Terri Schiavo travesty: Where Are The Apologies?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

SEATTLE - The president couldn't keep his nose out of it.

His brother, the governor, meddled without mercy.

Congress joined in with them both to exploit what became a carefully crafted political opportunity.

And Terri Schiavo's death became a circus.

So now that the autopsy report concludes that all the allegations about Michael Schiavo abusing his wife were nothing but vicious rumors; now that it shows that she was blind; was incapable of speaking; could not comprehend sounds, and that there was not even the slimmest hope of her ever recovering, I've not heard one apology from anyone of any note.

http://www.komotv.com/stories/37483.htm

[benddem]

1. Being a republican means you never have to say I'm sorry. n/t

[Dudley_DUright]

2. Not only is Jeb Bush not apologizing

He is continuing to persecute Michael Schiavo over a discrepancy in the time 911 was called which is just ridiculous since if he would have waited 70 minutes to call while Terry was in cardiac arrest, she would not have survived. I am beyond furious about this.

[DemBones DemBones]

3. Why should anyone apologize? It was WRONG to kill Terri Schiavo

and the degree of brain damage she had is not an issue at all. Her disabilities were profound but they didn't stop her from being a living human being. She was put to death like a pet the master no longer wanted but was unwilling to let someone else love and care for.

I have not read that the autopsy ruled out any possibility that Michael Schiavo abused her. No evidence of abuse was found but that doesn't prove beyond doubt that no abuse occurred, does it? I personally don't have a definite opinion on whether there was abuse or not but don't think there is strong evidence to support either view on this issue.

The autopsy also cannot address the questions of whether she might have recovered some of her brain function with different treatment years ago or what the effects of previous attempts to starve her to death were. Nutrition and hydration were withheld for several days on two occasions over the years prior to the third attempt to cause her death, which succeeded in killing her.

It was all a very sad business, misleadingly packaged as a "right to die" case when there was no proof she would have wanted to die.

[RC]

4. You're joking, correct?

Terri barely had enough brain left to breath. For all practical intents and purposes she was already dead and had been for years. We all have to die sometime and Terri's time was a long time ago. It was long past due to bury the corpse.

[DemBones DemBones]

9. No, I am not joking at all. A living human being was

deliberately starved to death.

[mzteris]

12. she dehydrated.....

she didn't "starve to death".

Stop reading that inflammist cr@p.

She was PVS. Who the HELL would want to "live" like that for years? No one. Repeat NO ONE wants to "live" like that. Even IF - IF you completely discount what her husband and her BEST FRIEND said - that she said she didn't want to "live like that" - she didn't - because NO ONE does.

This was not a "misleading" Right to die case. This was a WITCH HUNT. This was a keep the Schindler's $$$$ rolling in. This was about keeping the FRINGE BASE engaged with the RTL'ers. This was about keeping the FRINGE BASE NOT thinking about things like the Downing Street Minutes and the fact that the Bush admin MISLED the American people and Congress in order to invade Iraq.

That's all this case has ever been. It's never been about TERRI or what she wanted to the Schindlers and the rightwingnuts.

I have read every single scrap of documentation about this case. Every transcript. Every "affidavit". I have read everything I can find about the history and the players - including the bogus "nobelprizewinning" Hammesfahr.

Evidence PROVED - her brain function was gone. There was nothing that could be done. Only "tubes & things" kept her body "functioning" minimally. What the hell kind of "life" is that???

For god's sake. Let the woman rest in peace and let her poor husband get on with his life.

[DemBones DemBones]

17. OK, she dehydrated before she had a chance to starve to death -- either

way, it's a death every DUer would be up in arms about if done to a cat or dog.

No one owes an apology for saying Terri should not be put to death. Killing the innocent is something everyone should oppose.

[mzteris]

23. So you

are in favor of doctor-assisted euthanasia, the humane way, then?

She wasn't "put to death". Her body was allowed to die.

