Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Terri Schiavo

I've heard arguments trying to make the parents and Ms Shaivo look dodgy as well. I won't repeat them because that line of argument just really frustrates me. I've seen family members have to deal with a (thankfully far less complicated) the deliemma of shutting off life support and those are such difficult circumstances that I don't want to be second guessing every little action.

(Then again I always feel sympathy for the survivors of high profile murder cases. I know the family is the first suspect because they often turns out to be the murderer, but I always think what hell it must be if they're innocent. I mean, to lose your spouse or child so suddenly and to have to deal with the suspicion of the police and the media putting every thing you do under a microscope.... that's got to be incredibly painful.)

A side vent: making a living will isn't as simple an answer as it sounds... it does tell the courts your wishes, but your family has to go an look for it for it to be acted upon. No matter how much you may tell yourself that you're following through on your loved one's wishes, digging through files to look for that living will feels like you're actively killing them... plus you have to leave the hospital to do that, when what you really want is to be at your loved one's side. Thankfully, in the end, it was all taken out of their hands and a living will wasn't necessary.

In California, you give someone a power of attorney for health care decisions. It's a form that the hospitals all recognize. That person with the power of attorney has a copy of the form, so there is no searching around through documents. This also makes it clear who has the authority to request that life support be terminated or continued as the case may be. It is probably a good idea to give your doctor a copy of the form as well. Your doctor, hospital or attorney should be able to get a copy of the form for you.

There are also web-sites where you can get the information particular to your own jurisdiction.

Here are a couple of websites with some very good, unbiased information about the Schiavo case. I urge everyone to read these pages. There's a lot of half-truth working its way through the media and these pages cut right to the heart of the matter.

Terri Schiavo FAQ for the Uncommitted

Abstract Appeal\'s Terry Schiavo\'s Information Page

Rick, I know that you have some very strong feelings about this issue, but I hope that you'll read the material on these pages. I'm not saying that they'll change your mind, but they'll give you a solid grounding in the facts.

sorry Lyle, should have prefexied that with both sides...my bad.

Let me say this. I don't see this as a biblical thing, and i don't see it as a political thing. I don't give a rats ass about either one in this case.

This is about a woman being railroaded into death.

Grey, i know you are a little paranoid about the government. Its in most of the stuff you talk about. But on this one when you refernce not "if" but "when", i have to say that maybe, just maybe you didn't read my response fully.

The judges advocating the murder of this woman would "LEGALLY" be within their rights to murder my sister by withholding food and water if this thing stands. If no one in my family was around, and some judge decided her "quality" of life wasn't as perfect, pure, pristine, and caused a little bit of inconvience, then he would LEGALLY be okay in ordering the cessation of food and water.

DO YOU GET IT? I don't give a rats ass about the politics...i care about ONE PERSON HERE!

I'll let the idiots, fools, and assholes in washington play their little games. I DON'T CARE ABOUT THEM! I care about the life of one woman that cannot take up for herself.

I keep hearing that this murder is supposedly painless. HOW DO YOU KNOW? Have you been starved for five days, been deliberately dehydrated for five days? And maybe you are going on the reports of some terminally ill person that said it was fine. Wanna bet they were on pain meds, maybe?

And yes, i do "FEEL" this. It has to do with saving a human life, the life of a woman that committed no crime that deserved the death penalty. What did she do? Have the temerity to have a heart attack? Hell, lets kill everyone that's had one. Cause they can't possibly be as productive to the great collective afterwards, can they?

Over and over it has been said, and many of you just seem to blithely pass over the fact that the woman does respond. Maybe it makes you uncomfortable to realize that you may be in that position some day. I have had 34 years to deal with that possiblity with my sister.

I've had family members tell me she should have been dumped in a home. Never mind that most young women that are are sterilized to prevent pregnancy "when" raped, not "if". She was deemed an embarrasment, an inconvience. How damn honorable of them.

I find that vomitous. You don't want the inconvience? Is that it? You don't want the embarrassment? Is that it? You don't want to deal with the rehab, the days of struggle to help? Is that it?

And if anyone can sit back and say "well, i try to make a dispassionate, scholarly decision..." try it some time with someone you love more than your own life.

You tell those parents that their daughter is a waste of space and flesh to their face, cause that is what you basically saying here.

