Update (3/18/05): If you’ve landed here through an Internet search, please see the latest post on Terri Schiavo.
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When I first read about the woman who talked after being in a coma for 20 years, I thought of Terri Schiavo. Although their conditions may be very different, one can’t help but wonder if the same could happen to Terri.
We may never know, it seems, because her feeding tubes could be removed as early as February 22. Without those tubes, she’ll slowly starve to death. Can you believe it? This woman seems to be aware of her surroundings, but even if she isn’t, her eyes are open and she makes facial gestures. The point that can’t be missed is that Terri is alive.
Bloggers are trying to create a swarm to save Terri’s life. They’re asking other bloggers to join the Blog for Terri blogroll and raise awareness by posting about Terri at least once a day. Forty-five bloggers have signed up so far.
Hyscience has a lot of background information and links (latest post) If you’re blogging about Terri Schiavo, trackback to this post and I’ll include your link: Pro-Life Blogs, My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (and here), And Rightly So!, She Who Will Be Obeyed (lots of links to other blogs), Basil’s Blog, Myopic Zeal, blogicus, LifeSteward, Wittenberg Gate, Common Sense Runs Wild, Borgard Blog, thebandwagon, Jerry McClellan, The Anchoress, David LimbaughHyscience, The Political Teen, Crystal Clear…
There are tough issues involved in the case. Michael Schiavo says it was his wife’s wish to die rather than live the way Terri is living, but his credibility about this and other matters has suffered over the years. Keep in mind, he can divorce Terri anytime he wants and marry the mother of his children, but he chooses to remain married to her. Why? Is there money involved? Is it twisted revenge against Terri’s parents?
What does Terri want? She can’t tell us, but erring on the side of caution seems to be in order. The doctors involved in this case obviously don’t want to shoot her up with a lethal dose of morphine. That would be the quickest way, so why choose death by starvation? Perhaps to absolve themselves of murderous guilt. “We removed the feeding tubes, but we didn’t kill her. She died of ‘natural causes.’” I don’t know.
Bloggers caused enough ruckus to topple someone in Big Media, so let’s see what we can do to save a life.
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I am so with you, LaShawn – Terri was the first person I thought of when I heard of Sarah’s recovery. I blogged on it Sunday morning, while waiting for my plane to Maine – here is the link – http://www.thedonovan.com/beth/archives/cat_my_opinion.html#003620
I suggest you attempt to lead a coalition against this Death Penality on the Innocent — and try to contact anti-Death Penality folk, and personalities, and politicians.
As a black, female, pro-life person (2 BIG victim minorities, one “invisible”), you have a good shot at leadership fame — if you are leading something.
I’d be happy to follow, a bit…
(Get pro-life diversity at CNN?)
Go, girl!
Thank you Lashawn for highlighting this! I think there is too much uncertainity about Terri to give up on her now!
I have been writing daily on my blog, http://www.stealthebandwagon.blogspot.com, since Friday. A few sites that have been nothing but inspirations for me (besides Beth) have been http://www.commonsenserunswild.typepad.com and http://www.fight4terri.blogspot.com (she is an RN who has been following Terri’s fight for quite some time now, although she is an independent advocate; she works closely with Terri’s family to get the word out.
Thanks again Lashawn for highlighting this case!
Thank you so much for writing for Terri! It’s wonderful having you with us blogging for Terri– in your CPAC post you mentioned giving a voice to the smaller blogs, and you’re doing exactly that by lending your name to the cause. But more importantly, you’re giving a voice to a woman whose life depends on it!
Pleas slow down – Sarah has not “recovered” – she merely utterred a few words.
A Neurlogist explained it to me this way:
“Probably locked-in, i.e. good cortical function but damaged brainstem and some corticobulbars now working to allow speech from basically normal cortexx. Not that rare after number of years (if patient survives the UTIs , bedsores, etc-)and now may regain more function!”
No where near a “cure”, but not that “far out” either. Sarah may have a cortex (part of the brain responsible for thinking) that was working, but the brainstem needed to talk was damaged.
In the absence of really knowing, I would opt for not “executing” these patients.
The husband says ’she made a statement about not wanting to live under these conditions’, This is the living will again.
However, in this case nothing is written down and all anyone has to go on is the word of a man who has created another family and lived with another woman while still married to Terri Shiavo some Man.
With this kind of credibility how can anyone take his word on what Terri may or may NOT have said.
The parents want to take care of her and all this cretin has to do is to divorce Terri, but he won’t because as someone already pointed out , its all about money.
