that was stolen by her murderers.
Go back to DU, they were thrilled to see Terri murdered.
I'm willing to bet that this isn't this troll's first time.
This troll’s timing sucks. I can’t stick around and watch the blood thirsty bastard ride the lightening. Would you save me a copy of whatever gets deleted?
You totally misunderstand the Shiavo case, Quis. It isn’t about government money keeping someone alive. It’s about a judge forbidding someone trying to use natural means to keep her alive: feeding her naturally, giving her water naturally.
If they folks wanted to sit there with a spoon and a bottle, then they were actively (a probably futilely) giving of themselves to keep her living naturally.
The judge’s order forbade any effort on her behalf, and it was therefore an order decreeing the homicide of Terri Shiavo.
The same with any ill person. If they can be kept alive with natural methods, then it is necessary to continue those methods to honor life and to avoid homicide.
Call me nuts, but Shiavo’s homicide was the beginning of very bad times for America.
Sorry. We're not trillions in debt because we don't off enough weak and helpless human beings. We're trillions in debt, and our moral underpinnings are coming undone, because of folks like yourself who place little or no value on the life of the innocent.
Like a typical pro-death troll you are taking your talking points from a NEW YORK TIMES BLOG.
You are truly pathetic.
You seem to be a mental and moral vegetable. How's about we draw that line with YOU?
Thumbs down!
They love death, they hate Life, and naturally hate the Author of all Life.
There are those who love God and therefore love all Life, and those who hate Him and therefore hate all Life.
She symbolizes Life and God’s love, so they hate her.
They reveal the darkness in their hearts by their own words.
Death lovers see mercy and loving kindness as faults and weakness. They worship cruelty and evil, it’s really amazing.
Lock ‘em in a hospice room for a couple of weeks with no food or hydration. Since they obviously have no human feelings, they obviously won’t feel a thing!
Then they can experience the ecstasy they condemn onto others.
Not true, I distinctly remember hearing that being dehydrated to death produces euphoria (even in those who are "brain dead").
zot
I will never forget Terri.
Well deserved zot.
Please DO read it. The doctor that did the autopsy clearly states that one cannot judge function on a dead brain. Once a brain "dies" it loses mass and weight AND it no longer functions.
There’s no doubt that this event was a defining moment for me.
I’ve had to surrender bitterness and resentment towards the Bushes and the Republican insiders, but that doesn’t change my conviction that they are fraudulent pro-lifers.
Things have really gone downhill since Terri’s death, although September 11, 2001 was pretty bad, too.
You’re exactly right about their powers, wagglebee. And I stopped supporting the fake conservative long before he got out of office. He and his brother....I only pray that God deals with them the way they ought to have been dealt with here over Terri.
Thank you Jim.
Yes, that was the AUTOPSY. AFTER she'd been starved and dehydrated TO DEATH! What do you think YOUR brain would look like after such an atrocious ordeal? I saw the video - she was laughing right along with her father, and it was a knowing/remembering laugh. And you CAN tell the difference in laughs. She was NOT "vegatative". And, anyway, IF she were "vegatative, what gives us the right to kill her?? Do we kill EVERYONE who is not responsive the way we would like them to be?? Who are YOU, anyway, that says she had to die. Who appointed YOU God???
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