UPDATE (April 5th): This thread is now closed. For further responses and comments, please use this thread, instead.
The following topics have now (as of 5:30pm Tuesday, pacific time) been banned from this thread:
1) Evidence or arguments intended to prove that the Schindlers are badly motivated or bad human beings. This includes any further discussion of them selling an email list or wanting an inheritance or anything like that.
2) Evidence or arguments intended to prove that Michael Schiavo, his lawyers, or Judge Greer are badly motivated or bad human beings. I think y’all know the sort of thing this includes.
3) Nazism and comparisons to Nazism, or reasons why comparisons to Nazism are inappropriate.
I will delete any further posts including any of the above subjects.
Since the post about Terri Schiavo’s CT scan now has over 400 comments, which is a bit of a huge file, I’ve decided to close comments on that thread. People who want to respond to a comment in that thread, or who want to make a comment on the Schiavo case in general, may do so in this new thread.
Please don’t post here to suggest that Michael Schiavo, or Judge Greer, are evil people who are conspiring to murder Terri. Please refrain from comments suggesting that the Schindlers are evil people, as well.
To get things started, I’ll quote in full the most recent (as of this moment) two posts from the thread I’m closing, both of which I thought were excellent.
Susan wrote:
Thank you, Barbara, for your clear formulation.
It seems to me that the people who want that feeding tube re-connected take one of two positions, and sometimes both:
- They think Terri has a duty to live that transcends what she would have wanted, as you say, or in the alternative, a duty to follow the speaker’s position on this instead of her own, and/or
- They think the court was wrong about what she wanted, for a variety of reasons, either that Judge Greer is a vulture or that Michael Schiavo has evil eyes or whatever.
Both positions can be defended, but I’d like to see a defense up-front.
As for thinking the court was wrong, I donno. I disagree with a lot of court decisions (especially when I lose!), but that’s the way we do things here, and for obvious reasons we don’t re-litigate things just because the loser is unhappy with the outcome. All the appellate courts are convinced that Judge Greer did a responsible job. I’d invite skeptics to read the Second District’s first opinion on this matter. What’s the theory here? That all the state and federal judges who’ve reviewed this are vultures? This wades us deep into conspiracy theory, deeper than I personally wish to go.
If you think Terri has a duty to live regardless of what she thinks, or that your opinion is to be preferred to hers, I’d be interested in hearing why.
A minute or so later, Sally posted the following. Since it was posted so quickly, I think it may have been intended to be a response to an ealier post of Susan’s, but it’s nonetheless an apt reply to Susan’s point about the courts.
Sally wrote:
I think the difference, Susan, is that I have less faith than you do in the courts’ ability to determine Terri Schiavo’s wishes. The court is relying on eyewitness testimony about conversations that happened many years ago. People’s memories are notoriously selective, not because they’re consciously distorting anything, but because we remember things by slotting them into certain narratives, and we tend to select out the memories that don’t fit into those narratives. Michael Schiavo and his brother and sister-in-law believe that Terri would want to die, and it seems likely that they’d select out any memories that would contradict that narrative.
I realize that all we have to go on here is hearsay, but it makes me nervous. It would make me nervous in any court case: I’m really wary of convictions based only on eyewitness testimony, too.
And secondly, the courts don’t float above society: they’re subject to the same prejudices as everyone else. And one of those prejudices is a widespread belief that some lives are not worth living, that some people are just empty husks who are a burden on society, that medical care is a zero-sum game, and if we keep those people alive, we’re taking treatment away from someone more deserving. When judges weigh evidence, they have those prejudices in the back of their minds. I don’t have a lot of faith in the courts as neutral actors here. And given that they are biased, in the ways that everyone is biased, I tend to think we should err on the side of not killing people.
Robin – It is simply not true that Terri has been supported by the state for five years, — I don’t care how often you find that “fact” repeated on Pro-Life websites or on Fox news. Woodside Hospice has stated in several reports that the cost of her care is subsidized through charitable donations. Only her medications, which cost under $200 a month, are paid for by Medicaid. That particular hospice provided $ 9 million in charitable care last year.
Hospice patients who are deemed “indigent” are ineligible for either Medicare or Medicaid. You can be poor, and yet be ineligible for Medicaid because your assets have a higher value than the benefit allows. My small rural hospice, is currently carrying eight patients on the census, who are indigent; their care is supported through donations, grants and community fundraising. Rather than requiring them to sell their family homes, we provide their care at no cost. Medicare requires that hospices provide this benefit for patients who lack insurance and who are ineligible for a public subsidy.
Another allegation floating around the net, and one which your post alludes to, is that her admission to hospice is illegal and that her hospice is guilty of fraud, because she doesn’t have the six month prognosis required by Medicaid or Medicare. Because her care is paid for privately, the hospice can care for her as long as they choose to. They are free to admit any patient for any reason, and hospices regularly admit patients for palliative care where there is no reimbursement.
If a hospice admits a patient under either federal benefit, and that person ends up living much longer than the initial prognosis, the maximum allowable CAP reimbursement for the year remains the same. Say the maximum per patient hospice allocation for a year is $20,000, and a hospice has admitted 100 patients. The maximum the gov’t will reimburse for is $2 million, which is about the cost of providing 18,000 days of inhome hospice care. If you have several patients who have been in care for over 180 days, the gov’t doesn’t increase the total amount you may receive. You have to admit several patients who will only live a few days, to offset the cost of providing those who are living longer. If you can’t find those patients, and the gov’t determines that they’ve “overpaid” for the care of those who lived too long, the hospice eats the difference. The gov’t may continue to pay for a patient if they live longer than six months, but that “overpayment” is essentially deducted from another patient’s account. That’s not fraud — that the reality of providing care under the government’s payment system.
Four years ago my hospice experienced a sharp increase in the number of patients who were admitted for chronic debilitating diseases, like COPD, Alzheimer’s, and CHF. These patients typically stablize after admission to hospice, and are released because they no longer qualify for care. When their conditions decline and they are hospitalized, they are again referred to hospice. They may be admitted, released and readmitted several times before death occurs. I have some patients on my census that were first admitted to hospice four years ago. Their care has the greatest impact on hospice costs. Under Medicare, only new admissions count in calculating your overall CAP allocation. Readmissions are not included in the formula.
During this same period, admissions for cancer which typically has a shorter length of prognosis, dropped. As a result, Medicare has determined that we’ve been “overpaid” nearly a million dollars over a three-year period, which we’ve absorbed as agency debt. We anticipate that we will continue to see an increase in the number of patients who are referred to us for chronic debilitating diseases. Our county has a whopping 19% unemployment rate, and the adult children who would normally help care for their parents, have moved out of the area because they can’t find jobs here. Physicians here often refer patients not simply because of their medical condition, but because they are not equipped to meet the complex needs of these patients, who often lack transportation, phones and even indoor plumbing.
I suggest if you’re really concerned about who is paying for Terri’s care, that you send Woodside Hospice a check.
As to your assertion that Terri has been subjected to,
…sensory deprivation to an extent that qualifies as torture and an international crime against humanity for the last five years or so.
Well, I’m absolutely speechless. Your charge is an affront to all the good hospice care providers, who feel that their work is a personal ministry.
Thank you, Sally, for your confrontation of this issue. It is refreshing to read an argument that makes sense!
Courts, being run by human beings as they are, make many mistakes. We are fortunate in this country, and in most English-speaking countries, to have a judiciary which is, by and large, not corrupt, does not tolerate bribery, and is composed of very able and well-intentioned men and women. This is not true in much of the world; we have a lot to be thankful for.
That said, when facts are in dispute, as in this case, we must come up with an answer somehow. All societies face this problem. Some read bird entrails to find the answer; some utilize magic rites of one sort or another; some throw dice; the ways of solving this problem are innumerable. And none is perfect.
Your wariness about hearsay is well-founded, as is your wariness about eyewitness testimony. (Lawyers say, “As reliable as an eyewitness,” by which we mean, of course, totally unreliable.) This position of yours is tenable as a philosophical position, but is useless to us out here who are trying to make decisions, solve disputes, and make this society run. We can’t just sit here and say, well, nothing is certain, so we’ll just sit here and do nothing. Let the disputants fight it out with swords maybe. (That’s how disputes were settled before the law came along.)
Imperfect as our decision-making methods may be, they’re the best we have. We are all open, of course! to any suggestions you may have about how we may be able to make these decisions more reliably.
Your thought seems to be that we should, in President Bush’s phrase, “err on the side of life.” This statement struck me oddly, since what we are trying to do is NOT to “err” at all, but to get this thing right. But that aside, I take it that you would favor keeping all brain injured people alive as long as possible, regardless of what we may be able to discern (imperfectly, of course) about their own wishes, just on the chance we may be wrong? regardless of what they wanted?
This is certainly a clear and defensible position, and one that tempts me too, a great deal, except that I hope they don’t do it to me and my family.
Barbara:
I am not saying not to trust your husband over your parents. I certainly have people I trust to make the right decisions for me too. I was specifically addressing those who have stated that they have told their husbands their wishes but not their parents. What would happen to you, in that case, if you were to say be in a car accident with your husband. He dies. You live, critically injured in a state you do not want to be preserved in. This and similar scenarios are not the least uncommon. BEGGING for trouble.
That is *exactly* my point. NOBODY can know – whether or not Terri is there, what she really wanted and what she might want now if she is there. And there is simply far too much conflict of interest, far too many shenanigans, far too much conflict among those that know her. If this were a criminal case and you were asked to serve on the jury to decide this woman’s life or death based on the totality of the evidence you could not cast a death penalty guilty vote as long as there remained reasonable doubt. Terri – and all the rest of us – are entitled to no less under this set of circumstances. Terri is NOT a terminal patient.
I was baptized and attend a Catholic church, and I don’t consider myself bound by Church doctrine on much of anything. Terri did not attend church regularly. I don’t even want to ask whether she used birth control, but if I had to bet, it would be that she did. This is just a factor, and not a very decisive one.
I was raised a Protestant in a fairly evenly divided Protestant-Catholic New England community. As I child I often attended Christian Doctrine Classes with my best friend. She came to Vacation Bible School with me. When I decided to marry a Catholic I got myself baptized as a Catholic so that we could have a church wedding, keeping in mind the Bible verse where Jesus says “Religion is of man, not of God.” Catholic women today – as in my younger years- often ignore church teachings on birth control. There is nothing more common – and wasn’t 50 years ago either – than a Catholic that shows up at church other than on those few days a year so holy that no one misses Mass.
With Terri not here to tell anyone exactly what her beliefs are, we can only use what we know of life and our own common sense to tell us what those beliefs are. First, apples do not fall too far from the tree. Smart parents usually raise smart children. Religious parents usually raise religious children. Parents who drink, lie and steal raise children that drink lie and steal. Sure, every family throughs a black sheep now and then but there is no evidence at all that Terri was greatly different than the family that raised her. THEY are religious people that have been making sure that Terri has a chance to practice her religious rites for some time despite her disability. They sent her to Catholic schools. I married a man that went to church 3 times a year and had been raised in Catholic schools. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary that Terri held beliefs differing from her families’, we can only assume that their beliefs reflect what would be her own.
