FL lawyer says Giuliani, Romney, McCain wrong on Schiavo case

OneNewsNow ^ | 5/28/07 | Jim Brown

[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.

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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.

[erton1]

Frankly Matt Conigliaro is one the best, objective sources for material on the Schiavo case. Because he is objective and did not buy into the Schindler’s rhetoric, a few here tend to disparage him. Most freepers I have communicated with find him to be probably the best source on the intenet for information on Schiavo.

[T'wit]

>> Frankly Matt Conigliaro is one the best, objective sources for material on the Schiavo case.

He's all yours. That's two of you with a scarlet "T" on your forehead :-)

[T'wit]

Whittemore is a moral monster who smirkingly refused to give water to a woman dying of dehydration. He deliberately ran out the clock on her too, still wearing that smirk and playing to the cameras and to the mob. That is irremediable error under the law and evil in the sight of God.

You may call that lawful, but here's a piece of law for you to chew on. Inability to tell right from wrong, good from evil, is the traditional legal definition of criminal insanity.

[kozokey]

Just for the record, kozokey, quoting Matt Conigliaro in Free Republic is like wearing a scarlet “T” on your forehead.

Thanks for the tip, but what does the "T" stand for? I apologize if the information from AbstractAppeal was unwelcome, but I had always seen that site referred to as being a good source to find documentation and unbiased commentary. Would you mind elaborating on what part of the quote is objectionable, so I'll know in future?

[retMD]

>> Medical language may change frequently

That's what I said.

How about the rest of the sentence which is important so you don't change the meaning?

Medical language may change frequently, but it's usually because there are new devices, procedures or information.

> 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.

This terminology is not local or regional or institutional. It is national, widespread and long established. Common tools like the Glasgow Coma score use it. I have never heard of a paramedic unit or hospital that doesn't. When you make statements like this, you reveal ignorance of basic medical procedure.

This site instructs on how to do a basic patient evaluation. This nursing site talks about the neurologic assessment for nurses. Here's another from RNcentral.com. It's amazing to me that you're trying to claim this isn't standard practice, when two minutes conversation with any doctor, nurse, paramedic or EMT would educate you on this. I now understand why they didn't want to put Carla Iyer on the stand - she would have made a fool out of herself claiming something like this.

[retMD]

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).

Ah, back to the bone scan = fractures canard, again. The pattern in the bone scan, as Dr. Walker mentioned, is consistent with a car accident if the hot areas are indeed fractures. A car accident is a high speed deceleration injury, which is why it could cause that pattern. You have yet, despite being asked many times, to propose a mechanism of injury for domestic violence in an adult that would lead to that pattern. I have linked and cited multiple authoritative medical sources for you, and you have yet to rebut a single one.

To state quite clearly:
Dr. Walker's findings were the nuclide accumulations, which no one questions.
Based on what was filled in by the clerk "history of head trauma," Dr. Walker believed there was a history of trauma (and any doc would) and directed his comments toward traumatic causes. He acknowledged this in his testimony.
He correctly used words like "presumably", and "likely" and never said "this is from trauma." He acknowledged that the treating docs had a more complete picture of the patient.
He mentioned car accident because that's the kind of force it would take if the nuclide accumulations were indeed fractures.

[dbehsman]

T’wit, you’re wasting your time talking about morality to erton1. He doesn’t have any. I’ve tried to talk to him before about the moral aspects of the Schiavo execution, and he will avoid the issues, dodge questions, and act like he didn’t see anything.

There are a couple reasons for this. Moral cowardice is one. Another one is that all of erton1’s “morality” hinges on legality. Period. If it is legal, then it is fine with him.

For example, if slavery were made legal again and blacks started to get rounded up, erton would probably denounce people operating underground railroads. I can well imagine erton in Germany in the 30’s, dutifully turning in Jews because that is what the law demands.

There’s no God based morality or conscience with erton. Thus, he makes a perfect libertarian, and by extension a perfect moral cretin. What still remains a little bit of a mystery is this; Terri Schiavo was executed in one of the slowest, cruelest, torturous, and painful manners. It takes a lot of HATE to wish that type of death on someone. I wonder why the deathbots hate mentally handicapped people so much? I suspect that there is a severe form of bigotry against mentally handicapped people, but the deathbots haven't admitted it yet.

[dbehsman]

Doc, do you think that death row inmates should be executed by starvation/dehydration like Terri Schiavo was?

[wagglebee]

do you think that death row inmates should be executed by starvation/dehydration like Terri Schiavo was?

They NEVER want to answer this question. What I've always wanted to know, is if Terri was as severely brain damaged as they claim, how is it that she was able to experience the "euphoria" of starvation/dehydration?

[retMD]

Doc, do you think that death row inmates should be executed by starvation/dehydration like Terri Schiavo was?

I have mixed feelings about such executions at all, given how many have been exonerated by recent DNA evidence. But to answer your question (with the disclaimer that the court found these were Terri Schiavo's wishes, not an execution) - no. Because they are alert and presumably have normal sensation.

Many people with severe brain damage, alzheimer's, etc. stop eating, and there's often a reason for that. When my mother was dying of cancer, she repeatedly refused food and water, and said that didn't add to her discomfort. Was I cruel not to put a feeding tube in and force it on her?

[dbehsman]

What I've always wanted to know, is if Terri was as severely brain damaged as they claim, how is it that she was able to experience the "euphoria" of starvation/dehydration?

