Obviously, I’m still missing your point.  What does school have to do with it?  And by the way, law school is far behind me.

And by the way, law school is far behind me.

mmhmmm.  me too.

Make sure your living will is written down and SHUT UP!  Leave people alone.  This issue has nothing to do with Jeb Bush, the U.S. Congress, or YOU!  Terri Schiavo’s wishes were HONORED.  END OF THIS THREAD

mmhmmm.  me too.

I’ll bet.

Gee, PenShaft, I wish somebody had told Congress, Jeb, and GWB that they should have stayed the hell out of the issue in the first place.  They made it their business.  The scariest thing about this case isn’t what happened to Terri (presented as a “slippery slope” that leads right down to executing nearsighted people who walk with a limp despite their protests) but what is happening to the balance of power in this country.

“They made it their business.”

It was made their business by hundreds of thousands of activists (like me) from all political spectrums (unlike what is reported)who felt Terri Schiavo’s constitutional right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness had been usurped because she was disabled.  The court had consistently ignored the advice of the guardian ad litem.  There were questions. 

You people are philosphical neanderthals whose best ideas are parroted from CNN.  A disabled woman’s life is taken from her and you blithely puruse your glib repartee.

Kristen,

I’m not getting involved in this debate but I just wanted to note things that you said.  First you mentioned something about disagreeing on facts.  People don’t disagree on facts.  When there is a fact then it’s just the case that someone is wrong and believes something is false.  I won’t venture to say who that person is in this debate because I know nothing about this case. 

Second you claim that people here don’t care about right to die and are only anti-Christian.  In fact at least one of the people whom you are debating with is in fact Christian.

People don’t disagree on facts.

Yes, people do disagree as to the facts.  It is the center of the dispute regarding Terri Schiavo’s wish to die.  I do not find that the facts supported the court finding for Terri Schiavo’s death wish. I also claim the fact - ignored by this blog - that Terri Schiavo was not adequately represented.

Both guardians ad litem found that further discussion was required to determine the extent of recovery available to Mrs. Schiavo and determine her wish to die.  Both guardians were dismissed and the court ruled in favor of a guardian who had conflicting interests - as stated by the guardian ad litems.

I am not supposing anyone’s Christianity.  It is evident, however, that there is much bluster about the Christian Right as the champions for Mrs. Schiavo.  I say hurrah to the Christian Right.  In this instance, they are right on target.

I also maintain assigning death by starvation and dehydration is cruel by any world standard.  I am stunned by the apathy regarding this woman’s death and the utter monstrousness of it.

Its because you have zero idea of what you are talking about.

As has been stated adnaseum by posters here and by 99% of every Neurologist that has diagnosed her she was without question in a PVS, she without question was missing the vast majority of her Cerebral Cortex of which there is absolutely no chance of recovery. Her EEG was flatline.
To flatly deny this like you are shows you have no clue.

As for being represented, her lawyers were the best the Religious Reich superfund could buy, she had something like 25 appeals/cases ALL of which were won by Michael Schiavo as he clearly was in the right and presented BY FAR the most credible evidence, he was telling the truth and had all the verifiable facts to back him up, this was the most argued and appealed case in world history.
Again you are wrong.

As for the Guardian Ad Litem no surprise you are wrong there also.

A legal analysis of the tens of thousands of pages of documents in the case file, against the statutory legal guidelines and the supporting case law, leads the GAL to conclude that all of the appropriate and proper elements of the law have been followed and met. The law has done its job well. The courts have carefully and diligently adhered to the prescribed civil processes and evidentiary guidelines, and have painfully and diligently applied the required tests in a reasonable, conscientious and professional manner. The disposition of the courts, four times reviewed at the appellate level, and once refused review by the Florida Supreme Court, has been that the trier of fact followed the law, did its job, adhered to the rules and rendered a decision that, while difficult and painful, was supported by the facts, the weight of the evidence and the law of Florida.

