# How long before we tear down the Schindlers?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [March 29, 2005, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823 "2005-03-29T19:45:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2005, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/21 "2005-03-30T01:33:42Z")
there has been no divorce because if there was, terri would be at the mercy of her parents. think about that. i hope terri’s siblings are.
i’m with dr. j. i understand that no parent should bury a child. i also understand that most parents will put their child’s best interests first and foremost, some even above their own interests.
i am not seeing this with the schindlers. they videoed and released the videos of their daughter over court orders not to. they would keep their daughter alive in this state or worse over her wishes. even if she was able to tell them in language anyone could understand.
i see julia quinlan, i see mary schindler. i know who i would have in charge of me. one is a mother, who had the best interests of her daughter first and foremost. one is a mother who has only her (rather) selfish interests first and foremost.
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### Author:  [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2005, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/22 "2005-03-30T01:44:02Z")
> [@Brutus](#):
>
> I dunno about that. Once you shack up with some other chick and have a few kids with her, the (original) marriage is meaningless. If you wouldn’t do it when she was awake, I don’t see how her being in whatever state makes it OK.
Well, marriage means different things to different folks, and what is permissable, or in this case perhaps desirable, to some people within thier marriage isn’t so to others. But in anycase, I’d say that it’s at the least conceivable that Michael felt that what he was doing was fulfilling his marriage vows, so again I’m wary of immedietly assuming that becuase he stayed married to Terri, he must be an opportunistic bastard that wants her dead.
In the interest of defending the Schindlers, it’s at least possible that some of their disreputable actions are simply because they are seeking help where ever they can get it because they are desperate to save thier daughter. Teaming up with Randall Terry, for example, may simply have been because they were looking for someone who could bring more support to their cause, not because they agreed with all, or even most, of his more reprehensible views. Similarily, they may have sold the contact lists to raise money for their legal efforts. Not terribly ethical, perhaps, but I could picture myself stooping to far worse depths if I honestly though that I was saving my offspring from starving to death.
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### Author:  [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2005, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/23 "2005-03-30T02:46:32Z")
I think they’ll realize years from now just how much they were used as pawns. I don’t think they’re as terrible as some of the things they’ve done, such as the accusations and made up stories. But they are being surrounded by people with an agenda encouraging them and prodding them. Love is blind in lots of ways, and I have no doubt that they love their daughter. I just hope that years from now they swallow their pride and offer an olive branch to their former son in law. Who, by the way, I feel could have been more tactful from the beginning of the whole process and avoided the whole mess.
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### Author:  [@edwino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwino)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2005, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/24 "2005-03-30T03:17:08Z")
I don’t think the public will turn on them, because once Terri passes, the focus will move on. This will happen in the next week, and that is not enough time. If litigation continues, there is a possibility, but the American public is too easily manipulated by those who screech that Michael Schiavo has murdered Terri, that he has starved her to death.
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2005, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/25 "2005-03-30T04:45:52Z")
I think they’re mad as hatters-a pair of deluded lunatics feeding off of their own grief and totally turning their daughter into a circus sideshow because they cannot let go. The way they release those videos of her lying in a bed in an old granny gown drooling and lolling her head vacantly-shows they really don’t care about TERRI. Whatever she wanted, I doubt she’d want the world to see her like that. (Especially that one clip, where’s lying there, her legs spread out, her gown pulled up-not in a sexual way, but it’s not a very dignified, graceful picture. They’re turning her into a complete spectacle.)
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### Author:  [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2005, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/26 "2005-03-30T05:31:14Z")
> [@Malodorous](#):
>
> In the interest of defending the Schindlers, it’s at least possible that some of their disreputable actions are simply because they are seeking help where ever they can get it because they are desperate to save thier daughter.
Similarly, their selling the email list to spammers is believably not something that they actively did, but was done by someone managing their money for them during this time. I’ll still cut them some slack, pending evidence of malice.
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### Author:  [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2005, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/27 "2005-03-30T05:44:28Z")
I won’t be turning on them any time soon. Dealing with comatose loved ones is a horror story under the most benign circumstances possible. I understand just how grief stricken they still are, after an eleven year death watch. The sad fact that so many other people are interested in using this family’s suffering to accomplish their own ends is a travesty. I cannot watch the media over it.