[thebigidea]

5. there isn't strong evidence, but you sure as hell can imply abuse, eh?

utterly shameful the way you people are dragging the corpse around to make political points.

[DemBones DemBones]

10. I did not imply abuse. Read my post.

Read this sentence from my post in particular:

" I personally don't have a definite opinion on whether there was abuse or not but don't think there is strong evidence to support either view on this issue."

As for your comment about "you people" -- there are many Dems like me who don't think it's right to kill the disabled, not even the profoundly disabled like Terri Schiavo.
Deal with it. Or are you on a mission to kick us out of the party? That would be a brilliant strategy on your part.

Stop kicking Terri's corpse by talking about her as if she were a thing rather than a human being.

[undeterred]

6. actually the autopsy report addrressed both of those issues

There was absolutely no evidence of abuse, and her loss of brain function was irreversible.

And yes, she had expressed her intention that she would have wanted to die rather than be kept alive as a vegetable to her husband many years before.

This case was pretty clear cut according to the doctors and judges. It was the parents and politicians who politicized it and muddied up the truth.

[DemBones DemBones]

8. What is the EVIDENCE she expressed this wish to die

to her husband many years ago? It was purely hearsay testimony and he didn't "remember" it until after the lawsuits were settled, when he found he got less money than he'd hoped for.

I do not believe that an autopsy can definitively rule out any abuse from years before. Her body had years to recover from abuse, if there was abuse. All an autopsy can say about any dead person is that there was no evidence of abuse found at the autopsy (or that there was, if that is the case.)

[undeterred]

14. Why are you so inclined to believe the worst about this man?

There has never been anyone who suggested that they saw or heard abuse in the relationship. All reports are that he took care of her lovingly for years after she lost consiousness.

It is only the right wing nuts that have chosen to demonize this man for their own purposes and people like you fall for it.

[DemBones DemBones]

18. I'm suspicious of him because of his actions in trying to

have his wife put to death plus my own gut feelings about the man based on seeing him interviewed on television. I can't think of a single time when my gut feelings about someone have turned out to be wrong in more than fifty years, so I tend to trust them. I don't "believe the worst" about him but I don't see him as a good guy, either.

He took care of her lovingly until the lawsuits were settled and then he decided she needed to die. I don't believe in his sudden recall -- years after her collapse -- that she "would not have wanted to live this way."

[undeterred]

22. Wow.

50 years of "gut feelings" that are never wrong... based on watching what the media presents to you...

What channel are you watching?
:sarcasm:

[Catfight]

7. It's a fact she couldn't have survived without the feeding tube. Read

the report, even if they orally gave her food and water, she would have perished without the feeding tube, therefore, she was a flesh machine sustained in this world by artificial means. That is not life, that is inhuman and disgusting. She should have been allowed the dignity of death 15 years ago instead of existing in some limbo of death. The body is meant to die, not be hooked up to some machine to pump life into it. What kind of life is that? "The 'right' to die? How about, dying is apart of life, we ALL have to do it, it's not a right, it's a fact.

[DemBones DemBones]

11. Her husband chose to keep her alive by allowing the feeding tube

until after the lawsuits were settled and didn't yield as much money as he had hoped. THEN he "remembered" she "would want to die" rather than live with a feeding tube.

No one ever demonstrated prior to her death that she had a flat EEG, indicating brain death.

No one knew for sure that she was in a persistent vegetative state until the autopsy was done so she had to be killed to verify that diagnosis.

She was badly damaged, there's no doubt, but this case sets a precedent for killing the severely disabled and that's frightening as hell.

[mzteris]

13. you're obviously

not familiar with the timeline...... I suggest you take a look.

November 1992… Medical Malpractice suit
May 1998… Michael files petition for court to determine whether Terri's feeding tube should be removed;

FIVE YEARS later!

There was no "remembering she didn't want to live like that" - because he didn't believe she was "like that" - until later.