In Theresa’s case, evidence regarding her intentions consisted of admitted hearsay regarding conversations between Theresa and her spouse and spousal relatives. The context and nature of this hearsay were deemed sufficiently probative, competent and reliable to serve as a basis for admission, and was determined to be sufficiently clear and convincing.

Evidence regarding the persistent vegetative state consisted of highly credible medical testimony and documentation reflecting both early and recently performed neurological examinations and a case history that included early swallowing studies conducted multiple times nearly ten years ago.

Early in Theresa’s care, neurological examinations were performed to assess her cognitive capacity. Competent medical practitioners determined that Theresa was in what has been consistently defined as a persistent vegetative state – a finding that throughout the litigation was not disputed by either side.

Theresa’s neurological tests and CT scans indicate objective measures of the persistent vegetative state. These data indicate that Theresa’s cerebral cortex is principally liquid, having shrunken due to the severe anoxic trauma experienced thirteen years ago. The initial oxygen deprivation caused damage that could not be repaired, and the brain tissue in that area continued to devolve.

The GAL concludes that the trier of fact and the evidence that served as the basis for the decisions regarding Theresa Schiavo were firmly grounded within Florida statutory and case law, which clearly and unequivocally provide for the removal of artificial nutrition in cases of persistent vegetative states, where there is no advance directive, through substituted/proxy judgment of the guardian and/or the court as guardian, and with the use of evidence regarding the medical condition and the intent of the parties that was deemed, by the trier of fact to be clear and convincing.

http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/WolfsonReport.pdf

Now that is the Guardians Ad Litems own words in the official record for you to deny or misinterpret which im sure you will.

Here is what a REAL and reputable Neurologist says about it.

CT scans of 1996 and 2002 showing extreme atrophy (CT scans-1996, 2002: “diffuse encephalomalacia and infarction consistent with anoxia, hydrocephalus ex vacuo, neural stimulator present); prior to these most recent two CT scans, CT scans had been performed on February 25, 1990, February 27, 1990, and March 30, 1990, with an MRI scan on July 24, 1990.The two most recent EEG’s have demonstrated no electrical activity-on July 8, 2002: “no evidence of cerebral activity;� and October 4, 2002-“does not have any definite brain activity.
An MRI was never recommended because, in this case and other patients in a permanent vegetative state, the CT scans were more than adequate to demonstrate the extremely severe atrophy of the cerebral hemispheres, and an MRI would add nothing of significance to what we see on the CT scans. Plus the MRI is contraindicated because of the intrathalamic stimulators implanted in Terri’s brain. A PET scan was never done in this case because it was never needed. The classic clinical signs on examination, the CT scans, and the flat EEG’s were more than adequate to diagnose PVS to the highest degree of medical certainty, along with the credible testimony of the three neurologists at the longest evidentiary hearing in American law

http://pekinprattles.blogspot.com/2005/03/dr-cranfords-complete-terri-schiavo.html

http://pekinprattles.blogspot.com/2005/03/schiavo-dr-cranford-offers-reply.html

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2005/03/26/lies-about-terri-schiavo-in-the-national-review/

This case was really cut & dry all along, Michael Schiavo was the Guardian, he and 4 others testified that what Terri’s wishes were, the testimony was deemed clear & convincing, Terri was without any question in a PVS and only going to get worse, he did everything he possibly could for 7 years to no avail and decided to at that time finally let her go and abide by her wishes.

The parents were delusional and this whole thing started over them getting bent because he would not give them 1/2 of his consortium award, therefore they waged war on him out of pure greed and being hateful, simple as that.

You are WRONG, the facts are clear as a bell.

Kristen,
You are also wrong about the

assigning death by starvation and dehydration is cruel by any world standard.

Several medical experts have stated that this kind of death appears to be very peaceful, even euphoric. Please see the article in Time, April 4, 2005, by Christine Gorman, p26-27. My daughter is a R.N. and has witnessed some of these types of death and she agrees with this observation. But, then again, I won’t try to confuse you with the facts when your mind is obviously already made up.