I don’t even expect them to be able to see their son in law in compassionate terms. They need an opponent they can recognize. I think they will suffer for years after this is over. I am sad for them. I doubt they quite appreciate how quickly the concern they perceive from the vast throng will dissipate. The next circus act is in the wings, and there are no whores in the world less loyal than politicians. (Any bets on how often The Reverend Mr. Jesse Jackson will be visiting the Schindler family next year?) They have a great deal of grief still to work through, and next year is when they will need the support of caring Christian ministry. The Schindlers are in for a very tough time, after the lights go down.
## Tris
“We better get back, cause it’ll be dark soon, and they mostly come at night, mostly.” ~ Newt, **Aliens** ~
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### Author:  [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2005, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/28 "2005-03-30T08:40:52Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#):
>
> I think they’re mad as hatters-a pair of deluded lunatics feeding off of their own grief and totally turning their daughter into a circus sideshow because they cannot let go.
I agree, they’re pretty nuts. But the world is full of examples of people that have been driven to irrationality by grief, and so I don’t really think that this makes them “bad”, just pitiful.
> [@](#):
>
> The way they release those videos of her lying in a bed in an old granny gown drooling and lolling her head vacantly-shows they really don’t care about TERRI. Whatever she wanted, I doubt she’d want the world to see her like that.
Again, I think you’re assuming that they’re lying. If you take them at their word, that they belive Terry is in some way still in there, and that she is starving to death, then it’s far from unbelivable that they could release those photos to save their daughters life _because_ they care about her. If I thought it would save my daughter from being slowly starved to death, I’d probably release a photo of naked, smeared with feces and hanging upsidedown with a dildo in her mouth.
> [@](#):
>
> But they are being surrounded by people with an agenda encouraging them and prodding them. Love is blind in lots of ways, and I have no doubt that they love their daughter.
I agree. The true villians here are the folks who have used the Schindler’s to try and leverage this to enlarge thier own soapboxes or advance their own political causes. I can excuse the Schindler’s irrationality as a product of incredable grief, others cannot claim this as an excuse. This is espicially true of Jeb Bush and the FL legislature, who took measures they must have realized would never actually survive in the courts but would only prolong the inevidable and keep the Schindlers/Schaivo’s from closure for another few years, in order to try and construct another “wedge issue”.
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### Author:  [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2005, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/29 "2005-03-30T19:51:08Z")
> [@Triskadecamus](#):
>
> Any bets on how often The Reverend Mr. Jesse Jackson will be visiting the Schindler family next year?
About as many times as Randall Terry. Let’s not go singling out whores.
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2005, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/30 "2005-03-30T20:54:03Z")
I thought they said they were done with legal action-why the last minute appeal? (Which was, predictably, rejected. AGAIN.)
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### Author:  [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2005, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/31 "2005-03-31T05:41:19Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> Their admission that they would ignore Terri’s wishes to die even if she’d flat-out told them doesn’t help.
I still had a tiny smidgen of sympathy for them, even after I read this. I wanted to find a cite for it, and came across this horror-show. . .
[The Schindlers say they would do ANYTHING to keep her alive:](http://uspolitics.about.com/b/a/149562.htm)
> [@](#):
>
> Throughout the course of the litigation, deposition and trial testimony by members of the Schindler family voiced the disturbing belief that they would keep Theresa alive at any and all costs. Nearly gruesome examples were given, eliciting agreement by family members that in the event Theresa should contract diabetes and subsequent gangrene in each of her limbs, they would agree to amputate each limb, and would then, were she to be diagnosed with heart disease, perform open heart surgery. There was additional, difficult testimony that appeared to establish that despite the sad and undesirable condition of Theresa, the parents still derived joy from having her alive, even if Theresa might not be at all aware of her environment given the persistent vegetative state.
:eek:
I repeat: :eek:
So, because they “derive joy” out of visiting their daughter, they’d be willing to force her to “live” as a limbless trunk, going through repeated, painful surgeries, unable to comunicate when she’s in pain-- unable to do anything but lay there in a stupor, waiting for them.
My pity has turned to disgust. These people don’t give a _shit_ about Terri-- they just care about themselves and the “joy” that they feel. I wouldn’t treat a _dog_ that way, let alone a person I cared about.
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### Author:  [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2005, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/32 "2005-03-31T06:18:01Z")
> [@NurseCarmen](#):
>
> About as many times as Randall Terry. Let’s not go singling out whores.
Very true.
Tris
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### Author:  [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2005, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/33 "2005-03-31T07:27:08Z")
Grieving parents, or any grieving family members or friends, deserve an awful lot of leeway. But even in a situation like this, it should not be infinite.