Michael fully believed his was wife was GOING TO RECOVER during the malpractice suit. It wasn't until afterwards that HIS DOCTORS convinced him that her case was hopeless.

HE didn't make the decision to pull the feeding tube - THE COURTS DID.

You do ALL Truly DISABLED PEOPLE a disservice by continuing to claim that Terri was "disabled" - she wasn't. She was essentially dead. Only her body was kept functioning artificially.


BTW - Here's another bit of the timeline that's important:

February 14, 1993 Schiavo and the Schindlers have falling-out over the Schindlers demand he share the malpractice money with them.

July 29, 1993 Schindlers attempt to remove Michael Schiavo as Ms. Schiavo’s guardian; the court later dismisses the suit.

March 1, 1994 First guardian ad litem, John H. Pecarek, submits his report. He states that Michael Schiavo has acted appropriately and attentively toward Ms. Schiavo.

[DemBones DemBones]

19. I AM a truly disabled person and I consider this to have been

a case to set a precedent for euthanizing the profoundly disabled. It's not the first time it's been done, certainly, but it's a highly publicized case which hasn't a damn thing to do with "right to die."

Disability rights activists opposed the killing of Terri Schiavo, as did the disabled who participate in the disability rights forum here. We know a bitter truth: most "normal" people believe that life as a disabled person isn't worth living, i.e., that we'd be "better off dead." We disagree with your dismissal of our live as unimportant.

[mzteris]

24. No.

You're missing the point - the boat - everything - when you try and classify Terri as "disabled". She wasn't disabled - profoundly or otherwise. "SHE" was dead. That part of the brain that was "her" was completely gone. Only the operating system was kept working by artificial means.

While not "brain dead" in the medical definition of the word, SHE essentially was. (see above) Are you in favor of keeping people who are "dead" on respirators for decades? If so, why? If not, then why are artificial nutrition/hydration tubes any different from a respirator?

[oldcoot]

16. The state of Texas already established this precedent

Governor Bush had signed a bill allowing Texas hospitals to terminate care for "hopeless" patients without the consenting their next-of-kin. Later this bill was amended to include minors. Ironically, many of Michael Schavio's congressional critics completely ignored this law and did nothing to intervene in the case of an African-American baby who was killed under this law despite the objections of the baby's mother. I consider this law a greater threat to the rights of the severely disabled than the Schiavo case because the patient's wishes are irrelevant under this law. In the Schiavo case, the courts at least considered what Terri Schiavo would have wanted. Whether or not you agree with their conclusion is a whole different matter.

The willingness of certain elected officials to trash the U.S. Constitution to "save Terri" is the truly frightening precedent established by this case. Their willingness to ignore the constitutional separation of powers was disturbing for many reasons. The fact that some elected officials were willing to accuse Michael Schiavo of attempted murder without evidence to score points with "pro-life" voters was also troubling.

If I lived in Florida, I would be especially outraged at the behavior Governor Jeb Bush. I would be unhappy that Bush is trying to convince prosecutors to investigate Michael Schiavo. I would feel that the state has spent too much of my money pursuing this case at the expense of other cases. The next time Jeb Bush asked for budget cuts that might harm the poor and disabled, I would ask why he was so willing to waste so much money on what is becoming a personal vendetta against one man.

I feel sorry for Michael Schiavo because his life would be a lot easier if he was the greedy little pig that so many have portrayed him to be. If he really did not care about his wife, he would not have bothered the nurses by demanding that they do a better job taking care of his wife. He also could have taken the various monetary offers to divorce Terri and to let her parents take care of her. Indeed, he probably would not have received as many death threats had he done just that.

[DemBones DemBones]

20. The hypocrisy of many politicians is legendary and

the law in Texas an outrage. You are quite right about that. And it's not the only law enacted in recent years that discriminates against the profoundly disabled (and sometimes against those with lesser disabilities.) It scares the hell out of all of us who have disabilities -- and should scare everyone, since any "normal" person could become disabled in an instant. You'd think people would have learned that from Christopher Reeve.

