Atlas Shrugs

Schiavo?

You gotta wonder how Terri Schiavo might have responded to this. Oh yeah, her murdering husband killed her with the complicity of the Demoncrats. Uh nevermind.

It could have been Terri

This breaks my heart. I was a blog for Terri and I blogged relentlessly to save that woman's life. I grieved for her, her mom, dad and family. The murderous husband is another story.
When I saw this news item today, my heart sank;

Coma Victim Awakens After 19 Years Sun Shines for All

One has to wonder what supporters of Michael Schiavo's efforts to end his wife Terry's life think when they see articles like this. The Polish man who awoke after 19 years in a coma was cared for by a loving spouse. Terry's parents would have cared for her as well if her husband had allowed them to but that was not to be. This case was regarded as a pro-life issue which in a sense it was. However as Nat Hentoff reminded us in an editorial for the Washington Times, "I covered the Terri Schiavo case for more than four years, going against nearly all of the other media in emphasizing and documenting that this was not a "right to die" case, but a disability-rights case. And that's why many leading disability-rights organizations filed legal briefs unreported by most of the press on her behalf……When Terri Schiavo died, I wrote that hers was the longest public execution in American history. Even the most monstrous murderer on death row would have received far more due process of law than she did. " Jan Grzebski was lucky to be living in Poland.

Live Blogging the John Roberts Hearings at LITTLE GREEN FOOTBALLS

I will be over at Little Green Footballs here  liveblogging the Kennedy vs. Roberts at the nomination hearings

Watch it if you wish to see good vs evil in the flesh..............FOX NEWS has Live Streaming Video here

Great post over by Caesar over at LGF:

Ted Kennedy's strategy:

Step 1)
Speak briefly about precedent that does not apply to his ultimate point.
Step 2) Try to make an argument against the nominee, so that you might justify your not voting for him.
Step 3) Watch said argument be torn apart.
Step 4) Ignore the fact that said argument has been torn apart, go back to pre-written notes based on the idea that said argument would not have been torn apart, and imply that Roberts is anti-black, pro-whitey, anti-handicapped, and anti-women.

Roberts strategy:
Step 1) Explain the law to an idiot.
Step 2) Watch the idiot make a fool out of himself as he struggles to and ultimately fails in understanding said law.
Step 3) Rinse, repeat.

15 minute break. I think Teddy is going to go get himself a few shots of vodka.

Top Photo: Fox News: Jack Roberts, John Roberts' son, yawns while sitting during the confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Photo: Fatboy's Scrapbook, hat tip Paul, LGF

UPDATE 1:05pm:  Hearings Recess for lunch.
I will continue live blogging the hearings at 2:15 pm at the Tuesday Open Thread at Little Green Footballs here, do join me and synchronize your watches.

Chuckie "WE ARE GOING TO WAR OVER THE SUPREME COURT" Schumer coming up to  bat

UPDATE: The Dems aka Fifth column had the audacity to bring up the murder of Teresa Schindler Schiavo. But that is Kennedy's specialty isn't it, making government an accessory to murder, eh?

Schiavo Judge Accepted Excessive Campaign Contributions

[Judge Greer - candidate ] A candidate may not accept a contribution in excess of $500 from any one person per election.

However, records show that George W. Greer did last year----including an extra $500 from an attorney representing Michael Schiavo

hat tip: J Crue

Terri Schiavo.......it aint over

Terri Schiavo Autopsy Released

Full story and documents can be found here:
TheSmokingGun.com

thoughts from my favorite Doc, Dr Nancy (who has no idea I would post this but I had to fro her frankness):

Did you read it?  What a carefully-written-bullshit-cover-your-ass "purge" that I've ever seen. It's like "I'll give them she didn't have an eating disorder and I won't confirm nor deny PVS, but I will say there's no evidence of abuse"--case closed-- and oh! she didn't die from starvation (whew) but dehydration (better) from lack of hydration (well how in the hell did that happen? No one gave her water, maybe?) And she shouldn't have been fed because she once had aspiration, and so could aspirate and die, so we can't have that...let's just kill her! The pies de Resistance---there were "erroneous" reports that she'd been given a morphine drip in the media-- shame!...no! she got only two doses of morphine suppositories. So it was a bit given for those worrying she might have been aware of the discomfort, but no morphine given with fluid involved in a compassionate morphine drip because G-d forbid she get fluid and the dehydration death be slowed. "I'm still open to" blah blah blah, but I didn't note that she'd be burned to bits, I mean cremated, two seconds after the autopsy so what is there to review later? What shit!

Hey Nancy, tell us what you really think!

Look guys, the bottom line for me was the mama. End of story Always defer to the mother especially when there is no living will. That mother would never have done anything to hurt that girl. Far be it from me to decide when a life is no longer worth living....defer to the mother.

BTW if she wan't bulimic how did this 26 year old go into coma? Her heart was healthy as a horse. The only one who knows that is hubby boy and he aint telling.............

Silent Witness: Terri Schindler Schiavo

The more that emerges in the Schiavo tragedy, the more merciless her murder becomes

Silent Witness: The Untold Story of Terri Schiavo's Death, offers an inside view of Terri's struggle to live despite deprivation enforced by her husband and the courts. Fuhrman recounts the efforts of her family, and allies ranging from regular students to the Pope, to save her life. "Silent Witness" provides details regarding Terri and Michael Schaivo's married life, Terri's collapse, and the subsequent medical treatment she received. Finally, readers will gain a better understanding of the woman whose death could change the national dialogue on life issues. For those who want to emphasize sanctity of life above quality of life, this book does an invalauble service towards rendering Terri's humanity an indisputeable fact. Buy it from our Book Service here.

Liberal Dominos Falling on Schiavo

Great piece from the Scrapook Section of the Weekly Standard, hands down my favorite mag edited by those two studs Bill and Fred (Krystol and Barnes). They spew their java across the keyboard when reading Joan Didion's visceral  attack on the left's  untenable and singleminded assault on those of us who believed Terri's life was worth living.  READ IT ALL

The Scrapbook almost spilled its morning coffee upon opening the June 9 issue of the New York Review of Books and finding that Joan Didion had written . . . well, a remarkably forthright and evenhanded account of the Terri Schiavo case. In fact, Didion's essay is easily the best treatment of the case since Eric Cohen's essays in these pages (see "How Liberalism Failed Terri Schiavo," April 4, 2005, and "What Living Wills Won't Do," April 18, 2005). Everyone should read it. We're not joking.

Now, we always expect that Didion's prose will be sharp. What we weren't expecting was that she would aim her blade at liberals, especially the type who labeled as "fundamentalists" all those who felt that Michael Schiavo shouldn't be allowed to kill his wife. Here's Didion:

 

That this was a situation offering space for legitimate philosophical differences seemed obvious. Yet there remained, on the "rational" side of the argument, very little acknowledgment that there could be large numbers of people, not all of whom could be categorized as "fundamentalists" or "evangelicals," who

were genuinely troubled by the ramifications of viewing a life as inadequate and so deciding to end it. There remained little acknowledgment even that the case was being badly handled, rendered unnecessarily inflammatory. There was an insensitivity in the timing of the removal of the feeding tube, which took place on the Friday before Palm Sunday, meaning that the gradual process of dying coincided with a week that for Christians has specifically to do with sacrificial suffering and death. "Oh come on," someone said when this was mentioned on a cable show. There was a further insensitivity in the fact that the tube was removed at all. If the sole intention is to terminate feeding and hydration, there is no need to remove a gastric feeding tube. All anyone need do is stop plunging the formula into the tube. . . . In this case, in the absence of some unusual circumstance that remained unreported, the sole purpose of actual removal would seem to have been to make any legally ordered resumption of feeding difficult to implement.

And here's Didion on the badly reported facts of the case:

 

Theresa Schiavo was repeatedly described as "brain dead." This was inaccurate: Those whose brains are dead are unable even to breathe, and can be kept alive only on ventilators. She was repeatedly described as "terminal." This too was inaccurate. She was "terminal" only in the sense that her husband had obtained a court order authorizing the removal of her feeding tube; her actual physical health was such that she managed to stay alive in a hospice, in which only palliative treatment is given and patients without antibiotics often die of the pneumonia that accompanies immobility or the bacteremia that accompanies urinary catheterization, for five years.

Court Forces Feeding Tube of Prisoner but Mandated Killing Terri Schiavo

Unf-ingbelievable. It's not that I'm necessarily opposed to not letting convicts kill themselves, but in the cases of Terry Schiavo and Marjorie Nighbert we killed them, but here "sanctity of life" keeps convicts alive? Perhaps if they said we think it's more torturous feeding convicts and forcing continued life than letting them die...hat tip Dr Nancy G

Court OKs forced feeding of prisoner


While reports mount of elderly and disabled Americans being starved and dehydrated to death by denial of a feeding tube – sometimes by court order – a state court has approved the force-feeding of a convicted arsonist who was trying to starve himself to death.

In a decision Thursday, Washington's Court of Appeals ruled that the state's Department of Corrections was within its rights when it forced a feeding tube on Charles R. McNabb to end his five-month hunger strike.

According to a report in the Seattle Times, McNabb, 51, had been convicted of arson and assault for burning his estranged wife's Spokane home, during which his 16-year-old stepdaughter was seriously burned. He wanted to starve himself out of remorse over his stepdaughter's trauma. McNabb refused to eat while housed in the county jail while awaiting his trial last summer, losing close to 100 pounds.

Although McNabb had argued that the feeding tube violated his right to decline medical treatment, the three-judge panel unanimously ruled: "The right to decline force-feeding is not absolute because the state has an interest in protecting the sanctity of the lives of its citizens."

The case is an ironic contrast to the increasing number of cases where courts order the removal of feeding tubes from patients fighting for life. As the current edition of Whistleblower magazine reports, the Terri Schiavo case was just the most high-profile such instance.

For instance, Whistleblower tells the story of Marjorie Nighbert, an 83-year-old Florida stroke victim who had actually asked her nursing home care-givers for a "little something to eat" and a drink of water. Yet a Florida judge ruled she was not "competent" to make such a request for food, and was starved and dehydrated to death with the full agreement of her family.

Moreover, for every high-profile case involving the courts, many other elderly and disabled Americans are being quietly "helped along" toward death before their time, behind closed doors, without public knowledge, Whistleblower reports.

For the 5-foot-9 McNabb, sentenced to 14 years, the feeding tube was a violation of his rights.

"I am declining to eat for personal reasons," he wrote in a sworn declaration in August 2004, as he filed a lawsuit, according to the Seattle Times account. "I am competent to make this choice. ... I am deeply committed to that decision and for that reason I have consistently declined to eat, except under threat of force-feeding, for almost six months."

Finally, to avoid being force-fed, soon after the feeding tube was inserted, McNabb began to eat on his own.

As the prison system's chief physician, Dr. Marc Stern, told the Times:

"One of the things we struggle with is: Where does the patient autonomy end and where does the state autonomy begin? We do have cancer patients who can't eat and choose to not eat. In that case, the patient has autonomy. You have the right to die in a dignified way. But being perfectly healthy and saying, 'I'm not going eat,' that's where your autonomy ends and our autonomy begins."

I have One Word for Miracle Recovery: SCHIAVO!

How about this?

BUFFALO FIREMAN REGAINS CONSCIOUSNESS

A Buffalo firefighter who apparently suffered brain damage in a 1995 burning roof collapse and has since been virtually silent and nearly blind had a sudden unexplained recovery on Saturday, animatedly speaking to family and friends and trying to recover a lost decade.

Donald Herbert was 34 when he rushed into a burning apartment building on Dec. 29, 1995.

Watch Multiband Video:
Firefighter's Amazing Recovery

"How long have I been gone?" the puzzled firefighter, Donald Herbert, 44, asked in a 14-hour marathon of hugs, kisses, reunions and conversations with his wife, four sons, other relatives and old firefighter comrades.

"We told him almost 10 years, and he said 'Holy cow!' " Simon A. Manka, his uncle, recalled yesterday. "He thought it had been three months."

In a news conference at Father Baker Manor, a skilled nursing home in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park, where Mr. Herbert has been a patient for seven years, Mr. Manka said his nephew - who has passed most days in a wheelchair in front of a television set - abruptly returned to life and "began to speak after nine and a half years of silence."

Pending medical tests, Mr. Manka said, the extent and the probable duration of Mr. Herbert's recovery are unknown. "However, we can tell you he did recognize several family members and friends and did call them by name."

It happened out of the blue Saturday morning, a nursing home employee said.

"I want to talk to my wife," Mr. Herbert was quoted as saying. A staff member called his wife, Linda, but it was his youngest son, Nicholas, 13, who picked up the phone and began speaking.

"That can't be," Mr. Herbert said. "He's just a baby. He can't talk."

Nicholas was indeed a toddler when Mr. Herbert, then a 34-year-old member of a fire rescue squad, rushed into a burning two-and-a-half story apartment building in Buffalo on the morning of Dec. 29, 1995. He wore a breathing mask against heavy smoke and was searching the attic for victims when the roof collapsed.

PWR: I Still Can't Believe She's Dead

I still can't believe TERRI SCHIAVO IS DEAD. But her harsh death--- suffered by her, her family and us (her supporters) must come to some good end.

Terri's life and judicial murder created empathy, activism, and political involvement in the usual cast of likely pundits but more importantly in regular folks who by and large never get involved in the political process.

Clearly, if we  (Terri's supporters) channel our passion into real democratic reform, we can prevent future murders and gross injustices from ever happening again.

Reading back on Wesley Smith's piece in the Weekly Standard a few weeks back, he makes good sense on some initial recommendations:

* First, as it is the law of the land to prevent discrimination against disabled people via the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), then surely these protections should apply explicitly where they are needed most desperately, in medical situations where discrimination can have lethal consequences. Obviously, legislation would have to be carefully worded to prevent overreaching and unintended consequences. But disabled people need to be able to enter hospitals and other medical institutions secure in the knowledge that the law requires their lives be just as valued and protected as those of patients who are not disabled. As matters stand now, some disabled people fear hospitalization precisely because they worry that their lives will be judged as being of insufficient quality to be sustained. The Terri Schiavo case exacerbates those fears.

* States need to review their laws of informed consent and refusal of medical treatment to ensure that casual conversations--the basis for Terri's death order--are never again deemed to be the legal equivalent of a well-thought-out, written advance medical directive. We don't permit the property of the deceased to be distributed based on their oral statements; surely human lives deserve as much protection.

* If people don't want feeding tubes if they become profoundly incapacitated, the law permits them to refuse such care. That isn't going to change. But if that is their desire, they have the responsibility to make sure that such wishes are put in a legally binding document. Absent that, the law should require the courts in contested cases to give every reasonable benefit of the doubt to sustaining life and not causing death by dehydration.

