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Why should you care about Terri?
(WorldNetDaily editor's note: The following commentary is excerpted from the introduction by Diana Lynne to her powerful, comprehensive book on Terri Schiavo's life and death, entitled "Terri's Story: The Court-Ordered Death of an American Woman." This URL is currently a broken link: http://shop.wnd.com/store/item.asp?%20ITEM_ID=1760 This latest WND Books release is now available at WorldNetDaily's online store. By Diana Lynne, Copyright 2005, WorldNetDaily.com. This is a hideous way to die and one that is, albeit arguably in today's world, tantamount to murder. Terri wanted to live. Her unfaithful 'husband' wanted her to die.) October 13, 2005 By Diana Lynne dlynne@worldnetdaily.com
WorldNetDaily News Editor
To submit a Letter to the Editor: letters@WorldNetDaily.com
It's September 12, 2001, all over again for many Americans. As they
did on the day after the infamous 9-11, when hate-filled terrorists
blasted a whole in the nation's soul, shocked citizens across the
country now similarly grapple with a seismic shift in their
understanding of what life in America means. The disbelief and denial
that lingers months after the slow death by dehydration of 41-year-old
Terri Schiavo over the course of 13 days harkens back to the post-9-11
pall that hung over the country. It's prompted by the same realization
that the self-serving agenda of a group of ideologues could threaten
the welfare of every citizen in the country, and the awareness that
the law, law enforcement officers, judges, and politicians --
including the President of the United States -- proved powerless
to block them.
On March 31, 2005, a brain-injured woman who was not terminally ill
died as a result of a caregiver's removal of her life-sustaining
feeding tube and the accompanying refusal to provide her with oral
hydration and sustenance. Her husband believes she would have wanted
to die; she would have wanted to be helped along toward what he
perceived to be a merciful, dignified end. Although lawmakers, who
passed new legislation to facilitate deaths like Terri's, and the
death-with-dignity lobbyists who helped craft the legislation deny the
removal of feeding tubes to cause the deaths of people who are not
terminally ill amounts to assisted suicide, those who are
intellectually honest see such denial as an act in ethical "hair
splitting," in the words of one prominent death-with-dignity
advocate. Another expert characterizes a patient's refusal of
nutrition and hydration as "voluntary passive euthanasia."
Terri Schiavo was not the first person to be dehydrated to death as
the result of the removal of a gastric feeding tube. Anecdotal
evidence relayed by right-to-die proponents suggests thousands
across America die in this manner daily and "tens of
thousands of other Floridians" forged the trail before her. What
creates discomfort for many, and horror for others, is the fact that
the medical personnel who withdrew the device from the incapacitated
woman's stomach and then neglected to provide her with so much as an
ice chip over the near two weeks it took for her to succumb to
dehydration were carrying out court orders, not an advance directive
from Terri Schiavo.
The woman had no written instructions regarding the medical care and treatment she would want, or not want, in the event of incapacitation. She never appointed a health-care proxy to make such decisions for her. The determination of whether the woman should live or die fell into the hands of a probate judge who ruled from the bench without the benefit of a jury. He sided with the husband and favored death.
What if the husband was mistaken? Or worse, what if he lied as some
fear? What if Terri Schiavo didn't want to die? Pinellas-Pasco County
Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Jon Thogmartin called it a
"miracle" Terri survived over an hour without a measurable
blood pressure after her heart mysteriously stopped beating February
25, 1990, and before paramedics succeeded in resuscitating her. The
lack of oxygen and poor, or no, blood flow to her brain during those
frantic minutes caused massive, "irreversible" brain damage.
Thogmartin finds it remarkable she lived 15 years after this event,
and even more remarkable she endured "marked dehydration"
over 13 days before her heart beat its last. He called it a
"testament" to her strong heart. Others call it a testament
to her will to live. If Terri, in fact, wanted to live, then her death
becomes a killing. Without the benefit of her explicit, written
directive on the matter many would argue it is impossible to know
beyond a shadow of a doubt which characterization fits her death –
assisted suicide or killing.
