Posted on 05/28/2007 9:33:12 AM PDT by wagglebee
The Christian attorney who fought to keep Terry Schiavo alive says the three leading GOP presidential candidates don't understand the important disability issues involved in the widely publicized 2005 case.
During a recent Republican presidential debate in California, the candidates were asked whether Congress was right to intervene in the Terry Schiavo case by attempting to prevent the state of Florida from removing the disabled woman's feeding tube. The answers varied.
Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, said he thought it "was a mistake" for Congress to get involved and the matter should have been left at the state level. Senator John McCain said Congress "probably acted too hastily." And former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani called the case a "family dispute."
David Gibbs III of the Christian Law Association says the United States gives greater due process to convicted murderers than to innocent disabled people. The former attorney for Schiavo's parents argues that Congress did the right thing when it intervened to provide her those rights.
"Many of the candidates are following the political wind, if you will, instead of showing leadership and saying, 'You know what? That was good public policy back then. We need to stand up for the disabled. We need to stand up for the senior citizens,'" Gibbs says. "We need to have that compassion for vulnerable people as opposed to taking the mindset that those people that just don't matter," he notes.
It is disingenuous, the Christian attorney contends, for candidates to claim they are pro-life but not be willing to grant due process rights to the disabled. "If you're pro-life, you have to be pro-life at every step," he says.
"Please understand: our founding fathers understood that you don't have any liberty, our Constitution doesn't matter, if you don't protect the innocent life of the citizens," Gibbs explains. "That's why they talked about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- your free speech, your freedom of religion, your right to own a gun or [receive] due process of law," he says. "If the government can kill you, you have no true liberty."
When Rudy Giuliani visited Florida he initially said he was in favor of assisting Terry Schiavo but later backpedaled from those comments, Gibbs points out. And in the recent GOP presidential debate, he says, only Kansas Senator Sam Brownback and Congressman Duncan Hunter of California got the issue right when they were asked about the Schiavo case.
“So the nurses, some of whom I believe were medical assistants at the time, disregarded the orders on the chart which said “nothing by mouth”? Not a good recommendation for their medical credentials or ethics.”
Are you deliberately ignoring my point?
Terri could SWALLOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
“so now the pathologist is bias and had an agenda.”
Yes, and so did ACLU euthanasia activist attorney, George Felos, and so did many others, INCLUDING JUDGE GREER:
Read where Judge Greer made a “mistake” (if it was a mistake) and did not rectify his mistake. This is more proof that Greer is an activist judge.
“If Judge Greer’s 2000 order authorizing Michael Schiavo to end his wife’s life were a criminal death sentence, Terri would be entitled to a new trial on the basis of reversible error,” Gibbs said.
The alleged error centers on the testimony of Diane Meyer, one of Terri’s life-long friends. She told Greer that Terri had expressed her disagreement with the decision of Karen Ann Quinlan’s parents to remove their comatose daughter from life support in a highly publicized “right-to-die” case in the 1970s and 1980s.
“There was an incident when I told a poor joke about Karen Ann Quinlan. I remember distinctly because Terri never lost her temper with me. This time she did,” Meyer testified in 2002.” She told me that she did not approve of what was going on or what happened in the Karen Ann Quinlan case.”
Meyer told the court that the conversation had taken place, “in the summer of 1982.”
Greer ruled that, because Meyer spoke of the conversation in the present tense, she must have been mistaken about the date. He deduced that the comments must have been made in the mid-1970s, when Terri would have been only 11 or 12 years old.
“The first quote involved a bad joke and used the verb ‘is.’ The second quote involved the response from Terri Schiavo, which used the word ‘are,’” Greer wrote in his decision. “The court is mystified as to how these present tense verbs would have been used some six years after the death of Karen Ann Quinlan.”
As a result, Greer ruled that the statement that she “would not want to be kept alive artificially” - which Terri allegedly made in the presence of her husband, brother-in-law and brother-in-law’s wife - was Terri’s only adultcomment on the matter.
But Gibbs’ motion argued that it was Greer, not Meyer, who was in error.
“The court discredited Ms. Meyer’s testimony because of its own mistaken conclusion that Karen Ann Quinlan was dead in 1982. In reality, Ms. Quinlan was very much alive in 1982,” Gibbs wrote. “Ms. Quinlan did not die until 1985, some nine years after her court case ended and her respirator was removed.”
Greer’s refusal to consider Meyer’s testimony as equal to that of Terri’s husband and in-laws constitutes a reversible error, Gibbs claimed.
excerpt: http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPrint.asp?Page=\Culture\archive\200503\CUL20050303b.html
“I find it comical, especially since every appellate judge who reviewed this case looking for reversible error, did NOT find it to be reversible error.”
Name NAMES, and don’t forget the Clinton-appointed activist judge.
“Are claiming that Gibbs, the attorney and advocate for the Schindlers, is unbiased and did not have an agenda in this case?”
Gibbs “agenda” was TRUTH and LIFE.
I'm questioning it. It was not, so far as I know, documented in the medical record, and the standard medical legal rule is: If it wasn't documented, it wasn't done. If there is medical documentation, I'm interested to read it - please link.
Yeah right. This is the attorney who represented people who spent more time on tv before the cameras then on the witness stand. He must have known he had a poor legal case and thus tried to win in the court of public opinion rather than a court of law with obstrucation . They failed miserably on both fronts.
See Kozokey's post at #1450. It's all explained there. As I said, Iyer wasn't permitted to testify.
“” “It is routine in cases of criminal importance to not allow any biased pathology advocates in the morgue,” he said. “I’m the independent pathologist.”- Dr. Thogmartin””
What a bizarre quote from Dr Thogmartin?? And who appointed him to be the ‘independent pathologist’? Judge Greer, I assume.
Thanks for pointing out the above quote, bjs!!!
That's what I said.
>> If it was quite different, then Carla Iyer has shown ignorance of standard medical terms.
That doesn't follow. The terminology could be local or regional or institutional. The only way to learn her meaning is to question her.
Calm down, doc. You're having a hissy fit.
Just for the record, kozokey, quoting Matt Conigliaro in Free Republic is like wearing a scarlet “T” on your forehead.
Terri would say “stop” and “no!” because the rehab docs were hurting her. They didn’t ascertain first whether she had physical problems or injuries that would prevent the exercises. I’m pretty sure this was the situation that led to Dr. Walker’s bone scan and the discovery of highly suspicious patterns of healing bone tissue. In a 12-year-old girl, the pattern is specific for abuse. It isn’t conclusive in a 26-year-old woman, but it ought to put any doctor on alert (including Dr. Thogmartin).
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