Posted on 02/11/2015 4:46:08 PM PST by FR_addict
At the time of Terri’s collapse, Florida couldn’t kill you, unless you specifically asked to be taken off life support in a living will. They later changed the law.
She often visited her grandmother in a nursing home and her family said she was very supportive of her and had told them “where there’s life, there’s hope.”
At the time of Terri’s mysterious collapse, so-called living wills were only for people who didn’t want to live. For people like Terri, who wanted to receive the normal care which was routinely given by default, there was no reason to put those desires in writing.
The practice of requesting deprivation of routine life saving procedures was new, but not unknown. It was not yet legal to request death by starvation and dehydration, but since that clearly wasn’t her desire, that’s a moot point.
Terri was not dumb for not requesting depravation of care. The overwhelming majority of people, then and now, did not/do not make such a request.
In 1999, it became legal for the first time to kill Florida's disabled by removing their feeding tubes. Any ‘verbal contract’ Michael and Terri might have had before 1990 to kill each other this way, would have been murder at that time and thus illegal.
1998
ABSENCE OF ADVANCE DIRECTIVE
765.401 The proxy.
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1999
ABSENCE OF ADVANCE DIRECTIVE
765.401 The proxy.
765.404 Persistent vegetative state.
765.404 Persistent vegetative state.—For persons in a persistent vegetative state, as determined by the attending physician in accordance with currently accepted medical standards, who have no advance directive and for whom there is no evidence indicating what the person would have wanted under such conditions, and for whom, after a reasonably diligent inquiry, no family or friends are available or willing to serve as a proxy to make health care decisions for them, life-prolonging procedures may be withheld or withdrawn under the following conditions:
(1) The person has a judicially appointed guardian representing his or her best interest with authority to consent to medical treatment; and
(2) The guardian and the person's attending physician, in consultation with the medical ethics committee of the facility where the patient is located, conclude that the condition is permanent and that there is no reasonable medical probability for recovery and that withholding or withdrawing life-prolonging procedures is in the best interest of the patient. If there is no medical ethics committee at the facility, the facility must have an arrangement with the medical ethics committee of another facility or with a community-based ethics committee approved by the Florida Bio-ethics Network. The ethics committee shall review the case with the guardian, in consultation with the person's attending physician, to determine whether the condition is permanent and there is no reasonable medical probability for recovery. The individual committee members and the facility associated with an ethics committee shall not be held liable in any civil action related to the performance of any duties required in this subsection.
History.—s. 33, ch. 99-331.
After they changed the law to include 765.404, they ruled that Terri was in PVS (even though there was plenty of evidence that she was not PVS) and then they could use the new law to dehydrate and starve her to death.
I’m glad you found it.
There was another change in the law which played a pivotal role in her murder. Nutrition and hydration were added to the list of extraordinary medical procedures which could be withheld or withdrawn. George Felos (the lawyer representing Terri’s estranged husband in his quest to kill her) lobbied to get that legislation through.
Do you remember when that legislation was passed, and whether Jeb was responsible for signing it?
1998 Florida Statutes 765.101
(9) “Life-prolonging procedure” means any medical procedure, treatment, or intervention which:
(a) Utilizes mechanical or other artificial means to sustain, restore, or supplant a spontaneous vital function; and
(b) When applied to a patient in a terminal condition, serves only to prolong the process of dying.
The term “life-prolonging procedure” does not include the administration of medication or performance of medical procedure, when such medication or procedure is deemed necessary to provide comfort care or to alleviate pain.
1999 Florida Statues 765.101
(10) “Life-prolonging procedure” means any medical procedure, treatment, or intervention, including artificially provided sustenance and hydration, which sustains, restores, or supplants a spontaneous vital function. The term does not include the administration of medication or performance of medical procedure, when such medication or procedure is deemed necessary to provide comfort care or to alleviate pain.
Ch_1999-331.pdf 79 KB End-of-life Care S 2228
It is Chapter 99-331
Committee Substitute for Committee Substitute for Senate Bill No.2228
So evidently, the language of these specific statutes were changed in Committee.
It was approved by Jeb Bush on June 11,1999 and filed in Office Secretary of State June 11,1999.
I was trying to match up any email Jeb Bush may have received during this time period with these “end-of-life care” changes, but I don't have the “.pst” files. Can anyone take a look at the .pst files and see if Jeb received any emails about these changes. Searches on “end-of-life care”, “, “765.”, “S 2228”, or “331” may give us some hits.
The information can be accessed here:
http://laws.flrules.org/1999/331
Ch_1999-331.pdf 79 KB End-of-life Care S 2228
The same bill is archived here:
http://laws.flrules.org/files/Ch_1999-331.pdf
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