The euphoria was probably caused by the morphine that they gave her, even though she was "brain dead".

First the deathbots say that she was a "vegetable". Then the deathbots claim that it is humiliating for Terri to be kept alive (meaning food and water), BECAUSE she is "vegetable" (incapable of feeling anything whatsoever). So at this point, she is "vegetable" incapable of feeling anything or processing any information, EXCEPT even though she is a "vegetable", she feels humiliation. Then the deathbots give her morphine because she felt pain, even though she was a "vegetable". Then the deathbots claimed that they gave her the morphine to make the family feel better.* Finally, at the end the deathbots claimed that Terri was feeling euphoria even though they claim that she could not communicate and that she was a "vegetable". It is amazing the contortions that the deathbots will go through just to kill a mentally handicapped person.

*This is one of the most breath taking examples of medical stupidity that I have ever heard of. A medical "professional" gave a someone morphine to make someone else feel better. Think about it. Has this ever been done before in the history of medicine? Even in the medieval ages when things like "bleeding" were common, I don't think any of the physicians ever gave someone medicine for another persons ailment. Even "witch doctors" in primitive cultures know better than this! It still amazes me.

[dbehsman]

I have mixed feelings about such executions at all, given how many have been exonerated by recent DNA evidence. But to answer your question (with the disclaimer that the court found these were Terri Schiavo's wishes, not an execution) - no.

Well now wait a minute here doc. First you're saying that you don't trust the courts completely to decide whether or not to execute someone because the courts have been wrong before. Then you claim that Terri was not executed, because the court found that death by starvation/dehydration was Terri's wish. Now you know as well as I do that there was conflicting testimony as to what Terri's wishes actually were. Obviously we can't get any DNA evidence to tell us what Terri's wishes were. So why do you blindly trust the courts judgment on Terri's life, but not on the life of a capital offense defendant?

But to answer your question (with the disclaimer that the court found these were Terri Schiavo's wishes, not an execution) - no. Because they are alert and presumably have normal sensation.

So we execute a criminal, but we don't want to hurt their feelings. And when we execute a mentally handicapped woman, we don't care about her feelings.

And some folks wonder if I go too far when I posit that the deathbots are motivated by hatred of mentally handicapped people. It takes a lot of hate to starve/dehydrate a person to death.

Many people with severe brain damage, alzheimer's, etc. stop eating, and there's often a reason for that.

So people with severe brain damage can decide to commit suicide by starvation/dehydration, but people with severe brain damage cannot decide to survive. Yeah, I'm getting the picture you're painting.

When my mother was dying of cancer, she repeatedly refused food and water, and said that didn't add to her discomfort.

That's a little bit of a different subject, isn't it?

TERRI WAS NOT DYING!

All that Terri need was food and water. This was an intentional death by starvation/dehydration enforced by the state. You call it a wish, I call it an execution.

Was I cruel not to put a feeding tube in and force it on her?

You tell me. Was your mother trying to commit suicide by starvation, or was she just not hungry from chemotherapy?

[wagglebee]

I think that in the back of their minds, the deathbots were also aware that even comatose people (though Terri was not in a coma) often awaken due to severe shocks to the system and deprivation of water and nourishment would certainly fit into this category, so they gave Terri morphine to PREVENT recovery. The last thing that they could risk was Terri being able to communicate during her execution.

[Sioux-san]

Good job trying to provide facts & reason.

The docs and nurses knew perfectly well that Terri felt pain. She was given pain killers for her menstrual cramps. She was given morphine suppositories when she was being dehydrated to death. You don’t need morphine if you’re brain dead. If you aren’t terminally ill or dying (which Terri was not), it takes awhile to fully dehydrate and die - it took Terri 13 whole days. To think this all happened in a Hospice is sickening. Is that place still operating?

[wagglebee]

You don’t need morphine if you’re brain dead.

And you cannot possible feel "euphoric" if you're brain dead.

[dbehsman]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that the "hospice" is still in operation. The word "hospice" certainly doesn't seem to have the same meaning anymore.

I found something interesting on the internet that may help explain why such a thing like this could happen. Check out the two links below about the Hippocratic Oath.

Hippocratic Oath -- Classical Version

Hippocratic Oath—Modern Version

Did you see how drastically changed and watered down the "modern version" of the oath is? This is not the sole reason, but I think it provides an important clue as to why the modern world is producing doctors and lawyers without moral guidance.

[wagglebee]

I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.

Yep, the culture of death HAD to get rid of this!

[erton1]

Iyer was not called by the Schindlers as a witness at any of the trials, either 2000, 2002, or before. They tried to use her affidavit in a post-trial motion for new trial. This is a non-testimonial motion. This type of motion is considered a last gasp longshot in the legal profession. It is obvious from the contents of the affidavit that evidence she would have testified to occurred before 2000. She could have testified at either of the trials, and been subject to cross examination, but she and the Schindlers decided not to call her as witness. Again show the transcript of any trial in this matter where Iyer was offered as a witness and the judge did not permit her to testify.

[wagglebee]

They tried to use her affidavit in a post-trial motion for new trial. This is a non-testimonial motion. This type of motion is considered a last gasp longshot in the legal profession. It is obvious from the contents of the affidavit that evidence she would have testified to occurred before 2000.

So, you believe that when the life of an innocent woman is at stake that the proper thing to do is to err on the side of legal technicalities?

[dbehsman]

That’s why I’ve been saying that this guy has no morality based on right and wrong. His morality is based on legalistic technicalities.