The Killing of Terry Schiavo

[slum_goddess]

from today's Guardian

[KiwiCoromandel]

just watching BBC world news (1.17 AM here)..a judge has upheld the state court decision and refused to order the feeding tube to be re-attached to terry schiavo......family is now going to appeal the case....

[DudeAsInCool]

just watching BBC world news (1.17 AM here)..a judge has upheld the state court decision and refused to order the feeding tube to be re-attached to terry schiavo......family is now going to appeal the case....

He rulted that the case had already been given proper scrutiny by the Florida courts

[KiwiCoromandel]

He rulted that the case had already been given proper scrutiny by the Florida courts

you`ve got to hand it to him...the judiciary/judges involved in this sad story must be under incredible pressure......

[Shawn]

Especially in a country in which they have to worry about being re-elected.

[Wolfie]

There are some people that won't sell their souls (cheat, lie and steal) to get elected. Granted they are rare but they do exist. However, in Florida its almost a unbelievable.

[KiwiCoromandel]

Especially in a country in which they have to worry about being re-elected.

right...they (judges) get appointed by the govt down here and could be said to be open to political control/influence .......it`s a very sore point with some people.. <_>

[Kooperman]

Gabriel Keys (foreground) is arrested by police officers for trespassing in Pinellas Park, Florida, March 23, 2005. The young protester attempted to take a glass of water into the Woodside Hospice for the brain-damaged Terri Schiavo. A federal judge rejected a request from the parents of Schiavo to order her feeding tube reinserted, dealing a blow to attempts by the U.S. Congress and the White House to prolong her life.

[KiwiCoromandel]

Jeb Bush seeks custody of Terri Schiavo

March 24, 2005 - 10:40AM

The parents of Amerian woman Terri Schiavo saw their options vanish one by one today as a federal appeals court refused to re-insert her feeding tube and the Florida Legislature decided not to intervene in the epic struggle.

Refusing to give up, Florida Governor Jeb Bush sought court permission to take custody of Schiavo.

The desperate flurry of activity came as President George W Bush suggested Congress and the White House had done all they could to keep the severely brain-damaged woman alive.

As of this afternoon, Schiavo had gone five full days without food or water; doctors have said she could survive one to two weeks.

Ten protesters were arrested outside her hospice for trying to bring her water.

"When I close my eyes at night, all I can see is Terri's face in front of me, dying, starving to death," Mary Schindler said outside the Pinellas Park hospice. "Please, someone out there, stop this cruelty. Stop the insanity. Please let my daughter live."

Read more........

http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Jeb-Bush-...1525261678.html

[Kooperman]

Pinellas Park police Lt. Kevin Riley, second from left, handcuffs 14-year-old Josie Keys, left, while Pinellas County Sheriff's deputies place her father Chris in the back of a van after arresting members of the family for trespassing Wednesday morning March 23, 2005 outside the Woodside Hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla. The family members were attempting to bring Terri Schiavo a cup of water. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

[slum_goddess]

i always wonder about people like that...i mean, what do they do? leave their jobs to picket or feed the brain-dead or whatever? i assume these people have a lot of money to just hang out at news-y events.

[Kooperman]

i always wonder about people like that...i mean, what do they do? leave their jobs to picket or feed the brain-dead or whatever? i assume these people have a lot of money to just hang out at news-y events.

Most likely fundamentalists...their church will pay their fines. But having your teen-aged kids arrested is fundamentally stupid.

[Shawn]

To be fair, I'd rather they drugged the woman to death than let her die of starvation.

[KiwiCoromandel]

Whose Right to Life?

Thursday, 24 March 2005, 12:17 pm

Whose Right to Life?

The nation's attention is riveted on the fate of one poor woman in a Florida hospice. Terri Schiavo has been in a persistent vegetative state, with no upper brain function, for 15 years. Ten state courts have upheld Terri's husband's request to remove her feeding tube. Those courts have determined by clear and convincing evidence, a standard set by the United States Supreme Court, that Terri would not have wanted to be kept alive in such a condition.

