Will you PLEASE just let the poor woman die?

The BBQ Pit
61

I’ve Googled to the best of my ability but can find no unbiased references to Michael Schiavo’s fight being about money. Everything I found was from sources that are biased and have their own agenda such as right to life and euthanasia sites, so I have to say that I can’t cite factual evidence to support the allegations I made earlier.

I still stand by my conviction that Michael Schiavo ought to sign guardianship over to her family and walk away now that he has children with a longterm girlfriend, but I can’t back it up with facts at this point.

62

Society has an obligation to protect individuals from intrusive schmucks like yourself.

63

Unless, of course, as I speculated, he’s an honorable man who believes that he is acting in Terri’s best interest, and adhering to her last wishes. Obviously it’d be far easier (and CHEAPER) for him to do so. However, despite the costs to him financially and emotionally, he continues to fight. gosh. wonder why.

64

To those who say that he should divorce her and walk away, IANAL but recall reading that in cases of medical or mental incapacitation, some states may not grant a divorce, as it is considered a form of abandonment.

Even if it were permissible, then a new round of legal challenges by the same pack of busybodies could be launched under the premise that Terry would never consent to a divorce. :rolleyes:

A clipping I cut out years ago: A man is likely to mind his own business when he has something worth minding. When he doesn’t, he takes his mind off of his empty, meaningless life by minding other people’s business.

65

Thanks, but I don’t need you to cower or whine, or even speak. This issue is so much more complex than your simple little argument above. It’s more complicated spiritually, physically, emotionally, medically and legally. So, you trot out the simple-person argument of comparing a half-dead woman to a child or dog. Which smacks of someone riding around on a religious high-horse, BTW.

Based on your further arguments, I stand by my original comment. You’ve attempted to reduce this entire subject into one-lined wonders with ideas so simple that they carry less than no weight. Total straw-man arguments(“do you believe people who cannot speak deserve to be cared for?”), and sarcasm are not your friends in this argument.

Sam

66

cazzle, would you really have this man sign away his rights as a husband? His rights as the next of kin? His rights as the decision-maker for his wife?

I understand that these rights are so diluted currently you will probably say yes. It’s pretty sickening that the wants and wishes of her family who cannot properly grieve, obviously, have been trumped by the religious and political engines of the state of Florida. It’s also sad as fuck that we all have to have legal instruments in place so these kinds of messes don’t occur.

Sam

67

I copied this from the Terry Schindler)Schiavo Foudation website:

<<MYTH: This is just a family battle over money.

FACT: In 1992, Terri was awarded nearly one million dollars by a malpractice jury and an out-of-court malpractice settlement which was designated for future medical expenses. Of these funds, less than $50,000 remains today. The financial records revealing how Terri’s medical fund money is managed are SEALED from inspection. Court records, however, show that Judge Greer has approved the spending down of Terri’s medical fund on Schiavo’s attorney’s fees - though it was expressly awarded to Terri for her medical care. Schiavo’s primary attorney, George Felos, has received upwards of $400,000 dollars since Schiavo hired him. This same attorney, at the expense of Terri’s medical fund, publicly likened Terri to a “houseplant” and has used Terri’s case on national television to promote his newly published book.

MYTH: Michael Schiavo volunteered to donate the balance of the inheritance to charity.

FACT: In October, 1998, Schiavo’s attorney proposed that, if Terri’s parents would agree to her death by starvation, Schiavo would donate his inheritance to charity. The proposal came after a court-appointed Guardian Ad Litem cited Schiavo’s conflict of interest since he stood to inherit the balance of Terri’s medical fund upon her death. This one and only offer stated “if the proposal is not fully accepted within 10 days, it shall automatically be withdrawn”. Naturally, Terri’s parents immediately rejected the offer. Yet, for 4 years, Schiavo has repeatedly implied to the media that he was willing to donate Terri’s [seems to be some text missing from my copying - GG]

MYTH: Terri’s Medical Trust fund has been used to care for her.

FACT: The following expenditures have been paid directly from Terri’s Medical Trust fund, with the approval of Judge George Greer:

Summary of expenses paid from Terri’s 1.2 Million Dollar medical trust fund (jury awarded 1992)
NOTE: In his November 1993 Petition Schiavo alleges the 1993 guardianship asset balance as $761,507.50
Atty Gwyneth Stanley $65,607.00
Atty Deborah Bushnell $7,404.95
Atty Steve Nilson $1,500.00
Atty Pacarek $4,511.95
Atty Richard Pearse (GAL) $397,249.99
Atty George Felos $10,668.05

Other
1st Union/South Trust Bank $55,459.85
Michael Schiavo $10,929.95
Total $545,852.34>>

I remember reading that Terry’s parents question the source of Terry’s collapse and that xrays revealed she may have been the victim of abuse (I think I read it on the Foundation site, but I can’t remember now, it has been so long, and of course, this claim has never been pursued by any legal authority).