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### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2005, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/34 "2005-03-31T08:25:41Z")
> [@holmes](#):
>
> Sex offender in the forefront.
That has what to do with the Schindlers? Did the Schindlers know this person? Did the Schindlers meet this person? Did something the Schindlers say or do translate as “Registered sex offenders, come to this hospice”? Good grief, what an egregious attempt to smear them by (non-existant) association.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2005, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/35 "2005-03-31T09:29:53Z")
> [@Triskadecamus](#):
>
> I don’t even expect them to be able to see their son in law in compassionate terms.
You may be spot-on, but while I agree with what **Doctor J** says about leeway I just can’t grant them as much leeway as they’ve used. Needing an enemy in your private circumstances is one thing. Making someone your enemy and trashing them over and over in the national press is beyond the pale and just unforgivable. They’ve accused him of beating his wife, of causing her brain damage, of denying treatment that could save her, of trying to kill her for money… it’s way too much.
It’d be one thing if they believed these things. But I have trouble accepting that they’re just deluded. They didn’t start with the abuse charges until long after Terri fell into this state. If they thought Michael beat Terri and caused her brain damage, why did they live with him for two years afterward? Why did they let Michael help take care of Terri? [The scans that some say prove Michael beat Terri were released about a year before he stopped living with them, so I doubt it’s because they were suddenly convinced he was to blame.] And for years they never disputed that she was in a PVS, but now insist she isn’t. I would actually feel better if I was sure they meant the things they say, because I would be able pity them in spite of that.
Unfortunately there’s too much doubt in my mind about their sincerity. Maybe they convinced themselves of those things later, I don’t know. I do know Michael Schiavo is reviled by a lot of people and has had his life threatened, and Judge Greer had a bounty put on his head also. The comments the Schindlers, particularly Bob, are a contributing factor. For example he recently accused Judge Greer and all the other judges who’ve ruled against him of being “on a crusade” to kill Terri. If I was convinced they were really grieving, their comments would be hard to forgive. Since I have doubts about their honesty it’s absolutely inexcusable.
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### Author:  [@holmes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/holmes)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2005, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/36 "2005-03-31T14:39:46Z")
Grow up and see the world as it is. Had Mr. Schiavo had such a person in the forefront **supporting** him, Rush and rest of ‘voice of decent’ folk would have used this guy as club to “prove” not only is Mr. Schiavo a wife beating, murdered; but also attracts raping kidnappers.
You don’t think the Schindlers and their supporters, wouldn’t have placed this guy’s mugshot and rap sheet on their website, as “proof” of the type of person Mr. Schiavo is? Guilty by association?
No, not THEM; they wouldn’t do something like that…
You should be upset that the media seems unable to do a background check on a person who’s image is ALL over the media as a Rigtheous Supporter for the Right to Live. They turn a blind eye to every lie, and ignore the actual written record as opposed to idle gossip.
That’s what egregious and the only real smearing done in this case, is by the lying Schindlers and their enablers.
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### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2005, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/37 "2005-03-31T19:16:42Z")
I see. Welcome to the kangaroo court, where you’re guilty not what from you’ve done, you’re guilty from what someone who hates you thinks you _would_ do.
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### Author:  [@holmes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/holmes)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2005, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/38 "2005-03-31T19:55:48Z")
You’re absolutely right and I’m sure you join me in condemining the media, the Schindlers and their spokespeople for making, shall we say ‘unflattering’ statements concerning Mr. Schiavo’s moviations, guilt and character _despite_ evidence to the contrary.
I can count on you, right?
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### Author:  [@holmes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/holmes)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2005, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/39 "2005-03-31T20:01:57Z")
You’re absolutely right and I’m sure you join me in condemining the media, the Schindlers and their spokespeople for making, shall we say ‘unflattering’ statements concerning Mr. Schiavo’s moviations, guilt and character _despite_ evidence to the contrary.
I can count on you, right?
---
### Author:  [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2005, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/40 "2005-04-01T15:48:50Z")
> [@holmes](#):
>
> Grow up and see the world as it is. Had Mr. Schiavo had such a person in the forefront **supporting** him, Rush and rest of ‘voice of decent’ folk would have used this guy as club to “prove” not only is Mr. Schiavo a wife beating, murdered; but also attracts raping kidnappers.
>
> You don’t think the Schindlers and their supporters, wouldn’t have placed this guy’s mugshot and rap sheet on their website, as “proof” of the type of person Mr. Schiavo is? Guilty by association?
I must have missed something - who is the “this guy” that you’re referring to?
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