I disagree – and I have read the records. The court(s) have NOT bent over backwards. There is tremendous appearance of conflict of interest on the part of the judge, the husband’s attorney and even the first attorney that represented the Schindlers. The judge admits that he discounted testimony that contradicted the husband’s re Terri’s wishes because he wrongly assumed that Karen Quinlan died in 1976. The sole person to ever investigate both sides after Terri’s Law was passed stated clearly and definitely that Michael Schiavo had a conflict of interest and should not serve as Terri’s guardian. He was removed from the case by the judge at Michael’s request.
There has been NO therapy and no medical assessment in the way of swallow tests, new brain imaging, etc. in a decade or more. In fact, there are implants in Terri’s brain due to some experimental procedure early on that prevent many kinds of brain imaging.
Terri was placed in the hospice in which she is currently dying in the year 2000. Medicaid (that means us) pays and has paid right along for Terri’s care there. Medicaid rules state that a patient cannot be placed in hospice unless they are 1.) TERMINAL and certified as such by their physician and 2.) expected to live less than 6 months. Terri’s then primary care physician specifically did not certify her as terminal and is no longer her physician. Terri does not have a terminal illness and has never had a terminal illness. She is profoundly disabled.
Terri is dying BY COURT ORDER – and there is a huge difference. This is NOT a case where the family went to court and asked the judge to allow them to disconnect, the judge wrote OK on the order and had done with it. This order directs the husband to end her life rather than allows permission for him to end her life. There is no evidence that the judge that has ordered the end of Terri’s life based on a decision that he made back in 1997 (based on an error he now admits) has ever so much as walked into her hospice room to see Terri with his own two eyes.
Given the totality of circumstance, it is not rational to assume that this is indeed Terri’s wish to start with. Further, if you or I make out a living will, we are free to go back later and rescind the thing, to change our mind about something, to refuse medical treatment we didn’t think of back then or ask for something we did not want. Terri, because of her condition, cannot do so.
But this isn’t really a question about Terri’s wishes. There are two options – kill her, don’t kill her. And two wishes – live, don’t live. So to lay it out we have these choices:
Terri wants to live – we kill her ERROR – IRREVERSIBLE
Terri wants to live – don’t kill her Correct choice – reversible
Terri wants to die – we kill her Correct choice -IRREVERSIBLE
Terri wants to die – don’t kill her ERROR – Reversible
So, whatever the decision, there is a 50/50 chance that it is the wrong decision to start with. Of the two correct choices, only one is reversible. The correct choice that is irreversible – terri wants to die, we kill her – is the incorrect choce 50% of the time.
The COURT has ordered Terri to die, so the question here is what decisions we will allow our courts to make as a society, what our values are as a society and what our responsibilities are as a society.
Under our own Constitution and international treaties we have a defined responsibility as a society to preserve Terri’s right to life. Terri has a right to take her own life under her right of self determination, but we do not have the right to exercise her self deterination for her. Her QUALITY of life – good or bad – and how any of us would want to live is completely immaterial under these circumstances. And that is written into both our treaties and the Florida constitution.
Remember – Terry is NOT TERMINAL. She is not suffering from some horrendous disease. In fact, those who say she is PVS would have us believe that she is not even there. That is a DISABILITY.
Killing Terri – a disabled individual entitled to all the protections of the Constitution and international law – by judicial order sets a precedent that allows the killing of ANY individual deemed disabled or judged to be of little value to society.
This exact same first step – killing the disabled who “wouldn’t want to live like this” using precisely the same arguments is what started the Nazis down the road to 12 million dead in the concentration camps. All perfectly “legal.” You don’t even have to turn to a history book to see that. There are thousands worldwide to provide first hand testimony.
To allow this as a society on ANY pretext is a crime against humanity. This decision sets a precedent. If you have no “quality of life” if you are of little or no “value” to society then a local probate judge can order your death by starvation and dehydration. Isn’t that a fine way to solve our problems. Takes care of the Social Security problem – and the homeless. The poor. The sick that cost us so much to provide care for.
Years ago we the United States of America stood in judgment over the Nazis. Who is going to judge us?
This is a near universal failing in the medical professions :) Everyone thinks they know more than they do about everyone else’s specialty.
But again, I have to acknowledge a personal prejudice here, and one that may color my own desire not to be kept alive by feeding tubes or other devices as long as possible if I enter PVS.
I’m a Christian. This means that I do not believe that organic life here on earth is the only life. I look forward to a life to come, with Christ. Therefore I have no interest in clinging to organic life if all I have left is a brainstem without awareness. And as painful as my death would be to my family, I would hate to think of them undergoing the prolonged agony Terri’s long incapacity has meant to everyone who loved her.
People who do not hold this belief may indeed view organic life differently, and feel that it should be prolonged, in whatever condition, as long as possible.
LETS SEE IF I HAVE THIS RIGHT:
Michael Schiavo received, after the attorney’s cut, something on the order of three-quarter million dollars in 1998 or so to provide for Terri’s care throughout her lifetime.
In the year 2000 Terri is admitted to Woodside Hospice, a hospice facility where the husband’s attorney had served on the Board of Directors for a number of years, as “indigent.” Medicaid pays for her medications and any other qualifying treatments (so they would have covered various therapies and rehabilitative services) and you say DONATIONS pay for the uncovered portion.
[Have you got a reference for that BTW? Everything I have read – and I read the left wing too – states that Terri’s care is paid for by Medicaid per court order. I’m sure they would like to correct that if they are wrong. And I am sure Medicaid would like to check their records to insure that we the people are not being defrauded as is all too common.]
Meanwhile, Michael Schiavo’s attorney collects about half of the three-quarter million dollars of Terri’s money (remember, Michael got his own money) in attorney fees, documented in court record, a large portion of which are for dealing with the media.
Not a single dime of Terri’s money has been spent to fund the other possible side of the legal argument – that she does not want to die. OH – there is also the salient point that the first attorney for the Schindlers bought out the practice of the JUDGE in the case when he became a judge. AFTER the Schindlers had spoken to him about the case.
Can we say “Something is fishy in Denmark?” This stinks like a big fish rotting in the sun!
Virtually everyone on the “other” side of the case and a number of people who have provided direct care to Terri have stated just exactly this repeatedly over the course of years. As an example, they nearly all state that Terri cannot be taken out even to the garden – and has not been in years – because her wheelchair is broken and her husband refuses to have it fixed. For that matter, Medicaid pays for wheelchairs and would repair or replace it. Why hasn’t tht been done?
So, either they are ALL lying, including the ones who have laid their jobs on the line, or all is not as Michael Schiavo’s attorney would have you believe and good hospice care would require. In that case, this is all just a conspiracy to malign Michael Schivo, as was the guardian’s report that clearly stated his conflict of interest.
I’m quite sure that there are wonderful hospices and abominable ones, just a one can say the same of nursing homes and hospitals. The matter requires investigation.
Don’t you DARE accuse me of affronting “good hospice care providers” with that attitude! Medicine is a MULTIBILLION dollar INDUSTRY in this country. It is a business, just like any other business and the bottom line is profit. Good hospice care providers have nothing to fear – and the sleazy operations that rob every single American of tax dollars and run our insurance rates to the moon deserve to be investigated – EVEN if it is an “affront” to their dignity.
I found something last night – on a good left wing news site – that makes me think that the stuff coming out of Attorney Felos mouth is a great big con job. In an interview with CNN he states –
Unless there is some special dispensation that I cannot find and some new way to sneak solids through a feeding tube with grinding them up, this is an outright lie. The Catholic church **requires** that the host be administered by mouth and that it not be chewed or otherwise contaminated. In the case of disabled or ill patients the priest is required to perform a swallowing test first in order to insure that the patient will not cough, choke or otherwise contaminate the sanctity of the host. Look up communion in an online Catholic encyclopedia.
You might also note that since Zelos has been asked by the media if Terri had music playing, (she didn’t) the matter has been corrected and she is now being graciously killed to the strains of soothing music while cuddling a teddy bear surrounded by flowers. Sure sounds like Auschwitz to me. And a snow job of the first order.
Sure, that is YOUR choice according to your own personal religious beliefs. Many other Christians would say to you that you have been put her by God to do a job/learn a lesson for whatever time he requires you to be here. That is there religious belief.
Your personal religious beliefs and your own wishes regarding what you want cannot be allowed to influence the law of the land to the deprivation of someone whose wishes may prove different than yours. ESPECIALLY if they cannot speak for themselves.
My apologies for the lousy spelling – this is a laptop :(
AND ABOUT THAT HOSPICE CARE
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,151806,00.html
Note that MD after the signature!
Emmetropia, thanks for the brilliant post, and your last comment about the affront to hospice workers everywhere. I have been thinking about the nurses and the nurses aides’ in the hospice where Terri is, and the enormous drain on their physical and emotional resources this maelstrom is causing.
Terri wants to live – we kill her ERROR – IRREVERSIBLE
Terri wants to live – don’t kill her Correct choice – reversible
Terri wants to die – we kill her Correct choice -IRREVERSIBLE
Terri wants to die – don’t kill her ERROR – Reversible
Well, okay, but for what reason would anyone ever reevaluate the decision to “reverse” anything? This isn’t a death row case with a series of procedural or substantive appeals to make. There’s no new evidence to be introduced; it isn’t as though we’re still searching for the living will, or as though there’s a chance in hell that she’ll ever wake up and communicate her wishes herself. Both of these decisions are pretty much permanent: either Michael’s description of her wishes is sufficient, or it’s not. And even the “reversible” options would mean that a woman would be spending extra non-reversible years on life support she may not have wanted.
Robin, communion was provided yesterday — it is my understanding — via placing a drop of wine on Terri’s tongue. No swallowing was required. The prior communion was provided via the feeding tube, just prior to its removal. Either species is considered sufficient. My understanding is also that the trust fund has been depleted for at least the last several years (this was in the late 2003 Wolfson report), so the hospice may now be providing care for free. Hospices are one of the types of providers that are most likely to actually do their duty as a charitable organization to try to serve all people in need of their service. My father was cared for by hospice without charge because he had no insurance. I also am somewhat surprised that someone didn’t qualify Terri for SSI. Actually, I can probably answer my own question: she may have lacked the adequate work history predicate for SSI eligibility. But I don’t know for sure.
Yes, if you note the date on the quote above Felos comment re communion in the CNN interview refers to the “communion” by feeding tube. The one belatedly granted late on Easter Sunday is legitimate. The priest gave her only a drop of communion wine because she could not swallow. In the Catholic Church a normally you recieve a round white piece of flat bread called the host or a part of it. That is the part the priest could not give to Terry on Sunday.
If she did indeed receive communion shortly before her feeding tube was removed, it would have been administered in exactly the same way – by MOUTH. Not feeding tube.
Why would the hospice provide care for free to a patient that qualifies for Medicaid and is entitled to coverage in a skilled nursing facility?
Think about it – that does not even make good sense, to say nothing of good BUSINESS sense.
She may not have had enough work history to qualify for SSD – that is the federal program paid for through your social security taxes. I doubt that though. They moved to Florida because she worked for an insurance company and was transferred there.