Nevertheless, Terri's parents, aided by Republicans in Congress and George W. Bush, are fighting to keep her alive. They have made her case a cause celebre. A memo circulated to GOP senators over the weekend described this as a "great political issue" because it will play to the "pro-life base" of the Republican Party.

The abortion debate has long been framed in terms of "pro-choice" versus "pro-life." But this dichotomy has always struck me as misleading.

What is the "right to life"? Does it simply include unborn fetuses, stem cells, and people in persistent vegetative states? Or does it also refer to health care for the 40 million Americans who don't have it; aid to children whose single moms can't make ends meet; and billions of dollars in Medicaid - a virtual lifeline for millions - that Bush tried to cut? What about the 1524 American soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis who have died in a war that never should have happened? Didn't they have the right to life?

Unprecedented emergency legislation rushed through Congress on the eve of the Easter recess has sent the Schiavo case into the federal courts for a new round of hearings. After he signed the bill in the wee hours of Monday morning, Bush said, "In cases like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life."

This statute directly contradicts Bush's actions while Governor of Texas. Then, Bush signed a bill that allows hospitals to stop feeding a patient whose prognosis is so poor that further care would be futile, if the patient cannot pay his or her medical expenses. Just this past week, a baby was pulled off life support in Texas, against his mother's wishes.

As Governor, Bush refused to stay executions in numerous death penalty cases. Alberto Gonzales, then counsel to the Governor, provided his boss with "scant summaries" on capital punishment cases that "repeatedly failed to apprise the governor of crucial issues: ineffective counsel, conflict of interest, mitigating evidence, even actual evidence of innocence," according to the Atlantic Monthly.

Gonzales prepared a summary of the case of Terry Washington, a mentally retarded man executed for murdering a restaurant manager. The jury was never told about Washington's mental condition. Gonzales's three-page summary mentioned only that Washington's defense counsel's 30-page plea for clemency (which covered the mental competency issue) was rejected by the Texas parole board. Bush declined to stop executions in 56 of the 57 cases in which Gonzales wrote abbreviated memos.

In those cases, did Bush follow "a presumption in favor of life"?

Conservatives support the principle of federalism, or states' rights. Each state should be able to maintain its own legal system, free from federal encroachment, according to this doctrine. But many Republicans have championed states' rights only when they liked the outcome and rejected it when they didn't.

As Congressman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich) said on the floor of the House during the debate on Monday, "Last month, the Majority passed a class action bill that took jurisdiction away from state courts because they feared they would treat corporate wrongdoers too harshly. Today we are sending a case from the state courts to the federal courts even though it is the most extensively litigated 'right to die' case in our nation's history."

"By passing legislation which wrests jurisdiction away from a state judge and sends it to a single pre-selected federal court," Conyers said, "we will abandon any pretense of federalism. The concept of a Jeffersonian Democracy as envisioned by the founders, and the states as 'laboratories of democracy' as articulated by Justice Brandeis will lie in tatters."

One of the most tragic aspects of the Schiavo case is the effect this legislation will have on family decisions for years to come. Although the Democrats agreed to the bill only if it were limited to Terri Schiavo's situation, it will certainly open the floodgates to litigation which inserts the courts into private matters.

This attempt by Republican leaders to "shamelessly interject the federal government into the wrenching Schiavo family dispute" amounts to a "constitutional coup d'etat," according to the Los Angeles Times. It is "the new front in what began as the abortion war, an effort to translate religious dogma into law under the right-to-life banner."

[DudeAsInCool]

To be fair, I'd rather they drugged the woman to death than let her die of starvation.

Agreed...