The scum of a human that laughably still has the title of husband whored around on her because she was inconvient. He was asked to, if nothing else, get a divorce and let her family help her. He refused, but he damn sure sucked down that 1.2 million, didn't he?

And yes, this is strong language, and strong passion. If you can't be passionate about life, about the greatest gift ever given to you, then why the hell are bothering to be alive?

DL, i went to the site, and read what Cal had to say.

Now, tell me this, what is his bent? Liberal, conservative, pro-abortion, right to life.

You see, that is stuff from the internet, the same as the tv news, etc. I don't know the first thing about him, he may be the greatest guy in the world, or he may have an agenda.

I DON'T CARE!

I don't care if the scenes in the video are culled from hours worth of work. They are there. They show unequviacally that she IS NOT in a PVS. If she was, she would never respond at all. And frankly, what the hell does some judge know about what can and cannot be done? For that matter, what do doctors know for certain. He talks about two doctors that use "experimental methods". Well, at some point, all methods were experimental.

The point is, with rehab, this woman might have been helped before this. If nothing else, she has a family that desperately desires to care for her, love her, and see to her well being. On the other side, you have a "husband" that whores around, starts another family, and "suddenly" remembers that she "wouldn't want to live this way". Who is the more believable? Who has shown more care and love?

It definately isn't the one advocating her murder, "the deliberate taking of someone's life". And i don't give a damn IF the other states allow it. How many times has it been shown that just because something is legal doesn't make it right. This woman has been reduced to the state of an infant. You would feed an infant.

I have no problem advocating the death of a murderer, a child molester, a genocidal maniac.

I would even help an adult, or teenager for that matter, that had their full mental faculties decide to end a horrible, debilitating terminal illness.

This woman is NOT a murder, child molester, or genocidal maniac. She does not deserve the death penalty.

This woman is incapable of making her needs known right now. And her guardian...is something i wipe off the bottom of my shoes. She cannot make a decision right now, but some judge with an appointment for life, that doesn't have to worry about his decisions because he can't be fired, can't be held responsible for his actions in this case...can?

Nope, i stand for life, the sweetest, most precious thing i, you, or anyone has.

No, he didn't, actually. It has been reported that Michael has gotten about $10,000 from it. The rest has gone to medical care and attorney's fees.

It's great to be passionate, but if your passion is going to force you to trash other people, you should at least have facts on your side.

Tenz

Ah, Rick. Usually when we disagree, which is often, I can respect your position. This time, however, I simply cannot.

Cal's position on this issue is not based in liberal, conservative, or looney politics. It's just based in the facts of the case. Read the facts carefully. Based on evidence (not whim) the court determined that, given the option, Terri would choose death over the state of "life" that she now lives. The court didn't make that decision in a vaccuum. Nor did it rely soley on her husband's testimony. Her husband has been shown to have been a loving, attentive caregiver. However, when it became clear to him and the attending doctors that there was no chance of recovery, he knew that Terri would rather be at peace than live on as an empty shell. And there really isn't any hope she'll recover. According to CAT scans, Terri no longer has a cerebral cortex. It's not just dead, it's actually gone, replaced in her skull by spinal fluid. All that's left of her brain is the portion that controls basic bodily functions. How can she regain cognitive function without the portion of the brain where it occurs?

Keep in mind that the issue is not whether to care for Terri. I have no trouble believing, based on the court documents linked from the second site I linked to, that if Michael believed that Terri would want to live, he would fight to keep her alive. However, he believes that she wouldn't want to live, so he's trying to respect that wish.

Now, let's talk about doctors and experimental treatments. The treatments proposed for Terri had no case studies to back them up. In other words, Terri would have been a human guinea pig for therapies with no record of success. Even the doctors who proposed them didn't think that they were likely to succeed.

I disagree strongly that the few seconds of video "show unequviacally that she IS NOT in a PVS." You say that "if she was, she would never respond at all." The key point here is that in the opinion of neurological experts, she's not responding, just moving, which patients in a PVS are known to do. She appears to be responding because in the short snippets of video, we see her mother talking to her. In the longer video, however, her mother talks to her for FOUR HOURS without any action on Terri's part. Terri's "response" is just a random movement that occurs during a constant stream of stimulus; it's not a response to that stimulus.