SSI is a state-funded program (with a little help from the feds) that provides a disability benefit to those who do not qualify for SSD or whose SSD benefit is only minimal. She would have qualified for that.
Of course both of those would be paid to Michael Schiavo a her guardian.
Robin, I think I already told you that I don’t like seeing the Holocuast trivialized. Allowing a single woman, who in all the important ways has been dead for over a decade, to have her body die after a court has found this is what she would want, may be a terrible thing, as you argue. But it is not the same thing as killing ten million people against their will in concentration camp. That you think these are the same things suggests to me that you’ve lost all moral perspective.
To imply that there is no distinction between these two events is beyond ridiculous. People can disagree with Robin’s opinion without being the moral equivilent of Nazis; if you can’t acknowlege that, then you should stop posting on my website.
Regarding Judge Greer’s order that Terri’s mouth not be moistened, I don’t think any such order exists. You can read Terri’s end-of-life care orders for yourself (in pdf format – here and here). The orders call for Terri’s lips to be moistened as necessary and for her mouth to be swabbed with saliva substitute.
AMP –
It is you who are trivializing the Holocaust Amp, not me. The Holocaust started in Germany with the euthanasia in the early to mid thirties of the German disabled. Society didn’t raise a fuss, making it possible to go after all those other unworthies – the Jews, the Gypsies, the Christians of various stripes that raised a fuss and everyone that disagreed with the Final Solution. That is historically documented. That is the basis of “NEVER AGAIN” –
Every genocide starts with a first step. Allowing our courts to kill Terri Schindler-Schiavo sets a precedent that quite literally follows in goose-step the events in Germany that led to the Holocaust. 10 Million – though it was actually more than that – starts with ONE.
In comparing this event to the events of the Holocaust I am not calling any individual a Nazi. Whether the parallel fits your idea of what is politically correct or not, it is none the less valid and I am not the only one saying so by a very, very long shot. Not everyone who is saying that is a right-wing right-to-lifer whose opinion can be ignored. Many are Jewish. Many are historians.
Amp, please take the cinder out of your own eye before you worry about the cinder in mine :)
But Robin, you compared the manner in which Mrs. Schiavo is dying to “Auschwitz”, not to a case of euthanasia in Germany in the 30’s. You have also compared having a broken wheelchair and not being able to go out to the garden with torture that would constitute an international crime against humanity. I do think you should be more careful with your comparisons.
Noooo, you’re just telling us that we’re Nazi-enablers, and saying that we’re goose-stepping. No offense there.
And if some Jewish people aren’t offended, it can’t possibly be anti-Semitic or offensive to Jews!
She’s not being euthanized. She’s being taken off life support. Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are illegal in almost all of this country. Refusing medical intervention is everyone’s right; medical intervention without consent is battery. Refusing medical intervention for incapacitated family members with terminal illnesses is routine. My family just had to do it for my dying grandfather.*
Schiavo is not merely disabled–it isn’t as though she’s paralyzed, or even that she’s suffered simple brain damage. She’s not conscious. She never will be.
*Thankfully, he had been ill for a long time, and he left detailed instructions. But there were still many different decisions to be made.
Terri Schindler-Schiavo is being starved and dehydrated to death by order of a court of the United States acting on behalf of and in the name of We the People of the United States.
Court actions taken on behalf of We the People set a precedent on which other court actions are based. Therefor, we MUST get this right or we have just opened the door to the killing of the disabled by starvation and dehydration based on quality of life.
I would refer you to the fact that Terri is not a
criminal, she is DISABLED. She has a right to life, paramount to all
else by the constitution of her state, the Constitution of the US and every international treaty on human rights.
The “principle” being used to kill Terri is that she is in a PVS, has no self, has no awareness and no idea what is happening to her. No quality of life. She is a vegetable with no human value. Many would dispute that – but ignore that side for a moment.
According to this idea being put forth by her husband’s attorney, Terri has no conciousness. Thus, if she lives, she does not know that she lives. And if she is alive, she can always die at a later date should a living will suddenly come to light.
Meanwhile, we have fulfilled our legal obligations to Terri under state/national/international law, two of which specifically guarantee her the right to life despite the fact that she is profoundly disabled – without exception. Those guarantees were written into place after the Holocaust, BTW.
Since Terri left no record, cannot speak to us and the family is in violent disagreement over what her wishes are, a betting man has got a 50/50 chance of making the right decision. Those aren’t very good odds. In medine we call that 50/50 “darned if I know your guess is as good as mine.”
If we allow a court of the United States to kill Terri acting on behalf of and in the name of We The People, that is irreversible once she is dead. Should we later find, either because such a stink has been raised and a thorough review is conducted after her death or because a living will turns up, that either Terri was not in PVS **or** that dying in this manner would not be her wish, the We The People – all of us – have just allowed the commission of a Crime Against Humanity. We will have forever lost all claim to the moral highground that we have enjoyed for so long. We will have besmirched the name of democracy throughout the world. And we will never regain that.
If we have no other standard that we can apply then it MUST be
the first rule of medicine:
FIRST -DO NO HARM!
She’s not being euthanized. She’s being taken off life support.
Food and water by you are life support?
Sorry. This is plainly euthanasia. (Euthanasia that the patient herself willed, if the judge’s ruling is correct, but euthanasia.)
So, whatever the decision, there is a 50/50 chance that it is the wrong decision to start with.
This is not mathematically correct. You are assuming each of your four choices carry equal probabiliies and they do not. Years of court proceedings were done to establish that the probability is significantly higher that Terri Schiavo would not choose to exist in her current state. It is impossible to quantify exactly, but it is certainly higher than 50/50.
Making her continue to exist in that state is grotesque.
If you’re getting them through a tube in your stomach because you’re permanently comatose and cannot feed yourself, yes. They fall into the category of medical care, medical intervention. Do you see oxygen as not-life-support, then, even if it’s supplied via respirator? It’s just as basic a need.
I’ve been referring to this case as murder by court order for some time. Perhaps you haven’t read the other page of posts. Popular topic, page got too big.
When Jewish prisoners were brought into Auschwitz, they were separated on the train platform. One group was lead down a path, through beautiful gardens, to the accompaniment of an orchestra playing wonderful music in the park-like atmosphere. They were led into a room where they were told to remove their clothes, issued claim tickets, towels, soap – and then led into a large room containing multiple shower heads. It was only when those shower heads issued killing gasses rather than water than many realized they were to die.
Those in the other line were led away to perform slave labor, sleep four to the bunk and slowly starve from a diet that did not add up to 1000 calories a day. The water available was limited, dirty, and often led to typhus and other diseases. When their bodies became so starved and disease ridden they could no longer work, they too were led away through beautiful gardens while the orchestra played. These prisoners knew what to expect.
Last week Felos was asked in an interview, having described Terri as “more beautiful than he had seen her” while her family stated the diametric opposite, if there was music playing in Terri’s room. He said no.
Last night – after the fuss and bad press I suppose – he is suddenly describing the soft background music that wasn’t present earlier, the flowers, the teddy bear she is holding while she starves to death.
I trust you see the parallel.
For a healthy human being – self aware or not – death by starvation and dehydration is NOT beautiful or peaceful. It is excruciating. Ask anyone who has ever witnessed it firsthand. Ask the starving in Africa, the people who have worked with them or any of the thousands that survived the Holocaust.
You are quoting me responding to a partial quote from a post on an earlier page. If you carefully read through all of the various statement – many of which go back years – made by Terri’s family, caregivers and others, you will see that they allege that Terri has not received therapy, or even dental care (brushing her teeth) in years. The wheel chair has been broken for years. The list is very, very long so please read it for yourself. She has not been out of her room for **years.** The shades are kept pulled much of the time. Her access to friends and family has been drastically limited. If we as a nation did these things to a prisoner of war, we would be- and recently have been – crucified internationally for torture.
You might also note that the state of Florida yesterday arrested a farmer for failing to feed his animals and charged him with criminal neglect and abuse.
Would the difference here be that she is being allowed to die through NON action, as opposed to being euthanized through action?
Food and water by you are life support?
When administered via a tube surgically inserted into one’s stomach, yeah.
The German people actually did protest the euthanizing of mentally retarded and elderly people, which, I might add, was undertaken unilaterally by government action without judicial restraint or family request. It was stopped as a result of this backlash. Like I said several weeks ago when holocaust comparisons were used by another poster — at best it’s a metaphor to describe something considered very evil by someone who is too lazy to be more specific. It’s also a diversionary tactic that avoids use of actual reason. Sorry to be harsh, but it adds nothing to the discussion. We already know you have strong feelings on the issue.
…Essentially, yes. Euthanasia is sometimes defined as killing a patient (e.g. by lethal injection) and/or allowing a patient to die by refusing medical care. However, in any context that attempts to differentiate between a physician honoring a DNR and a phyisican actively causing the patient’s death, euthanasia usually means killing a patient rather than allowing a patient to die through non-action.
Euthanasia also implies a lack of agency on the part of the patient: it’s something that the phyiscian does. So it seems inappropriate to use it in the context of a physician following a patient’s orders to not do something. That’s just me, though.
Sometimes, there’s a further distinction: between euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. When those two terms are used together, usually in the context of “Right to Die” laws, “euthanasia” is yet more specific. Physician-assisted suicide means that the doctor helps the patient to procure a lethal dose of medication, but does not actually administer it. Euthanasia means that the doctor administers the lethal dose.
No, I am not telling you you are a Nazi enabler, I am telling you that evil is afoot in the land and if you don’t open your eyes to it, you may be next, as will all of the rest of us. Those who are goose-stepping are demonstrators bringing home the historical parallel.
Perhaps you should look up the term anti-semitic. I have said not a single word that is antisemitic. Calling a spade a spade is called telling the truth. Ignoring a spade or calling it a rose is sticking your head in the sand.
What would you call it then? I – and lots of others – call it judicial homicide. Murder.
No, she is not being taken off life support. The ONLY “life support” Terri Schindler-Schiavo has ever used is a feeding tube. She is not on a ventilator. She breathes and swallows her own saliva unassisted. She is not on kidney dialysis and she does not have a pacemaker.
If a feeding tube is “life support” and “drastic measure” then a huge number of patients can be terminated who are otherwwise very productive individuals.
Yes, it is isn’t it? But TERRI isn’t SICK (or at least she wasn’t). She does not HAVE a terminal illness. She was expected to live a lifetime as normal and lengthy as yours will be. She has been fed by tube for nearly 15 years. This is not refusing medical intervention.
Terri Schindler-Schiavo is INDEED concious and has been for 15 years. The degree of her awareness is in dispute, but she is not unconscious nor is she in a coma. She is not brain dead.
Even the finest medical minds in the world cannot determine her exact state of being. NO testing of her abilities has been done in years – many years. No therapy has been provided to her for over a decade. No autopsy will ever be able to determine the truth. and there are NO degrees of disability. You either are, or you are not.
This is murder, plain and simple.