After Terri Schiavo became incapacitated at the age of 26, the probate
court appointed her husband as her plenary guardian, giving him full
control over her fate. Years after winning $2.25 million from medical
malpractice lawsuits filed on behalf of Terri -- money he
testified in court he needed in order to be able to take care of her
for the rest of his life -- Michael Schiavo recalled his wife had
casually commented a couple of times that she didn't want to be kept
alive by artificial means and didn't want to be a "burden on
anyone." At the time of her alleged casual statements, feeding
tubes were not considered life support in Florida. They are not
machines. It's likely Terri Schiavo didn't even know what a gastric
feeding tube was until one was surgically inserted into her abdomen,
and then it is disputed whether she had the cognition to be aware of
the silicone tube attached to her body.
Terri Schiavo was raised in a close-knit, family -- so close her
parents and brother moved to St. Petersburg, Fla., after she and her
husband relocated from Pennsylvania, where they both grew up. The
Schindlers called the alleged statements about end-of-life care
recalled by the Schiavos as completely "out of character"
for Terri and don't believe she made them. They maintain that, as a
life-long, practicing Catholic, Terri believed in the sanctity of
life.
With the family members in dispute over Terri's wishes, Pinellas-Pasco
County Circuit Court Judge George Greer was called in as referee.
Ruling in favor of guardian-husband Michael Schiavo, he ordered the
removal of the feeding tube and further ordered she not be given any
food or water orally. While it was debated among family members,
lawyers, lobbyists, lawmakers, bioethicists and news commentators as
to whether Terri Schiavo would have wanted to live for the past 15
years in her brain-injured state, it is indisputable she never asked
to not be fed. She never declared a desire to be dehydrated to death.
Many who perceive Terri's death as tragic complained in its wake of
suffering symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which include
tension, anxiety, recurring nightmares, depression and feeling
powerless, numb, disconnected and vulnerable. Psychologist Karin
Huffer identifies such suffering as a result of protracted litigation
perceived to be abusive as Legal Abuse Syndrome. Judicial-reform
activists warn the now-discretionary nature of the civil court system
more and more often leaves those who come in contact with it
"shell shocked."
In contrast, many other Americans don't recognize the ramifications or
the national significance of the Terri Schiavo story. They're
comforted to know the law will be on their side if and when they
decide they're better off dead, and choose to take steps to end their
lives. Just as some erroneously conclude there could never be another
9-11 on American soil, or that terrorists will never target their back
yard in the future, many dispassionately dismiss Terri Schiavo's fatal
dehydration as "her wishes" or as a "private family
matter." Although it may have started out as a "private
family matter" fifteen years ago, when the young woman
mysteriously collapsed at home without any prior warning of serious
illness, it became a public-interest matter when it entered the arena
of the courts.
The case of Terri Schiavo shortly became emblematic of a guardianship
system overdo for reform. For decades, guardianship advocates have
clamored for changes to a paradigm in which guardians acquire
dictatorial control over their wards, and overburdened courts are
loath to upset the apple cart and curb their power. In a familial
tug-of-war over the life of an incapacitated loved one, the
court-appointed guardian has the upper hand and, in the court's eyes,
can do no wrong. It's a system ripe for abuse and neglect and one in
which countless incidents of both have been documented.
By 1996, the Terri Schiavo case morphed into a Roe v. Wade, of sorts,
of "assisted dying" when an attorney promoted as
"America's foremost expert on the right-to-die," with ties
to the death-with-dignity advocacy organization Choice in Dying, took
the stage to assist Michael Schiavo in persuading the court to order
the removal of his wife's feeding tube to put an end to the
"forced feeding." Attorney George Felos, who admits to
having a "fascination with death and dying" and who
considers death to be a "profound mystical process" --
but who does not advocate illegal activity, particularly euthanasia --
took a page from the playbook of abortion proponents in the 1973
watershed court case and argued that ending Terri's life was necessary
to protect her constitutional right to privacy.
Felos successfully made the same argument in a prior right-to-die
case, resulting in the Florida Supreme Court ruling in 1990 that
Estelle Browning, an elderly stroke victim, had a constitutional right
to cease food and water according to her wishes as outlined in her
written advance directive. But unlike Browning, Terri had no written
advance directive and, at the age of 34, she was nowhere close to
dying. The medical examiner who performed the autopsy of her body
estimated she could have lived another decade.