Rick, you mentioned that you went to Cal's site; did you also go to Abstract Appeal site? The AA page is quite thorough in documenting the case from a strict legal standpoint. It focusses on explicating the court's various decisions in this matter. I hope that if you haven't read it, you will. Again, I don't expect it to change your mind about what should happen to Terri, but it may move you a little more towards sympathy for her husband and family. In the spirit of "innocent until proven guilty," I really think that you should give her husband a little more benefit of doubt. He had to make a terribly difficult decision and realized that he couldn't, so he asked the courts to mediate the matter, which is what they exist to do. Remember that while Michael advocates the position that Terri would choose to die, the courts, based on evidence, ruled that he was correct. Until the press, activists, and the U.S. Congress got involved, the system was working exactly as designed by our founding fathers.

No matter what happens, I hope this whole mess comes to an end quickly and Terri is allowed the peace she deserves. I hope her parents can find the strength and courage to let her go and stop this media circus.

Rickshaw1, please let go of your anger. You have clearly been moved by this because of your sister, but from what you say your sister is not in a PVS like Terri is. No person would want to live like that and no one should have to.

Again, it all sounds sweet and loving, but how do you know? Have you been there? Has anyone here been there? I have, and not just with my sister.

My grandmother lay in a hospital, dying, and my dad was the one that had to stop the care keeping her alive. The difference was, she was dying. Terry isn't, or wasn't til they decided to kill her by a horrible death, dehydration.

I wont go into the cases of people supposedly brain dead that came back and have fine "quality of life", because that arguement is full of shit. Life is life. If the "starvation/dehydration" is so painless, even euphoric, why all the outcry over children in africa with distended bellies from lack of food? After all, that is a painless death, right?

No, sorry, murder is murder.

I'm not going to be one of the people here that get all in a huff, call names, and get their pissy little feelings hurt. I'm not going to threaten to leave or any of that junk.

I will always stand in the corner of deserving life. Always. I can't say that i see that you folks are. And if you think that this is only about terry, you better look again, because if something were to happen to me and my family, you just advocated allowing a judge to kill my sister, and by extension, each and every one of you and any family member you may care about if something happened to them.

Judges are not the representatives of the people of this country. And when they consider life an inconvience...then this country has not only lost its way, it has lost it's right to call itself civilized.

I advocate the death penalty for murders because they have shown the world that they have no respect for the rights of others to live. This woman is a victim of legalized state murder. Judges figuring that she "probably" wouldn't want to live is not the same thing as knowing. And if he is soooo loving a husband, how is it that he cheated on her just months after this happened to her with another woman and started a family with her? Cause if my wife, who i love more than my own life, had that happen to her, i damn sure wouldn't be out whoring around with her in a hospital bed. But feel free to ignore that, just like all of you have before.

I'll let this be my last on this. Murder is murder, and a life is more precious than anything else. I just see to many wanting to use this as a political means to justify themselves and their feelings, on both sides. This is about a woman and life. Who is anyone to tell her that she must die, when she has done no wrong?

Actually, I thought I was complimenting your post... overall I'm always frustrated when political games like this turn into people talking like they can decipher the motivations. That kind of situation is an incredibly emotionally trying time and it always gets my dander up when I see people thinking they know how others should deal with grief. (And when you get news like that it is greif you're going through... and chances are you'll feel it all again when death comes.) I brought up the other side because the annoyance doesn't only apply when people call Mr Shaivo a coniving murderer.

If I ended up in a persistent vegetative state, I wouldn't care in the least what happened to me because I'd be dead and gone. Beforehand, I question the devotion of resources to maintaining a lifeless husk, but if someone wants to do that instead of investing in, say, extending natural lifespans or curing AIDS, then let them waste their time.

That's a specious comparison and you know it. Any one of those children, if asked, would say they would want to go on living. This whole matter is not about whether Terri deserves to continue to live; it's about whether she would want to live in the state she's in. Let me say this again:

Judge Greer determined, based on testimony from multiple individuals, that Terri's wish, if she could express it, would be to die.

No one is saying that she deserves to die. No one is saying that because she's some kind of drain on resources that she should be "killed." What they are saying is that, given the choice and the ability to express it, Terri would not want to continue living in her present circumstances.