And, by the way, neither you nor Terri have a “constitutional right to life, liberty and the persuit of happiness.” That quote is from the Declaration of Independence.

Kristen likes to make a lot of claims without providing anything to back them up. It’s a lot of hot air in the I’m-right-and-you-all-suck vein typical of those who are immune from reality.

Any bets that a right-wing nut puts a bullet into Mike Schiavo within the next year?

I’m actually a little surprised they haven’t yet.

Kristen,

I’m not saying that people don’t disagree.  I’m just saying it doesn’t make sense to disagree on facts.  Facts are facts they are what is.  As such people don’t disagree on them, rather it is just that someone is wrong about what the facts are. 

As such, what you’re in fact trying to say is that everyone else but you involved in this debate is wrong.  I’m just suggesting that you say what you mean rather than pussy-foot around.

The only reason they haven’t yet is because he is heavily guarded still, that and Religious Fanatics are not known for being to bright thus easily caught & foiled.

Kristen are you ever going to answer my questions?

You keep mentioning conflict of interest of the husband and I keep asking you what is the conflict of interest. I truly am interested to know where is this perceived conflict of interest. At one time before the two bribes made, I myself too was concerned about the conflict.

Secondly, if one is concerned about the means of death then the focus should be on changing the law to allow active euthanasia.

Can you answer these questions which I have asked several times? Yoo hoo, knock knock any answers?

Secondly, if one is concerned about the means of death then the focus should be on changing the law to allow active euthanasia.

Agreed.  But that conversation is one that will be avoided by deeming it wholly inappropriate (if not outright seditious) in an America the leaders insist must be a “Culture of Life.”

How the hell strangers with a vastly different worldview from my own are qualified to define what FOR ME is a life worth living, is beyond comprehension - and to put it mildly, totally fucking insulting.  Just because THEY believe that their Sky Fairy demands I (as an example) actively suffer through each and every excruciating moment leading up to the time cancer (or any other painful disease) finally ends my life, doesn’t mean that the laws should be crafted around their belief in order to “err on the side of life.”

At this point, if I were terminally ill with a disease that would make my final days a torment to me physically, while tormenting my loved ones by having them watch me “live” through that torture, the only way I’d be able to take myself out of this world would be to refuse nutrition, thereby starving and dehydrating until my organs shut down.  Of course, I’d much rather be given a lethal injection, an overdose of some damn strong opiates, or even a fucking bullet through my head, but that kind of merciful death is only available to the “lower” animals for reasons that only a twisted bible-believing mind can apparently wrap itself around.

It’s little comfort to know that while I can spare my beloved kitties the agony of suffering horribly through the ravages of a disease that will ultimately kill them, the law holds that I don’t have the right to the same release from suffering simply because I’m a human being, and there are some other human beings whose opinion is that unlike an animal, I have a “soul” and that their “God” doesn’t approve of my deciding when to take myself out of the physical world.

This country’s going to have to talk about euthanasia sooner or later, because there are more people whose lives can and will be extended beyond their natural length through advances in medical technology, and many of them will NOT want to stay alive by any and all artificial means.  The question, to me, is that if an individual doesn’t have the right to make decisions about something as fundamental as opting for a quick and merciful death over one that’s long, protracted, expensive and agonizing right up until the final moment, how truly “free” are we?

Kristen on 4/04/05 at 04:28 PM wrote the following… • Permalink
Kristen pic

“And by the way, law school is far behind me.” [original quote inserted from cindi’s post]

mmhmmm.  me too.

who felt Terri Schiavo’s constitutional right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness had been usurped because she was disabled.

Let me guess - you went to Oral Roberts University law school?  You skipped the constitutional law class? You flunked? You never studied the Declaration of Independence?  You’re just ill-informed?  Brilliantly ignorant?

How does BushCo reconcile their newly-heartfeld “culture of life” with the bill he signed as governor of Texas that allows the hospital to pull the plug on a person with all of their mental facilities intact, against the wishes of family, if that patient is indigent?