In the Schiavo case, Felos had help in making legal history. In 1999,
fellow board members at the politically connected Hospice of the
Florida Suncoast and colleagues elsewhere within the hospice industry
teamed up with prominent death-with-dignity advocates aligned with the
pro-euthanasia Hemlock Society and ushered in the changes to Florida
law. Like its former chairman of the board, Felos, this hospice also
had ties to Choice in Dying, which reorganized as Partnership for
Caring and later merged with Last Acts to become Last Acts
Partnership. The revisions to the law, which became effective Oct. 1,
1999, enabled Felos less than four months later to state in his
opening arguments in the first trial, In re Guardianship of Schiavo,
the "removal of artificial provision of sustenance as medical
treatment ... is the law in Florida."
At that point, the right-to-die case flashed across the radar screens
of pro-life organizations such as Life Legal Defense Foundation, the
Alliance Defense Fund, The Christian Defense Coalition, National Right
To Life Committee and the American Catholic Lawyers Association, which
entered the fray in various ways to bolster the efforts of Terri's
parents and siblings to keep her from becoming a "sacrificial
lamb on the stage of the right-to-die movement."
In 2003, Guardianship of Schiavo caught the attention of state
legislators and Florida Governor Jeb Bush who were barraged with an
estimated 165,000 e-mails on the matter. Their unprecedented actions
woke up a slumbering national, mainstream media, which, with prompting
from Felos, spun the case as a "private family matter"
invaded by self-serving politicians pandering to "fundamentalist
right-wing" constituents. The American Civil Liberties Union
signed onto the case with Felos to protect the right to privacy of
this young woman who was helpless to defend herself from the invasive,
"over-treatment" of patients perceived to be alarmingly
present in our high-tech health care centers across the country. The
reportedly pervasive "over-treatment" problem was cited as
the cause of the country's Medicare crisis.
Despite the evidence to the contrary, once Congress and President
George W. Bush stepped into the controversy in March 2005, political
pundits and the media cast the Terri Schiavo case as the latest
battlefront in the new-millennium War between the States – red
states versus blue states. In the words of St. Petersburg Times
columnist Mary Jo Melone, Terri's life was "confiscated by
agendas of strangers." Even if Michael Schiavo would have
realized in a quiet moment by himself over the last decade during
which he sought to end her life that he was mistaken about Terri's
wishes, the pro-death train had already left the station.
While the political debate about Terri took on a life of its own, the
relatively healthy, non-terminal woman laid dehydrating to death in
the small hospice room she had reportedly not been allowed out of in
five years. Five of her teeth had rotted in her mouth and were
extracted. One of her toes was amputated due to a persistent pressure
sore that developed into a bone infection. Her body was riddled with
contractures because she had not been given rehabilitative physical
therapy to keep her muscles loose in more than a decade, according to
her medical records.
Although dozens of physicians and caregivers gave sworn testimony that
Terri Schiavo was not in a persistent vegetative state but exhibited
cognitive awareness and purposefully interacted with her parents,
siblings and others, the testimony of three doctors -- one of
whom, Dr. Ronald Cranford, is a right-to-die activist who routinely
serves as an expert witness in favor of death in right-to-die cases,
and who calls himself "Dr. Humane Death" -- carried the
day in the trial court. The three neurologists led by Cranford
concluded Terri Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state, or PVS,
and there were no treatments that could restore her cognitive function
enough to significantly improve her quality of life so that she would
want to remain alive.
"There are fates worse than death," Felos eloquently argued,
in reference to Terri's condition. Many Americans agree with this
pronouncement and feel it applied to Terri Schiavo without ever having
met her, including Judge Greer who adjudicated her case for seven
years. As is customary in the American judicial system, appellate
court judges presumed the trial judge properly adjudicated the case
and didn't abuse his authority, and affirmed his ruling that Terri was
in PVS and wanted to die.
As WND reported [on October 11, 2005]
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46735, even
the autopsy failed to settle the debate over the exact nature of Terri
Schiavo's medical condition and her level of awareness. Interestingly,
if Terri Schiavo was in PVS, she beat odds estimated to be between 1
in 15,000 and 1 in 75,000 by surviving her condition for more than 15
years, according to statistics provided by the Multi-Society Task
Force on PVS, the leading authority on the matter.