For a long time, I have felt there was a lot of other stuff being fought about in the battle over whether Terry’s feeding tube should be removed…I don’t know all the whys and wherefores of the medical trust, but it does seem very sad to me that so much of it has been spent for legal expenses (and I wonder how common this is).

I personally would not want to linger this way. I wish I knew the answer to this, but I only know what I would want for myself and my family. The whole thing just makes me feel sad.

68

A judge in the case has denied a new trial, but removal of the feeding tube has been delayed until Dec. 6 to allow the Schindlers time to appeal.

CNN story

Robin

69

I guess having the vet put your dog down if it has severe pain from uncurable metastasized cancer is totally out of the question, then?

70

Please - there’s no need to get pissy just because you’ve lost the argument. mks57 has proved through his contributions to this thread that a person can interact with the world despite having suffered complete brain death. Deal with it.

71

In 1995 I was brain damaged in an automobile accident. I was in a coma for 4 days and my wife requested that the life support be removed. She said that she would not have me live like a “potted plant”. I appreciate her decision. I got better but the ensuing recovery was HELLISH to say the least. If I had to go back, I would have rather died by the side of the road. I’ve considered having DNR tattooed prominently on my chest so that no one ever does CPR to me again. An EMS technician told me this would not work, they are required to do CPR until a doctor declare a person dead. My first year at home, I remember sitting on my couch, holding my cat, and wishing that I had the motor skills needed to hang myself. I had difficulty walking or even making a sandwich for myself. My wife had to wipe my ass. I thought of hanging because someone took all of my guns before I was brought home. My wife said that they were stolen.

Terry Schiavo is maintained (not kept alive) hopefully out of desperation and not some monetary concern. Jeb Bush is concerned about how he will look to a bunch of voters that are retired and may soon find themselves in a persistant vegetative state.

72

Terry Schiavo has no hope. None. Nada. Nil. She will never be anything more than a breathing corpse. Why anyone would keep her alive out of desperation - and I’m assuming you mean “a desperate hope” here rather than any other interpretation - is a mystery to me.

Like Florida?

73

You are right Evil Death, Terry Shiavo died thirteen years ago. She became a political football for right to life advocates and her family just can’t let go of their daughter as long as they see her breathing. I’ve spent my whole 41 years south of the Mason-Dixon and I’ve seen it before, a corpse in a funeral home will start to stink and the family will not allow their child to be buried.

Right again Evil Death Jeb Bush is the Governor of Florida, a state skewed with a large number of retirees. I’m just hoping that he can’t put his brother’s reelction in a sack this time.

74

While I agree that Terri herself probably wouldn’t have chosen this “life,” I still can’t really understand her husband’s insistence on removing the feeding tube. Yes, she is dead. No, she won’t get better. No, there isn’t any hope.

But her parents have hope. They are deluded, in my opinion. But they have hope.

If Michael wins, Terri’s death will bolster every activist and lawyer in this field. Already, this case is a battlecry on radio shows like Glenn Beck’s. It is a strange circumstance where winning the battle makes the war harder, but I think this is one of those cases.

And Terri doesn’t care. There is no Terri there to care. While I can truthfully say that I wouldn’t want to “life” like that, I also would never want my husband to have to fight my parents for the right to starve me. I’d want him to make a reasonable effort, then walk away.

75

I hope it’s not bad form to resurrect this now, but I want to try to clearly express why I think Michael Schiavo should give up the fight to have Terri die.

His argument is that she would never have wanted to live like this and that she expressed a desire to be allowed to die instead of clinging to life at any cost. IMO, what Terri wants or wanted or would be horrified by are all irrelevant as Terri has effectively died and the intelligence that expressed that wish doesn’t exist anymore. On the other hand, her parents are alive and able to comprehend, and they want Terri to live. I don’t think the undocumented wishes of a dead woman should outweigh the wishes of the living - what the unconcious would have wanted is irrelevant when it’s opposite to what the concious want. If Terri had been passionate enough about this issue to make a living will then I would be more keen to see them honour it, but she didn’t and we have only the word of her husband that she ever said such a thing - and he never mentioned it for the first three years that she was in a coma.