No, we haven't. Just because something happens to you or your family doesn't mean that a judge gains that kind of power over your sister. I understand your extreme concern for her well being and that's a wonderful thing, but at no point does Terri's situation translate to your sister's. No one is saying that your sister would prefer to die rather than live on in her present state, are they? Given your vehemence in defending her, I imagine that she's had a pretty happy life, living among family that love her. However, no judge has the power to summarily sentence her to die. Judges still have to follow a procedure. And there are any number of people who would leap to your sister's defense. In fact, count me as one of them. I just don't see the correlation with Terri's tragedy. Living with mental retardation is very different from living without a cerebral cortex.

Just for the record, if I were in the same situation, say my mother, god forbid, were in Terri's situation, I would not choose to end her life. I know that my mother would prefer to remain living, given her religious convictions. I am not "pro-death." I do however believe strongly that our system works and that it didn't fail Terri.

Which is exactly how the framers of the Constitution wanted it. Judges are the representatives of the law on this country. The idea is that judges, being free of worrying about elections, decide cases based on law, not on public sentiment. A lot has been made over the last couple of years about "activist" judges infringing on the jurisdiction of various legislatures and "making law," when what they have in fact been doing is interpreting existing laws as written. That's their job. If you don't like a judge's ruling, look at the specific laws involved in the case. those laws may not say what you think or assume they say.

It's not the judge who considers life an inconvenience; it's his judgement that Terri considers life an inconvenience. That's kind of a glib statement, but not really untrue. Let's say it again:

Judge Greer determined, based on testimony from multiple individuals, that Terri's wish, if she could express it, would be to die.


I challenge your assertion that he "cheated on her just months after this happened to her." Can you support that with sources? The accounts I've read state that Michael has been the most frequent visitor to his wife's bedside. And nowhere have I seen it written that the woman with whom Michael has two children was someone he began seeing that early. I can accept that Michael's relationship with this woman is to many, if not most, people just plain wrong. However, if his actions in this case were about being free to marry this other woman, he would simply divorce Terri and release her to her parent's care. You may say that he's holding out for Terri's money, but there isn't much left of the $700,000 trust from the malpractice suit. Also, there are reports that Michael has been offered much more money to turn care of Terri over to her parent and he's turned these offers down. And I'm not ignoring it. I, too, find it troubling. However, Michael obviously did too, or else he wouldn't have turned the decision over to the courts.

I hope you will understand that I do not see this case as a platform for expounding my political leanings. I see it as a case where the process worked exactly as it was designed to. A court heard the arguments in a difficult case and made a ruling. Is Terri's death sad? Absolutely. But a court of law weighed the evidence and determined that under the current circumstances, sad or not, Terri would prefer to die.

This case is not about telling Terri that she must die; it's about respecting her wishes.

I though one of her siblings also vouched for her saying so?

Suddenly?

As I understand it, he trained to be a nurse so he could care for her (90-98ish). Once doctor after doctor made it clear she'd never recovered, and condsidering her wishes on the matter, a long court battle began.

The only thing "sudden" I'm aware of is the political posturings of "leaders" that are proven liars and frauds.

Let us conveniently forget all the Iraqi civilian "collateral damage," eh?

I've been reading the various news articles about
this case, and it really isn't a black and white
case. Some of the things I've learned recently
have given me pause about both the parents and
her husband.

1. The relationship between the parents and
her husband was very good up until the time
that Michael won the lawsuit over his wife's
condition. The proceeds were more than a
million dollars. Michael received $300,000.00
from the settlement while $700,000.00 was to
go for Terri's care. When Terri's parents
demanded money from Michael-- to repay loans
they had made him, they claim-- Michael lied
and told them all the money was to go for
the care of Terri.

2. Of the 700k that was to go for Terri's care,
half went to her care and half went to pay
legal fees. The 300k that Michael received
was spent long ago. (The article said his
attorney reported the money had "evaporated").

3. The witnesses that the Judge relied on to
make his call were Michael himself, Michael's
brother, and the wife of another brother.

(FYI, this was an article in today's USAToday.)

In my job, I see day in and day out how money
can tear families apart. I think that the real
schism between Michael and his in-laws began
with the court settlement. It's amazing how
money can really tear people apart ...