Better tell the Pope that a feeding tube is life support:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,151775,00.html
really my own thoughts, not consciously playing off of someone else’s post:
granting in a hypothetical that, yes, people in PVS are still alive, how long do we keep them like that?
people who don’t have feeding tubes and defribulators and iron lungs and whathaveyou eventually stop functioning. they die of old age.
using enough equipment, you could conceivably keep a person “alive” indefinately, even if their brain ceased to function long ago.
so, is it ok to unplug Ms. Schiavo when she reaches 60? 70? do we stipulate that she is “alive” and use her condition to set a new Guiness record for world’s oldest person?
So, Robin, what’s the logical consequence of your proposal? Should all Living Wills be rendered illegal? Should hospitals and doctors be prohibited from honoring DNRs?
Let us , for the sake of argument ( we love argument , don’t we? ) stipulate that she has some limited level of consciousness.
We are still in the same situation….she cannot articulate her wishes currently, and the courts have determined that she made it known that her wish would be to die if in this medical state.
People continue to say she has the right to life….of course she does, we all do. She also has the right to be allowed to die.
Shouldn’t a “culture of life” also mean (1) no capital punishment, (2) no war, (3) government subsidies to encourage families to have huge numbers of children, (4) reduction of the defense budget to help pay for these, (5) social activism to attach responsibility to corporations for the lives of their workers and customers? If it does not also embrace these, I’d say this is not at all a “culture of life” but, rather, a culture of political convenience.
Jan,
That is like saying, if you can’t fix everything, then fix nothing.
This most certainly is mathematically correct. There is too much family dispute over her true wishes and too many shenanigans with the court, accompanied by complete lack of retrial by an independent judge to give any statistical, scientific or moral credence to the court decision.
In order to do so you must believe that a single judge did not make a mistake – also a 50/50 probability.
The Pope’s situation is obviously different, however, what if he were in this situation? Would he be kept alive indefinitely? At what point, if ever, would a new Pope be named?
This is denial. Robin, she has no cerebral cortex left. If you wish to pretend she’s somehow conscious in spite of this, I suppose you can. But it’s not logically defensible; with no cerebral cortex, with a flatline EEG measurement, the degree of her awareness is zero.
This is absolutely, 100% false.
The principle being used to let Terri die is that that’s what she wanted. She expressed her wishes to her husband, her closest relative, and he conveyed them to the court. Her parents disagreed, but the courts have consistently found them to be less credible then her husband, especially because, as they’ve said, their desire to keep her alive has little to do with what she would want.
The fact that she’s a vegetable with zero consciousness and liquid for a cerebral cortex is only relevant in that it illustrates how frankly ignorant of medicine, science, logic, and morality* the Save! Terri! crowd is.
—Myca
* – Specifically in reference to Texas’ futile care law. Hey Robin, have you spent a lot of time comparing George W. Bush to Hitler for enabling the death of Baby Hudson? No? Imagine my surprise . . .
Robin,
OK, thanks for the clarifications. Regarding the Auschwitz comparison:
I only see a very superficial parallel which, in my opinion, certainly does not merit comparisons with Nazi death camps and all the baggage that comes with that. As for the torture argument, again I don’t think it’s anywhere near as cut and dried as you make it out. For one thing, it could be argued that a person who cannot process any senses cannot be said to be sensory-deprived.
Look, I am aware the discussions in this forum, as interesting and well-elaborated as most of them are, have long ago stopped being about Terri Schiavo and are more about being right — about gathering and presenting all the available amunition that supports how you feel, to make you right and make the other side wrong. I’m no different — it is human nature, especially in complex cases like this. It makes for fascinating discussions.
I was commenting more on the argument itself — I think we need to be careful about exaggerations in our comparisons, firstly because exaggerations are easy to refute, and therefore the argument tends to veer off in the direction of the exaggeration and away from what it was originally about. Secondly exaggerations can easily offend people, if for example they percieve themselves being called Nazis simply because you disagree with them. Thirdly, exaggerations make your whole argument — which is for the most part well informed and presented — less credible.
And comparing this case to the Holocaust or its prelude is minimizing anti-semitic genocide. That’s anti-semitic in practice, even if you don’t harbor any specific hatred. You don’t hestitate to call the people supporting Terri being taken off of life support anti-disabled.
It’s still life support. My granddad was never on dialysis or a respirator either; that doesn’t mean that nourishing and hydrating him through an IV wasn’t also a form of life support. And if she were on a respirator or in need of dialysis, the essential terms of the debate wouldn’t change. Also, the woman has a tube in her stomach. It’s at least as invasive and extreme a measure as any of the other procedures you mentioned.
Uh huh. And if they so choose, they will be. And not to split hairs or anything, but Terri isn’t anything like those people. We aren’t talking about someone who is conscious and in need of a feeding tube to survive, or someone who is conscious and communicating a desire to keep the feeding tube in.
No, she isn’t. The “conscious” parts of her brain have largely been destroyed and replaced by spinal fluid: even her own body didn’t think they were salvageable. The CAT scans show a totally unambiguous pattern of severe damage. An autopsy would be unecessary, but will certainly bear out the findings of the CAT scan.
Of course there are degrees of disability, just as there are degrees of damage. But if I understand the terms you wish to debate under, then fine: she isn’t disabled. She’s in a persistent vegetative state. “Disabled” implies that she has suffered some disabling injury, not that she’s pretty much gone.
And I don’t want to talk too much about my granddad, who’s nowhere near as abstract to me as Terri is to both of us, but so what if he was sick? He would have had several more months–including some lucid months–if he hadn’t had an advance directive. And many of those disabled people whose interests you so casually mention have radically shortened lives due to their conditions, from Tay-Sachs to muscular dystrophy to Downs. Why is that time less valuable than Terri’s?
Eventually everyone gets old and dies, don’t they? I see nothing whatever morally or legally wrong with not providing further life support to a patient in Terri’s condition. Especially if the entire family agrees. That is refusing intervention.
I repeat, Terri Schindler-Schiavo is NOT brain dead, nor is she “plugged in.” She simply needs a tube to provide nourishment. So do many stroke patients, trauma patients, newborns, cancer patients, and so on.
I don’t think that we should keep all brain-injured people alive indefinitely, and I absolutely think that people have a right to make their wishes known about what they would do if they were incapacitated. I’m planning to write out a living will next weekend, and I’m pretty sure that I will say that I don’t want to be kept alive indefinitely in a PVS. In my perfect world, we’d all have living wills that spelled out in minute detail what we did and didn’t want to happen to us in the event that something like that happened. (And yeah, I know that living wills are imperfect, too.) And if there’s a silver lining to this whole sordid affair, it’s that many more people are taking steps to make their wishes clear.
But obviously there are always going to be instances in which people are incapacitated who haven’t clearly spelled out their wishes. And in those cases, especially if they aren’t suffering, my tendency is to be biased in favor of maintaining life support. I’m willing to admit that I could be wrong, but that’s my impulse.
If there is no degree of disability, then someone confined to a wheelchair is obviously in the same situation as someone in PVS ( Terri or anyone else )?
That is absurd.
I’ve followed this discussion over the past several weeks, but this my first post. I would like to thank the many people who have sent very intelligent, well reasoned, and most of all civil posts on both sides of this divide. Here’s my 2 cents:
Regarding hospice care, I wish the people who believe that Terri’s body should be maintained would stop knocking it. My grandmother used home hospice care for three months and died with family around her at my mother’s home. My mom is still in touch with one of the nurses over 15 years later. My aunt also used hospice care while she was dying of pancreatic cancer only a couple of years ago. I have not seen anything but truly compassionate care from these dedicated workers. It’s wrong to smear them in this way.
Regarding religion, I was raised Catholic too, but no longer practice for a number of reasons. I remember being taught that life was sacred, but I also remember, and believe to this day that I have an existence beyond my physical body. I don’t recall that forcing food and water on anyone was part of that teaching. In fact, my grandmother, one of the most devout Catholics I have ever met, eventually refused food and drink. No one accused her of committing suicide.
Regarding comparisons of Terri Schiavo with Stephen Hawking and other disabled people, I think these folks are not comparing apples to apples. ALS is a disease that causes a fatal degeneration of motor function, not mental function. If one were to compare Terri’s CT with CT scans of Hawking, I would expect to find tremendous cortical activity, and probably degeneration in the cerebellum and perhaps part of the stem of Mr. Hawking. There is no question that he is “in there”, anyway since he is still publishing books. Terri’s CT scan shows massive loss of cortical tissue, and her EEG’s were flat, meaning NO activity. No amount of therapy can fix what isn’t there any more. If there had been damage were to her brain stem as well as her cortex, she would have been declared brain dead and we wouldn’t be discussing this at all. I took the time to check the various links and read input from neurologists, the guardian ad litem and others to get my own head in order. I think that what Terri was, as a human, conscious person, fled her body long ago, and the decision to stop keeping her physical body alive is the correct one. All evidence indicates that Michael Schiavo spent several years trying to help his wife recover before deciding that there was no hope left. When is enough enough?
Nonetheless, as a parent, I sympathize with Terri’s parents. If it were my child, I would also try to see signs of the person she once was there. Yes, those videos tug at my heartstrings, but hearing the Schindlers saying that Terri is trying to talk to them when medical evidence clearly no intellectual capacity to do so shows that wishing and reality are different things. I also question why, if they believe so strongly that Terri is “in there” they haven’t chosen to post unedited video footage. Other posters have already questioned whether this might be because the rest doesn’t support their contention. She appears to laugh in response to a joke, but if we saw the unedited video, would we also see her make this vocalization by herself and in response to nothing at all? We see her appear to track the motion of a balloon, but how many tries did it take to capture this footage? Photos may not lie, but they certainly can be manipulated.
Last, we have agreed in our constitutional democracy to live by the rule of law. One of our most precious rights is the right to privacy–to live our lives the way we choose without intrusion from our government. The courts have extensively reviewed this case, and I think that all the judges have done their best to come to the correct decision given the evidence presented by both sides and the existing case law. It’s time for the rest of us armchair jurists to butt out and respect that decision whether or not we agree with it. If we don’t, we will all pay the price in the end. Legal decisions will be made by whichever side shouts the loudest. That will be a tragedy for all of us..
Perhaps it’s time to get away from the Nazi analogies. I’m Jewish and I see nothing in the removal of Terri’s feeding tube to prompt comparisons to the Holocaust. However, I do see comparisons in Congress and Bush going to extraordinary efforts over this one, lone Catholic white woman, when hundreds thousands of children are at risk for malnutrition and disease in this country, to the bigoted, uncaring hatred that permeates the right wing for “the little people.”
That, more than anything, tells me how skewed and perverted these people are in using their “God” to guide their decisions.
Before you jump on me about my anti-Bush stance, know that I’m ESRD – end-stage Renal disease and am on dialysis 3 times a week to keep me alive. Know that I bankrupted myself paying medical bills because my health insurance company didn’t like paying for my tests, etc. and dumped me as a client.
Know that my mother was dying of uterine cancer and I had to make the decision to stop her feeding. She was in pain, delirious and I thought it was kinder to let her go than to prolong her misery. It’s a decision I’d make again about anyone I love, and one that I’ve made for myself when the time comes.