Amazingly the people supporting the ‘pulling of the plug’ are from the left and far-left, the same self-styled Marxists who never want a death penalty sentence carried out but in this case they want to deny Terri the same right they would give a mass murderer, a Ted Bundy . There argument against the death penalty is on the grounds of cruel and unusual punishment, on this premise they protest and call anyone who supports it an evil conservative.
Following this train of thought what in the world would they call death by starvation and for that matter partial birht abortion. On this same note what ever happened to a womans’ right to choose, since there is no Legal document stating what Terri really wanted, would we not have to assume she would choose life.
As enlightened as these people on the left claim to be they certainly lack any continuity of thought, they call themselves Enlightened I call them hypocrites.
Mark
I blogged about it days ago. I’ve blogged about Terri a number of times. I cannot imagine how those judges can sleep at night, especially after this newest story.
La Shawn,
Thank you so much for doing this.
All of us together can hopefully make a difference. Having people like you helping will make it easier!
I don’t have trackback so I will leave a comment instead.
A novena for Michael Schiavo: http://sensiblemom.blogspot.com/2005/02/novena-for-terri-schiavo-via-michael.html
Dear Ms. Barber: If you or your readers wanted to bone up on what has happened in the Schiavo case, a good place to start would be with Wesley Smith’s articles in the DAILY/WEEKLY STANDARD website, at http://www.weeklystandard.com. There is a search feature, which pulled up 13 of his articles using the keyword search “smith” and “schiavo.”
All 13 of the articles are free, meaning they can be read without subscribing.
Be warned: Mr. Smith is not a fan of Michael Schiavo, and there likely are angles he has not covered. But if even one percent of what he says about Michael Schiavo and Judge Greer are true, it is a monstrous indictment.
Sincerely yours,
Gregory Koster
Then this morning I read Lashawn Barber’s Corner about Terry Schiavo. The woman Florida in a vegetative state, whose husband wants to pull the plug on her and starve her to death…
How do we get attention for Terri Schiavo’s fight? In the Dan Rather and Eason Jordan cases, the media was the culprit and we were able to make them focus on themselves and their reputations. However, how do we make the media become interested in a story that doesn’t involve them or their ideology? Any thoughts?
I just received this from Rightmarch.com
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Dear Mark Gray,
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.
I know that there are some hard hearted people who believe that due to my daughters condition, she is better off dead. Words cannot describe the pain and anger such sentiments cause us. This is our daughter, our little girl, and even in her disabled condition, she still has the right to life and the right to be loved and cared for by her family.
Why, you may ask, is Terry in danger of death by starvation?
It is a long and outrageous story, but I’ll give it to you as briefly as I can.
After the “incident” that left Terry in this condition, her husband Michael Schiavo sued various members of the medical community for money, saying that they did not treat or diagnose her properly at an early stage, and that he needed this money to provide for Terri’s therapy and rehabilitation and care.
After lengthy court battles, he finally won upwards of $1.7 million under the guise of caring for our daughter, and then to our horror, he immediately began spending the money on himself and his Playboy lifestyle.
Terri’s estranged husband Michael Schiavo has been living with another woman for years, and has two children by her. He is determined to see Terri dead. Why? We believe it’s because he gets to keep whatever money is left… and he may have even darker motives than that.
To add insult to all of this injury toward my daughter, Michael Schiavo is still her “legal husband” and therefore is her “guardian.” And since they are not legally divorced, he controls whatever health care she will and will not get. We are not even allowed to know if she is getting aspirin.
In 1993 my family initiated litigation against Michael Schiavo solely for the purpose of acquiring medical, physical and neurological assistance for our daughter Terri. The litigation escalated in 1998 when Michael Schiavo petitioned the court to stop Terri from receiving food and water, thereby starving her to death.
In filing this legal action, he retained the services of a high profile euthanasia attorney and the financial backing of powerful euthanasia organizations. He also used Terri’s medical rehabilitation money to underwrite much of the legal expenses associated with his effort to starve our daughter to death.
We know that he has spent nearly $500,000 of Terri’s money in attorney’s fees for just one attorney trying to obtain a court order to have Terri starved to death. The very money that was supposed to be used for Terri’s rehabilitation is being used to have her killed.
We very quickly discovered it was impossible for us to compete with the abundance of financial and legal resources the pro-death organizations were providing Micheal Schiavo in their effort to kill Terri. They are pouring time and effort into her starvation because they want to use this case to further the agenda of legalized euthanasia.
My wife and I are not wealthy people. Throughout those years, we did not have any large organizations trying to help rescue our daughter. Consequently, we had to rely on the generosity of attorneys who were willing to offer their legal expertise at no cost or at reduced fees.