[Kooperman]

Tom DeLay: "It Is More Than Just Terry Schiavo"

Transcript: The embattled House Majority Leader finds parallels between Terri Schiavo's case and his own

By KAREN TUMULTY

Wednesday, Mar. 23, 2005

Last Friday, as the House and Senate were working out their differences over legislation to stop the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, embattled House Majority Leader Tom DeLay discussed the issue at a gathering of the Family Research Council at the Willard Hotel in Washington. In the speech, he drew parallels between Schiavo's situation and his own as he faces a barrage of ethics allegations, and he implicitly asked the conservatives to come to his defense as they have Schiavo's. A recording of the speech was supplied to TIME by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, an advocacy group:

"It is more than just Terri Schiavo. This is a critical issue for people in this position, and it is also a critical issue to fight that fight for life, whether it be euthanasia or abortion. I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, one thing God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo to elevate the visibility of what's going on in America. That Americans would be so barbaric as to pull a feeding tube out of a person that is lucid and starve them to death for two weeks. I mean, in America that's going to happen if we don't win this fight.

"And so it's bigger than any one of us, and we have to do everything that is in our power to save Terri Schiavo and anybody else that may be in this kind of position, and let me just finish with this:

"This is exactly the kind of issue that's going on in America, that attacks against the conservative moment, against me and against many others. The point is, the other side has figured out how to win and to defeat the conservative movement, and that is to go after people personally, charge them with frivolous charges, link up with all these do-gooder organizations funded by George Soros, and then get the national media on their side. That whole syndicate that they have going on right now is for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to destroy the conservative movement. It is to destroy conservative leaders, and not just in elected office, but leading. I mean, Ed Feulner, of the Heritage Foundation today was under attack in the National Journal. This is a huge nationwide concerted effort to destroy everything we believe in. And you need to look at this, and what's going on and participate in fighting back.

"You know, one way they stopped churches from getting into politics was Lyndon Johnson, who passed a law that said you couldn't get in politics or you're going to lose your tax-exempt status, because they were all opposed to him when he was running for President. That law we're trying to repeal. It's very difficult to do that, but the point is, when they can knock out a leader, then no other leader will step forward for a while, because they don't want to go through the same thing. If they go after and get a pastor, then other pastors shrink from what they should be doing. It forces Christians back into the church. That's what's going on in America. The world is too bad and I'm going to get inside this building and I'm not going to play in the world. That's not what Christ asked us to do.

"And so they understand that. It is a political maneuver, and they are going to try to destroy the conservative movement, and we have to fight back, so please, this afternoon, each and every one of you, if you know a senator, give them a call. They'll say our bill can pass in the House. Tell them, okay, your bill is fine, but the House bill is better, and I want the House bill. Particularly if you know Democrats. Don't let them get off the hook by hiding behind one House and the other is adjourned. We can do anything we need to do to pass any bill that we need to pass."

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,...1040968,00.html

[KiwiCoromandel]

This is exactly the kind of issue that's going on in America, that attacks against the conservative moment, against me and against many others. The point is, the other side has figured out how to win and to defeat the conservative movement, and that is to go after people personally, charge them with frivolous charges, link up with all these do-gooder organizations funded by George Soros, and then get the national media on their side. That whole syndicate that they have going on right now is for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to destroy the conservative movement. It is to destroy conservative leaders, and not just in elected office, but leading. I mean, Ed Feulner, of the Heritage Foundation today was under attack in the National Journal. This is a huge nationwide concerted effort to destroy everything we believe in. And you need to look at this, and what's going on and participate in fighting back.[/b]

"

this issue will come back to haunt bush...it has badly hurt the republican party already.....

[KiwiCoromandel]

Supreme court rejects Schiavo plea

Mar 25, 2005

The United States' Supreme Court has rejected a plea from the parents of a brain-damaged Florida woman to order her feeding tube reconnected.

The highest US court denied without comment a request made late on Wednesday by Bob and Mary Schindler for an emergency order to restart nutrition for Terri Schiavo, whose feeding tube was removed six days ago.

With the parents' hopes of prolonging Schiavo's life now all but closed, a Florida court was considering a petition from a state government agency to take custody of her.

Schiavo, a 41-year-old woman who suffered brain damage from a heart attack when she was 26, had her feeding tube removed last Friday under a state court order.