I see nothing noble in the Schindlers’ behavior. I see selfishness and guilt at work here. I see a hubris and no regard for anyone’s feelings, least of all, Terri’s.
Their willingness to rabidly accept the “help” of Randall Terry – an anti-abortion activist who doesn’t mind people being killed for providing abortion services, but, O Yea, you can’t kill an unborn fetus, disgusts me. You are known by the company you keep.
The Schindlers’ willingness to grandstand in front of the media, all day and every day. And, the latest outrage –
The Schindlers took to email to raise money for their legal costs. They compiled a list of about 6,000 supporters who donated money (a sucker every minute, you know). And now they’re RENTING that list to Conservatives for their own fund-raising.
Disgusting. I can’t wait for the Movie of the Week – all from the Schindlers’ grief, of course.
Piny said:
Let me point out to you that as horrible as the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis was, it was not simply a Jewish event. While 6 million or so Jews were killed during the Holocaust, an equal – and possibly greater – number of non-Jews were victims: gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, gays & lesbians, Christians who preached against the events taking place, Germans who protested……….the list goes on and on. Nobody knows the exact numbers. The Jewish people have gone to great lengths to document, but many members of those other groups simply disappeared. I’ve read estimates over the years that run 12 – 16 million people. The difference is that the Jews were actively sought out, hunted down and herded by state policy. Others tended to disappear in smaller groups more sporadically.
To hold the idea that the Holocaust must be talked about and spoken of only in whispers and solely in terms of Jewish victims in order to avoid offense or be politically correct is at the very best revisionist history. Revisionist history is at the heart of anti-semitism.
The reason that people study history is to allow the drawing of parallels. Haven’t you heard that “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”?
To make this a little short, let me just give a couple of other responses without bothering to quote you.
1.) Your grandfather was SICK and DYING.
2.) Allowing Terri to be starved and dehydrated to death without her express written or current verbal or unanimous agreement among her entire simply because she is disabled is murder, no matter how you want to white wash it and what pretty little terms you want to cloak it in.
3.) Terri has not had a CAT scan in many, many years. She has not had an MRI or a PET. She has metal in her brain that prevents many imaging techniques do to some experimental treatment over a decade ago. Things change over time – even brains.
4. ) An autopsy can determine to some extent that there was brain damage. What the effects of that damage are are best determined in living patients and often cannot be determined by autopsy.
5.) For the purposes of determing under either Florida or international law whether Terri qualifies as disabled there are specifically no degrees of disabled. The same is true under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Let me address this more directly:
You should talk to someone about your Grandad. I know this is hard – I did that for my mother. And myself. And others close to me. Your Grandad had an advance directive because he wanted to have one.
Life changes as you age as you will learn. My Grandma lived to be 95 years old. She had been partly paralyzed – her knee – as a young woman but quite nearly until the day she died she did her own laundry. As the years went by, some people in the family thought she was senile. She wasn’t – just horribly lonely. Her kids spent half the year in Florida. Most of her 16 grandchildren had moved away or never thought to visit. Every human being that she knew of her generation was gone – her friends, her husband, the people she grew up with. She used to tell me that she felt like the last of the dinosaurs.
Time gets shorter as you age. If you can remember how long it was till next Christmas when you were very little, by the time my Grandma was very old she thought it had been only a week since Christmas and that my Dad had lost his mind when he brought her flowers. And then my aunt had her dog put to sleep because he
peed on the floor. She had had Bono for 25 years – and they didn’t even tell her until they didn’t bring him back from the vet. He was her very last friend.
So, one bitterly cold New England night when the temperature was well below zero, Grandma went outside without her special shoes on, without a coat, in her summer pajamas. She had not been able to walk even to the bathroom without that shoe in 70 years. She knew she would fall.
The neighbor found her when he went to get his morning paper. At the hospital her brain was not dead, her heart still beat very faintly. The brought her body temp back to normal – told us she had the lowest body temp they had ever seen. She was “awake” – but she never knew anyone again. Her toes and fingers rottede off from frostbite. They had to feed her in the nursing home. After a couple of months she finally died – on the day before her birthday.
I know your pain. I cannot begin to tell you how much I wish that my dear Grandma had had an advance directive or that someone – anyone – from the family had been there to say “STOP!”
I don’t casually mention disabled people. I AM one. I’ve raised one. I’ve cared for many just within my own family. Every single day is precious. Terri’s condition is not any less worthy of care and concern than someone with Tay-Sachs or Downs or Aids. But her condition is worthy of every bit as MUCH concern as anyone with one of those “more worthy” disabilities simply because a single judge decided nearly a decade ago on what appears to be at best only partial evidence that she was a “vegetable.”
That is exactly why we must NOT allow our courts to make this kind of decision in this way.
I would have no problem with a judge issuing a “disconnect” order in the case of true terminal disease if a family simply cannot agree.
I have huge problems with a single man – any man – deciding this issue on the side of death in the name of We the People. If we must err, then we must err for life.
Of course not. That would be a violation of your individual right to self determination. I suspect that Piny might tell you he wishes they were more easily invalidated though. And you had better be careful what you ask for – some doctors/hospitals will abide by your living will even if you later change your mind during an illness on the assumption that you are no longer competent.
Terri, though, did not HAVE a living will. No DNR. No immediately raised wish to “not live this way” coming from the family – that waited 7 years until after a large insurance settlement.
From the standpoint of our responsibilities under law to the disabled there is no degree of disabiled. All of the human rights treaties, the Florida Constitution and the Americans with Disabilities act specify – “disabled.” No degree of disability and no exceptions. No differentiation between paralysis, Aids and PVS.
It seems that the tenor of the argument is becoming less civilized. I started reading this blog b/c it seemed to attract thinking, sensitive people, unlike the vitriol found in some of th eother blogs. I’m sorry to see that qulity degrade over the past couple of days and hope that it can rebound.
You know, there is the funny thing about Freedom of Speech. And all the rest of our freedoms for that matter. If you have to think like everyone else, talk like everyone else, agree with everyone else, dress like everyone else then you don’t HAVE freedom. Freedom of speech that we do not extend to someone else, especially when they disagree with us, is not freedom of speech at all.
Before you make THAT kind of allegation then you need to be really, really sure of your facts – and best have some proof to hand. You have heard of libel, right?
As far as the Schindler’s fudraising goes, you should be aware that the **court record** clearly shows that Michael Schiavo’s primary attorney (Felos) has received more than $300,000 from the money awarded for Terri’s care in the malpractice suit.
A good chunk of that is shown in the court records as having been paid for dealing with the media.
Well, Brad, that’s the nature of reasoning from moral principle. This argument is that protection of life trumps everything, and there should not be any compromise, no greys, no interpretation, no adjudication. This is certainly not my position.
The people like me who support a reasoned interpretation of the Constitution as it is, with no augmentation by a principle that “life trumps all”, are doing so because it is a practical thing. Criminals need punishing. Wars sometimes need to be fought. People sometimes make poor choices with their lives and need second chances. The biological world is an unfriendly place and we need all the tools we can to help the most people. And there are people who feel that life with large amounts of suffering isn’t worth living.
Even if “no greys” in regard to preserving life is accepted, surely someone killing someone with a gun in war is far more overt an attack than executing a DNR order. I am simply asking for logical consistency. And if logical consistency is not seen as important, then that is exactly the problem.
The same Congress that voted to pursue this specious intervention in a private matter, let alone a state matter, also voted billions more for the war in Iraq and the Pentagon, much of which goes to enrich defense contractors and outfits like Halburton and their shareholders. That same money could be used to protect life, by helping the poor, providing medical assistance, and innumerable other ways. Remember, I have no problem with the need for defense. A “culture of life” isn’t my thing.
The huge amounts of legal fees allocated to this fight, to alter the interpretation of the Constitution to be consistent with a “culture of life”, could be similarly applied.
Abortions could be reduced if birth control were widely available, but that’s not acceptable in a “culture of life” either.
No, its a purely political maneuver, and it is hypocrisy.
You’re being condescending here, and way too familiar. Stop. I talk to other people about my granddad and my feelings about his death. You’re a stranger posting on a public blog, and I think I’d be even less inclined to unburden myself to you if I did know you better.
My granddad had an advance directive because he was a sexagenarian who’d had a blood disease for the preceding three decades. Even given that extraordinary circumstance, he probably wouldn’t have had an advance directive if he hadn’t been an attorney who was well-versed in living wills and other similar documents. Given that it took this case to get the general populace to start putting their affairs in order, the fact that a young woman didn’t have a living will fifteen years ago isn’t good evidence that she would have wanted to be kept in this condition.
I’ll respond to the rest of this later.
I agree with Sally’s comments, basically, however, I think that Sally’s position is essentially consistent with the law of the state of Florida. A person seeking to withdraw support has the burden of establishing that support should be withdrawn by clear and convincing evidence. Therefore, the margin of error definitely falls on the side of not withdrawing support. What is or ought to be the basis of the dispute (IMHO) is whether Florida is carrying out the intent of its law. And on that score, I think it has on the issue of whether Terri is PVS, I am less certain about the issue of ascertaining Terri’s wishes. However, unlike some, I do not think it is fair to presume that Terri would have wished to be kept alive, and therefore, that her statements to friends and relatives should be given little persuasive effect. Even the heavily biased GAL thought that the issue was a very close call.
Barbara, consider what would have happened in this case if the monies for legal fees from the Right To Life folks and the ACLU had been withheld. That’s the situation that affects most people dealing with these tough questions. And that’s why the case of Terri Schiavo Incapacited is such an anomaly.
Jan – The same Congress that voted to pursue this specious intervention in a private matter, let alone a state matter
Please – The Civil War solved the issue of Federal rights versus States rights well over 100 years ago. That is why we don’t have legal slavery, remember?
Jan,
How many issues are there in the world? Of course, it is impossible to know.
It is impossible to expect anybody to have moral consistency throughout an infinite number of possible situations. Or, to guess which situations you would like clarity on…
As humans, we take each situation as it arises and deal with it the best we can.
Piny – I did not suggest that you talk to ME and certainly did not mean to offend you. You write as if you are grieving and in pain. I intended only to extend you a bit of understanding, sympathy and maybe the ideas that things would ease over time. With or without a living will, losing someone you love and care for hurts.
Interesting discussion, folks!
Thought I’d link my post at Reason’s Hit & Run blog examining some of the facts and myths of the Schiavo case, and referencing this blog. (I tried emailing the link to Barry but for some reason the email bounced back to me as undeliverable.)
Jan, your response is too cryptic for comment. I don’t know what you mean and I won’t speculate.
JAN: The people like me who support a reasoned interpretation of the Constitution as it is
Our Constitution is BASED on moral principle. Were it not for moral principle we would be part of Canada and the property of Britain. You cannot pick and choose the bits you like and agree with while discarding the rest.
Perhaps, though, it should be?
Barry’s email bounces back at me too, as undeliverable.
Earth to Ampersand, come in Ampersand, call home.
BTW, a valid email address – before the law outlawing the practice – rented on the web for about $0.10 per. That would make 6000 email addresses worth approximately $60.00. They sold at that time for about $0.50-1.00 per, making 6000 emails addresses worth an absolutely max of $6000. If you had a really good newsletter that went out to 6000 people and showed great results, you could rent space for a 25 word ad for about $25.