I think the Schiavo case is an outrage as well because she was put to death based on hearsay testimony that she "would not have wanted to live like this." The reason it became a controversial case was that her family objected to her husband's push to have her die. The case of the African-American baby killed in Texas against his mother's wishes, and with no one but the state and the hospital wanting his death, should be discussed more here. Presumably most DUers would agree that it is an outrage and that the law is an outrage.

Does a profoundly disabled person have to be African-American to get any sympathy from DUers? It troubles me greatly that such awful things were said about her (Terri) here at DU simply because of her physical and mental condition. She became a "thing" in the minds of too many. Over and over people ranted that she had no brain, she was already dead, etc. But she did have a brain (a badly damaged one, as we knew before her death) and she was alive. depending on a feeding tube but otherwise functioning on her own, physiologically. And no one really knows where her soul or whatever you may call her self, her Terri-ness, was.

People who have recovered from comas have said that they knew everything that was going on while they were comatose. Did Terri know anything? If you take the clinical perspective, it seems she didn't. But the clinical perspective can be and has been wrong in other cases, perhaps it was wrong here. The autopsy indicated that she was in a persistent vegetative state and would not have gotten better but since PVS can only be diagnosed at autopsy, her parents had a reason to hold out hope, even if they didn't believe in miracles, as they do. As a parent, I certainly understand their grief and their desire to save their child and hope for a miracle. I have never read that doctors did an EEG that showed brain death on Terri; that's usually the standard for disconnecting life support. Terri, of course, was not on life support; she was simply being fed by feeding tube, something many people live with for years.

Jeb Bush's behavior is quite interesting because it will hurt him politically. One almost wonders if he might be trying to do something because it's the right thing to do. Surely not!

[oldcoot]

26. The EEG

According to this article about the physicians who examined her http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050318/NEWS01/503180350/1006, it does sound like that the doctors did at least one EEG on Terri Schiavo. While I am not sure what the technical definition of brain death is, it looks like the Terri would never have recovered.

It is unfortunate that Terri Schiavo did not leave a living will. As you have pointed out, anyone can be disabled through a tragic accident. However, according to Florida law, one does not need a living will to refuse all life-prolonging measures (this includes removing feeding tubes). Florida law also allows for another individual to make the decision to terminate care if one is in a persistent vegetative state. Since Michael Schiavo was married to Terri, he was her legal next-of-kin and had the legal right to make this decision for his wife.

Had Michael Schiavo been an abusive spouse, I could see an argument for denying him the right to make medical decisions for his wife. Yet I have seen no evidence to prove that he was abusive. I have also seen no evidence that Terri Schiavo's parents would be able to make better decisions for her care considering that they had stated that they would keep her alive no matter what her wishes were and that they would also take extreme measures to keep her alive (including amputating limbs).

If Jeb Bush and the Florida Legislature are really unhappy with the outcome of this particular case, they should go back an revise the law that made it possible for Michael Schiavo to terminate his wife's care.

[ikojo]

25. An important part of the bill signed into law by then (and now president)

Gov George W Bush is that if the family cannot afford to pay the medical bills artificial means can be discontinued against the wishes of the family. This law should haunt him everywhere he and his family goes. It is another plank in the war against poor people.

Why don't I hear the same folks who thought Terri Schiavo was killed speaking out against removing artificial life support from poor black babies as was done in Texas?

Are only well off white people worth getting up in arms about?

[salin]

15. There has always been a need for an appology to the family

of the gentleman who died in hospice care - alone - as his grand daughter was trying to get through the circus crowd and stepped up security due to that crowd... and arrived to his room mere minutes after he had passed.

All of those in the hospice care and their families need an appology from the ongoing political hype that drove droves of folks whipped up into a frenzy to the property ... severely disrupting the business of the hospice.

[DemBones DemBones]

21. You're right. nt