* Along these lines, our laws should be more nuanced. When people claim they would want the "plug pulled," many are worrying about being tethered to beeping machines in sterile intensive care units, not expressing a desire to be slowly dehydrated to death over 10-14 days. In the face of this potential misapprehension, we should create a distinction in law between food and water supplied through a tube and other forms of medical care. Withholding a respirator or antibiotics can lead to uncertain results. Take away anyone's food and water and they will die.

* Judge George Greer's embrace of Michael Schiavo's legal status as "husband" to Terri in the face of the pronounced personal and financial conflicts of interest he faced in making her life and death decisions may not require an explicit change of law. But surely we have every right to demand that judges remain acutely sensitive to changes in circumstances that often emerge over time in situations faced by families like Terri's. Why Judge Greer did not think it a matter of grave import that Michael had two children with another woman, even as he petitioned the court to hasten the day when death would part him from his wedded wife, will always be a source of bitter wonder to Terri's supporters.

Howard Dracula Dean Sucks Schiavo's Blood for Political Gain! But its all good,cuz it's the left so it's ok

So the moonbats, the LLL, the Media elite went nuts when that memo written by a staffer was erroneously passed onto Tom Harkin vis vis  junior member Martinez  regarding the "talking points" on the NOW DEAD Schiavo...........................that was a "HORROR, a TRAVESTY"..........but Howard Dean using Terri's death to his politcal ends, well thats cool right? This from my favorite boy Taranto

101 Uses for a Dead Lady
"We're going to use Terri Schiavo later on," Howard Dean told a gay-rights group in West Hollywood, Calif., the other day--a creepy pronouncement even by the standards of 21st-century Democrats. (Yeah, we know, the Republican "talking points memo" was just as bad--or rather it would have been had the author been the head of the party.) The Democratic National Committee's chairman, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, elaborates:

"This is going to be an issue in 2006, and it's going to be an issue in 2008," Dean told about 200 people at a gay rights group's breakfast in West Hollywood, "because we're going to have an ad with a picture of Tom DeLay saying, 'Do you want this guy to decide whether you die or not? Or is that going to be up to your loved ones?' "

Hmm, do we detect a theme here? From Friday's USA Today:

Dean says his party needs to do more to appeal to voters who have been lost because of unease over "values," including people who oppose abortion. . . .

Democrats get "caught" in defending abortion, he said. "Well, there's nobody who's pro-abortion, not Democratic or Republican. What we want to debate is who gets to choose: (House Majority Leader) Tom DeLay and the federal politicians? Or does a woman get to make up her own mind?"

So the Dems are going to appeal to people who oppose abortion by using the same old slogan of "Who decides?"--a slogan that is persuasive only to those who are already persuaded that there is nothing more to the question than this. Dean seems to think that somehow throwing Tom DeLay into the mix is going to relieve voters of whatever qualms they have about abortion.

More Disgusting Developments on the Slippery Slope of Terri Schiavo's Death

Running late.......gotta get to san Jose airport......never made to the Al Awad Pali Right to Return "confab"..........counldnt leave my LGF minions.....had such a blast will post pics later expressly of those that gave permission...............many anon lizards!

Back to our regularly scheduled programming:

Terri Schiavo’s case in Chicago

In a house on Chicago’s southeast side, a Mexican family is going through a heartbreak
like the tragedy that befell the American Terri Schiavo’s family and deeply affected both
 those who defend the right to life and partisans of euthanasia. But no voices had been raise
d so far in this case because very few knew about the situation concerning the 39-year-old
 Latin woman whose husband decided to disconnect the tube that had been feeding her during her three and a half years in a vegetative state.

 
As of the close of this edition, Clara Martinez, 39 years old and mother of two children aged five and seven years – had been almost 30 days without food and was still alive, taking only water. For the last year she has been cared for in her home, with special medical equipment installed in the living room, while the rest of the family try to go on with their lives.

More Tales from the Crypt: Terris Legacy

Have you heard the one about the 81 year old Grandma..........basically Terri saved this woman's life;  Mae Magouirk, the 81-year-old Georgia widow over whose medical care a family tug-of-war reminiscent of the Terri Schiavo case has been raging, had been transported from the hospice in LaGrange, Ga., to the University of Alabama-Birmingham Medical Center, according to her nephew, where "she is receiving food, fluids, cardiac care and neurological help."

Under the terms of an April 4 court order, Magouirk's medical treatment was to be decided by three cardiologists tasked with deciding what treatment would be best and where it should take place.

Pending that decision, Mullinax, 45, has contended that his aunt had been without substantial food or hydration for 10 days at the hospice.

As WND reported, Magouirk was not terminally ill, comatose, nor in a persistent vegetative state, when Hospice-LaGrange accepted her as a patient upon the request of her granddaughter, Elizabeth ("Beth") Gaddy, 36, of LaGrange. Also upon Gaddy's request, the hospice began withholding food and water from the patient.

When she learned of this, Magouirk's sister Lonnie Ruth Mullinax, 74, of Birmingham, and her brother, A.B. McLeod, 64, of Anniston, Ala., protested and attempted to have their sister removed from the hospice and transported to UAB Medical Center for treatment. However, Gaddy and her brother, Michael Shane Magouirk, obtained an emergency injunction from Troup County Probate Judge Donald Boyd to prevent the planned air transport.

On April 9th, Magouirk's nephew Ken Mullinax, who had been fighting to have his aunt removed from Hospice-LaGrange in LaGrange, Ga., where, he said, she had not been properly fed or hydrated, contacted WorldNetDaily with this phone message:

Because of your articles and all of the friends of Terri, my Aunt Mae Magouirk is now in the University of Alabama-Birmingham Medical Center and is receiving food, fluids, cardiac care and neurological help. We are overjoyed.

Praise be the name of the Lord, praise be all of the friends of Terri Schindler [Schiavo]. We could never have mobilized public sentiment and pressure on these people in LaGrange, Ga. – at Hospice, the LaGrange, Ga., doctors or the probate judge – unless the friends of Terri and the wonderful media of WorldNetDaily.com had become involved. Thank you all

Thought is was over and all good on the 9th of April? uh uh.............check this latest nightmare development out in the battle to save Mae............

Closest kin prevented
from visiting 'grandma'

Family in dispute over fate of 81-year-old whose granddaughter cut off nourishment

In an intense life-and-death tug-of-war reminiscent of the Terri Schiavo case, the fate of Ora Mae Magouirk is still raging, despite the transfer Saturday of the 81-year-old widow to the University of Alabama-Birmingham Medical Center in Birmingham for treatment of an aorta dissection.

In the latest twist to the saga, Magouirk's granddaughter, Beth Gaddy, 36, of LaGrange, Ga, who is also her temporary guardian, barred immediate next-of-kin from visiting the stricken woman. No explanation was given, nor were the relatives notified.

Dr. Death wrong in 1980, the ongoing MURDER investigation of Terri Schiavo

This story will never go away, not as long as there is breath in my body. This was MURDER of an innocent woman, plain and simple. In the name of what, I don't know, we ripped this woman from the bosom of her loving and devoted family to be uh ........what was it again "merciful".

Look I still haven't gotten over this and I hope I never do. Please tell me that you are not so  inured  that you "wish it would just go away". This woman could not have died for nothing! Laws must be changed. I t will be your turn one day.

Schiavo's 'Dr. Humane Death' Got 1980 Diagnosis Wrong
A neurologist hired by Michael Schiavo to confirm that his wife Terri was in a persistent vegetative state said he was "105 percent sure" of that diagnosis, but Dr. Ronald Cranford expressed similar certainty about a patient he examined in 1980 who later regained both consciousness and the ability to communicate.

Three days before Terri Schiavo's death, Cranford appeared on the MSNBC talk program, "Scarborough Country," to discuss her condition. Cranford was interviewed by reporter Lisa Daniels.

CRANFORD: I am 105 percent sure she is in a vegetative state. And the autopsy will show severe irreversible brain damage to the higher centers, yes.

DANIELS: Why are you so sure, doctor?

CRANFORD: Because I examined her ...

Cranford - who is assistant chief in neurology at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, Minn., professor of neurology at the University of Minnesota Medical School and a faculty associate at the university's Center for Bioethics - went on to call another neurologist who disagreed with his diagnosis "a charlatan" and accused Daniels of being "stupid."

Host and former U.S. Rep. Joe Scarborough interrupted to defend Daniels, touching off a clash with Cranford, which included the doctor admonishing Scarborough with: "You've got to get your facts straight."

Cranford also certain, but wrong about 1980 diagnosis

Cranford expressed similar certainty about another patient he declared to be in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) in 1980, former Minneapolis Police Sgt. David Mack.

''Sergeant Mack will never regain cognitive, sapient functioning,'' Cranford said six months after Mack was shot while serving a search warrant on Dec. 13, 1979. ''He will never be aware of his condition nor resume any degree of meaningful voluntary conscious interaction with his family or friends.''

Based on Cranford's unequivocal diagnosis of Mack, the officer's relatives removed him from a respirator in August 1980 "because his family felt he should be allowed to die rather than exist in such a state," according to published reports.

But Mack did not die.

so tell me again why this doctor was allowed to make such a critical call again

Brainwashed:How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth

Ben's first book!
Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth
Recent college grad Ben Shapiro reveals how America's university system is one of the largest brainwashing machines on the planet. Examining this nationwide problem from firsthand experience, Shapiro shows how the leftists who dominate the universities use their power to mold impressionable minds. Save 32% when you buy Ben's book this week!

Ben is a wonderful clear thinker. Young and Smart (we love that). If you want to better understand the hijacking of the American university and college curriculum, here is a book you should read.
And if you haven't read Ben Shapiro's summation of the Terri Schiavo Judicial Murder, read this now.

Rebuilding a culture of life: In                       memoriam

Ben Shapiro (archive)

"Even in the midst of difficulties and uncertainties, every person sincerely open to truth and goodness can ... come to recognize ... the sacred value of human life from its very beginning until its end, and can affirm the right of every human being to have this primary good respected to the highest degree. Upon the recognition of this right, every human community and the political community itself are founded … "

On Friday, March 18, at about 1:45 p.m., Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was removed. So began the state-sanctioned killing of a 41-year-old brain-damaged woman. At the insistence of her husband, Michael, Terri Schiavo was slowly starved to death. "She has verbally expressed her wishes to me and other people," Michael told ABC's "Nightline." Michael, who since Terri's heart attack has sired two children by another woman, insisted that the procedure would be painless. "Terri will not be starved to death. Her nutrition and hydration will be taken away … Death through removing somebody's nutrition is very painless." Terri's parents, believing Catholics, sat helpless beside Terri's bed as the tube was removed.

 "Such attacks strike human life at the time of its greatest frailty, when it lacks any means of self-defense. Even more serious is the fact that, most often, those attacks are carried out in the very heart of and with the complicity of the family -- the family which by its nature is called to be the 'sanctuary of life' … "

  "What they're doing is, they're making the decisions for us," Michael indignantly explained to ABC. "That's what this country is coming down to. They're going to make the decisions for us … Big Brother is going to do that." According to Michael, it was his right to make the decision for Terri, without any proof beyond his word that his wife would have wanted to die. "I still have a big commitment to Terri," Michael stated. "I made her a promise." Michael made another promise, before God, on the day of his wedding: "Until death do us part." The same God ordered: "Thou shalt not murder."

Terri's Death Spurs Critical Debate and Change

Here is a hopeful sign that Terri's death may have not been in vain (small consolation I know). This on the AP:

The arguments surrounding Terri Schiavo will live on in statehouse debate and new laws if an emerging coalition of disability rights activists and right-to-lifers succeed in turning the national agony over her case into a re-examination of when and how our lives come to an end.

So far, only a few legislators in a handful of states have sought significant changes to their laws, which define the fundamental elements at stake - how a person can set limits on their medical care, who gets to decide what their wishes are, what evidence is needed to prove it.

None have yet become law and the chances for most, if not all, are slim this year, with some legislatures finished and many far along in their work for this session. But both Republicans and Democrats say the arguments aren't going away.

The debate is an effort to strike a new balance between one stance that argues that medical care and morality mean life must be pursued in nearly all cases, and another stance, crafted over decades of changing views about death, that some may choose to end drastically damaged lives that depend on artificial means. Hat tip Judith W, Liberal Hawk

IN OTHER SCHIAVO RELATED NEWS:
This poll reveals disquieting insight  on America's prejudices and priorities;

Civil Rights In The Schiavo Case
Controversy over the case of Terri Schiavo has left a divided public grappling with fundamental questions about the right to life and the breadth of government power. A new Zogby poll conducted for the Christian Defense Coalition found that 57 percent of likely voters agreed that the "representative branch of government should intervene when the judicial branch appears to deny basic rights to minorities," compared to 33 percent who say it should not. But when the same question was tweaked to change "minorities" to "the disabled," the number of people who agreed with government intervention dropped to 42 percent. Forty-eight percent disagreed.

According to the poll's analysis, the survey found overwhelming consensus when the question turned to government intervention in cases when civil rights were denied. Nearly three-quarters of respondents said it is proper for the federal government to intervene in such a case; about one in five disagreed.
Hat Tip Catherine the Great, Liberal Hawk

I Told You! The Bastards were Complicit in Her Murder

First off, I am n ot back yet so don't get excited..............things too crazy and so much psychotic cyber stuff happening (too innane to recount) but thanks to our sagacious Florida  Doc - Dr Nancy G...........I had to to do an "I told you so" The MSM strikes again...this from the Toronto Free Press

Mainstream media unreported conflicts of interest in Schiavo tragedy

by Judi McLeod, Editor,
   Thursday, March 31, 2005   

  Every time a rock is lifted in the Terri Schiavo tragedy, another conflict of interest comes slithering out.

The conflict-of-interest potential in the right-to-die connections among current figures involved in the case are only outdone by the Woodside Hospice board of director’s conflict of interest reality.

There’s the death-is-beautiful, right-to-die activist Michael Schiavo attorney George Felos.

Don’t make eye contact with Felos, who claims he can ascertain a person’s desire to die by "looking into their eyes" and letting their spirits speak directly to him.

A jumped-up volunteer at Woodside Hospice, Felos became chairman of the Hospice of the Florida Suncoast, which runs Woodside, and only came off the board about a year after Michael Schiavo placed his estranged wife there.

Then there’s Dr. Ronald Cranford, handpicked by Michael Schiavo to examine Terri and on whose say-so Terri was categorized in "persistent vegetative state". Cranford is the MD who officially ordered Terri’s feeding tube removed on March 18. A neurologist, Cranford testifies in cases such as Terri’s around the country, always pumping the dehydration and starvation side. He was 1992’s featured speaker for the pro-euthanasia Hemlock Society, which was renamed The Choice in Dying Society. (WorldNetDaily).

  Cranford nicknamed himself,  "Dr. Humane Death".

A bioethicist, and a pioneer in euthanasia and right-to-die issues, Dr. Humane Death is a fully-fledged member of The Choice in Dying Society.

  At least Cranford is not a board member of the Hospice of the Florida Suncoast.

