Terri Schiavo’s family’s quest to head off the court-ordered starvation set to begin Friday at 1:00 p.m is out of judicial options.
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) – A state appeals court Wednesday refused to block the removal of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube later this week in the long-running right-to-die battle between the woman’s husband and her parents.
The 2nd District Court of Appeal in Lakeland turned down a request from Bob and Mary Schindler for a delay while they pursue further appeals, and for a new trial on their daughter’s fate.
Schiavo, 41, suffered severe brain damage in 1990 when her heart stopped beating, and court-appointed doctors say she is in a persistent vegetative state.
Her husband, Michael Schiavo, has said she told him she would not want to be kept alive artificially. Her parents dispute that, and say she could get better.Terri’s husband Michael Schiavo recently turned down a $1 million offer to let his wife’s parents decide her medical treatment.
The Florida Legislature and Congress are both moving through bills that would block the feeding tube removal, but the court has already struck down Terri’s Law in Florida which rescued her from an earlier death-by-starvation order.
Nice try, Paul, but unfortunately for the premise (And it *is* one in this case, not an argument. ) & assumed connected conclusion, that damned old reality tends to intrude at the most inopportune times. }:) Case in point, the House committee’s rebuff by the USSC. It really is something of a shame that they’re frittering our precious tax $$ on useless efforts like trying to get the USSC to buy into cutting the judiciary’s throat. Asking the high court to establish the slippery-slope precedent of congressional overrides any time it gets a wild hair up its toches is about as bright as the proverbial peeing in a blue serge suit. It may make you feel good whilst doing it, but nobody else is going to care, & sooner or later you’re going to have to get the suit cleaned.
I do hate having to say it (since it might give the impression that I’m being a Dutch Uncle), but you’re not really too good at what you’re attempting. Spend a few months in some of the more troll-oriented usenet NG’s (say, for example, rec.org.mensa) & you might pick up enough pointers to have a chance of making a semi-successful run at rebutting my points. 🙂 Frankly, based on the graduate level of r.o.m., I tend to think you might be overmatched by some of the brighter lights there, but it might be worth a shot, so I recommend it for whatever little or much it might be worth.
One person in particular to look for there would be a fellow by name of John Tibbs — he carries a lot of the same stuff in his backpack that you do, so I’m 95%+ sure the two of you’d get along swimmingly. 🙂 Unfortunately John tends to be a bit myopic & buys into getting played like a $2 fiddle, but he just doesn’t give a flying rat’s patoot so he never acknowledges it even when it’s spelled out for him by people who don’t know he’s a troll. As the saying goes, he’s only here for the beer, & the heck with the free lunch.
RE: bill-infopro’s post (March 19, 2005 08:55 AM)
rec.org.mensa
Surprisingly high obsession with religion. Is that typical or did I hit a bad streak? From what I read, the brighter bulbs seemed to be out to dinner leaving a few 30W incandescents. Clearly my random sampling was not representative.
I’ll return some other day and lurk for “John Tibbs” and your signature style. It could be fun.
I keep hearing/reading about how cruel it is to starve someone including some posters here. It is done thousands of times a month here in the U.S.A.
I had to make the decision to pull nutrition/hydration from my father since my siblings were absent, my mother away to get insulin injections. The doctor on his rounds told me that my father hadn’t produced any urine for 24 hours and would die from uremic poisoning. He had been comatose for over a week due to renal failure. His brain and heart were in great shape for a 77 year old man.
Making that decision was the hardest thing I ever did. When my mother returned to the hospital, I told her what I had done, that if she wished, we could call in the nursing staff and have the tubes reinserted. My mother agreed and I think she was actually relieved I had made the decision and she didn’t have to.
My father lived 36 hours after feeding and hydration was withdrawn. He slept peacefully, no movement until the final moment when he did open his eyes for the first time in a week, furrowed his brow as if about to cry, gurgled a minute, than quit breathing The whole time my mother was holding him telling him she loved him and that she would someday join him (she then developed liver cancer and followed him). We kept his lips moist with vaseline and cold water cloths, slipped small chips of ice between his lips when the nurses weren’t around. He had family with him the whole time.
Now when I hear Tom DeLay calling folks such as I names like “medical terrorist” “murderer” “homicidal” these unpleasant memories of my father’s last days come crashing in on me again, but it was his expressed wishes not to prolong his life when he was dying.
Larry,
You are a medical terrorist.
Congratulations on murdering your father. What a piece of work you must be.
I had a brother hooked up to machines to keep him alive. He was diagnosed with Spinal Meningitis when he was four months old. He was shortly hooked up to all sorts of machines to keep him alive. My mother and father having four other children were desperatly trying to decide what was the right action. The doctors said that he would be a in a “vegetable” state for the rest of his life. Unsure of what action to take my parents prayed by his bedside. They wanted help on making the right decision. They were willing to take on the hard work of caring for him-because they loved him, but didn’t know if that’s what they were supposed to do. The second the prayer was through the heart monitor stopped. They suddenly felt that this was the way it was supposed to be. Within minutes, my brother passed away. I am sure it was a hard decision, but they had God on their side.
To pull the plug on someone isn’t an easy thing to do, and I DO think that Terri Schiavo’s husband has a lot to hide. If your wife was in the state that Terri was in, wouldn’t you be by her side-all the time? Why didn’t he say anything about her wishes right after it happened? He waited years to say “Oh, I forgot. Terri didn’t want to live like this.” That’s pretty hard to believe. After all those years he decides to say something. If that’s really what she wanted why did it take so long for him to come forward? Besides, where’s the proof that she told him that anyway? There was no papers, no evidence. Isn’t that called “hearsay”? Where were the judges on that? Not to mention that he has been living with another woman for how long? No one can tell me he had god on his side. Leaving his wife in that state and living with another woman. Isn’t that considered Adultery? They were still married! Come on! He didn’t care about Terri. He just wanted the power to control her, and her fate.
Terri was not in any harm. She wasn’t having complications. Why not let her parents care for her? It would get him “off the hook”, like he wanted. Obviously she was loved by them. They saw what was behind the tubes and machines. I saw videos about Terri and she was smiling and following a balloon around the room. She knew when her parents entered the room. You can’t tell me she was brain dead. She was making progress. You could see that in the videos. No judge wanted to see that though. Terri Schiavo’s husband will pay for his actions eventually. I just hope that laws are passed in the future to stop this from happening again. The courts should not have been involved to make this decision in the first place. They couldn’t have cared less. That’s my opinion. Say what you want, but Terri Shiavo’s husband is a creep.