As for respecting Terri's wishes, the fact that
the testimony that Judge Greer is relying on
comes from Michael's family makes it suspect in
my eyes. i'm not convinced that we really know
what her wishes were.

I think that the acrimony between Terri's parents
and her husband has become so entrenched now that
Terri herself has nothing to do with it.

I don't think this has anything to do with the
discussion about Terri Schiavo.

It's a completely different situation. And if
you're going to assign blame for the deaths of
Iraqi citizens, you could just as easily say
that if Saddam had just come clean and permitted
full UN Inspections then the whole Iraqi war
would never have started in the first place. He
spent ten years obfuscating the issue when he
could have just permitted full inspections and
still be the one slaughering his citizens today.
For that matter, you could also say that if the
insurrectionists never took up rebellion the US
could have been out of Iraq already.

That's a lot of "ifs" that completely ignore the US involvement in empowering the dirty bugger in the first place...but that's a whole other argument and has nothing to do with the reason I clicked this link to post something.

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/03/25/arrest.schiavo/
Is this "the Culture of life"? Kill the opposition and then it's all good in the eyes of God? I cannot believe the levels of hypocricy and criminal activity being perpetrated by these lying bastards.

I would think such politicaly motivated solicitation of murder would be considered an act of terrorism under the Patriot Act.

Terri Schivo passed away this morning at 9:05 Am with her husband Michael by her side. Rest in peace Terri. I hope that now this media circus is over that Michael can go on with his life now that he has honored his wife's request. I hope that her family can find the strength to accept that Terri is in a better place and that now she is truly alive.

I second your sentiments LegionFan223. Rest in peace, Terri. I hope the family can finally find some peace as well. Nobody should have to go through what they all did. So remember, everybody go out and execute a Living Will and make very clear what your wishes are. Don't make someone responsible for that decision.

I am sure that Terri is in a better place, and I pray that each side of her family may now be able to move on in peace.

I've been avoiding getting involved in this debate, because I really do see it as a personal matter between all parties involved. Using someone's personal tragedy as teatime conversation has always struck me as kind of abhorrent, even though my personal feelings would have been toward the side of allowing Terri to continue on in her then-current state.

I do have to say that I'm surprised at Rickshaw's refusal to look at this in a political light, though. Here's a quote today from House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, called Schiavo's death a "moral poverty and a legal tragedy."

"This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change," DeLay said. "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today. Today we grieve, we pray, and we hope to God this fate never befalls another." - AP, March 31

Okay, so now that it's over, DeLay has declared political revenge on everyone involved. And this isn't political. Riiiight.

It is truly unfortunate that the leadership in the legislative and executive branches of our government saw what was a deeply personal situation to you, and to many other Americans, as a callous opportunity to attempt to weaken the judicial branch of our country's government. And they've only just begun.

I'm not saying you HAVE to look at the political side. Just a little surprised that your head's in the sand, that's all. I've come to expect a little bit better.

It's a sad sad world where one would get arrested and serve time for starving a sick dog to death over a period of weeks, yet it's perfectly acceptable to do it to an incapacitated human being. I don't care how doped up they say she was, she was inhumanely tortured to death. Give me Dr. Kervorkian any day.

God bless Terri S.

Assume Michael Shiavo's motives were only to act in the best interest of his wife. And assume Terri Schiavo had expressed a desire to not be kept alive in a persistent vegetative state.

He is faced with the decision of allowing his wife to die in a way she thought was dignified and justified, or allowing her to continue to be sustained, possibly taking into account the feelings from her parents that Terri Sciavo may never have factored into her own decision to have life support discontinued in the extreme circumstances of her fuinal state.

Which is the more compelling choice -- to act on the expressed wishes of your spouse or to override them because your spouse might have considered the anguish induced on her family to outweigh her own desire to have her life ended?

If I were in Michael Schiavo's situation , I would have probably reached a different conclusion, not because of some moral resistance to ending my wife's life, but because I know my wife would balance her own expressed desire for a dignified death with her desire to keep her family from avoidable grief about the decision to end her life.

Take the time to prepare a living will and discuss it not only with the people who have the legal authority to administer it, but with the people who would be emotionally affected by its content. There will probably never be an easier time in your life to discuss this difficult topic with the people who love you.