Mary Labyak, CEO of Woodside Hospice has direct ties to the Euthanasia Society of America and Hemlock for Hospice, described by Hyscience.com as "an organization that seeks to accelerate the dying process."

Has Judge Greer ruled on Pulling the Pope's Feeding Tube?

I cannot get over the death of Terri. It was a state sponsored murder. We of the "culture of life". We fighting suicide bombers. And this romantization of death is really cracked - "dying with dignity" WTF?

From Judicial Watch:Terri  Schiavo’s death by dehydration and starvation has now set a legal precedent for  the murder of innocent, disabled and voiceless adults.  The judiciary’s active  participation in killing Ms. Schiavo was disgraceful.  Our elected politicians  neglected their duty to protect innocent life as well.   

Florida

state courts and  federal courts have degraded the sanctity of human life.  This court-sanctioned  killing of an innocent is an awful new low for an activist judiciary.  The  American public needs to communicate to officials at the state and federal  levels their revulsion at the judiciary’s arrogance and increasing appetite for  allowing and, in this case, ordering the killing of innocent, vulnerable  people.  For its part, Judicial Watch will continue to promote the “Culture of  Life” and fight to preserve innocent lives.

I  often quote James Taranto over at the Opinion Journal because he gets it right..................

By JAMES TARANTO

 

 

 

Terri Schiavo,  RIP After 13 days of court-ordered dehydration and starvation, Terri Schiavo is dead. CNN reports her husband, Michael, barred her parents from her bedside before she perished:

 

 

John Centonze, the brother of Michael Schiavo's live-in girlfriend Jodi Centonze, said Michael Schiavo was with Terri Schiavo when she died.

 

A friend who phoned Michael Schiavo soon after news broke of his wife's death said he couldn't talk. "He (Michael) couldn't speak, he was crying," Russ Hyden said.

 

That John Centonze is certainly a mensch. It's not every guy who would make time to act as the spokesman for his sister's live-in boyfriend who's just lost his wife.

Terri is DEAD. May G-d Rest her Soul. My thoughts, prayers and heartache are with the Schindlers

I am so sorry we failed you...............G-d forgive us
She had no living will.

Terri is Just the Tip of an Ongoing Campaign of Murder of the Severely disabled

Wittingshire, the blog reports on the following crimes against humanity. Apparently Schiavo type murders are taking place on a daily basis. These stories are horrifying...........Click on Wittingshire's blog for all of it.

Schiavo Isn't the Only One

 

John  West, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Associate  Director of the Center for Science and Culture. John says:

As part of a book project I've been working on, I've gone into the medical and legal literature of this area in depth, and I have been appalled at the flimsy evidence usually accepted by trial courts who make a determination of PVS [Persistent Vegetative State]. In virtually every major case I'm aware of, there were serious disagreements by doctors and nurses in the trial record, but the judges simply disregarded those disagreements. As long as one doctor, on whatever grounds, argued for a diagnosis of PVS, that was enough--no matter what evidence existed against the diagnosis.He then gives a long list of disturbing examples:

 

A court case from New York that occurred during the same time as the Cruzan litigation dramatized the possibility that some doctors were overstepping the medical evidence when advocating the removal of food and hydration.

Eighty-six year old stroke victim Carrie Coons was declared to be in a PVS by her doctors, who insisted that her condition was irreversible. Based on this medical testimony, the judge in the case ordered Coons' feeding tube removed. But before the order could be carried out, Carrie's roomate in the hospital pled with her to do something, "Come on, Carrie, you need to eat, or you're going to die." Nurses also tried to give Carrie another chance, and soon she was eating pudding, drinking juice-and talking. "I didn't realize anyone cared," she commented. The judge rescinded his earlier order, but was left wondering how medical experts who had been so sure of themselves could have been so completely wrong.

Other food-and-hydration cases have expanded the circle well beyond PVS patients to include those who are clearly conscious. In 1987 the daughter of 92-year-old Anna Hirth of California sought to have her mother's feeding tube removed over the objections of her mother's doctor. An Alzheimer's patient, the elderly Mrs. Hirth had suffered additional brain damage after a choking incident. Yet her doctor insisted that Mrs. Hirth was conscious, felt pain, tracked people with her eyes, and could even take in small amounts of fluid by mouth. Mrs. Hirth was eventually removed from the care of her doctor and transferred to another nursing facility, where she died just a few days later.

During the same year, Michigan resident Michael Martin received an incapacitating brain injury in a car-train accident. Although mentally disabled, he was not in a persistent vegetative state. He could "carry out some voluntary motor commands... recognize faces, and... communicate with other people through head nods." He was "conscious, alert, appears happy, plays card games, and loves country-western music." His post-accident IQ was apparently in "the range for someone mildly retarded."

As in the Schiavo case, it was Michael's spouse who sought to end his life by removing his feeding tube, but his mother and sister fought the effort in court. Unlike in the Schiavo case, however, Michael's spouse Mary openly acknowledged that her husband was "conscious, awake" and not in a PVS. But that did not seem to matter. She still regarded him as less than human. "He does nothing but smile," she complained at a conference in 1998. She added that patients like Michael "could be the organ donors who are so desperately needed." hat tip Judith, Hawks

Some of those situations are just evil. Begging for water and being ignored... It is blowing me away.. It slso shows that the judges to decide on death.

Also mara sent me a copy of a medical report on Terri Schiavo, from a neurologist who examined her for 5 hours. (Cranston, in comparison,
saw her for 45 minutes.) Check it out in NewMax.

Oh and also, JCRUE (thanks sweetie) sent me this on the Blind Judge Greer that decided Terri's fate.................Ben Stein's Article in  the Spectator

 

   

To Be Absolutely  Frank
Simply  Terrifying
By Ben  Stein
Published  3/25/2005 11:38:48 AM

   

Here is what makes me furious about the Terri Schiavo case, short and  sweet.

The courts of the United States can find a right for the abortion industry to take a fully formed, totally healthy baby at nine months' term, out of his mother's womb and murder it by putting scissors through his brain and grinding them about.

They do this without one single word of support from  any Congressional act of any kind ever.

They can find a right of savage murderers of innocent women who drown them for a lark to avoid the death penalty because they are old enough to drive and to kill but supposedly too young to be executed. Again, there is not one syllable in any Congressional act that sanctions this protection of the guilty.

But with the Congress and the President of the United States pleading for the life of a woman who is not brain dead, who responds to words and to touch, who is not on life support, whose parents beg for her to be kept alive, whose nurses give affidavits that she can be rehabilitated, with a specific law commanding the courts to review the case to keep this poor soul alive, the courts instead find no rights for her.

Please read it all.............this is cold blooded murder................apathy is a crime

Bill O'Reilly Makes John Kerry look Like an Amateur

Did anyone see the clownish intelllectual antics of O'Reilly tonight? He gives flip flop a bad name.

In the Factor talking points, O'Reilly says he agrees with Judge Greer's decision - the judge that rendered Michael Schiavo's hearsay rendition of a "living will" as a legal document (even though friends close to Terri said she would want no such thing, and of course we know the Schindler's family position). But still, His magnificence admonishes anyone that would deny those fighting for Terri ................ aw
So magnanimous Bill! Thanks

And yet............later on in the program he takes the ACLU on (no friend of mine, mind you) for promoting a culture of death in defending the "Terri's right to privacy [to die]". He is such a full of shitnik.

According to Bill, she was already "dead".....the brain dead argument. Whos the hell died and made him G-d to say her life is unworthy of living. Would Bill kill all severely disabled citizens? That is the very argument he is making.......

And to my girl Terri, I believe (and yes it is merely a belief) that Terri is holding on as long and hard as she is because she is dying to LIVE. TO LIVE! Otherwise, why not let go?

Asher sent me these interesting talking points:As for the "other side" on this issue, I think there are various factors which  may motivate different people.

(1) A genuine concern for  individual rights and the freedom to make one's own decisions.  Exactly  as you have said, we have a visceral horror of being deprived of our freedom to  move and to act.
(2) Lack of information. This case has been around for years, but it's been on the back burner. Many people may feel they still need more time to form an opinion.
(3) Defensiveness about  right-to-die issues. Some people may fear that Schiavo will be used by pro-life absolutists as evidence for the "slippery slope" argument. I would argue that this is exactly why right-to-die partisans should have advocated in favor of saving Terri - because this case is an example of everything that can go wrong, and if we can't get this one right, then the pro-life people will invoke the "slippery slope" theory AND THEY'LL BE RIGHT.
(4) Biases  stemming from a perception of Schiavo as a "right-wing" cause. It's unfortunate, but - as all of us in this group know - it's still a factor for a lot of people. [Note: I do not exclude myself on this one! At first I came to the case with a similar bias. Live and learn.]
(5)  Misogyny.  Pure and simple.  No one will admit to it, but it's  there.
(6) Appetite for destruction. Peggy Noonan was right. If we didn't know it before, the last few years have taught us that there is an atavistic, nihilistic element on the Left (and elsewhere) that seeks only death and destruction. "You desire life, and we desire death." And I really do think that there are people out there - individuals and groups - who are "in love with death" and who will use causes like "death with dignity" to advance their own twisted desires. Remember Dr. Kevorkian? He sounded reasonable enough, at first. Jonestown, Aum Shinrikyo, Bo and Peep - more tragic examples. That's why, although I remain cautious, I don't discount speculation of a cult connection (in this case Dianetics) with Schiavo.

It should be obvious - but I'll spell it out anyway - that not all of these points apply to everyone. I believe our best strategy is to stand firm, continue making strong arguments, and trust that reasonable people will eventually come around. When decent, undecided people begin to take a look at some of the folks from groups (5) and (6) above, they may begin to give more weight to the positive arguments in favor of our side

Nat Hentoff Gets Schiavo Right! Right to Live

Terri Schiavo: Judicial  Murder

Her crime was being disabled, voiceless, and at the disposal of our  media

by Nat  Hentoff
March  29th, 2005 10:59 AM
 For all the world to  see, a 41-year-old woman, who has committed no crime, will die of dehydration  and starvation in the longest public execution in American  history.

She is not brain-dead or  comatose, and breathes naturally on her own. Although brain-damaged, she is not  in a persistent vegetative state, according to an increasing number of  radiologists and neurologists.

Among many  other violations of her due process rights, Terri Schiavo has never been allowed  by the primary judge in her case—Florida Circuit Judge George Greer, whose  conclusions have been robotically upheld by all the courts above him—to have her  own lawyer represent her.

Greer has declared  Terri Schiavo to be in a persistent vegetative state, but he has never gone to  see her. His eyesight is very poor, but surely he could have visited her along  with another member of his staff. Unlike people in a persistent vegetative  state, Terri Schiavo is indeed responsive beyond mere  reflexes.

While lawyers and judges have  engaged in a minuet of death, the American Civil Liberties Union, which would be  passionately criticizing state court decisions and demanding due process if  Terri were a convict on death row, has shamefully served as co-counsel for her  husband, Michael Schiavo, in his insistent desire to have her  die.

Months ago, in discussing this case with  ACLU executive director Anthony Romero, and later reading ACLU statements, I saw  no sign that this bastion of the Bill of Rights has ever examined the facts  concerning the egregious conflicts of interest of her husband and guardian  Michael Schiavo, who has been living with another woman for years, with whom he  has two children, and has violated a long list of his legal responsibilities as  her guardian, some of them directly preventing her chances for improvement.  Judge Greer has ignored all of them.

In  February, Florida's Department of Children and Families presented Judge Greer  with a 34-page document listing charges of neglect, abuse, and exploitation of  Terri by her husband, with a request for 60 days to fully investigate the  charges. Judge Greer, soon to remove Terri's feeding tube for the third time,  rejected the 60-day extension. (The media have ignored these charges, and much  of what follows in this article.)

Michael  Schiavo, who says he loves and continues to be devoted to Terri, has provided no  therapy or rehabilitation for his wife (the legal one) since 1993. He did have  her tested for a time, but stopped all testing in 1993. He insists she once told  him she didn't want to survive by artificial means, but he didn't mention her  alleged wishes for years after her brain damage, while saying he would care for  her for the rest of his life.

Terri Schiavo  has never had an MRI or a PET scan, nor a thorough neurological examination.  Republican Senate leader Bill Frist, a specialist in heart-lung transplant  surgery, has, as The New York Times reported on March 23, "certified [in  his practice] that patients were brain dead so that their organs could be  transplanted." He is not just "playing doctor" on this case.

During a speech on the Senate floor on March 17, Frist, speaking  of Judge Greer's denial of a request for new testing and examinations of Terri,  said reasonably, "I would think you would want a complete neurological exam"  before determining she must die.

Frist added:  "The attorneys for Terri's parents have submitted 33 affidavits from doctors and  other medical professionals,all of whom say that Terri should be  re-evaluated."

In death penalty cases, defense  counsel for retarded and otherwise mentally disabled clients submit extensive  medical tests. Ignoring the absence of complete neurological exams, supporters  of the deadly decisions by Judge Greer and the trail of appellate jurists keep  reminding us how extensive the litigation in this case has been—19 judges in six  courts is the mantra. And more have been added. So too in many death penalty  cases, but increasingly, close to execution, inmates have been saved by  DNA.

As David Gibbs, the lawyer for Terri's  parents, has pointed out, there has been a manifest need for a new federal,  Fourteenth Amendment review of the case because Terri's death sentence has been  based on seven years of "fatally flawed" state court findings—all based on the  invincible neglect of elementary due process by Judge George  Greer.

I will be returning to the legacy of  Terri Schiavo in the weeks ahead because there will certainly be long-term  reverberations from this case and its fracturing of the rule of law in the  Florida courts and then the federal courts—as well as the disgracefully ignorant  coverage of the case by the great majority of the media, including such pillars  of the trade as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The  Miami Herald, and the Los Angeles Times as they copied each other's  misinformation, like Terri Schiavo being "in a persistent vegetative  state."

Do you know that nearly every major  disability rights organization in the country has filed a legal brief in support  of Terri's right to live?

But before I go back  to other Liberty Beats—the CIA's torture renditions and the whitewashing of the  landmark ACLU and Human Rights First's lawsuit against Donald Rumsfeld for his  accountability in the widespread abuse of detainees, including evidence of  torture—I must correct the media and various "qualified experts" on how a person  dies of dehydration if he or she is sentient, as Terri Schiavo demonstrably  is.

On March 15's Nightline, in an  appallingly one-sided, distorted account of the Schiavo case, Terri's husband,  Michael—who'd like to marry the woman he's now living with—said that once  Terri's feeding tube is removed at his insistent command, Terri "will drift off  into a nice little sleep and eventually pass on and be with  God."

As an atheist, I cannot speak to what he  describes as his abandoned wife's ultimate destination, but I can tell how  Wesley Smith (consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture)—whom I often  consult on these bitterly controversial cases because of his carefully  researched books and articles—describes death by  dehydration.

