| Subject: Re: No life either |
Author:
NKLS Cody
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Date Posted: 14:10:17 03/31/05 Thu
In reply to:
Kathyrn
's message, "Re: but but No Brain Waves" on 23:13:59 03/30/05 Wed
Sorry, I didn't get an opportunity to read your poll before this tragic 15 year log ordeal came to an end today. Obviously, the woman suffered a very long time and the parents, Bob and Mary, never were able to understand that prolonging her life by artifical means was a very cruel thing to do so they didn't have to face the day she passed on until now.
Terri Schiavo died this morning rendering the basic point moot. Of course, the legal wrangling will continue as the religious conservatives work to expolit the issues raised with the new "culture of life" campaign with the approval of such people as Rep. Tom DeLay who decided to go along with his own family's decision to do the compassionate thing and take his own grandfather off life support in 1988.
These situations arise every day, since people die all the time under similiar circumstances, and family members are currently empowered with making those very unfortunate choices. Let's hope the U.S. Congress doesn't take away our right to make these deeply sorrowful decisions for us.
Terri Schiavo Dies; Bitter Divide Remains
2:41pm EDT March, 31, 2005
By Jane Sutton
PINELLAS PARK, Fla. (Reuters) - Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman at the heart of a wrenching legal dispute that drew in Congress and President Bush, died on Thursday, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed by court order.
Amid the same glare of publicity and outpouring of bitterness that marked the last days of her life, the 41-year-old woman's body was driven away under heavy police guard to a county medical examiner's office for an autopsy.
Schiavo died at 9:05 a.m. just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed yet another appeal by her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, for the feeding to be restored.
Schiavo had been in what courts ruled was a "persistent vegetative state" since a cardiac arrest in 1990 deprived her brain of oxygen.
Courts had long sided with her husband and legal guardian, Michael Schiavo, in ruling she would not have wanted to live in that condition and should be allowed to die. The feeding tube was removed on March 18.
The parents argued that she responded to them and could yet recover with treatment, and their seven-year legal battle against Michael Schiavo was taken up by the Christian right, the Republican-led Congress and President Bush.
The Schiavo case fired fierce passions among right-to-life activists. Michael Schiavo, his lawyer George Felos and the state judge who presided over the case for years, George Greer, have all received death threats.
Michael Schiavo was with his wife when she died at a hospice in Pinellas Park, Florida, where she had been cared for.
Protesters who had kept vigil outside the hospice calling for Schiavo to be kept alive, sobbed and prayed when her death was announced, and then sang hymns in the morning sunshine.
James Dobson, of conservative group Focus on the Family, said judges who had failed to prolong Schiavo's life were guilty of "the cold-blooded, cold-hearted extermination of an innocent human life."
At the Vatican, where an ailing Pope John Paul himself is now being sustained by a feeding tube through his nose, papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said Schiavo's death was an unacceptable "violation of the sacred nature of life."
In Florida, the family feud continued into Schiavo's final moments.
"This is not only a death with all the sadness that brings. This is a killing," said Frank Pavone, a Roman Catholic priest who sided with the Schindlers and visited her shortly before she died.
'HEARTLESS CRUELTY'
Pavone said Schiavo's blood relatives were sent out of her room 10 minutes before she died partly because Michael Schiavo did not want them to be there when he visited.
"Bobby Schindler, her brother, said 'We want to be in the room when she dies.' Michael Schiavo said, 'No, you cannot.' So his heartless cruelty continues until this very last moment," Pavone said.
The Schindlers were able to continue to pursue their case after the U.S. Congress passed a special law giving federal courts jurisdiction in what traditionally has been the domain of state courts, and Bush cut short a vacation to sign it.
Opinion polls have shown most Americans both believed Schiavo should be allowed to die and disapproved of the law. And the congressional effort failed when federal judges refused the parents' requests to order feeding resumed.
The last legal rebuff, from the U.S. Supreme Court, came late on Wednesday night. The highest U.S. court had repeatedly refused to take on the case.
House majority leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican who led congressional efforts to circumvent state courts, said Schiavo's death was "a moral poverty and a legal tragedy."
"This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change," he said.
"The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today. Today we grieve, we pray, and we hope to God this fate never befalls another."
President Bush expressed his condolences.
"I urge all those who honor Terri Schiavo to continue to work to build a culture of life, where all Americans are welcomed and valued and protected, especially those who live at the mercy of others," he said.
The mood outside the hospice was rancorous.
"Well they got their way," said a grizzled New York City man who gave his name as "Lifeboat" and knelt clutching a wooden rosary. "We've become barbarians. We've lost our humanity in this country."
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother and a Catholic convert, also became heavily involved on the side of the parents, but last week courts denied his efforts to have the state welfare agency take custody of Schiavo.
The governor also failed to persuade the Florida Legislature to push through a new state law to intervene.
Felos said on Monday that an autopsy would be carried out to prove the extent of Terri's brain damage and to dispel questions from critics that Michael Schiavo's plans to cremate his wife's body were aimed at hiding something.
A court has said in the past Michael Schiavo can cremate his wife's body and bury the remains in Pennsylvania, his home state. The Schindlers, who are Roman Catholics, had wanted a full burial.
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