The bottom line is that we are in the final weeks or months of our struggle to rescue our daughter from an untimely death by starvation. Death by starvation is very slow, and extremely painful. As you must know, it is against the law to deliberately starve an animal to death. There are members of the Florida court who would not treat a dog the way they plan to treat my daughter.>>>>
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I have never met this man and I assume it is a standard form letter sent from Rightmarch.com/PAC
however, I believe this to be true.
This also tells you what kind of people we are dealing with here..
Mark
Amen! Terri is very much alive and alert and why her so-called husband (who we all know is living with another woman for the past 9ish years and has 2 kids with her) really could give a rat’s behind about her. All he wants is her money. He’s a controlling, manipulative, evil person. Terri deserves to be taken care of by those who truly love her – her parents. She deserves to live comfortably and treated with kindness. She is not a vegetable. It sickens me that the mainstream media is believing Michael’s and his attorney’s lies.
her husband should be taken to the nearest tree and hung by his nect till he is dead i mean this is the typre of immoral behavior we cant abide by this is lealise murder
Joined Terri’s blogroll; here’s a post: http://standinthetrenches.blogspot.com/2005/02/terri-schiavos-fight-for-life.html
Let’s hope we can focus some honest attention on Terri’s plight.
Hi LaShawn! Thanks for speaking up for Terri. You asked, “What does Terri want?” Her husband Michael claims that her wish was to be starved to death (does anyone ever really express such a desire?) However, his former girlfriend, Cindy Shook testified that when she asked him what Terri wanted, he replied, “”How the h*** should I know we never spoke about this, my God I was only 25 years old. How the h*** should I know? We were young. We never spoke of this.”
I’m going to write my living will right now so that well-intentioned meddlers don’t intervene on my behalf should I find myself in this woman’s lamentable state. Her life is hardly what I would call living.
LaShawn, you are right on just about every other issue except for this one. Terri is alive, but there are many people we keep alive with mechanical ventilation or medications to artificially sustain blood pressure. Decisions to withdraw these measures are made every day by family members in close consultation with their doctors. There is a distinction between “letting die” and euthanasia. Terri Schiavo falls into the former case. I’ve told my wife that, if I were in Terri Schiavo’s situation, to let me die and be with God. The thought of the government over-riding my wife’s decision about these end-of-life issues is frightening.
D.C. Chang, you do make a valid point, but I think the trouble in Terri’s case stems from the fact that it isn’t clear what her own decision was/is. It’s slimy ‘husband’ vs. distraught parents with Terri stuck in the middle.
Is it true that she can legally be divorced from her ‘husband?’ What an ideal solution! Just give him whatever money he wants and let him just go away.
I pray for a miracle that ‘husband’ will be removed from Terri’s life and that she’ll be spared…given back to her parents to care for her.
LaShawn,
I am a radio talk show host in Florida. I feel so strongly about Terri’s plight (and Jeb Bush’s refusal to actually help her) that I wrote a 750-word column to try to get it into the msm. Thus far, there has been no response from the Washington Times or National Review. I e-mailed the editor of the Wall Street Journal this evening. I am about ready to try USA Today. It is very frustrating. Anyway, here is what I wrote:
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Recently, the US Supreme Court paved the way for the execution of Terri Schiavo beginning February 22. She is the brain-damaged woman whose husband has been trying to starve and dehydrate her to death for years. Florida Governor Jeb Bush should have responded, â€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 watchâ€! Instead, we got: "I will do whatever I can do within the powers that have been granted to me by law and by statute. I will do whatever I can. I'm not going to do more than that," and "I really don't know what options we have available, but I will take whatever options I think there are".
Perhaps I can help. Florida’s state constitution says "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." The fact that a Circuit Judge continues to ignore Florida statutes does not change the state constitution. Jeb Bush took an oath to uphold that constitution and yet (despite receiving 120,000 e-mails begging him to save her), he let Terri Schiavo starve (and dehydrate) for six days back in October 2003 until the Florida legislature passed a law that gave him political cover. Now that the courts have struck down “Terri’s Lawâ€, don't be surprised if Jeb behaves as if the constitution he swore to uphold is still not relevant to Terri Schiavo. Don't be surprised if he allows her husband to slowly starve and dehydrate her to death.