In his book Forced Exit  (Times Books), Wesley quotes neurologist William Burke: "A conscious person  would feel it [dehydration] just as you and I would. . . . Their skin cracks,  their tongue cracks, their lips crack. They may have nosebleeds because of the  drying of the mucous membranes, and heaving and vomiting might ensue because of  the drying out of the stomach lining.

"They  feel the pangs of hunger and thirst. Imagine going one day without a glass of  water! . . . It is an extremely agonizing death."

On March 23, outside the hospice where Terri Schiavo was growing  steadily weaker, her mother, Mary, said to the courts and to anyone who would  listen and maybe somehow save her daughter:

"Please stop this cruelty!"

While this cruelty was going on in the hospice, Michael Schiavo's  serpentine lawyer, George Felos, said to one and all: "Terri is stable,  peaceful, and calm. . . . She looked beautiful."

During the March 21 hearing before Federal Judge James D.  Whittemore, who was soon to be another accomplice in the dehydration of Terri,  the relentless Mr. Felos, anticipating the end of the deathwatch, said to the  judge:

"Yes, life is sacred, but so is  liberty, your honor, especially in this country."

It would be useless, but nonetheless, I would like to inform  George Felos that, as Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas said: "The  history of liberty is the history of due process"—fundamental  fairness.

Contrary to what you've read and  seen in most of the media, due process has been lethally absent in Terri  Schiavo's long merciless journey through the American court  system.

"As to legal concerns," writes William  Anderson—a senior psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a lecturer  at Harvard University—"a guardian may refuse any medical treatment, but drinking  water is not such a procedure. It is not within the power of a guardian to  withhold, and not in the power of a rational court to  prohibit."

Ralph Nader agrees. In a statement  on March 24, he and Wesley Smith (author of, among other books, Culture of  Death: The Assault of Medical Ethics in America) said: "The court is  imposing process over justice. After the first trial [before Judge Greer],  much evidence has been produced that should allow for a new trial—which was the  point of the hasty federal legislation.

Hat tip:Catherine

Schiavo Tragedy: " Evolutionary Biology & Blood Thicker than Water, Children never Divorce their Parents, while Spouses Divorce Spouses all the Time"

For those of you on the fence or internally debating "rule of law" with "humanity and morality", I implore you to read Henniger's Piece in the Opinionjournal........everything that is right and wrong with this human tragedy is boiled down to its essential oils right here.
hat tip Catherine the Great

In Solomon's Absence
The Schiavo case made bad law and  good politics.
BY DANIEL HENNINGER

If we lived amid the wisdom of Solomon, Terri Schiavo would be turned over to her loving parents and family. If it is their wish to live out their lives attending the constant needs of their damaged child, so be it. However, we live in an age bereft of the wisdom of Solomon, and so Terri Schiavo is likely to die. That the American legal system is incapable of common sense is very upsetting, but I don't see why it should be found surprising or shocking.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined yesterday to intervene in the Schiavo case. The original court decision, the basis and cause for all that we have witnessed the past several weeks, was rendered in February 2000 in Pinellas County Circuit Court by Judge George W. Greer.

It is true that Judge Greer has ruled against Terri Schiavo's parents, the Schindlers, many times. But by my count, in the five years from the original circuit court decision, the rulings against them include the following:

Florida's appeals court: eight times; the Florida Supreme Court: five times; U.S. federal courts: five times; the U.S. Supreme Court: three times.

This is a lot of judges. Some of the opinions are long discourses combing back through the details of the case. It is difficult for me to believe that these are all "liberal" judges intent on "killing" Terri Schiavo.

  For the record, let us examine the  basis for Judge Greer's original decision to withhold artificial life  support.

Judge Greer decided to pursue what Terri's wishes were and said  he was guided by a Florida Supreme Court case called Guardianship of Estelle  M. Browning. It set three tests, one of which is that "the evidence of the  patient's oral declaration is reliable."

"This is the issue before the court," Judge Greer wrote. "All of the other collateral issues [such as the beliefs of family concerning end-of-life decisions] truly are not relevant to the issue which the court must decide."

Judge Greer then cited testimony taken from Michael Schiavo's brother and sister-in-law, who said Terri had said, "I don't want to be kept alive on a machine" and several similar statements. Judge Greer said this "rises to the level of clear and convincing evidence to this court."

These are the trial court's findings of fact, and in our system all subsequent appeals courts give great deference to these original findings. Several lengthy appeals court rulings also cited Terri's "oral" declarations. This is the reason we are hearing so much now about living wills and the like.

This doesn't make it any easier to accept the trial  court's decision. Depriving the Schindlers of the chance to minister to their child on the notion that she blurted this "oral will" to her in-laws is absurd and repellant (surely many Democrats railing against the Republican Congress's anti-federal intervention would at least agree that Terri belongs with her willing parents). But "wrong" decisions occur constantly. Judges go home every night disagreeing with the decisions of juries, which the judge may believe has found the guilty innocent or wrongly sent the innocent to prison. The standard for setting aside these wrong decisions is very, very high.

As to Michael Schiavo's status as guardian, it was not unassailable, but nor was it obviously insupportable. Michael Schiavo is entitled to the sweeping claims for his wife's desires he has been making from every TV screen, but the most morally reprehensible act in this whole drama has been his refusal to simply turn Terri over to her poor mother, whose connection to her child-like daughter is more authentic and earned than anything that existed between Terri and Michael Schiavo.

Many conservatives have brought Terri Schiavo's case into the battle against a too-activist judiciary. They should reconsider. Most judges hate getting these close-call medical cases. Expecting the courts to do the "right thing" in every such case is hopeless. The more likely result of pressing these cases into a courtroom of any political persuasion is an impossible tangle of bad, useless precedents.

Democrats, and others, have accused Republicans and President Bush of playing politics with the Schiavo case. Let's hope so. Unlike most, this is a necessary politics that ought to draw the whole country into the argument.

In 25 years, the baby boomers will be on the cusp of 85, becoming what a physician friend has called "history's healthiest generation of Alzheimer's patients." As the tsunami of red ink collapses the struts beneath the tar-paper shacks of Medicare and Social Security (which the Congressional elders say isn't broken) the "scarce resource" argument will re-emerge, with soothing persuasiveness, for triaging the most ill among us, very old or very young.

The outpouring of support to give Terri Schiavo back to her parents may prove quixotic, but it ensures that these future questions of who lives and who dies won't be decided by the professional class alone in conferences and courtrooms. It will be done in full view, where it belongs.
Mr. Henninger is deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. His column appears Fridays in the Journal and on OpinionJournal.com.

THEY ARE GIVING TERRI MORPHINE FOR PAIN!

If it's such a beautiful death why are they giving Terri morphine? If she is a "vegetard", how could she drink the wine from the reluctant communion that Michael finally relented to giving her after public outcry.

The family members are STRIP SEARCHED before they can see Terri. STRIP SEARCHED and for a girl that "wanted to die" (hearsay!) she sure is fighting for her life.

- Terri Schiavo's husband is set to inflict what her grieving relatives charge is the final insult: insisting that her body be cremated against their religious wishes — and then buried in his own family's plot. I believe this man does not want an autopsy for fear of what might be discovered. What might havehappened that rendered her brain damaged?

Terri Schiavo is
STILL fighting for her life -- which itself is proof that
it is NOT her wish to die, as her estranged "husband" keeps
claiming.

But time is definitely running out. Terri has been starving
to death for nine days now. Except for one drop of communion
wine that  she was allowed on her thickened tongue today, she
has had NO food or water  for nine days. As you can imagine,
as her brother Bobby described her today,  she looks like
someone in a Nazi concentration camp. She's suffering -- but
her family reports that she still smiles when she sees her
mother come  into the room, and she still tries to speak in
a cracked  whisper.

Terri's life is STILL worth saving. And we still have hope
she can be saved -- but again, we need YOUR help to make it
work.

There's TWO FRONTS we're attacking on now -- once again, the
state and federal levels. But this time, we have a REAL
CHANCE to break  through the "roadblocks" that the enemies
of life have been putting up in  front of us.

Please take just a couple of minutes to make a crucial
difference in saving Terri's life.

TAKE ACTION:  Here are the two  areas we need you to take
action in NOW:

1) Governor Jeb Bush has  made several statements the last few
days, claiming that he doesn't have the  constitutional or
statutory authority to take Terri in to protective  custody.

But as we've mentioned before, we *personally* told his people
FACE TO FACE that he DOES have that authority: we had a
meeting on March  23 between folks from RightMarch.com (William
Greene and our attorney, Larry  Klayman) and Governor Bush's
chief counsel (his top lawyer on staff). Then  we had a meeting
on March 24 between our folks (this time, Larry Klayman AND
Ambassador Alan Keyes) and Gov. Bush's Chief of Staff. Both
times, we  presented information on why the Governor DOES have
the authority RIGHT NOW  under Florida Law and the Florida
constitution to take Terri into protective  custody NOW, and
save her life.

But Gov. Bush failed to take action.  Why? We believe that his
staff -- the political cronies that he has  surrounded himself
with -- have NOT given him the documents we provided.  They
just smirked and gave us political platitudes, acting like
they  were doing US some big favor by granting us five minutes
of their valuable  time. Then they walked off, apparently
tossing Dr. Keyes' well-researched  documents into the trash
when they got back to their spacious corner  offices.

These people are more interested in protecting their political
careers than saving Terri's life. So it's time for US to turn
up the  heat on them, and DEMAND that they deliver the documents
that Gov. Bush  NEEDS -- so he can save Terri Schiavo.
Ambassador Keyes and Larry Klayman  are STILL willing to meet
with the Governor, or to have a conference call to  explain
his authority, and his DUTY.

We need EVERYONE READING THIS  MESSAGE to call Governor Bush's
lead counsel and chief of staff RIGHT AWAY,  and tell them to
do one simple thing:

  "SHOW GOVERNOR BUSH THE  DOCUMENTS FROM ALAN KEYES AND
   LARRY KLAYMAN -- TELL HIM TO EXERCISE HIS  CONSTITUTIONAL
   AUTHORITY, AND TAKE TERRI SCHIAVO INTO PROTECTIVE
    CUSTODY RIGHT AWAY."

Call, fax or e-mail now:

Raquel Rodriguez,  General Counsel
850-488-3494 (office)
850-488-9810  (fax)
raquel.rodriguez@myflorida.com

William Large, Deputy Chief of  Staff
850-488-5603 (office)
850-922-4292  (fax)
william.large@myflorida.com

Also contact Gov. Bush and ask him  to read the documents:

Governor Jeb Bush
850-488-4441  (office)
850-487-0801  (fax)
http://capwiz.com/sicminc/mail/?id=9483&type=GV&state=FL

(If  you get busy signals, or full mailboxes, or unanswered
fax machines, please  know that these ARE the correct numbers
and addresses. Just keep trying, if  you can.)

You can click below to read -- AND USE -- Alan Keyes'
documentation that explains to Gov. Jeb Bush that he has the
legal  authority to save Terri Schiavo... the SAME document
that we delivered to  Gov. Bush's  staff:

http://www.rightmarch.com/media/JudicialReview.doc

2)  On Monday, we'll be sending several representatives up to
Washington, D.C.,  to confront House Speaker Dennis Hastert and
Congressman Tom DeLay, asking  them to explain why they have
not enforced the subpoenas issued by Congress  to Terri Schiavo.
Our people will also urge Congress to find Florida Probate
Judge George Greer in contempt for deliberately IGNORING Terri
Schiavo's  subpoena.

Call, fax or e-mail Reps. Hastert and DeLay now, urging them
to enforce the Congressional subpoenas and to hold Judge Greer
in  contempt -- and to therefore order the re-insertion of Terri
Schiavo's  feeding tube... and ask President Bush to order the
Department of Justice to  move in to save Terri:

Representative J. Dennis Hastert  (R-IL)
202-225-2976 (office)
202-225-0697  (fax)
http://capwiz.com/sicminc/mail/?id=227&type=CO&state=IL

Representative  Tom DeLay (R-TX)
202-225-5951 (office)
202-225-5241  (fax)
http://capwiz.com/sicminc/mail/?id=576&type=CO&state=TX

President  George W. Bush
202-456-1414 (White House)
202-456-2461  (fax)
http://capwiz.com/sicminc/mail/?id=20004&type=PR

As long as  Terri has breath in her body, IT'S NOT TOO LATE to
save her from starving to  death. Her family hasn't given up
hope... so NEITHER SHOULD  WE.

NOTE:  It's been very expensive for us to engage in the activism
in Florida this week. We reserved hotel rooms; we rented meeting
halls  for rallies and activist/lobbying training sessions; we
rented buses to  bring people from Pinellas Park to Tallahassee
and back again; we flew legal  experts like Alan Keyes and Larry
Klayman in to meet with Governor Bush's  people; we're flying
Larry Klayman up to D.C. to meet with Congress and  conduct
multiple press conferences; we've spent funds on tons of media
and press releases... the list goes on and on.

Catherine's Perspective on "Severe Handicap"

I read this entry from Catherine of Liberal Hawks and I think it shines a line into the little spoken corners of reality that people retreat from and choose not to deal with. And then.................and then there's Terri and the fallacy crashes and burns and the blinders are ripped off our face/

I don't know what Terri feels or wants, or how conscious she may (or may
not)  be.

My best guess, based mostly on two lines of research that are either  brand
new (the research on minimally conscious states) or somewhat, but  not
directly, related to Terri¹s situation (the research on quadriplegics  and
emotional well-being) is that she¹s not suffering horribly in her  current
state, and may be in a positive frame of mind when she is conscious  or
minimally conscious.

I don't think I¹m being as clear as I could be  if I spent more time writing
these posts.

What I'm trying to say is  that I do feel horrified at the thought of living
as a handicapped  person.

I feel so horrified at the thought of living as a severely  handicapped
person that I have actually had to wonder whether, if somebody  told me ŒI
can make you autistic for one day so you'll know what your  children's lives
are like, I would do it.

I'm afraid I wouldn't. I  live with two autistic kids, I just wrote a book
with an autistic adult, and  I think I'm too afraid of how hard and
frightening it might be to have autism  that I would not agree to be autistic
for even one day.

I don't  actually feel that I have more insight into the nature of a disabled
person's  consciousness than other people do (though I probably have more
insight into  autism specifically; that's true).

What I feel is that I have a pretty  sharp awareness of the negative feelings
being expressed in this public  debate towards people with severe handicaps.
AND I DON'T EXEMPT MYSELF FROM  THIS. It is horribly, horribly upsetting to
think about severe handicaps; it  is horribly upsetting to see a person with
severe handicaps; and it is  horribly upsetting to think about one day having
a severe handicap  oneself.

This emotion, which I share, translates directly into a very  widespread
feeling that death is preferable to life with a severe handicap.  And not
just preferable for me, but preferable for others. (If you look at  polling
on this question, a huge majority of people say they would rather be  dead
than be severely disabled.)

It¹s this link I¹d like to break.  Ideally, I would like our country to react
to the sight of Terri Schiavo as  warmly as possible; I would like people to
look at her and not have, as their  first thought, Œshe would be better off
dead.¹

I would like to see  our country reach a consensus‹recover a consensus,
actually‹that we err on  the side of life.