However, it is now ILLEGAL (CAN-SPAM) to rent or sell email addresses without the specific permission of the subscriber. So, if in fact this is happening then all 6000 have agreed to have their addresses shared. ONE complaint by ONE person would have taken their website down – and that is before the FCC gets involved and files charges.
HOKUM! Specify your source.
Please. You’re the one who can’t stay away from the caps lock key. I write as though I’m someone who has some personal experience with a determining care for a family member who needs life support to stay alive. My grandfather is a good example, and a concrete one. When I said I didn’t want to talk much about him, I was referring to the personal nature of the subject. Your response proved me right.
You told me what to do with my grief. That was impolite; it’s not your place to talk to me about it or to suggest I get therapy, particularly not in this forum. Tenderness from you is pretty irritating, given that you feel free to tell me that I’m advocating murder and supporting eventual Nazism. And then you–and you’re a total stranger, remember?–presumed to tell me about the circumstances resulting in my grandfather’s advance directive. That’s presumptuous in an entirely different way, unless you’re clairvoyant.
I think it is mostly a “selfish” act to want to keep someone alive like this. Not to offend, as this seems a rather “steamed” debate, but Terri’s days must be very long. Imagine not being able to move when you need to, walk, talk, enjoy a meal or even a glass of water. How miserable it is not to be able to scratch an itch or change position in bed. Her parents can only be there for so long each day and the rest of the time it is just her. I would hope she doesn’t know what is going on because you would go crazy in your own mind.
I also read her parents made a comment regarding her religion being the reason she would want to live no matter what. I don’t know about that – parents like to think they know their children but seldom really do. And all the accusations they have been making lately are wild. Now I read they are saying her husband abused her? It seems they are throwing out one thing after another just to win on some level.
I have started to lean towards believing him. Here is a guy who could have just said “Fine, see ya” and divorced her. Her received his own money in the settlement that he would have been able to walk away with but he didn’t. He has hung around for the last 15 years – yes he does have agirlfriend and two children but you could hardly call it moving on. Can anyone give a logical explanation as to why he has stuck around for so long?
This is a red herring. She’s not trapped in an incapacitated body, like the disabled people she’s being compared to. She’s not aware of her surroundings.
Brad,
Since it appears that you have been here all day, perhaps you could tell me what I have been wrong on. Just kidding, but in all seriousness, I assume you are refering to my politically motivated rants and none of the medical and scientific items I have mentioned or cited, in which case I would appreciate being corrected, with citations, for my own and everyone else’s knowledge.
On more thing for you though… I think Jan is not asking for moral consistency on every single issue in the world (even if that is sort of what she said). You are correct, this is clearly not possible. It is possible, though, to be morally consistent on a broad range of topics and to support why you are not being morally consistent when your actions waver for certain reasons.
I also saw up there in some post that Terri Schiavo would die of old age if the feeding tube was continued. While this might be possible, it is exceedingly unlikely. In most cases the digestive system will start to atrophy and will not be able to absorb nutrients anymore and this sometimes neccessitates a central line (injection of nutrients directly into the aorta). While this is not difficult to do, it is not really sustainable for a long period of time and leads to a VERY serious chance of a series of VERY nasty infections.
I also want to just reiterate what was mentioned in defense of hospice works as well (sorry I cannot remember who posted originally in this list, Nursepractitioner in the former, its taken me over an hour just to catch up in the discussion). Hospice workers take their work very seriously and do an amazing job of it. People don’t chose that feild for any reason other than feeling that it is their duty here on earth to provide love and care for people before death.
Acrossthepond Says:
March 29th, 2005 at 2:27 pm
In post 3: But this isn’t really a question about Terri’s wishes.
Perhaps, though, it should be?
Fifteen years ago it surely should have been all about Terri’s wishes. When a US judge in a US court issues a death order for a disabled indivual on behalf of and in the name of We the People, then it becomes a matter of what We the People will allow and what our previous obligations and responsibilities say we can allow.
Our court system does not rule and it is not paramount to nor can it issue orders to either the Executive branch (president) or the Legislative branch. Not sure how you work that on the other side of the pond.
It is truly sad that “what Terri would have wanted” was not resolved more than a decade ago without recourse to the courts. Maybe the law should insist that in cases of disputed wishes the parties must be locked in with a mediator until they agree like we do for contract talks before folks can hie themselves off to the courts.
1. A court, after hearing evidence, decided that Terri wanted that tube disconnected under these circumstances. That finding was repeated affirmed by higher courts. So far as I can tell, Robin either doesn’t think the court was right or doesn’t care, wishing to impose her wishes on Terri.
However, in uncertain situations, what we have here, under the rule of law, is what the court found. I’m quite unwilling to let go of that in favor of the Rule of Robin.
Across – of course all this is about Terri’s wishes, which is as it should be.
2. As for myself, if I were in Terri’s situation I would certainly want that tube pulled. I’m hoping that neither the state, nor the federal government, nor Robin and those who agree with Robin, attempt to intervene if such a decision should be necessary. If Robin wishes to be kept alive by whatever means until the last possible moment, that’s OK too.
Both Terri and I, however, would beg Robin not to impose her views on us.
Umm, our judicial system most certainly can and does issue orders to both the legislative and executive branches (especially the latter) when they are litigants before it. In fact, the executive branch of the government is hands down the most frequent litigant in the nation. The judiciary interprets law. In some cases (depending on its authority) it can make law (common law tradition). It can’t force legislators to legislate, it can’t force executives to propose specific policies or laws, or whatever, but it most certainly interprets laws for all branches of government as well as WE THE PEOPLE. In many respects, in spite of all the drubbing it takes, the judicial branch of government is the most accessible branch to US FOLKS.
As to whether the parties should have been forced into mediation, it appears that Michael Schiavo did try to work it out with the rest of Terri’s family for almost four years prior to petitioning the court. Perhaps he thought she would die in the interim, thus avoiding confrontation. It’s hard to know. But as the court said, it’s wrongheaded to blame Michael for waiting to bring the petition when, by not petitioning he was doing what his opponents wish to do indefinitely.
Robin,
You forgot to tell our friend across the pond that the Legislative branch is congress and the senate.
When the courts rule that a law is unconstitutional after it has been passed by the legislative branch and signed into law by the president, what exactly are they doing if not giving an order on that law? Sure they do not “rule” in the sense that I think you intend, but they do “rule” on the constitutionality of laws, and thank goodness for that. The founding fathers came up with this wonderful thing called checks and balances which has, and still does, protect us from the whimsy of the politically motivated, who all need votes from their constituents. They also settle disputes between individuals where the legislator and president have no precedent to interfere. Now I’m no lawyer, but I imagine the parties involved gave mediation a shot at some point and it didn’t work out. I’m sure they also had ample opportunity to settle before going in front of a judge and were also unable to do so.
Piny –
I have never ONCE attacked you personally. If you are not in a frame of mind for reasoned debate, then don’t debate. You are personalizing every word I write and little or none of it is “pointing the finger” at you.
If you don’t want comments about your grandfather then please don’t either project his situation on to this one – they are very different – or write about him.
You certainly are not the only person to have real-time experience to bring to the table. , as I and others have repeatedly made clear.
I have apologized for any offense. Accept or don’t – I really don’t care. And for heaven’s sake, if you don’t want comments from strangers then stay out of chats, blogs and IM.
Robin – For someone who professes to be a healthcare professional, your lack of understanding of the Medicare/Medicaid hospice benefit, is alarming. One would suspect that the only patients you’ve ever attended were cash-paying Saudi princes. We don’t get many of those in my part of the country.
All Medicare-certified hospices, as a condition of their certification, MUST provide care to patients who are ineligible for either Medicare or Medicaid. The amount of this care must be reported to the gov’t. It is up to the hospice to find the money to do so. Most use both operating surpluses and charitable contributions and grants. I’m sorry you feel this is bad business. Take it up with your elected officials. But could you do so quickly please? I am struggling to find some alternative sources of funding for those patients who cannot be admitted under any benefit. Their numbers are growing here.
It is impossible for anyone on this list, with the information available, to determine whether Mrs. Schiavo is eligible for the Medicaid hospice benefit, based on her finances and work history. Only someone familiar with the trust, other family assets and Florida’s formula for collecting under the benefit, could make that determination. Based on the hospice’s statement about who is covering the cost of her care, she is eligible for some drug benefit, but this is not necessarily part of a hospice benefit, but under some other program. In order to charge Medicaid for her care, she would still need to be certified that she had six or fewer months of life left. A diagnosis of PVS, in and of itself, would not be allow for that to happen.
She could, if admitted to a nursing home, most likely qualify for a long-term care benefit, under Medicaid. But her husband has elected to have her cared for at a hospice, which is not charging for that care. And I don’t find that all “fishy.”
You want to have it both ways: to be able to shout about greedy hospices, and at the same time to cast suspicion when they provide charitable care.
You are correct. Hospice is at least a multimillion dollar industry — I’m not sure it’s a multibillion dollar industry yet, but it might be. And it is no more immune to greed, than any other business. But I’ll tell you, it’s subject to much more oversight than those “nonprofits” that have sprung up the last few years that are making money off the Schiavo tragedy. Do you have any idea how many organizations have a PayPal button next to their “Save Terri” banner, allowing visitors to make a “donation?” Organizations where the board chair is also the executive director, and cuts all his own checks? All it takes is three people to form a board and start a nonprofit.
The Schindler’s themselves were charged with illegal fundraising in Florida two months ago, and fined $1,000. They were given 30 days to file a financial report, which they still haven’t done. They’re now allowing their mass mailer to sell the names of contributers to other prolife groups .(The Schindlers get the cash) Three years ago when I first started researching the case, I found they were selling video’s of their daughter on their website for a $100 donation. That’s why the judge, in all his wisdom, forbid the Schindlers from photographing their daughter. And I suspect, that one of her husband’s chief motivations is protecting Terri from this sort of opportunism.
You would know that if you’d taken the time to read all the court documents available on line.
You say you have, but your questioning whether Terri was using birth control, belies that statement. If you had read them, you would have found that she had been seeing a doctor for year, trying to get pregnant. You would have also found that she hadn’t told her parents about this, which calls into question, just how close a relationship she had with them.
I have a question for you. Let’s assume two laws were passed. You seem to have strong feelings about hospice, so let’s say that they’ve been outlawed , and there is no chance that any hospice can commit “fraud.” At the same time, another federal law is passed that requires that all patients who are started on feeding tubes, must be maintained on them for the rest of their natural lives. (Assuming of course, that they don’t recover the ability to eat.) Because we cannot know anyone’s specific wishes at any given time, or absolutely discern the motivations of involved family members, we opt to always err on the side of life. These patients can be taken care of at home, or if the family has difficulty providing their care, like the Schindlers did, transferred to a nursing home, where they will live out their days.
My question is, who pays for this care? If you are willing to be the Samaritan that saves all people from possible conflicts of interest , and from court decisions that may or may not represent the patient’s own wishes, are you willing to have your taxe raised to fund this care?
