sorry about that...got a little long winded.
Are we the only suckers not off on Good Friday?
Anyways, I understand what you're saying. But as a hypothetical, strictly a hypothetical, if Michael is being genuinely dishonest about this whole thing, if he lied and fabricated Terri's intentions... is he getting away with murder?
Yes, if he lied it's murder.
I find it incredible the way this man's character has been attacked. Judge Greer didn't question his honesty, but did question that of the parents.
Oh well, I've argued this enough, everyone will draw away from it what they will. As I said before, I think this will definetly spur many people to draw up living wills or at least make their intentions clear.
Download advance directives forms It's certainly made me think about it alot...
Yes we are!!
And yes if he is lying, I would consider that murder.
Plus, you do realize that he was offered a total of 11 million dollars from two different places (10 million from one source, and 1 million from another) to have the feeding tube re-inserted, right? So if he is out for the money what gives? He had money he could have taken . . . What other reason could he have for continuing to pursue this?
psst: wishes of the spouse...
Drachan, he no longer has a right to keep her on life support, so those offers were meaningless. He didn't lose anything by turning them down.
I realize this, but it would make their appeals that much stronger if he just took the money and ran.
He can't take the money, he hasn't that power to do so for 8 years. Just like there is no life insurance etc etc.
Hey these different millionares were offering the money directly to him to abandon his desire to have the feeding tube pulled. Now regardless of if he had the power or not, he didnt take the money. In other words, money obviously isnt the motivator here.
Liberals are fighting to allow Terry Schiavo to die, are pro-abortion, yet oppose the death penalty.
Conservatives are fighting to keep Terry Schiavo alive, are anti-abortion, yet support the death penalty.
Makes perfect sense to me.
Will somebody tell Bill Frist to make up his damn mind? First he wants to disconnect those in a vegetative state (in his book Transplant). Now, when it is politically expedient, Frist is leading the charge to keep a person in a similar vegetative state alive through artificial means.
Pathetic.
"And, although Frist writes frequently about the ethical issues surrounding transplants--for example, the question of when death begins--he approaches these issues in starkly scientific terms, with little patience for religious objections.
"Near the end of the book, for example, Frist suggests changing the legal definition of 'brain death' to include anencephalic babies, who are born with a fatal neurological disorder but show just the slightest hint of brain-stem activity. Such a change would make it possible to harvest their organs for transplant--something the Catholic Church and pro-life groups oppose. 'Three thousand anencephalic babies were born a year, enough to solve our demand many times over--but we never used them.'"
[The New Republic, 1/27/03]
Honestly, why do we even know who this person is?
It's turned into a 3 ring circus now. Sad.
Good point S .....I think its because something like this hits home. People get riled up about goverment intervention and where it should and shouldn't be and they also get riled up about the whole "right to die" thing.
I know...but like SW (?) said, this goes on every day? Who brought this to the attention of the media? Her husband or parents?
It doesn't happen every day that there is such disagreement over the course of treatment for the patient among such close family members.
If you thought your son-in-law was unnecessarily pulling the plug on your daughter wouldn't you move heaven and earth to stop him? Whether you were right or wrong?
I sure as wouldn't alert the media.
THE TERRI SCHIAVO CASE
DeLay's Own Tragic Crossroads
Family of the lawmaker involved in the Schiavo case decided in '88 to let his comatose father die.
Photos
Bond
(Alex Wong / Getty Images)
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FAMILIES
RIGHT TO DIE
DELAY TOM
THE TERRI SCHIAVO CASE
TEXAS FAMILIES RIGHT TO DIE
TEXAS
By Walter F. Roche Jr. and Sam Howe Verhovek, Times Staff Writers
CANYON LAKE, Texas — A family tragedy that unfolded in a Texas hospital during the fall of 1988 was a private ordeal — without judges, emergency sessions of Congress or the debate raging outside Terri Schiavo's Florida ho e.
The patient then was a 65-year-old drilling contractor, badly injured in a freak accident at his home. Among the family members keeping vigil at Brooke Army Medical Center was a grieving junior congressman — Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas).
More than 16 years ago, far from the political passions that have defined the Schiavo controversy, the DeLay family endured its own wrenching end-of-life crisis. The man in a coma, kept alive by intravenous lines and oxygen equipment, was DeLay's father, Charles Ray DeLay.
Then, freshly reelected to a third term in the House, the 41-year-old DeLay waited, all but helpless, for the verdict of doctors.
Today, as House Majority Leader, DeLay has teamed with his Senate counterpart, Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), to champion political intervention in the Schiavo case. They pushed emergency legislation through Congress to shift the legal case from Florida state courts to the federal judiciary.
And DeLay is among the strongest advocates of keeping the woman, who doctors say has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, connected to her feeding tube. DeLay has denounced Schiavo's husband, as well as judges, for committing what he calls "an act of barbarism" in removing the tube.
In 1988, however, there was no such fiery rhetoric as the congressman quietly joined the sad family consensus to let his father die.
"There was no point to even really talking about it," Maxine DeLay, the congressman's 81-year-old widowed mother, recalled in an interview last week. "There was no way [Charles] wanted to live like that. Tom knew — we all knew — his father wouldn't have wanted to live that way."
Doctors advised that he would "basically be a vegetable," said the congressman's aunt, JoAnne DeLay.
When his father's kidneys failed, the DeLay family decided against connecting him to a dialysis machine. "Extraordinary measures to prolong life were not initiated," said his medical report, citing "agreement with the family's wishes." His bedside chart carried the instruction: "Do not resuscitate."
On Dec. 14, 1988, the DeLay patriarch "expired with his family in attendance."
"The situation faced by the congressman's family was entirely different than Terri Schiavo's," said a spokesman for the majority leader, who declined requests for an interview.
"The only thing keeping her alive is the food and water we all need to survive. His father was on a ventilator and other machines to sustain him," said Dan Allen, DeLay's press aide.
There were also these similarities: Both stricken patients were severely brain-damaged. Both were incapable of surviving without medical assistance. Both were said to have expressed a desire to be spared from being kept alive by artificial means. And neither of them had a living will.
This previously unpublished account of the majority leader's personal brush with life-ending decisions was assembled from court files, medical records and interviews with family members.
It actually does happen everday. Do you think this is the first case in Florida? No, this case has recived so much more attention than the average case it's not even in the same leauge.
I too wondered why this is such a big case. Families make these tough decisions all the time.
I can't begrudge the Schindlers for what they've done. They love their daughter and believe what they're doing is in her best interest.
I don't believe wild speculation about Michael Schiavo's motives is very productive. At the very best, we have a cursory glance of the facts, warped to some degree by the ideology of whichever sources we are using. The law in the case is crystal clear, which is why these appeals have been so fruitless. Florida legislators need to change the laws so that in future cases there is a much higher standard required for a trial court acting as a patient's surrogate to rule that a patient would wish lifesaving treatment to be withheld.
It doesn't surprise me that Bill Frist is being inconsistent here -- after all, he is running for President in 2008 and thinks he needs to secure the support of the fundamentalist idiots. However, by failing to think this through, he now is vulnerable to some very effective negative campaign ads by a small-government conservative rival telling potential Republican primary voters that dear Dr. Frist thinks he knows more than them and wants to make their families' private medical decisions for them.
no. LinkDoesn't Michael want to bar an autopsy?
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