As you know by now if you’ve seen the videos, Terri tries to communicate and is fully aware of what is going on around her. There is also medical evidence to suggest that a criminal investigation should be launched to try to determine whether her husband may have caused her current disabled state back in 1990. What you probably don’t know is: (A) there never was a local criminal investigation of Terri’s case in Pinellas County; (B) I personally handed the medical evidence to Jeb at a public appearance he made at a nursing home dedication on August 21, 2003: and (C) former federal prosecutors (now with the Thomas More Law Center) gave Jeb all the legal justification he would have needed to personally intervene on Terri's behalf on the first two days of her six-day ordeal!
Consider his track record. On Day Two of Terri’s starvation (October 16,2003), Jeb said his legal staff could find no statutory justification to intervene in the court decision that approved Terri’s death. Richard Thompson (chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center) shot back: “Nobody is asking the Governor to intervene in the civil case. We are asking him to initiate an independent criminal investigation based on a list of facts that suggest criminal wrongdoing. We have outlined for the Governor some of these facts, and confirmed his Constitutional authority to act. The fact that he has chosen to confuse the public by referring to the civil case, completely ignoring the request that we presented, reveals a lack of moral courage and political will. We expect the Governor to do the right thing, and so far, he has refused to do so.â€
In the ensuing 16 months, Jeb has steadfastly refused to order the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to do an investigation. Is he more concerned about how he is perceived by the editorial boards of Florida’s big daily papers (most of whom want Terri dead) than with saving an innocent woman’s life? Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family recently "renewed his call for the preservation of the life of Terri Schiavo". If we really want that to happen, we need to put the heat on Jeb. E-mail him at jeb.bush@myflorida.com.
P.S. Did you catch what the swiftvets did to John Kerry? For that matter, have you noticed the growing influence of blogs? If Jeb lets Terri die, it probably would not be wise for him to run for office again.
Doc Washburn is a radio talk show host in Panama City, FL.>>
Doc Washburn,
I hope your column does make it into print in time to help Terri. Could you clarify for me though, your comments about Jeb Bush? I haven’t followed all the details of this case, but I thought that Jeb wrote a law specifically to help people like Terri, but the courts oveturned/overruled it. I feel he truly does want to save her, but he also has to follow legal procedures. He’s not a king who can just wave his scepter and say, “So be it.”
FL Mom,
I wrote an entire 750-word column detailing what Jeb could (but does not want to) do to save Terri. For some reason, only the last few lines made it onto the Comments section of LaShawn’s blog. So what you read does not make sense. If you want the whole column, e-mail me at whatsupdoc101buzz@yahoo.com and I will send you the whole thing. Himt: jeb knows very well what he could do and I think it is despicable that he is acting like he does not have a clue…
I am so shocked and saddened at the thoughts of Terri Schiavo being starved to death. My heart goes out to her and her Mom and Dad. I have a family member who has been disabled for 27 years. When I see Terri on television I am reminded of my relative except she will not be starved to death and is alive and well today. Is there any way we can help Terri?
My thoughts and prayers are with Terry and her family. I just heard on the radio that they have been given a 24 hour reprieve. I would just like everyone to pray fervently today for Terry. The power of prayer is an awesome force.
For Him
Kelli Jo Hodges
I am a former seminarian, one whio studied in a Roman Catholic Seminary. I studied Catholic theology for three years. In our Moral theology classes, we were taught, by emmintent Catholic Theologians that the main principle in deciding whethewr a person shouild live or die that we must consider the use of ordinary means to keep the person alive. The question with Terri Schaivo is are the means being used ordinary or extraordinary. The pereson who should make this final dexision is the parents or, if married, the spouse. Now people want judges to step in and say that the spouse no longer has this right. Do we apply this same rule to those who have been seriously brain injured in an accident. Should these people be ketp alive on machines or permitted to die.
People who call themselves pro life tell us that only God can make the decision as to when a person dies. In the Terri Schaivo case, how does any one really know what is God’s will ? Should it not be in the hands or her spouse, and therefore, preserve the sanctity of marriage; or should it be put into the hands of a judge, or even in the hands of an elected official who wants to use this case as a way to mine for votes?
Another problem I have wth this is that so many people want to intefere with Mr. Schaivo’s life and tell him how to lead it and what decisions to make! So many people know better than he what decisions to make!
I personally think that if this man is allowed to remove her feeding tube that he should also lose his nutrition too. I think that from the last drop she is given and until she passes that this man should not be allowed a drink or a bite of food. Some may think it mean, but that is exactly what is happening to her. It is not like they are pulling her off a respirator. They would be taking away her basic rights as a human.
It is absolute nonsense to believe that death is the worst thing that could happen. Jesus didn’t save this woman from being almost brain dead so I doubt he’ll care if we let her live with dignity.
(Edited – Admin)
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