Or do you think that this care can be paid for through millions and millions of PayPal “Buy Now” buttons?
Dr. Ted – When the courts rule that a law is unconstitutional after it has been passed by the legislative branch and signed into law by the president, what exactly are they doing if not giving an order on that law?
Throughout our history this issue has primarily come up when a law is ruled constitutional rather than unconstitutional. There are a number of examples but prob ably the most well known one is Dred Scott. In 15 words or less, the Supreme Court said slavery was legal, Lincoln said horse-hockey and the Civil War ensued.
The activism that we have seen in recent years by the courts is very new in our history. Tomas Jefferson specifically warned that we should not be ruled by the courts (I can find you the exact quote if you want). The Constitution specifically gives enforcement of laws interpreted by the courts to the Executive Branch and more than one President has effectively ignored them and told them to stick it in a hat. Fairly recently BTW.
Re mediation in this case, nothing that I can find. Apparently everything was hunky-dory, the lawsuit money was paid, there was a big falling out and the husband filed suit to “carry out Terri’s wishes.” The last three events apparently near simultaneously. That appears to be only HIS side of the story however and in my eperience every war has at least 3 sides – his, hers and the truth.
Robin, back off. You’re ranting and raving just a bit.
The court issued an order that the wishes of the patient be respected, after having a trial to determine what those wishes were. This is no different than a court order prohibiting battery – in fact it is a court order prohibiting battery. (Battery in common law is any unwanted touching; unwanted surgery certainly qualifies.) In no way is this a horror fit to be compared with the Holocaust, or a horror at all.
We believe here, and have, in the English-speaking countries, believed for time out of mind, that every individual has the right to refuse medical services. Even if the Robins of this word think they have the right to force this treatment on you against your will for some reason. Because they sympathize with the disabled, or are themselves disabled, or have raised a disabled child, or know more than you do, or something. Whatever. I raised a disabled child too. That doesn’t make me an oracle.
This right to refuse medical treatment, like most legal rights, may, upon request, be enforced by a court order, and by armed force if necessary, when some other person seeks to violate that right. WE THE PEOPLE, as you are so fond of saying, are saying, by this court order, that we are prepared to defend Terri’s (and your, and my) right to control access to our own bodies, and to refuse unwanted medical attention. I for one am 100% behind this idea.
You don’t like the way the trial came out. Join every other losing litigant and opinionated bystander in history. We don’t re-try every matter where the result makes somebody unhappy. If we did we’d never settle anything.
People, please be sure to close your links when you include them.
The actual Constitution — not some imagined one — still delegates whatever powers that aren’t specifically authorized in the Constitution to Congress and the Executive to the states.
The text of Cruzon v Director indicates this is the reason the federal cannot intervene in cases like Schiavo. The concurring opinion by one Justice Antonne Scalia in that case, normally considered a right to life advocate and quoted on the previous incarnation of this thread, specifically says the reason why Cruzon needs to be decided in the way it was is because the federal government has no authority there: it is a state matter.
Finally, from what I can see, we are heading for another civil war, since discussions like this make no sense, filled with acrimony, uncivility, emotion, and invention as they are.
Adieu.
That is precisely what the Constitution and the judiciary are for.
Sorry about the blank, I had a fit trying to close the link. [No prob. I deleted the blank comment. -Amp]
Robin, what does this mean exactly? I’ve tried to hide it thus far, but I live in Canada and I hope you don’t mean to tell me that Canadians don’t have moral principal (or the British for that matter). Now I’m an American living in Canada, but living here has quite literally been a breath of fresh air. If there is a finer group of 30 million people anywhere in the world I challenge anyone to point them out.
I know being condescending, belittling and morally righteous is fun, but there are consequences.
I my self think that starving some one to death is wrong.I feel like unless tha brain is completly dead one should continue life.I am sorry for the way I feel. If her brain is not completely dead she should be able to have life. I work in a nursing facility and I deal with patients with alzeimers diseas and dementia,as well as other stuff that goes with being old,also we have a few young ones there as well.But I am there to care for them and not to decide if they live or not.Yes Ihave seen a few starve just like terri is,but thats was in there own writing saying that was what they wanted.So if she never fixed a will say exactly what she wanted done, then who has the right to decide on it anyway,it should have been something that the whole family agrees(including the parents of terri) along with her husband in my opions has al ready got a life with another woman so how can he say he loves terri if he is living with someone eles.I can not believe that his love for terri is still there or ethier he is lying to the other woman.Think about that. Well I wish someone in the higher courts or goverment position would step in and intervene some how. Well I will be closing this,but Iwill be praying for her parents and I know how they must be felling.I will say that I pray that she will be able to fight it like Ihave seen them do at the nursing home and maybe then it will be allow to be put back in.The longest Ieen one live with out eating and drinking is 5 weeks and 4 days,It depends on the person will and desire Thank you for allowing us to write what we feel
On our side of the pond, generally, we accept the idea that when there are laws governing a situation, and the Courts have applied them, and the appeals have been heard, then people who insist that, nonetheless, their view should prevail are wrong; and they don’t make themselves right by claiming to speak for “We, the People”.
We also, generally, accept the idea that if you don’t like the laws as they are, you vote for legislators who will enact laws that you prefer. We do not enjoy a Constitution nor, therefore, a judiciary responsible for ensuring that legislators do not trample over it. (Although some would argue that in some respects the Human Rights Act serves some of the same purposes).
I suppose it might be said that on this side of the pond our previous obligations and responsibilities would include respecting our Constitution if we had one, respecting the decisions of courts (subject to appeal), respecting the laws as they stand, and respecting the rights of others.
I have no idea what legal status anything like a “living will” or “nomination of proxy” would have over here. I’m glad my wife’s wishes were respected; I’m glad my mother’s wishes were respected; I hope mine will be – even if I haven’t written them down, signed them, or had them legally witnessed. And especially I hope that when (I think “when” is more realistic than “if”) I am in a situation where continuation of medical care is virtually certainly pointless, no army of demagogues will intrude.
On this side of the pond, we spell it “demagogue”.
On our side of the pond, generally, we accept the idea that when there are laws governing a situation, and the Courts have applied them, and the appeals have been heard, then people who insist that, nonetheless, their view should prevail are wrong; and they don’t make themselves right by claiming to speak for “We, the People”?.
Except for the lack of a written Constitution, you and we are on exactly the same page, Acrossthepond. Or we would be, but for demagogues.
Man, the British can do snippy like nobody’s business.
And I mean that as a compliment.
Mea culpa for the long, long open link. I’m having trouble with links here, so I’ll just post the URL’s which you can cut in paste.
For information on the problems with the Schindler’s foundation:
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/florida/MGBKY0BSY4E.html
For info on the sale of the new “Schindler’s List”:
http://blogs.salon.com/0002874/2005/03/21.html
Or in the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/politics/29donate.html
They’ve just tasered some protestor trying to run into the Woodside Hospice.
I don’t do hospice so I am limited to the basic Medicaid guidelines for hospice care – terminal, under 6 months. I also don’t do billing :)
In my neck of the woods most of our old folk move to Florida, so much of our hospice care is provided in the patient’s home. Patient families provide much of the care with assistance from HHA or CNA and periodic (daily, serveral times daily, more – depending) check ins by an RN. The few I know personally that have availed themselves of hospice died in their own beds. Works very well for the most part.
This is true also in hospitals. As I recall, this is actually repayment in some way for funds extended by the government to build the hospital. I’ve known at least one that finished their repayment and stopped providing free care.
I don’t feel that is bad business. That said, if I came in to audit and saw this particular situation – especially the conflict of interest on the part of Felos – I would have alarm bells go off. This situation is not the norm by a long shot.
Latest figures I’ve heard were more than 50 million uninsured. It is a problem everywhere. That does not mean we can kill our patients.
Unfortunately by sealing many of the financial records away for all these years of dispute Mr. Schiavo is left with the appearance of impropriety, which rightly or wrongly arouses suspicion in many.
That is exactly what I said.
I do. Skilled nursing facilities are set up to provide the long term care PVS would dictate. Hospices are not.
Earlier in your post you were stating how difficult that it was becoming to adequately provide for the number of needy patients that are desperate for your services. I am sure that is the case at Westside too – as everywhere else.
There were plenty of needy patients around in 2000 also. So, why would a hospice with a long line of needy patients who are truly dying take in the profoundly disabled wife of a client of a long-time member of BOD who was expected to live years? Especially since other facilities are more adequately designed to meet her individual needs, which Medicaid would have covered the cost of.
Even if there is some perfectly innocent explanation it LOOKS wrong, alarming, downright fishy.
Medicine in general is probably the single largest industry in the US.
Virtually every family of every critically ill patient in the country sets up a non-profit. It is the only legal way that they can utilize donated/gifted money without declaring it as income for tax purposes. I’ve never known one to have a ED that actually collects a salary.
That type of thing is the province of larger charities. Note that the woman who was ED of the Red Cross on 911 made some $450,000 a year – more than we pay the President.
Never yet knew a family in a similar situation that actually managed to comply with all the laws & regulations concerning non-profits. Up here we ignore that. Florida is apparently a little less understanding.
Got a cite for that BTW?
Someone else stated this earlier. Trust me, they aren’t making any substantial amount of money off renting 6000 email addresses. You’ll find my reply to that above. This one is hokum. Cite?
RE the video, well you know PBS up here every single weekend runs a marathon all weekend. Send us $100 and we’ll send you a video. On the same benefit of the doubt principle that you are willing to extend to the husband, lets just say maybe somebody trying to help them had a “bright” idea.
The judge could easily have allowed the Schindlers to photograph their daughter while simultaneously restricting them from distributing the photos as you describe above.
This is another thing that looks exceedingly fishy to me. In probate court up here the judge allows virtually nothing that one party or the other does not prepare a written order to have allowed. I suspect Florida isn’t much different on that one.
I think that you are being overly harsh when you label them opportunist. Most of us would move heaven and earth to save our children in this situation if the husband was going to do what we saw as murder our child rather than carry out her wishes. Put yourself in their shoes a minute – if your daughter’s husband, after seven years and a million dollar settlement out of the blue decided that your daughter insisted on her right to die – something that your entire family had never heard mention – you would go a little ballistic too. NONE of us would simply stand back and say – “”Sure! Whatever you want!”
And then consider that Michael’s legal fight has been funded with a substantial portion of Terri’s trustfund money, with great input from the ACLU and various right-to-die organizations.
Justice where one side has a million or more and the other barely enough for a legal consult is not justice.
First, I did not write the bit about the birth control. That was supposed to be a quote of someone else’s writing. Unfortunately I am trying to type on my daughter’s laptop ROFL. The keypad is too small, I keep hitting the wrong key and highlighting/deleting/miss-spelling the wrong thing. My apologies.
I would never comment in more than a general way (see the following paragraph to the one you note) on anything regarding Terri’s birth control history, trying to get pregnanat, etc. I question that this would even be online as it has nothing whatever to do with this case. Sounds like a HUGE violation of her right to privacy by the GYN or somebody.