What no one – not even the Schindlers – dispute is that the woman
suffered severe brain damage. However, the Schindlers are unable to
make the leap to the conclusion that follows in many minds: Terri
needed to die.
"Because her brain damage was at a certain level, it gives us
justification for killing her, starving her to death?" Terri's
brother, Bobby Schindler, asked rhetorically in an interview with WND.
Indeed, the court's death order chilled many in the disabled
community, who consider it "dangerous." Some 26 national
disability rights organizations, led by Not Dead Yet, pleaded for the
country to return to its senses.
"'Incompetence' and chronic disability have become the targets
for a new eugenics movement that essentially aims to remove most
protections for this population that were previously guaranteed by
law, tradition, religion or common decency," wrote disability
advocate Thomas Nerney. "It is now considered an act of
'kindness' to relieve someone with a significant disability of his or
her very life." The disability-rights community sees a deep,
societal bias against persons with disabilities as the real Terri
Schiavo story. To them, her death represents the ultimate expression
of widespread discrimination experienced by the disabled in America.
Death of a disabled person by the removal of food and water is
actually an old story, dating back to the prominent 1983 court case of
Elizabeth Bouvia. After suffering a miscarriage and the dissolution of
her marriage, the then-25-year-old woman with cerebral palsy checked
into a hospital in the Los Angeles area and demanded to be dehydrated
and starved to death while sustained by comfort care and morphine.
Some of the cast of characters involved in promoting Terri Schiavo's
death similarly fought for Bouvia's assisted suicide, including
Cranford, bioethicists who filed an amicus brief in both cases, the
ACLU and the Hemlock Society.
Elizabeth Bouvia helped the right-to-die movement plant the seed of
"better dead than disabled" in American minds. But after the
courts rebuffed her planned assisted suicide, the movement realized it
would take a multi-pronged, public education initiative to harvest
that seed. A decade-long, $200 million campaign to improve palliative
care and promote end-of-life choice, primarily funded by the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation and billionaire George Soros' Project on Death
in America, was rolled out in the 1990s and then declared no longer
necessary by the end of 2003. Terri Schiavo's death came a short 16
months later.
"America has been sold a bill of goods," declares former
Schindler family attorney Pat Anderson. "In a society that values
youth and beauty and the surface over the inner soul, this is the
logical outcome. If you're not pretty anymore, if you're not young
anymore, you just need to die. You need to move on over."
Former Florida gubernatorial candidate and Jeb Bush attorney Ken
Connor believes the Terri Schiavo case, the outcome of which he calls
"judicial homicide," holds staggering implications: "I
think every human being has ... a stake in this," Connor said
during a Tampa Bay area radio interview hosted by talk journalist John
Sipos last year. "You don't have to be a man or woman of faith to
worry about the morality of taking the life of an innocent person. The
right to life is the foundation of all other rights. It's that right
without which no other right can exist."
In summary, the Terri Schiavo case is more than the sum of all of its
permutations -- right-to-die, pro-life, disability rights. It is,
at its core, a human-rights issue. Who decides who lives and who dies
and under what circumstances? In re Guardianship of Schiavo sets legal
precedent that a probate judge, without even the added input of a
jury, is now an authorized arbiter of innocent life and death. Indeed,
America is not the same since Terri Schiavo's death.
WorldNetDaily has been reporting on the Terri Schiavo story since 2002 --
far longer than most other national news organizations -- and
exposing the many troubling, scandalous, and possibly criminal,
aspects of the case that rarely surfaced in news reports. Just
released from WND Books, the definitive book on the Terri Schiavo
saga, titled "Terri's Story: The Court-Ordered Death of an
American Woman." Author Diana Lynne tells a powerful, insightful,
and ultimately heartbreaking story. This eye-opening book provides the
background and depth missing in most of the national news coverage of
the pitched battle over the life of Terri Schiavo. This URL is
currently a broken link:
http://shop.wnd.com/store/item.asp?%20ITEM_ID=1760
For media requests: wndbookspr@cumberlandhouse.com
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