Both Guardian Ad-Litems recommended further tests and studies into Terri Schiavo’s condition.  Both Guardian Ad-Litems recommended further investigation as to what her wishes would have been.  The advice of both guadian ad-litems were dismissed.  Your quote is from the report of the guardian ad-litem in which they review the record.  After reviewing the record they found further investigation warranted.

If starvation were a peaceful euphoric way to go more people would participate.  Perhaps now that the Time article is out there will be more suicides by starvation and dehydration.

“Does a person in a vegetative state suffer after nutrition and hydration have been withdrawn? No one knows for certain, of course, what it feels like to be unaware—hence the awful anxiety that is at the heart of the Schiavo debate.”

Is this the Time quote to which you refer?  Where it says no one knows for certain?

Time Mag

With holding nutrition and hydration as part of the end of life process is medically and humanely utilized.  As the body shuts down it cannot process fluids or nutrition.  Continuation of fluids and nutrition results in more discomfort and perhaps acceleration of death in that case.

Aug - 92 Terri awarded $250,000 in malpractice settlement.

Nov - 92 Terri awarded $1.4 million in malpractice trial.

Nov - 92 Michael Schiavo awarded $600,000 in malpractice trial.

Feb - 93 Schiavo posts Do not Resuscitate order in Terri’s medical chart.

Aug - 93 Schiavo orders medical staff not to treat Terri for potentially fatal infection.

Jul 97- Schiavo’s engagement to Jodi Centonze announced.

May 1998 -Michael Schiavo petitions the court to authorize the removal of Terri Schiavo’s PEG tube

Aug 97- Attorney Felos’s letter notifying Terri’s parents of action to remove Terri’s nutrition and hydration.

Apr - 2000 Terri Moved from Palm Gardens Nursing Home to Hospice Facility.

Jan - 2000 Judge Greer Conducts Terri’s Feeding Tube Removal Trial.

Feb - 2000 Greer Rules to Remove Nutrition Feeding Tube.

Feb – 2000 Affidavits filed by 3 doctors state Terri can swallow and is not PVS.

Feb - 2000 Greer denies petition to allow Terri swallowing tests.

Apr - Terri Moved from Palm Gardens Nursing Home to Hospice Facility.

According to medical records provided to the family’s attorney, Terri has not received rehabilitative therapy since 1993.

From an article in the SPtimes:
The amount paid for Schiavo’s medical care could not be confirmed through court records.

Which part of this speaks of the devoted spouse? 

According to an AP story: Who’s paying for her care? Schiavo resides at a nonprofit hospice that has assumed part of the cost of her care. Medicaid pays for the rest.

That would mean Schiavo had her declared indigent at some point.  He no longer bears financial responsibility for her - nor does her jury award for that matter.

These indicate to me (as they did to the last guardian ad litem) a conflict of interest.  If these facts do not indicate a conflict of interest to you, I have some land on the coast of Arizona I’d like to sell you.

“Secondly, if one is concerned about the means of death then the focus should be on changing the law to allow active euthanasia.” Euthenasia is expressly forbidden in the Florida consititution.  I am guessing you agree with me that Terri Schiavo was euthenized.  This brings me to my primary issue, which is that Terri Schiavo, a disabled woman, was ordered to die a horrible death on hearsay evidence (all related to Michael Schiavo) without benefit of representation or appeal.

The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, prohibit the federal government and any state from depriving a person of “life, liberty, or property, without due process”.  Terri Schiavo did not have due process.  The court expressly ignored the guardian ad litems.

“As for being represented, her lawyers were the best the Religious Reich superfund could buy, she had something like 25 appeals/cases”
Terri Schiavo did not have lawyers.  Her parents had lawyers.  The Schindlers were represented in the beginning by well meaning cheap lawyers.  The better lawyers have only been involved in the last 3 months (with extensive media coverage)and were partially funded by disability groups. Of course, watching CNN or ABC or reading TIME you would never know that.  That is what I medan by media sheep.