This does not mean that I would support laws that  everyone has to have all
the intrusive medical care a physician can give him,  come what may. Families
should be free to make their own decisions, and draw  their own lines.

But I hope to see the starting point for such decisions  be that all life has
equal moral worth and value. That should be our core  belief, as a culture.
Because I do believe we are on a slippery slope, and I  do believe‹and can
give evidence to support my belief‹that we have already  tumbled quite a long
ways down it.

Now I have a  question.

Here's John Derbyshire, at The Corner:

"I think it is  cruel to let this woman linger on in her degraded and
hopeless  condition."

And this:

"The life Terri Schiavo has is not worth  living."

To me, those are pretty close to fighting words.

At a  minimum I need to know John Derbyshire's views of the severely  disabled
children I saw at the school for the multiply handicapped in the  Valley.

Are their lives worth living?

I need to hear a yes on that  one.

Here is Ramesh Ponnoru's  reaction to Derbyshire:

RE: ABSOLUTISM [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Derbyshire  comes out and says it: "The life Terri Schiavo has is not worth
living. I  wouldn't want to live it, and I wouldn't want anyone I care about
to live it.  For once, I believe, the courts have got it right. For pity's
sake, let this  poor woman die." Let her die? She has no terminal illness.
She is being  killed by the denial of food and water. On Derbyshire's logic,
there is no  reason why we shouldn't--and every reason why we should--make
things easier  on Terri and ourselves by immediately giving her a lethal
injection. It would  be quicker, more efficient, and possibly less painful
for her.
Posted at  02:59 PM

What about this?

It would be radically more humane to  kill Terri Schiavo the way hospices
euthanize people, by giving them an  overdose of morphine. These deaths are
very quick and painless.

And  since I keep mentioning dogs, let me add that many, many people
euthanize  their dogs, and these deaths never, ever involve starving and
dehydrating the  animal for days and weeks. The animal is given an injection,
and they are  dead within seconds. Three years ago I held our dog Jazzy while
he  died.

If the issue is Terri Schiavo's suffering, if that is what we as a  culture
are truly concerned with, why are we putting her through 2 weeks  of
starvation and dehydration?

The Slippery Slope of Judicial Murder

HAT TIP DR NANCY G

The Nancy Cruzan case was exactly the same. It was Governor John Ashcroft, Solicitor General Ken Starr and Operation Rescue (Randall Terry's group) fighting the parents to keep her alive. Obviously "persistent vegetative state" has come to include the severely disabled, quite different from when I trained. No wonder a British study showed over 40% showed the diagnosis to be wrong within 5 years. It's because they throw everyone in there.

Who was Nancy Cruzan? Who is Christine Busalacchi?
Where is the Church?

"…[O]nce euthanasia is permitted in principle, the denial of food and water will undoubtedly be replaced by quicker and more aesthetic means."

Nancy Cruzan died of dehydration by court order on December 26, 1990, following 12 days without food or water. She was 33 years old. Nancy was severely disabled as a result of a car injury in 1983. She was not dying. Following her accident she ate mashed potatoes, bananas, eggs and link sausage.

Cruzan's care wasn't "exceptional"

A gastrostomy tube was implanted, even though Nancy could chew and swallow, in order to make her long term care easier. When the decision was made to remove the tube, no one attempted to assess her ability to swallow. Spoon feeding in her case was judged to be "morally repugnant" and "totally inconsistent" with what was wanted, according t a doctor who evaluated her.

Nancy could hear and see; smiled at amusing stories; cried at times when visitors left; sometimes tried to form words; experienced pain. She required no care except food and fluids, personal hygiene and repositioning to prevent bedsores. She could have been cared for at home.*

Busalacchi's "vegetative state"

Christine Busalacchi is 20 years old. She was severely brain-injured in a car accident in 1987 and currently resides in the Missouri Rehabilitation Center, the same center that cared for Nancy Cruzan. Her condition is described as "persistent vegetative state." Christine can speak simple words, mover her hands and legs on request, form emotional attachments, smile, and interact with people in her room. She is not dying. She is not on life-support machines. She is not receiving any extraordinary care. Her father is seeking her transfer to Minnesota for the purpose of removing her feeding tube.*

There is significant opposition to withdrawal of food and water

These cases and others like them, are stirring debate in our nation. Courts all the way to the Supreme Court are involved. There seems to be growing support for withdrawal of food and water. But no everyone agrees. Richard John Neuhaus, in The Religion and Society Report, May 1988, mentioned a statement expressing an alternative perspective, called "Feeding and Hydrating the Permanently Unconscious and Other Vulnerable Persons." Among the signatories was now-deceased Princeton theologian Paul Ramsey.

"Withdrawing food and water is a form of euthanasia," says Neuhaus. "It is usually a prolonged and ugly way of killing someone. Therefore, once euthanasia is permitted in principle, the denial of food and water will undoubtedly be replaced by quicker and more aesthetic means."

"I WANT TO LIVE"

PWR: Pamela's Weekend Recap: Judicial Murder "Rule of Law AKA JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS!"

It's that time again, opening a vein at the end of the week. The whole of my week has been Terri Schiavo. There is no way I cannot speak to her impending death by the state. So much has been said, so much hearsay from both sides -even Michael Schiavo's contention that Terri said she would want to die is hearsay.................... Terri is dying, most likely Easter weekend. Inasmuch as the Left portrayed this as a legal issue, I assure you it is a moral issue. This is MURDER plain and simple. What does this say about us as a people when a mother is pleading and crying on national airwaves not to murder her daughter and we do it anyway. Today I am ashamed to be an American.

    And now we see just how far the perversion and absolute power the Krytocracy holds in America. IF THIS IS NOT A CALL TO ALL AMERICANS TO GET OFF YOUR ASSES AND CHANGE THE SYSTEM THEN THERE IS NO HOPE FOR US.

Imagine, the President of the United States, the House , the Senate, Governor Bush............the great powers in America could not stop the murder of one RIGHT TO DIE Advocate Judge.Michael Schiavo's Doctor, Lawyer and CLINTON FEDERAL APPOINTED Judge Whittemore are all RIGHT TO DIE ADVOCATES.    15 years of litigation, yes. Same judge YES!Unfuckingbelievable...yet another glaring conflict of interest everybody's comfortable with? The spotlight should be on the right to die advocates: Cranford, Felos and Greer (doctor, lawyer and judge!) Read the whole piece in WND (click)
We are appalled that the Florida courts have not removed Mr. Schiavo as Terri’s guardian," says Nancy Pfotenhauer, president of the Independent Women’s Forum. "There is an inherent conflict between the interests of Mr. Schiavo, his live-in girlfriend, his children with this woman, and the needs of his wife. Given this conflict of interest, it shocks the conscience that Mr. Schiavo still controls whether Terri lives or dies."Pfotenhauer continued.
Michael Schiavo once tried to kill his wife Terri with insulin shots, according to a former caregiver for the brain-injured Florida woman.
The estranged husband -- who is living with another woman with whom he has two children -- "wants her to die; he doesn't want the truth to be known," said Carla Sauer Iyer in an interview this morning on the Fox News Channel program "Fox and Friends."
WorldNetDaily reported the registered nurse's testimony in 2003 when it was presented in a 24-page complaint filed in a federal lawsuit alleging Michael Schiavo had forbidden medical professionals to provide his wife with any therapy or rehabilitation and had attempted to hasten her death while she was a patient at the Pinellas Park, Fla., hospice she has lived in since 2000.
we are seeing here is the old fashioned law being applied to the contemporary idea of "starter marriages", multiple marriages, and the breakdown of the American family. MARRIAGE AS AN ABSOLUTE -Bottom line is when these laws were written, marriage was a more sacred institution and husbands and wives, by and large, stayed together for life. According to Terri's best friends (two of which were on Linda Vesta's daily show yesterday), Terri was most unhappy in the marriage. She was planning to leave, Michael was a control freak that monitored Terri's every move. She had to come straight home from work everyday. Michael would go ballistic (!) iF Terri was ever late. He would even check the odometer on the car to check for mileage to see if Terri went anywhere other than she was suppsoed to go. Invariably she and her friends would never take Terri's car, for fear of enraging Michael Schiavo. Insofar as the alleged abuse, her friend said she saw a good many black and blue marks but never thought anything of it so I will not speculate further. Yes this is all heresay but it speaks to a much larger break in the infrastructure of American Society. The continuous chipping away at the solemnity and sanctity of marriage by the left(Bill "I did not have sex with that woman" Clinton, same sex marriage, illegitimate children, single parent households, remember how Dan Quale was excoriated for suggesting that Murphy Brown was "celebrating" fatherless parenthood?, the sad results of the continuing culture war) have brought us to this disastrous fork in the road.
That being said, the bottom line is Michael Schiavo SHOULD NOT BE MAKING THIS DECISION. He does not have Terri's best interest at heart, not for one second. The marriage was broken. Terri was leaving this control freak and taking an apartment with her friend. Therein lies the problem. This man would not be Terri's husband had this happened one or two years later. Today, multiple marriages are commonplace, so the ramifications of implicit spousal authority are spectacular and terrifying as this case so painfully shows. This being the law of the land (the sanctity and purity of marriage), the courts have no choice. Truth be told, I would not want my husband making this decision. In cases such as these where there is no living will and there are opposing family members, we must come down on the side of life. Most people things it's a horrible existance. Who died and made them G-d? I for one WOULD WANT TO LIVE. No one loves me enough to fight for me like that, what a love! That LOVE IS IN ITSELF something to live for. to me living in the bed sounds like heaven, how about that?
Look I don't want to sound preachy or high handed and I had read everything on this case and everybody thinks they have cornered the morality issue here. I think not. This is easy. This is murder. I am not in the least bit interested if Terri will "wake up" someday. Irrelevant! Who are we to judge the quality of her life or the measure of a mother's love? I do not believe for one second that Terri's mother would want to see her daughter lead a tortured life. She loves her, wants desperately to take care of here. Ma Schiavo said yesterday "She is my life" you've seen Terri's face when her mother is kissing her there's not much more proof you need. Such a love...............

The same murdering judge REJECTED THEIR LAST APPEAL BASED on the lawyer's testimony that Terri attempted to speak last friday and say I....................whaaaaaaaaa and then screamed out in frustration.And then there is the alleged political corruption in the Schiavo case. Criminal probes reportedly shut down despite investigators'  concerns..................
in todays WND when Terri Schiavo enters what are thought to be her last hours of life, allegations of political corruption and obstruction of justice on the part of state officials raise questions as to whether the brain-injured woman's court-ordered death by starvation might serve to cover up crimes committed against her. Criminal probes launched by two Florida agencies looking into allegations the incapacitated woman was abused, neglected and exploited were shut down, despite investigators' concerns.  align="left">substantial doubts, our society, our laws, and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life."

G-d bless you President Bush, for trying to do the right thing and save her life as opposed to

Terri Schiavo:                 Cognitively Able

 

                

 

The following transcript was posted on Free                 Republic on  01/21/2004 7:08:56 PM PST by FL_engineer                  

 

From "Terri                 Big Eyes" video available at http://www.terrisfight.org
               
                Terri starts out apparently asleep. A doctor wakes her to start                 his tests.
               
                Doctor: Terri. Open your eyes up...
               
                Terri: (Startled at hearing her name. She starts moving                 her mouth and fluttering her eyes, like a person who is just                 waking up)
               
                Doctor: Open your eyes, Terri open                 your eyes
               
                Terri: (slowly at first, Terri struggles to open her                 eyes, then turns toward the doctor, and opens her eyes a normal                 amount)
               
                Doctor: There you go, good.
               
                Terri: (then, either to show off (?) or wanting to                 perform well, she leans further forward toward the doctor, looks                 straight at him and opens her eyes as WIDE AS SHE CAN. Note the                 WRINKLES ACROSS HER FOREHEAD caused by her also RAISING HER                 EYEBROWS as high as possible )
               
                Doctor: [now obviously impressed]                 GOOD!! GOOD JOB! GOOD JOB YOUNG LADY! Good Job. (Thanks                 to Melissa S. for alerting me to the pictures and commentary                 posted by FL engineer.)                

 

---

 

Lisa's notes: Terri                 has been referred to as being cognitively disabled, and this is                 true. She suffered brain damage when something happened that                 caused the flow of oxygen to her brain to be cut off for a                 period of time. Since medical records rule out heart attack,                 cardiac arrest and potassium imbalance, it is likely that her                 oxygen supply was cut off  when her neck was injured to the                 point of extreme rigidity.                

 

Due to the fact that Terri has been illegally                 denied rehabilitation for over ten years, she is still                 cognitively and physically disabled.                  

 

Contrary to what you may have been led to                 believe, Terri definitely did not collapse due to a heart attack                 or cardiac arrest and she did not have a potassium imbalance.                 Dr. Hammesfahr and Robert Schindler (Terri's father) cleared up                 this damage-control-for-Michael-Schiavo rumor during an                 interview with Sean Hannity:                

 

 

HAMMESFAHR: But the medical record clearly                   shows that there has never been a heart attack. Potassium                   causes damage by causing heart attacks, so we know the                   potassium is not an issue.

 

 

 

SCHINDLER: That comes from the evidence that there's                   medical evidence that she had a neck injury. And as the doctor                   said, she had no heart attack. And her ribs and parts of her                   body suffered fractures.                  

(Quotes source: Foul                   Play in Terri Schiavo Case?)

 

 

Dr. Hammesfahr revealed in an interview with Ron Panzer that                 Terri never had a heart attack or cardiac arrest:                

 

 

Dr. Hammesfahr revealed that not only has Terri NEVER had a                   heart attack as widely reported in the major media, she also                   NEVER even had a cardiac arrest (her heart never stopped)!                   [she had arhythmias of the heart but not a "stopped                   heart."]                  

(Quote source: Ron                   Panzer's notes: Interview with Dr. Hammesfahr)

 

 

Terri was found face down with an extremely                 rigid neck. Her neck injuries indicate that she was                 strangled:                

 

 

Dr. William Hammesfahr, Nobel prize nominee                   and neurologist, testified that Terri's neck injuries are                   consistent with only one type of injury: that of                   strangulation.                  

(Quote source: State-Funded                   Agency to Probe Claim of Spousal Abuse in Terri Schiavo Case)

 

 

The heart attack, cardiac arrest, and potassium                 imbalance rumors are meant to steer you away from the fact that                 Terri had a serious neck injury (indicative of strangulation)                 which is documented in her medical records.                

 

A cognitively disabled person is                 below average in intellectual function. He or she often has                 difficulty reasoning, solving problems, and understanding and                 using language.                  

 

Cognitive                 means 

 

 

Pertaining                   to the mental process of thought, including perception,                   reasoning, intuition and memory.