[KiwiCoromandel]

Right-to-die parents lose final appeal

25.03.05 9.10am

PINELLAS PARK, Florida - The US Supreme Court has rejected a plea from the parents of Terri Schiavo to restart her feeding, leaving them nearly out of options and time in the seven-year legal fight for their brain-damaged daughter’s life.

The highest US court turned away Bob and Mary Schindler’s request for an emergency order to reinsert Schiavo’s feeding tube, which was removed six days ago. The court did not explain its decision to stay out of the Florida family drama that was taken up by Congress and President George W. Bush.

A Florida court rebuffed another last-ditch attempt to prolong Schiavo’s life by Governor Jeb Bush, the president’s brother. The Republican governor wanted a state welfare agency to take custody of the 41-year-old woman who suffered brain damage from a cardiac arrest when she was 26.

The court decisions signify the end was near in the wrenching legal dispute between Schiavo’s husband and legal guardian, Michael Schiavo, and her parents over whether she should live or die, a case that snowballed into an emotional and highly politicised drama.

Read more.........

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10117084

[Kooperman]

Congress, Schiavo, and blame: The political game-playing is cruel and shameful

(David Shuster)

Congress has a long history of inserting itself into big stories, pretending to do something meaningful, and then passing the buck. But the extent to which lawmakers are trying to run away from their own impotence and incompetence in the Schiavo case is astounding, even by congressional standards.

Let's start with Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-N.C). On Wednesday night on "Scarborough Country," McHenry stated, "We passed a law that specifically is worded for this case. Yet those judges aren't even talking about our original intent from Congress. What we have here is an out-of-control judiciary."

Out of control? But how about lawmakers who refuse to talk honestly about their own bill? The Schiavo legislation states,

"Any parent of Theresa Marive Schiavo shall have standing to bring a suit under this Act... The District Court shall entertain and the determine the suit without any delay... After a determination of the merits of a suit brought under this act, the District Court shall issue such declaratory and injunctive relief as may be necessary."

The "intent from Congress" is perfectly clear: The district judge should first determine if the lawsuit has merit and then issue relief (ie. reinsert the feeding tube) if the suit does have merit. Nowhere in the legislation did Congress say the feeding tube should be reinserted first. And if Congress "intended" (as McHenry claims) for the court to reinsert the feeding tube first, why didn't Congress write that into their own bill? Or better yet, why didn't McHenry complain last Sunday when the bill was written without that "intent." Did McHenry even bother to read the legislation? (We will find out Thursday night when he appears on Hardball.)

Several lawmakers are admitting (away from the cameras of course) that Congress was restricted in what it could do because of constitutional issues involving the separation of powers. In other words, if Congress had ordered the federal courts to take some particular action before analyzing the merits of a Schiavo case, the legislation would have been declared by every court to be unconstitutional (and the Schiavo issues would have received no review at all). So, Congress passed something very different then what many lawmakers were claiming and avoided getting called for a flag during the punt. Now, with ball back in the hands of the judiciary, the lawmakers get to blame the courts for the demise of Terri Schiavo.

You think I'm kidding? Take a look at the latest press release from House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Judiciary committee chairman James Sensenbrenner. In the wake of the Supreme Court refusing to order Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted, the lawmaker said, "Sadly, Mrs. Schiavo will not receive a new and full review of her case as the legislation required. I strongly believe that the court erred in reaching its conclusion and that once again they have chosen to ignore the clear intent of Congress."

Clear intent? Again, if Congress intended to do something, Congress should have written that into their own legislation. Secondly, the bill never says that Mrs. Schiavo should "receive a new and full review of her case."

Yes, the Schiavo case is sad. But it is not nearly as sad as the false hope lawmakers gave to Terry Schiavo's parents.

And for that, and for the blame lawmakers are now heaping on the courts, Congress has shamed itself once again.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5445086/

[Amber]

I'm sorry but let the womna die, I personally don't care who wants to be in that state....I don't! And this BS of going back and forth in court and keeping peoples hearts tugged is screwed up beyond belief. I don't really like the fact that she is starving to death but what other choice is there? She could live to be 100 if they continued the treatment.