Kristen, you just cannot, WILL NOT entertain the idea that she actually WANTED to die.  Tell me, if she had had a living will, would you have supported the court’s decision?  Or, like her parents admitted in court, would you have forced her to stay alive anyway, out of your own sense of morality, even cutting off gangrenous limbs if you had to, until there was barely anything left to keep for this so-called “culture of life”?

This “dogma of life” is being pushed at the expense of the living.  The political idea is more valuable than the people are.

The court expressly ignored the guardian ad litems.

Um, Ms. “Me, too” law school graduate:  The correct term is “guardians at litem.” You are fooling only yourself here.

According to an AP story: Who’s paying for her care? Schiavo resides at a nonprofit hospice that has assumed part of the cost of her care. Medicaid pays for the rest.

Her care is partly Medicaid-funded due to the fact that her lawsuit settlement has been spent paying for her care for the past 15 years.  All judges have agreed that the trustee reports (which must be filed annually in probate court) have accounted for every penny.

Give up the Kool-Aid.  It seems to be having a debilitating affect on your reasoning skills.

“Tell me, if she had had a living will, would you have supported the court’s decision?”

According to the “media” a living will which we must all rush to get will prevent cases such as this from ending up in court.

“WILL NOT entertain the idea that she actually WANTED to die”

You WILL NOT entertain the idea that someone would actually choose to live.  But that is not the issue.

My issue is the fact that she was disabled, denied treatment and therapy available to thousands more in worse condition than she, housed in a hospice inappropriately, never received the benefit of the funds that were awarded her for treatment and therapy, never given adequate representation in court, sentenced to a horrible awful ugly death.

I don’t have a problem with death.  I do have a problem with taking advantage of the disabled who cannot speak for themselves in a system that favors the speaking.

I think media sheep swallowed the whole “right to die” angle invented by MS attorney.  You are so sure that a living Terri Schiavo would impinge your “right to die” that you swallow the whole blubbering whale of the atrocities committed against her.  As you say so aptly,"The political idea is more valuable than the people are.”

Everyone has the “right to die” at any time.  There is ample supply of peaceful painless or if you prefer bloody gory methods. 

Disabled individuals deserve better than what Terri Schiavo got.

“Her care is partly Medicaid-funded due to the fact that her lawsuit settlement has been spent paying for her care for the past 15 years.”

From an article in the SPtimes:
The amount paid for Schiavo’s medical care could not be confirmed through court records.

From court records:
Attorney Gwyneth Stanley(1) $10,668.05
Attorney Deborah Bushnell(1) $49,958.15
Attorney Steve Nilson(1) $7,404.95
Attorney Pacarek(2) $1,500.00
Attorney Richard Pearse(2)$4,511.95
Attorney George Felos(1)$307,188.35
(1)Michael Schiavo’s attorneys
(2)court appointed attorneys

Um, Ms. “Me, tooâ€? law school graduate:  The correct term is “guardians at litem.â€? You are fooling only yourself here

Thanks for the spelling correction.  I am guessing you find the point regarding guardians ad litem valid.

“Tell me, if she had had a living will, would you have supported the court’s decision?�

According to the “media� a living will which we must all rush to get will prevent cases such as this from ending up in court.

That’s neither here nor there. Answer the fucking question. Had there BEEN a living will in which Terri Schiavo stated that she’d rather not receive treatment that would prolong her life should there be no hope of recovery from a PVS, would you support the withdrawal of nutrition as within her right to refuse treatment?  As her legal next-of-kin, and the person responsible for making those decisions (and to whom she ENTRUSTED the responsibility by MARRYING him) isn’t it her husband’s right to see that her wishes are carried out?

We’ve all seen the accounting of Michael Schiavo’s attorney’s fees… but what I’D really like to see is where all the money that the SCHINDLERS have received in donations has gone.  I heard the amount is in the millions of dollars.  Does such documentation exist?