(Quote                   source: hyperdictionary.com)

 

 

To be                 cognitively disabled does not mean that a person has no mental                 process of thought and cannot perceive things, or reason, or                 remember anything at all. It means that these abilities are                 below average in the cognitively disabled person. 

 

Terri                 Schindler Schiavo's responses to the doctor's instructions                 reveal that she is conscious and cognitive. Without therapy her                 cognition is below average, but she is cognitive. She                 does perceive and reason. She is intuitive and she has memory.                 Terri made a monumental effort to demonstrate her cognitive ability                 in response to the doctor's directions. She did this by                 purposely exaggerating her responses to make it clear to the                 doctor that she definitely understood his directions! 

 

This                 action required perception, reasoning and intuition. At the time                 this video was taken, Terri was keenly aware that Michael and                 his accomplices were saying that she was practically dead                 already and working to achieve that end. Terri knew she                 needed to demonstrate that she was capable of processing                 information and carrying out instructions. And she achieved her                 goal. 

 

If                 Terri had been receiving therapyjust like anyone else                 who has suffered a serious injuryshe would not be                 demonstrating her cognition by opening her eyes and leaning                 forward and opening them wider for emphasis.  Instead, she                 would be opening her mouth and revealing the                 circumstances preceding her sudden collapse. Michael's refusal                 to prevent her from having any therapy serves to prevent                 such a disclosure. 

 

Thus                 Terri languishes in a state of solitary confinement with no                 stimulation while Florida laws have broken daily for ten                 years to (1) keep her in a state of disability and (2) keep                 Michael from a criminal investigation. 

 

Florida                 law clearly calls for Terri to be given rehabilitative therapy                 and for Michael to lose his guardianship status and be                 investigated. Governor Bush has the duty and the authority to                 see to it that the laws of the state of Florida are faithfully                 executed. 

 

Please                 contact Governor Jeb Bush right away and urge him to require                 that Terri be given therapy (which has always been her legal                 right), to remove Michael as guardian, and order an                 investigation into the circumstances of her collapse. 

 

Jeb.Bush@MyFlorida.com

 

Gary                 and Lisa Ruby

Terri Schiavo Would Not Be Starved To Death In Israel

Once again, we can learn a lesson or two from the most benevoilent of modern societies, Israel.
Thanks to our favorite Doctor..............Hat tip Dr. Nancy G
Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Terri Schiavo would not be disconnected from her feeding tube if she lived in Israel, experts here said.

A bill allowing "passive euthanasia" -- the removal of life support -- is currently under debate in the Israeli Knesset. In the first of three readings, the bill passed overwhelmingly.

But experts here noted that the bill would not affect Schiavo's case.

The pending "Terminal Patient Bill" would allow the removal of life support if the patient is terminally ill and expected to die within six months; is experiencing "great suffering"; and has "clearly requested not to be kept alive under the above circumstances."

Schiavo is not terminally ill and she did not leave any clear request regarding the termination of treatment.

"It's a very difficult case," said Professor Michel Revel, chairman of the newly created Bio-Ethics Council of Israel.

He said Schiavo would not be classified as terminally ill but would fall into the category of "somebody who is incapable or communicating with the outside world," Revel said in a telephone interview.

It hasn't passed Atlas unnoticed that Terri is on death's door on Good Friday/ Easter Weekend. What a painful poetic justice. Newsmax (click) points out Christians reflect on Jesus' death this solemn Good Friday, some also are giving special attention to Terri Schiavo - particularly Roman Catholics who count Schiavo as one of their own, and whose church has been increasingly vocal this week in calling for the reinsertion of a feeding tube into the brain-damaged Florida woman.

Eternal Word Television Network, an Alabama-based Catholic cable service that reaches more than 100 million homes worldwide, is interrupting previously scheduled sacred programs for a Friday evening broadcast that expects to treat the Schiavo case through interviews with a family member and a neurologist.

"Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal." --Henry  Wadsworth Longfellow

We need EVERYONE READING THIS BLOG to call Governor
Jeb Bush RIGHT AWAY,  and ask him to do one simple thing:

"PLEASE EXERCISE YOUR LEGAL  AUTHORITY, AND TAKE
  TERRI SCHIAVO INTO PROTECTIVE CUSTODY RIGHT  AWAY."

That's all we're asking you to do. Just call Gov. Bush
NOW and  beg him to save Terri's life.

TAKE ACTION:  PLEASE call Governor Jeb  Bush's office NOW
at 850-488-4441 (or fax him at 850-487-0801), asking him
to exercise the executive powers he ALREADY HAS, and take
custody of  Terri Schiavo to save her from being starved
to death.

We've already  met one-on-one with Gov. Bush's General Counsel
lawyers, showing them  point-by-point exactly why the Governor
DOES have those powers right NOW. On  Thursday, we're also
bringing in Alan Keyes and Larry Klayman to try to meet  with
the Governor and urge him to take Terri into protective
custody.  Call Gov. Bush NOW and ask him to USE his legal
powers to save Terri's  life.  You can also e-mail him at
jeb@myflorida.com .

You can also  call his brother, President George W. Bush, at
202-456-1414 (or fax him at  202-456-2461). Leave a message
for him that he AND his brother both have the  authority to
use the police services at their disposal to take Terri into
protective custody, restore her food and hydration, and
arrest anyone  who  would interfere. You can also e-mail him
at president@whitehouse.gov  .

For the sake of Terri's life, we CANNOT afford to wait while
the  courts bicker over jurisdiction -- and we CANNOT let
little two-bit judges  order the Executive branch to not do
their duty

The Left Now Advocating Murder, The Lines are Clearly Drawn

Terri is dying, most likely Easter weekend. Inasmuch as the Left portrayed this as a legal issue, I assure you it is a moral issue. This is MURDER plain and simple. What does this say about us as a people when a mother is pleading and crying on national airwaves not to murder her daughter and we do it anyway.

Today I am ashamed to be an American.

SCHIAVO IN ITALIAN MEANS ENSLAVED

HAT TIP LOTTOMANIA
"I can't reiterate often enough how often my husband, a pediatrician, is appalled by this case. He keeps saying that nutrition is not "extraordinary" care. A few years ago we stopped the ventilator for my father who died in a Burn Unit after going into profound septic shock with complete organ shutdown. He died with all of us holding him and did not have a living will. We kept him as long as possible unitl there was nothing to save, not even brain activity. On the other hand, my mother-in-law in the end stages of cancer and 55 lbs starved and was dehydrated. It was horrible to watch her in between the morphine. This death by starvation is not as easy as one is led to believe. I say, videotape the whole thing for CNN and let everyone watch and see how "humane" this is. That she is not in end-stage cancer, does not require extraordinary care, and is cared for and comfortable speaks volumes. The hubris of the people who feel that her life has no quality or say "I wouldn't want to live that way" strikes me as close to the policy of Nazi Germany whereby those who had "unworthy lives" were put away. Gee, who would want to be brain-damaged and a burden? Duh! But it is our humanity to those afflicted and our respect for life that should shape our votes and policies. The culture of death is here when we are able to put away those for whom we judge have no quality of life. Each case is indeed different, but this one smells awfully bad. "Schiavo" in Italian, means "enslaved". The irony is just too, too much. "

G-d bless you Lottomania, thank you for giving us yout insights

JUDICIAL MURDER!

And so now we see just how far the perversion and absolute power the Krytocracy holds in America. IF THIS IS NOT A CALL TO ALL AMERICANS TO GET OFF YOUR ASSES AND CHANGE THE SYSTEM THEN THERE IS NO HOPE FOR US.

Imagine, the President of the United States, the House , the Senate, Governor Bush............the great powers in America could not stop the murder of one RIGHT TO DIE Advocate Judge

KRYTOCRACY: A Government of Judges, Rule by the Arbitrary feelings of Unelected Judges

Remember the word. And thank Jack Wheeler for teaching it to us. A democracy is a government of the people (the demos in Greek), or their freely-elected representatives, a government of elected legislatures and laws passed by them. This has been superceded, replaced, by a krytocracy – a government of judges. Unelected judges.

MICHAEL SCHIAVO MUST BE REMOVED AS GUARDIAN

IWF Says Michael Schiavo Has No Business Being Terri's  Guardian
3/23/2005

 

Contact: Louise Filkins
Phone:  (202)  419-1820

 

WASHINGTON, DC -- The Independent Women’s Forum is shocked and bewildered  that the Florida court system continues to allow Michael Schiavo, husband of  Terri, to remain her guardian. 

 

"We are appalled that the Florida courts have not removed Mr. Schiavo as  Terri’s guardian," says Nancy Pfotenhauer, president of the Independent Women’s  Forum. "There is an inherent conflict between the interests of Mr. Schiavo, his  live-in girlfriend, his children with this woman, and the needs of his wife.  Given this conflict of interest, it shocks the conscience that Mr. Schiavo still  controls whether Terri lives or dies."

 

"All organizations that claim to speak for women should be outraged at this  injustice. Effectively, Terri is being sentenced to an early grave because her  husband would prefer her death to a divorce," Pfotenhauer continued.

 

"Why is there no outcry from so-called women’s organizations about Terri’s  rights? Where are N.O.W, the Feminist Majority, the National Council of Women’s  Organizations and the National Women’s Law Center in defending her?" Pfotenhauer  added.

Michael Schiavo's Doctor, Lawyer and CLINTON APPOINTED Judge all RIGHT TO DIE ADVOCATES

Unfuckingbelievable...yet another glaring conflict of interest everybody's comfortable with? The spotlight should be on the right to die advocates: Cranford, Felos and Greer (doctor, lawyer and judge!) Read the whole piece in WND (click)

Nurse said Michael Tried to kill Terri with Shot

Nurse: Michaeltried to kill TerriFormer caregiver asserts husband'doesn't want the truth to be known'
Posted: March 22, 20051:30 p.m. Eastern
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
Michael Schiavo once tried to kill his wife Terri with insulin shots, according to a former caregiver for the brain-injured Florida woman.
Michael Schiavo (Photo: Baynews9.com)
The estranged husband -- who is living with another woman with whom he has two children -- "wants her to die; he doesn't want the truth to be known," said Carla Sauer Iyer in an interview this morning on the Fox News Channel program "Fox and Friends."
WorldNetDaily reported the registered nurse's testimony in 2003 when it was presented in a 24-page complaint filed in a federal lawsuit alleging Michael Schiavo had forbidden medical professionals to provide his wife with any therapy or rehabilitation and had attempted to hasten her death while she was a patient at the Pinellas Park, Fla., hospice she has lived in since 2000.

More on the Diabolical Michael Schiavo

I don't know if you knew that Michael Schiavo was a nurse who went to respiratory shcool and nursing school. This explains a lot of things.
1. Male nurses are often weird (not you fastac). Not always, but this is my experience.
2. As a health professional, he would commandingly go to her room with the chart,close the door, bully the nurses, say don't listen to the doctors listen to me(the only time this male nurse had it over a doctor because she was his property) and finally repeatedly give insulin with needle marks in hidden areas because come on: whenever you hear of sick bastards giving insulin to kill someone in the news, they're always nurses!
Hat tip: Dr. Nancy G

Clinton Judge Says No...........90 Hours without Food and Water

U.S. Districtl Judge James Whittemore, a 1999 Clinton appointee,  failed to have Schiavo feeding tube reinserted. Ugh................Terri is on a death vigil. The judge 's decision is based on the strength (or in this case weakness) of the Schiavo parents case. The bottom line is the parents won't prevail, they have a slim legal leg to stand on, and the judge cannot put the tube back in if the outcome is evident (not for life). In other words, there is no chance the parents will succeed.
What we are seeing here is the old fashioned law being applied to the contemporary idea of "starter marriages", multiple marriages, and the breakdown of the American family. MARRIAGE AS AN ABSOLUTE -Bottom line is when these laws were written, marriage was a more sacred institution and husbands and wives, by and large, stayed together for life.

According to Terri's best friends (two of which were on Linda Vesta's daily show yesterday), Terri was most unhappy in the marriage. She was planning to leave, Michael was a control freak that monitored Terri's every move. She had to come straight home from work everyday. Michael would go ballistic (!) iF Terri was ever late. He would even check the odometer on the car to check for mileage to see if Terri went anywhere other than she was suppsoed to go. Invariably she and her friends would never take Terri's car, for fear of enraging Michael Schiavo. Insofar as the alleged abuse, her friend said she saw a good many black and blue marks but never thought anything of it so I will not speculate further. Yes this is all heresay but it speaks to a much larger break in the infrastructure of American Society. The continuous chipping away at the solemnity and sanctity of marriage by the left have brought us to this disastrous fork in the road.
That being said, the bottom line is Michael Schiavo SHOULD NOT BE MAKING THIS DECISION. He does not have Terri's best interest at heart, not for one second. The marriage was broken. Terri was leaving this control freak and taking an apartment with her friend. Therein lies the problem. This man would not be Terri's husband had this happened one or two years later. Today, multiple marriages are commonplace, so the ramifications of implicit spousal authority are spectacular and terrifying as this case so painfully shows. This being the law of the land (the sanctity and purity of marriage), the courts have no choice. Truth be told, I would not want my husband making this decision....................how many times have you been married (those who have never been married do not reply).

The Right to Live: UPDATE: MEDIA ADVISORY

Media Advisory

 

Be sure to watch CNN’s “Day Break” at 

6:20 AM  EST

tomorrow for an  interview with Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

 

 

 

Tom is slated to appear tomorrow morning, Tuesday,  March 22^nd at

6:20 AM

on “Day Break” with Carol  Costello.

 

 

 

The topic is judicial  activism.

 

 

 

The Terri Schiavo life-and-death case  has shed fresh light on the issue of judicial  activism.

 

 

 

What has happened to our system of  checks and balances?

 

 

Set  your alarm clock and don’t miss Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton tomorrow  morning at

6:20  AM

  on CNN.

Living with Dignity: Terri Schiavo

President Bush issued a statement saying that "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."

Look I don't want to sound preachy or high handed and I had read everything on this case and everybody thinks they have cornered the morality issue here. I think not. This is easy. This is murder. I am not in the least bit interested if Terri will "wake up" someday. Irrelevant! Who are we to judge the quality of her life or the measure of a mother's love? I do not believe for one second that Terri's mother would want to see her daughter lead a tortured life. She loves her, wants desperately to take care of here. Ma Schiavo said yesterday "She is my life".

If you've seen Terri's face when her mother is kissing her there's not much more proof you need.

Two other small tangential points, I never hear boo from the "right to die" activists concerning Sunny Von Bulow. This woman is as brain dead as a doornail, no noise, no opening the eyes, nothing! But that's ok and if you going to ask me 'who is to pay for Terri'? I will tell you right now DON'T GO THERE. The healthcare system is so corrupt and twisted by the political strong arming of special interest groups, it's enough to make you sick. Every illegal alien and their mother, cousin, brother, sister crosses our borders for free medical care. Don't believe me, look at all those Texas hospitals near the Mexican border, they are drowning in caring for the illegals. And everyone outside this country knows to come here on a tourist visa and get free medical everything from flu shots to open heart surgery (we all have witnessed these abuses). So if my tax money is going to pay for anything let it be Terri and if you dont like it....CHANGE THE SYSTEM.