And to be perfectly honest about it, since you obviously are associated with a hospice in Florida, I am surprised that you would even bring up this particular set of facts.
This question is a bit of nonsense. First, I am not against hospice care in the least. I simply question the presence of a PVS but otherwise healthy woman in this particular hospice, since she obviously does not fit the normal criteria for hospice care and would have her needs better served at a facility specifically set up for long term care. I am not the only medical professional to mark this highly unusual.
So, back to appearances here. Whatever the true circumstances may be, this LOOKS like Michael put Terri into the hospice intending to terminate her life 5 years ago and that the sole purpose for her being there is life termination. Thus, no therapy that may have changed her condition – something that would have been near automatic in long term care, no further evaluations of any substance because she was intended for termination.
Well, I can think of many $100 dollar screwdrivers and toilet seats that we can forgo before we start talking about either raising taxes to pay for medical care or terminating the disabled so we don’t “waste” money on them.
Whatever our economic problems may be in providing medical care to our poor huddled masses, our Constitution dictates the right to life of each and every citizen. Our agreements under international treaty dictate that each and every one of us has an inalienable right to life, including specifically our disabled.
[Rest of post deleted by Amp]
We would be part of Canada, if you remember a little American and British history means that at one time much of Canada and all of the Colonies belonged to Britain. We didn’t like that Stamp Act, told the king to stick it in his hat and rebelled. Those who did not rebel eventually moved to Canada or went back to Britain. Some of the Redcoats decided they liked uppity colonials and stayed here. To this very day, Queen Camilla will be Queen of Canada along with the rest of the British empire.
I like Canada too – great place to visit. Live less than 100 miles from the border.
ADMIN ANNOUNCEMENT: EVERYONE WHO WANTS TO KEEP POSTING ON THIS THREAD, PLEASE READ THIS!!
The following topics have now been banned from this thread:
1) Evidence or arguments intended to prove that the Schindlers are badly motivated or bad human beings. This includes any further discussion of them selling an email list or wanting an inheritance or anything like that.
2) Evidence or arguments intended to prove that Michael Schiavo, his lawyers, or Judge Greer are badly motivated or bad human beings. I think y’all know the sort of thing this includes.
3) Nazism and comparisons to Nazism, or reasons why comparisons to Nazism are inappropriate.
I will delete any further posts including any of the above subjects.
If you want to discuss these topics, of course that’s your right; but it’s not your right to discuss them on my website.
I’m not saying this to cast blame on anyone; on the contrary, I really appreciate the contributions of a lot of folks whose posts have touched on the above subjects. Sometimes I’ve even agreed with posts touching on the above subjects. But, with all due respect to everyone here, I’d rather see other aspects of these issues discussed here on my blog.
Also, as usual, I’m asking everyone to refrain from personal attacks. Attack the argument, not the person.
RE NY Times link above.
I can well remember the day when the NY Times was THE paper of record in this country. If they said it you could take it to the bank and use it in a court of law.
BUT – in the last few years they have had at least two reporters in very responsible positions that have been fired for inventing the news. The last one invented dozens and dozens of stories about 9/11 from his living room.
The NY Times is not the paper of record anymore. I believe virtually nothing that they publish on hot-button issues unless I see it corroborated by some other completely independent source.
[Post about if the Schindlers are evil or not, deleted by Amp.]
Amp,
It may be time to simply concede your weariness or bias and consider closing your thread. I think you omitted my last comment which offended none of your latest bans on expression.
People, as a result of their respective comments, will reveal themselves for who and what they are so long as others are free to highlight and respond to those comments.
If you’ve grown weary of noticing the fair — sometimes heated, sometimes caustic — exchange of debate and disagreement to the point where you are censoring non-vulgar expression, maybe it’s time to concede simply that.
Then again, it’s your blog.
CodeBlueBlogMD makes a lot of authoritative claims about Ms. Schiavo’s CAT scan. But he makes a stupid error on his own page, which suggests that he knows nothing at all about this case, and maybe not so much about any cases.
He says “why is there a shunt in Terri’s ventricle?” But there is no shunt. The white blob in the scan is an experimental brain implant that was supposed to “stimulate” her brain into finding new pathways. It didn’t work.
Maybe the good blogtor should stick to his typing and not try to diagnose patients based on a tiny JPG on a website, which he is clearly not capable of understanding.
Many esteemed neurosurgeons have actually looked into Ms. Schiavo’s case, and 23 judges have heard thousands of pages’ worth of evidence. Everything people are bringing up now has been brought up many times before, and evaluated fairly by some pretty smart people. They’ve decided. It’s the right decision. Ms. Schiavo is already gone; not just her brain but the rest of her body is falling apart as well. Let her go.
Why should he concede anything? Like you said, it’s his blog and he explained his reasoning with perfect clarity.
I think it’s safe to say that a lot of people have grown weary of the sensationalized villiany that either side wishes to paint the other.
Sounds more to me like you’re miffed that you got called out for it.
Sounds to me more like he posted in the middle of the huge foulup with the 900 yeard link that threw off the HTML tags for miles and miles. Probably just got accidentally deleted while AMP was trying to fix the mess.
Why don’t you just repost Alan?
“Otherwise healthy woman”?
She’s had her gallbladder removed because of persistent bile and kidney stones. She has “drop foot”, which has caused one of her toes to be amputated. She has frequent urinary tract infe ctions, diarrhea, and vaginitis. Several cysts have been removed from her neck. Her feeding tube often was infected.
Her body is disintegrating.
You’re wrong here, Kim,
When Amp chose to highlight the comment of the writer who compared the ‘look’ of the eyes of Scott Peterson and Michael Schiavo — the writer purporting to discern guilt from such ‘look’ — Amp plainly ridiculed the comments of the writer as either laughable or worthy of tears.
When I highlighted the caustic comments of a different “frequent” writer(verbatim) in order to reveal personal and professional bias, mine was ommitted.
Me miffed … maybe? Me honest and accurate here … you bet.
But as I said before you decided to parrot, it’s his blog.
It seems to me that one reason why it’s “necessary” (obviously not for everyone) to resort to allegations of villainy is that it borders on the irrational to deny that people of good will can and do obviously differ on end of life decisions. Hence, the need to challenge an individual’s good will and impugn their moral standing to make a fair, reasoned, and compassionate judgment, whether that judgement is to petition the court, or to agree that the outcome of the petition might very well have been correct. I feel deeply about lots of things, and I like to think that I have an acute sense of right and wrong, but I look at this case and think that neither Michael Schiavo nor his in-laws were “wrong” in a fundamental way about their desired outcome, and that either decision might have been reasonable depending on what the evidence showed. The touchstone is what Terri wished, something we will never know for sure, but I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt to all parties that they tried to do their best to figure out what that was, in spite of whatever bias or conflicts they brought to bear on the subject. I could go on and on about my experience with disabled people or my father’s terminal illness, and I know through professional experience more about health care law and government program reimbursement than I ever wanted to. None of it is relevant.
Ms. Schiavo’s wishes were made clear, not just to her husband, but to others, and a court determined that that issue was settled. The decision has been upheld over and over and over again. She would not have wanted to live this way.
What her “current wishes” are is nonsensical; she doesn’t have any wishes. She doesn’t have a functioning brain — no electrical activity. There’s no one there.
Even if Mr. Schiavo went away forever — if the kooks who have threatened his life succeeded in killing him, if he took the $10 million kook offer and ran — the court would not allow her feeding tube to be reinstated. They are following HER wishes, not HIS.
It is very unfortunate that this case has caused so much incivility, not just inside Terri’s family, but in the public generally. Even on this blog, the best I’ve found on the subject, there’s been a very high level of name calling, demonizing and just plain shouting.
I think everyone might take a deep breath, as Amp suggests, and calm down a bit.
None of us has met Michael Schiavo, Judge Greer, nor the Schindlers, so far as I know. None of us attended the trial in question; so far as I know, none of us has even done so much as read the transcript. We may approve or disapprove of various things these people have said or done, but we are very poorly placed to determine these peoples’ inner motivations.
Like the tiresome person I am, I keep asking, if you-all are so unhappy about the way we make decisions here, what would you suggest? Only a few, like Sally, have attempted to answer this question in a calm enough tone of voice that I could figure out what they were saying. I don’t necessarily agree with her answer, but it did cause me to stop and think a bit, which is what a discussion like this is supposed to be all about.
Like many of us, I’ve been on a personal inner journey in this matter. I started out about two years ago firmly on the Schindlers’ side. Of course all I had seen was their website, which contains many errors and omissions, but a lot of valuable information as well. They more or less make the case that Michael is in it for the money, that he’s an adulterer, yada yada. I went along with their characterization of him as a bad man.
Then recently, when things heated up, I found out that the money is gone anyhow, and I started to ask myself, “What’s in it for Michael?” The money is gone. He’s moved on in his life, he has a new family. Why not just divorce Terri and walk away? Let her parents take over, they seem eager to do that. Is he just being bad, using up all this energy, listening to himself being villified, just for the fun of it?
Then I thought, Hey, maybe he really thinks this is what Terri wanted, and he’s trying to honor that.
That’s when I dug into the court cases and found out that what this is really all about is not Michael’s desire to see Terri expire, as the Schindler’s website asserts, nor about murdering someone just because they’re brain-damaged, but all about the allegation that this is what Terri wanted.
This didn’t move me over to the view, however, that the Schindlers are evil people. The way Terri’s mother is suffering is truly heartrending. I have adult daughters myself; I can only imagine what she is going through.
That’s when the lawyer in me kicked in. What this is all about, besides Terri’s wishes, is the rule of law. And the ancient principle that every individual has the right to refuse medical treatment. And the almost as ancient principle that once we’ve tried something in court, and appealled it to death, we don’t just go on and on forever just because some people don’t like the answer.
So I’d like to say a word here not just for all the members of Terri’s family, but for the judges who’ve tried very hard, and very successfully, to do their jobs responsibly in the face of a great deal of pressure, especially for Judge Greer and his staff; for the attorneys on both sides, who’ve worked many long nights on the huge number of pleadings involved; and for the nurses and hospice staff, who must be suffering a great deal in this hard time.
And for Amp, who’s running a very useful blog thread on all this.
And for Terri, as she was. A lovely, alert young woman whose conscious life tragically ended 15 years ago. May she rise with Christ.
Amen, to that Susan. Amen from another attorney w/ 29 years of practice under her belt.
According to the state of Florida, yes.
765.102(3), Florida Statutes: “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. “
Barbara says:
It is really too bad that you feel that way. This country has been built over hundreds of years by people with lots of knowledge about some/certain things and/or strong feelings about some things that had the courage to stand up and put in their 2 cents and say “This is what I think!”
Were it not for people willing to do that, we would not be the USA, we would still have legalized slavery and child labor, women would still not have the vote or be able to get birth control if they wanted it, heaven only knows how Vietnam would have ended …… I could go on.
Citizenship is not just about showing up every couple of years on election day after you’ve listened to the schlock and putting a check next to the lesser of two lousy options who often know too much glad-handing and not enough real world anything. If we are going to continue to be a nation, then we *need* your rational voice telling what you think on issues that you know about or are concerned with, no matter who you disagree with.