The Political Aspect behind this really shows what kind of country the US really is...

[KiwiCoromandel]

Bush's custody plea for Schiavo refused

March 25, 2005 - 7:59AM

A state judge today refused to hear Governor Jeb Bush's arguments to take custody of Terri Schiavo, leaving the brain-damaged woman's parents with only the slimmest hopes in their fight to keep her alive.

Bush's request cited new allegations of neglect and challenges the diagnoses Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state, but Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer wasn't convinced.

Greer's decision came hours after the United States Supreme Court refused to order her feeding tube reinserted. The decisions reduce chances for quick intervention to reconnect the tube, which was pulled last Friday. Doctors have said Schiavo, 41, likely would die in a week or two without nourishment.

Schiavo's husband, Michael, today urged the high court not to intervene, saying her case has been endlessly litigated and state courts have agreed with him that she would want to die.

The appeal by her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, was part of a rush of legal activity in the unprecedented right-to-die struggle. They have frantically tried to reconnect the tube because they deny Michael Schiavo's arguments she has no hope for recovery and she would not have wanted to live in such a state.

[slum_goddess]

everything Amber said two posts up.

[Kooperman]

Man Tries to Steal Gun to 'Rescue Schiavo'

By Associated Press

March 25, 2005

SEMINOLE, Fla. -- A man was arrested after trying to steal a weapon from a gun shop so he could "take some action and rescue Terri Schiavo," authorities said.

Michael W. Mitchell, of Rockford, Ill., entered Randall's Firearms Inc. in Seminole just before 6 p.m. Thursday with a box cutter and tried to steal a gun, said Marianne Pasha, a spokeswoman for the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.

Mitchell, 50, told deputies he wanted to "take some action and rescue Terri Schiavo" after he visited the Pinellas Park hospice where she lives, Pasha said.

The feeding tube that has kept Schiavo alive for more than a decade was removed March 18 over objections from her parents. Schiavo's husband has said his wife would not want to be kept alive artificially.

Doctors have said she would probably die within a week or two of the tube being pulled.

Randy McKenzie, the owner of Randall's Firearms, said Mitchell pulled out the box cutter and broke the glass on a couple of display cases.

"He told me if I wasn't on Terri's side then I wasn't on God's side, either," McKenzie told The Associated Press.

McKenzie said he then pointed his own gun at Mitchell and ordered him to lie on the ground. But Mitchell fled out the store's back door before police arrived, he said.

Mitchell was later arrested in a parking lot and was scheduled to appear in court Friday. He was being held on $125,000 bond on charges of attempted armed robbery, aggravated assault and criminal mischief, officials said.

It was not known if he had a lawyer.

Seminole is about 5 miles west of Pinellas Park.

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/nationworld/...ation-headlines

[Kooperman]

Terri Schiavo’s unstudied life

Woman who is now a symbol and a cause hated the spotlight

By Jennifer Frey

The Washington Post

Updated: 5:56 a.m. ET March 25, 2005

WASHINGTON - She was a girl who laughed easily at her uncle's lame jokes. A girl so naive that she wrote to John Denver, asking him to come sing at her wedding, who went to Disney World for her honeymoon and believed that a good life meant that one day she'd be able to vacation there every year with her kids.

She was a girl who loved animals and worshiped cute television stars, paying homage to heartthrobs Starsky and Hutch by naming two gerbils after them. She daydreamed about working for a veterinarian when she grew up, or maybe just being a dog groomer.

She was a shy girl, always overweight as a child, with big glasses, but shiny hair and perfect skin and a tendency to collapse into fifth-grade giggles. Her first car -- a black-and-gold Trans Am with a T-top roof -- exuded the flash and confidence that she herself never did.

She was a girl who married the first man she ever kissed.

For the complete long story click here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7290818/