James Q Wilson has written a most outstanding piece in today's Wall Street Journal (click) and read it all:

Killing Terri
By JAMES Q. WILSON March 21, 2005; Page A16

Terri Schiavo is not brain dead as far as anyone can tell. If you are brain
dead, you have suffered an irreversible loss of all functions of the brain. If
agreed to by at least two physicians, that means you are legally dead, such that
your organs can be harvested to help other people.
Instead, Ms. Schiavo is in what many physicians call a "persistent vegetative state" (PVS). That means that she lacks an awareness of her self or other people, cannot engage in purposeful action, does not understand language, is incontinent, and sleeps alot. To be clinically classified as being in a PVS, these conditions should be
irreversible. But from what we know, some doctors dispute one or more of these
conditions and believe that it is possible that whatever her symptoms, they are
not irreversible.
Her condition is hardly unique. In 1995, when the American
Academy of Neurology published its report on people in a persistent vegetative
state, it found that there were as many as 25,000 adults and 10,000 children in
this country who suffered from PVS. Based on the best studies the Academy could
find at the time, some adults in a vegetative state 12 months after a
devastating injury or heart failure could recover consciousness and some human
functions. The chances that such a recovery will occur are very small, but they
are not zero.
If they are not zero, then withdrawing a patient's feeding
tubes and allowing her to die from a lack of water and food means that whoever
authorizes such a step may, depending on the circumstances, be murdering the
patient. The odds against it being a murder are very high, but they are not
100%.
* * *
Many people, myself included, have allowed life-support
systems to be withdrawn from parents who have no hope of recovery. My mother was going to die from cancer, and after all efforts had been made to help her, my
sister and I allowed the doctors to withdraw the devices that kept her alive.
She was dead within hours.
My case, and that of countless other people who
have made that decision, differs from that of Terri Schiavo in two important
ways. First, the early death of my mother was certain, but no one can say that
Ms. Schiavo will die soon or possibly at any time before she might die of old
age. Second, all the relevant family members agreed on the decision about my
mother, but family members are deeply divided about Terri.
These differences are of decisive importance. When death will occur soon and inevitably, the patient does not starve to death when life support ends. Since there was no chance of our mother living more than a few more days, what my sister and I did
could not be called murder. When death will not occur soon, or perhaps for many
years, and when there is a chance, even a very small one, that recovery is
possible, people who authorize the withdrawal of life support are playing God.

And in Terri's case, they are playing God when they do not have to.
Her parents have begged to become her guardians. Her husband has refused. We do not know for certain why the husband has refused. I doubt that he
wishes to receive for himself the money that still exists from her insurance
settlement and, apparently, he has offered to donate that money to charity.
Perhaps, being a Catholic, he would like her death to make him free to marry the
woman with whom he is now living. Or perhaps (and I think this is the most
likely case) he does not want his wife to live what strikes him as an
intolerable life.
The intolerable life argument has support from many doctors and bioethicists. They claim that a person can be "socially dead" even when their brains can engage in some functions. By "socially dead" they meanthat the patient is no longer a person in some sense. At this point their argument gets a bit fuzzy because they must somehow define what is a "person"and a "non-person." That is no easy matter.
By contrast, physicians have unambiguous ways of determining whether a person is brain dead. This means that brain death is a very conservative standard and, if it errs, it errs on the side of preserving life.
Some people believe that all of these issues can be resolved if everyone signs a living will that specifies what is to be done to them under various conditions. The living will is supposed to determine unambiguously when a "Do Not Resuscitate" sign should be placed on a patient's hospital chart. Terri Schiavo had not signed a living will. If she had, we would not be facing these issues.
* * *
But scholars have shown that we have
greatly exaggerated the benefits of living wills. Studies by University of
Michigan Professor Carl Schneider and others have shown that living wills rarely
make any difference. People with them are likely to get exactly the same
treatment as people without them, possibly because doctors and family members
ignore the wills. And ignoring them is often the right thing to do because it is
virtually impossible to write a living will that anticipates and makes decisions
about all of the many, complicated, and hard to foresee illnesses you may
face.This is a tragedy. Congress has responded by rushing to pass a law that
will allow her case, but only her case, to be heard in federal court. But there
is no guarantee that, if it is heard there, a federal judge will do any better
than the Florida one. What is lacking in this matter is not the correct set of
jurisdictional rules but a decent set of moral imperatives.
* * *
That moral imperative should be that medical
care cannot be withheld from a person who is not brain dead and who is not at risk for dying from an untreatable disease in the near future. To do otherwise makes us recall Nazi Germany where retarded people and those with serious disabilities were "euthanized" (that is, killed). We hear around the country echoes of this view in the demands that doctors be allowed to participate, as they do in Oregon, in physician-assisted suicide, whereby
doctors can end the life of patients who request death and have less than six
months to live. This policy endorses the right of a person to end his or her
life with medical help. It is justified by the alleged success of this policy in
the Netherlands.
But it has not been a success in the Netherlands.
In that country there have been well over 1,000 doctor-induced deaths among patients who had not requested death, and in a large fraction of those cases the patients were sufficiently competent to have made the request had they wished.
Keeping people alive is the goal of medicine. We can only modify
that policy in the case of patients for whom death is imminent and where all
competent family members believe that nothing can be gained by extending life
for a few more days. This is clearly not the case with Terri Schiavo . Indeed,
her death by starvation may take weeks. Meanwhile, her parents are pleading for
her life.
Mr. Wilson has taught at Harvard, UCLA and Pepperdine and is the
author of "The Moral Sense" (Free Press, 1997).

The added empahsis is mine.

Judge Gruesome Greer Reinstates Removal; Terri's Feeding tube Removed

ugh................Gruesome Greer handed down the death edict...........Terri's tube is out

Florida Judge Blocks Removal of Schiavo Feeding Tube

Temporary fix.......could 20 mintes, 20 hours, a week,....................................
Read all my previous Schaivo Posts
We must stop them now (click)
Jeb Bush Could Save Terri's Life(click)
Last Minute Court Order Delays Terris Starvation(click)
Please help Save Terri's Life...........Sign Petition(click)
Save Terri's Life.....Apathy is a crime too(click)
STOP THE MURDER OF TERRI SCHINDLER-SCHIAVO and let her mama take care of her(click)

DEATH AT 1PM

TERRI SCHEDULED TO DIE AT 1PM. SAVE THIS POOR GIRL'S LIFE!

ALERT: At 1:00pm today (Friday, March 18th), Terri Schindler-Schiavo is scheduled to be STARVED TO DEATH. We have little time to lose. We write in great haste, and beg you to read this closely; Terri's life hangs in the balance. We need you to be a part of this historic battle.

Randall Terry has been asked by Terri Schindler-Schiavo's family to lead activist and lobbying efforts on her behalf. The Schindler family has asked us to create as big a firestorm on Terri's behalf as is humanly possible. If we are going to rescue Terri Schindler-Schiavo from starvation, we must coordinate our efforts right now on two separate fronts -- state and federal.

Please take just a few minutes to help right now -- before it's too late. 

TAKE ACTION: There's three areas where action is needed RIGHT  NOW: 

1) THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. On Wednesday night (March 16), the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that could save Terri's life. That was a great first step. Then last night (March 17), the U.S. Senate passed a different bill to save Terri's life; that's right... it was a different bill!

This is incredibly frustrating, but true: the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate passed two different bills... which means that neither one will become law, unless we can get them to get their act together RIGHT NOW, and agree on one law. Here is what needs to happen, and what you can do to help save Terri from starvation:

Here is the cold hard political reality -- The only bill that the Senate could possibly have passed is the one that they passed last night. It was that bill or nothing.

So, the U.S. House needs to pass the Senate version of the law right now. That means that the House of Representatives must use the exact language that the U.S. Senate passed last night. And they need to do it before they go into their long Easter recess today.

We need you to contact the three key leaders of the U.S. House, and urge them to pass the Senate's version immediately. Call Congressman Sensenbrenner, who has championed Terri's fight thus far, Speaker Hastert, and Majority Leader Delay. Be polite, but be very direct, and don't let them make any excuses!

Let them know how frustrated you are! We have worked for years to get a conservative majority in both houses. What good is it if they can't work together to get anything done! We want results, not rhetoric; we want cooperation, not competition! C'mon guys, work together!

Representative F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-WI) Office:  202-225-5101 Fax: 202-225-3190 

Representative J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) Office: 202-225-2976 Fax:  202-225-0697 

Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX) Office: 202-225-5951 Fax:  202-225-5241 

Phone calls will have the most effect; but to send an e-mail message to  Congress, Click Here. 

2) THE FLORIDA LEGISLATURE. Yesterday (March 17), the State House of Representatives in Florida passed a law that would save Terri's life. Later in the day, in a preliminary vote, a similar bill failed to pass in the Senate. That is a very troubling sign. The main vote for the bill in the Senate will be today.

What made last night's preliminary vote so sad was that six State Senators who voted for "Terri's Law" in 2003 indicated that they would vote AGAINST it this time. We are losing six key Senators!

They MUST hear from us! They must know that Floridians -- and Americans from across the nation -- are counting on them to remain true to their commitment to protect Terri from starvation. The names and phone numbers of those Senators are listed below. They need to hear from you this morning (Friday, March 18)! Terri is scheduled to begin starvation TODAY!

Larcenia J. Bullard 850-487-5127 (Tallahassee) 305-668-7344  (District Office) 

Lisa Carlton 850-487-5081 (Tallahassee) 941-486-2032 (District Office) 

Evelyn J. Lynn 850-487-5033 (Tallahassee) 386-676-4000 (District  Office) 

Burt L. Saunders 850-487-5124 (Tallahassee) 239-417-6220 (District  Office) 

Les Miller, Jr. 850-487-5059 (Tallahassee) 813-272-2831 (District  Office) 

Anthony C. Hill, Sr. 850-487-5024 (Tallahassee) 904-924-1646 (District  Office) 

Phone calls will have the most effect; but to send an e-mail message to all  six state Senators at once, Click Here. 

3) Finally, before you make your phone calls, we are asking you to give a donation to help with the effort to save Terri's life. Battles cost money; resources cost money; media costs money; I could go on, but you get the picture. I am asking you to show your support by making as generous a contribution as you can to this effort. (Gifts are not tax deductible.)

CLICK HERE TO DONATE NOW! 

Thank you for your concern, your prayers, your efforts, and your support. Together, we can prevail against judicial tyranny, and rescue Terri Schiavo from a cruel death.

Please keep us in your prayers. 

NOTE: If Terri's feeding tube IS removed, be prepared to come to Tallahassee (the state capital of Florida) to beg the legislature and the governor to intervene on Terri's behalf

TAKE ACTION NOW! ACTION ALERT! MURDER AT 1PM!

 

Torturing Terri Schiavo She’d be better  off if she were a terrorist.

 

National  Review Online

Andrew C. McCarthy

NRO  Contributor

March 17,  2005, 7:58 a.m. - http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200503170758.asp

A few months back, I wrote an article for  Commentary arguing that we ought to reconsider our anti-torture laws. The  argument wasn’t novel. It echoed contentions that had been made with great  persuasive force by Harvard’s Professor Alan Dershowitz: that under  circumstances of imminent harm to thousands of moral innocents (the so-called  “ticking bomb” scenario), it would be appropriate to inflict, under  court-supervision, intense but non-lethal pain in an effort to wring information  from a morally culpable person — a terrorist known to be complicit in the plot. 

As one might predict with such a third rail, my mail was copious and  indignant. Opening the door by even a sliver for torture, I was admonished, was  the most reprehensible of slippery slopes. No matter how well-intentioned was  the idea, no matter the lives that might be saved, no matter how certain we  might be about the guilt of the detainee, the very thought that such a thing  might be legal would render us no better than the savages we were fighting.

Well, lo and behold, a court-ordered torture is set to begin in

Florida

on Friday at 1  P.M.

It will not produce a scintilla of socially useful information. It will not  save a single innocent life. It is not narrowly targeted on a morally culpable  person — the torture-victim is herself as innocent as she is defenseless. It is  not, moreover, meant to be brief and non-lethal: The torture will take about two  excruciating weeks, and its sole and only purpose is to kill the victim.

On Friday afternoon, unless humanity intervenes, the state of

Florida

is scheduled to  begin its court-ordered torture-murder of Terri Schiavo, whose only crime is  that she is an inconvenience. A nuisance to a faithless husband grown tired of  the toll on his new love interest and depleting bank account — an account that  was inflated only because a jury, in 1992, awarded him over a million dollars,  mostly as a trust to pay for Terri’s continued care, in a medical malpractice  verdict.

In this instance, though, deafening is the only word for the silence of my  former interlocutors — civil-liberties activists characteristically set on  hysteria auto-pilot the moment an al Qaeda terrorist is rumored to have been  sent to bed without supper by Don Rumsfeld or Al Gonzales (something that would,  of course, be rank rumor since, if you kill or try to kill enough Americans, you  can be certain our government will get you three halal squares a day).

Not so Terri Schiavo. She will be starved and dehydrated. Until she is dead.  By court order.

Terri is a 40-year-old woman who suffered brain damage after a diagnosed  heart attack when she was 26. In state legal proceedings dominated by macabre  right-to-die activists, a judge found her to be reduced to a permanent  vegetative state (PVS), drawing on examinations that appear grossly inadequate  to the task of what objective specialists say is a complex diagnosis. Whether  she would technically be found a PVS case by a court that was honestly  interested in getting a real fix on her condition — rather than breaking new  ground in just how far the Left can go in deciding whose life has value — is  beside the point. She is alive and, periodically, both alert and responsive. 

Her parents love her and want to care for her. Imagine if you had a child who  was defenseless, dependent, and vulnerable — many of us, indeed, need not  imagine — and the state told you not only to step aside but that you had to  watch, helpless, while it took two weeks to kill her. That’s what’s happening in 

Florida

.  Starting Friday.

On another Friday, seven years ago, Mohammed Daoud al-`Owhali and Khalfan  Khamis Mohammed blew up the American embassies in

Kenya

and

Tanzania

,  killing over 240 people. They were brought to the

United States

  for trial. They were given, at public expense, multiple, highly experienced  capital lawyers, and permitted extensive audiences to plead with the Justice  Department not to seek the death penalty. When a capital indictment nevertheless  was filed, they were given weeks of voir dire to ensure a jury of twelve  people open to the notion that even the lives of mass-murderers have value. They  were then given seven months of trial and sentencing proceedings, suffuse with  every legal and factual presumption that their lives had worth and should be  spared. And so they were.

That’s what the law says we must do for terrorists seeking to destroy our  country and to slaughter us indiscriminately.

What is the law doing for Terri Schiavo?

What kind of law is it, what kind of society is it, that says the lives of  Khalfan Khamis Mohammed and Mohammed Daoud al-`Owhali’s have value — over which  we must anguish and for the sustenance of which we must expend tens of thousands  annually — but Terri Schiavo’s is readily dispensable? By court-ordered torture  over the wrenching pleas of parents ready and willing to care for her?

What kind of society goes into a lather over the imposition of bright lights  and stress positions for barbarians who might have information that will save  lives, but yawns while a defenseless woman who hasn’t hurt anyone is willfully  starved and dehydrated? By a court — the bulwark purportedly protecting our  right to life?

The torture starts Friday, at 1 P.M. Unless we do something to stop it.

— Andrew C. McCarthy, who led the 1995 terrorism  prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and eleven others, is a senior  fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of  Democracies.

Death at 1PM

Death at 1PM

Small Group Of DEMOCRATIC SENATORS Accessory to Terri Schaivo Death Sentence

Every Republican is on board. there is a small band of democratic Senators (mine included, Hillary) that will not expedite and vote the passage of this bill, Call Now!

ALERT: If we're going to get legislators to step in and save Terri Schindler-Schiavo's life, we need you to make to make TWO quick phone calls TODAY.

Barring some miracle, the U.S. Senate and the Florida Senate are our last hope to save Terri from being STARVED to DEATH. But we have to act FAST -- Terri's feeding tube is scheduled to be removed TOMORROW (Friday 3/18) at 1:00 p.m.

Out-of-control judges and greedy lawyers are trying to STOP any action that could save this disabled woman. We MUST get the legislators to take action NOW, on both the state and national levels. The state House and the U.S. House have each passed bills to save Terri's life -- now it's up to the Senate in both places.

TAKE ACTION: TIME IS RUNNING OUT for Terri. We desperately need you to CALL these legislators NOW, to take immediate action. First, please call the U.S. Senate at 202-225-3121 and ask for your Senators' offices. When you're connected, just ask them to "please support a vote for the bill to save Terri Schiavo from being starved to death."

Next, call the President of the Florida Senate, Sen. Tom Lee, at  850-487-5072 or 850-487-5229. When you're connected, just ask him to "please support a vote for the bill to save Terri Schiavo from being starved to death." See all of my previous Schiavo posts by searching "Schaivo" on the blog search icon  on the top navigational bar

WE MUST STOP THEM NOW!

ALERT: They're about to starve a disabled woman to death in Florida.
Out-of-control judges and greedy lawyers are set to remove the feeding tube from Terri Schindler-Schiavo this week. She's not brain dead, nor in a coma, nor on any life support system; she is simply severely handicapped. She laughs and cries and tries to talk with her parents.
And the judges and lawyers want to kill her.
WE MUST STOP THEM NOW. Barring some miracle, Governor Bush and the Florida legislators are our last hope to save Terri.
TAKE ACTION: They've tried to kill Terri several times before. Last time, in October 2003, enough grassroots momentum was generated to pass "Terri's Law," which saved Terri from death. Unfortunately, the liberal Supreme Court of Florida struck down "Terri's law," and she's in danger once again of being starved to death.
In the big picture, this battle could be a key turning point in ending the rule of judicial dictators in our country. If we as citizens will denounce this oppression, and Gov. Bush and the Florida legislature will again stand against these judicial tyrants, it could be a key moment in our history as a nation. We could look back and see that this was a key battle in restoring the rule of law and the right of self-government in America; that it was a team battle in breaking the stranglehold that the courts have on our lives, our laws, and our liberties.
But TIME IS RUNNING OUT for Terri. Click below now to tell the Governor, the Speaker of the Florida House, and the President of the Florida Senate to stand against judicial tyranny and act on Terri's behalf:
http://www.rightmarch.com/terri2.htm
(If you live IN the state of Florida, go to http://www.rightmarch.com/terri2-fl.htm to help)
NOTE: The parents of Terri Schindler-Schiavo still need our financial help to fight this battle. They're holding press conferences, prayer vigils, traveling to meet with Gov. Bush and other leaders, and so much more. There are so many expenses in a case like this it is mind-boggling and overwhelming. Please give ASAP; the need is urgent now, and time is critical:
https://secure.cartlight.com/merchant/terri/?afid=rmemail
If you prefer to donate by check, please send to the following address:
The Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation3501-B N. Ponce de Leon Blvd.Suite 394Dept. Code rmemailSt. Augustine, FL 32084
Be sure to send this Alert to everyone you know who wants to help save Terri's life. Thank you!

Jeb Bush could save Terri's life ... if he wanted to

Jeb Bush could save Terri's life ... if he wanted to
Posted: February 22, 20051:00 a.m. Eastern
By Doc Washburn© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court paved the way for the execution of Terri Schiavo, beginning today. She is the brain-damaged woman whose husband has been trying to starve and dehydrate her to death for years.
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush should have responded, "You better believe I'm not going to allow an innocent woman to be executed in the most cruel way imaginable in my state! We wouldn't do that to a dog, and I'm not about to let it happen to Terri Schiavo! No sir, not on my watch!"
READ THIS EDITORIAL ON WND NOW click headline

Last-minute Court Order delays Schiavo Starvation

!An appeals court today paved the way for Michael Schiavo to remove the feeding tube keeping his severely brain-damaged wife alive, but a local judge followed with an emergency stay barring any action until tomorrow afternoon.
Schiavo is living with another woman with whom he has two children but refuses to give up guardianship of his wife, Terri, to her parents Robert and Mary Schindler.
WND.com has story posted: Last minute court order delays Sciavo starvation appeal
Hat tip ATigerPaused
CONTACT JEB BUSH TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mr. Bill Levesque, The St. Pete Times -- levesque@sptimes.comMr. Dave Sommer, The Tampa Tribune -- mailto:dsommer@tampatrib.comFOX News- list of ALL contacts!http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77538,00.htmlWorld net daily: news@worldnetdaily.comDrudge Report: Drudge@drudgereport.comWashington Times: http://www.washtimes.com/contact-us/Town Hall: http://www.townhall.com/about/contact.html(Also go to http://www.townhall.com/ and you will find a link in the left margin for you to contact congress)ABC News Contact List: http://abcnews.go.com/Reference/story?id=54216CBS News (Got to very bottom of page and click the contact us link)CNN Feedback: http://www.cnn.com/feedback/MSN Contact list: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3303518/American Daily- Letter to the Editor: http://www.americandaily.com/page/lettersthanks

Please Save Terri's Life...sign the Petition

Listen, who are we to say that Terri's husband did not put her in that coma? Who are we to believe the word of a man that wants to kill her? Who are we to take a child from her mother? Who are we to deny a family? Who are we to say the Terri Schindler-Schiavo is not enjoying her life in her capability. She is AWARE of her family. She hears her mother's voice, feels her mother's touch and lives for her mother's kiss.
Please sign this petition before you go about day and enjoy your life as they begin to starve her to death........................The Petition

Please see my previous posts on this story Accessory to murder

SAVE TERRI'S LIFE. Apathy is a crime too.....

SAVE TERRI!
THIS IS THE PLAN:Richard at blogsforterri is in contact with the people closest to Terri’s family. ALL the blogs fighting for Terri have been given their marching orders on how to SAVE TERRI. It is a simple plan that we can ALL do. There is also some GREAT information that has surfaced to help us in this fight. STAY STRONG AND VIGILANT to SAVE TERRI!First- You need to be armed with the FACTS!
Go HERE to read an affidavit by Alexander T. Gimon, PhD., a clinical neurophysiologist on Terri’s progress despite her lack of therapy and poor treatment.
Go HERE to read about the myth of PVS and Terri’s condition.
Go HERE to find out about new tests that Terri deserves in light of new information- especially due to the Sarah Scantlin case.
Go HERE to find out why Judge Greer should be removed from his position IMMEDIATELY! He is holding his position ILLEGALLY!
Go HERE to find out how Governor Jeb Bush CAN and SHOULD step in and SAVE TERRI! The Florida State Constitution clearly states in article #2: "All natural persons, female and male alike, are equal before the law and have inalienable rights, among which are the right to enjoy and defend life and liberty, to pursue happiness...No person shall be deprived of any right because of race, religion, national origin, or physical disability."
Second- Email Jeb Bush. Copy and paste info you get from above onto a word doc and save it. This way you can easily copy and paste this info into any and ALL emails—you will be more effective by arming yourself with facts, and also utilizing your time wisely. jeb@jeb.org
Third- Email EVERY SINGLE MEDIA SOURCE YOU CAN WITH THIS INFO—ESPECIALLY INFO ABOUT JUDGE GREER ILLEGALLY SITTING IN HIS POSITION! This kind of info is just a great bit of meat for the media vultures—they love scandal—they see this fight for Terri as a bunch of emotional fanatics. A judge sitting in his perch illegally is something more worth covering. DO not limit your emails to JUST this piece of info—but START with it…
Fourth- Email, and call EVERYONE you know--- EVERYONE! GET THEM TO ALSO JOIN THE EMAIL CAMPAIGN! If you live locally in Florida- make calls too! Flood them. Flood them! Flood them! Let them know the POWER of the PEOPLE they CLAIM to SERVE!

TIP: If you are unsure of what to write, Shari starts EACH email with this:
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for a good man to do nothing!Edmund Burke.
You Have the PLAN! WHAT WILL YOU DO?
EASY LINKS TO ACT NOW!(Media):
Local Media: (Terri's Local Meida, Florida)St Pete Times President - timespresident@sptimes.com
Customer Service - Subscriptions - custserv@sptimes.com
Letters to the Editor - letters@sptimes.com
Mr. Bill Levesque, The St. Pete Times -- levesque@sptimes.com
Mr. Dave Sommer, The Tampa Tribune -- mailto:dsommer@tampatrib.com
FOX News- list of ALL contacts!http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77538,00.html
World net daily: news@worldnetdaily.com
Drudge Report: Drudge@drudgereport.com
Washington Times: http://www.washtimes.com/contact-us/
Town Hall: http://www.townhall.com/about/contact.html(Also go to http://www.townhall.com/ and you will find a link in the left margin for you to contact congress)
ABC News Contact List: http://abcnews.go.com/Reference/story?id=54216CBS News (Got to very bottom of page and click the contact us link)CNN Feedback: http://www.cnn.com/feedback/MSN Contact list: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3303518/American Daily- Letter to the Editor: http://www.americandaily.com/page/lettersthanks
Hat tip (and mostly written by) thanks to my favorite evvvvvilconservative, Shari

STOP THE MURDER OF TERRY SCHINDLER-SCHIAVO and let her mama take care of her

Terri Schiavo Faces Certain Death From Starvation Unless  Appeals Granted

February 17, 2005 – Handicapped woman Terri Schiavo is facing certain death by starvation unless last minute court appeals are granted to her parents. Her feeding tube is to be removed on Feb. 22 nd.

Schiavo is severely brain-damaged and her parents have been trying to gain guardianship over her for years. Her husband, Michael Schiavo has been working to have her feeding tube removed. He lives with another woman and has had two children with her.

TAKE ACTION: Contact Florida Governor Jeb Bush and the leaders of the Florida legislature and ask that they pass a stronger law to protect disabled patients from being starved to death:

Contact  information:

Jeb Bush, Governor
Executive Office of  the Governor
The Capitol
Tallahassee, FL  32399-0001
(850)  488-4441
Fax (850) 4870801
jeb@myflorida.com

Tom  Lee, Senate President
Capitol Office:
Room 312,
Senate Office  Building
404 South Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1100
(850)  487-5072
lee.tom.web@flsenate.gov

District  Office:
915 Oakfield Drive
Suite E
Brandon, FL 33511
(813)  744-8683
FAX (813) 744-8556

Allan G. Bense,  Speaker

Capitol Office:
402 South Monroe  Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1300
Phone: (850) 488-1450

speaker@myfloridahouse.gov

District Office:
Suite A
455 Harrison Avenue
Panama City, FL 32401-2443
Phone: (850) 914-6300

Help Me!                     Please click read my previous post! URGENT

Death Judge helps husband murder Terry Schindler-Schiavo

Accident Victim Speaks After 20-Year Silence            

Sunday, February  13, 2005

            

            

      

          

PHOTOS                  Click image to enlarge

      HUTCHINSON, Kan.  — For 20 years, Sarah Scantlin (search) has been mostly oblivious to the world around her — the victim of a drunken driver who struck her down as she walked to her car. Today, after a remarkable recovery, she can talk again.   

                           

Scantlin's father knows she will never fully recover, but her newfound ability to speak and her returning memories have given him his daughter back. For years, she could only blink her eyes — one blink for "no," two blinks for "yes" — to respond to questions that no one knew for sure she understood.

And who says this can't happen to Terry Schindler-Schiavo? Why does her husband want her dead? And why are LEFT WING judges assisting in her murder?

Dr. Dobson enters Schiavo fray
Saturday, February 12, 2005 -- Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, yesterday called for preservation of Terri Schiavo's life, citing the recent, spontaneous recovery of Sarah Scantlin after 20 years of memory loss and inability to speak. Dobson said Sch ...

Where's the bottom of the slippery slope?
Monday, January 31, 2005 by Barbara Simpson -- What a world! At one-and-the-same time, we argue issues of life and death under euphemisms of pro-choice, pro-life, the right to choose, the right to die. First, we have the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the legalization of what has come ...

Judicial homicide
Saturday, January 29, 2005 by David N. Bass -- This was a distressing week for the sanctity of life in America. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene in the life-and-death struggle surrounding Terri Schindler-Schiavo, a brain-disabled Florida woman who has been condemn ...

U.S. Supreme Court
refuses Schiavo case
Monday, January 24, 2005 -- The Supreme Court refused today to reinstate "Terri's Law," a Florida measure passed to keep a brain-damaged woman alive after her husband obtained a court order to remove her feeding tube. Terri Schiavo's estranged husband, Michael Schiav ...
World Net daily articles....click on headlines for full story

By now you have probably heard about a young woman who is threatened with  starvation in Florida. 

That young woman is my daughter, Terri. In 1990, through  circumstances which are shrouded in mystery (and may involve a criminal act by  Terri's estranged husband), my daughter was left severely brain-damaged. 

But before I go any further, I must put an end to the lies and  misinformation that are circulating around the country through the media  concerning my daughter's condition. 

Contrary to anything you may have heard, Terri is NOT brain dead; Terri is  NOT in a coma; she is NOT in a "persistent vegetative state;" nor is she on ANY  life-support system. 

Terri laughs, Terri cries, she moves, and she makes child-like attempts at  speech with her mother and me. Sometimes she will say "Mom" or "Dad" or "yeah"  when we ask her a question. When I kiss her hello or goodbye, she looks at me  and "puckers up" her lips. 

This may not seem like much to you, but it means everything to Terri's mother  and me. It tells us she is still here, she still knows us, and with  therapy and time she can have some level of recovery.

 

Terri Schindler-Shiavo is  in danger of being STARVED to DEATH: Click below to help PREVENT this  atrocity NOW! 

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