Michael Schiavo’s reluctance to see Terri kept alive could come down to the money it costs, but Michael recieved over a million dollars, most of which was supposed to be used for that purpose. Nine hundred thousand dollars of that money was awarded to Terri, not Michael, for her future care and rehabilitation. It was never his money, it was never compensation for losing his wife. If Michael can’t stand to see her the way she is, he should sign over that money for her medical care and walk away. There is only a small amount left now, however if he hadn’t spent it on legal fees, how long would it have kept her alive? I would fully support him in refusing to contribute to keeping her alive out of his own pocket, but I don’t consider the compensation to be his money and so I don’t see why he should object to it being spent on Terri. If her parents still don’t want to let her go once that money is exhausted, then it’s up to them to work out how to continue to fund her medical bills. He should be under no obligations to continue supporting his former spouse.

Michael Schiavo has a woman in his life who is, for all intents and purposes, his wife and they have two children. Terri and Michael did not have any children, and the person she was died 14 years ago. I do not see why he cannot give her back to her family and walk away. Terri may have been horrified had she known what her parents have done, but she isn’t horrified and won’t ever be because that part of her doesn’t exist. Fighting for what she would have wanted is pointless. Leaving those people with what’s left of their daughter and moving on with his life as though her body had died with her spirit would be the classier thing to do.Then it’s up to the Schiavos to accept that Terri’s condition is not reversable and that she should be allowed to rest in peace - something they may have been able to do years before if they weren’t so occupied with trying to “save” her from her husband.

76

I’d say so since you didn’t bother to answer 4 days ago.

THen what the parents want for their daughter(“our daughter was a devout Catholic and wouldn’t want to upset the pope”), is irrelevant as well.

Michael, AFAIK, hasn’t spent her money on the right to live fight. I mean, right off the top of the million dollar award, more than half of it was swallowed up by attorneys. Someone posted a link previously that showed the disbursement to all of the lawyers involved. I do not know which ones were involved with the original lawsuit and which ones were involved after that-that’s irrelevant as well.

He has offered this as a solution to the problem. Since his parents-in-law seem to like trashing him all over the news as a money-hungry prick who’s trying to kill their daughter, he offered as a settlement to sign away all of the remaining money. I don’t beleive they took the offered settlement.

Also, she is not his former spouse and he cannot legally leave her or divorce her in the state she is in.

I don’t think they’re trying to save Terri “from” anything. I’m pretty sure they’re trying to save her “for” themselves. You and I both agree that both positions’ are essentially irrelevant. You and I both agree that there is no Terri. Where we differ is your judgement of the husband, and my opinion is that the parents ought to have butted out-along with the FL legislature-long ago and gotten on with their lives.

THere’s no money left. THere’s no Terri left. In fact, there’s no Schiavo family left, and there’s barely any of Terri’s husband left. It’s all been replaced by a life-supported corpse. That’s all that’s left-Terri. I find it highly ironic.

Sam

77

She is permanently incapable of agony, or anything else. To deny that the situation is a protracted agony for the family is a display of willful ignorance unworthy of serious consideration.

78

Umm, yeah. I never made that argument, the Schiavos did. The point is not what Terri would have wanted, it’s what her family wants. Her family wants her alive, and it doesn’t really matter if it’s religious motivation or just an inability to accept that she won’t recover that’s behind it - they don’t want her to die.

Terri’s family state that he offered to give away the remaining money on the condition they agreed to let Terri die. As they’ve been fighting for more than a decade to keep her alive, there was never much danger of them actually agreeing to his offer. Also, Michael seems to like accusing his in-laws of wanting to keep Terri alive for the money - this CNN article quotes him claiming that Terri’s family abandoned her, don’t care for her and only want the settlement money. The trashing in the press as money hungry pricks goes both ways.

Keeping in mind that they have not lived as man and wife for 14 years, will never live that way again and he’s now in a marriage-like relationship with someone else, can we agree that it is a marriage in name only? That’s all I was trying to say.

The thing is that Michael Schiavo got to move on, find a new life partner, settled down, have children. Terri’s parents do not get another daughter. I cannot blame them for not being able to let go; I cannot understand why he will not step out and leave their daughter to them. He has a new life, so why does he have to keep living in the past fighting “for” Terri? They don’t have anything else, he does - so why does he have to take her from them when her physical death obviously isn’t necessary for him to move on?

79

Not knowing all the facts (which none of us can, not being a Schiavo or a parent of Schiavo), I’d guess it’s because he feels a moral obligation to the woman he married, cazzle. I would feel that obligation for my husband, even if I’d managed to overcome my moral objections to moving on and building a new life with a new man other than my husband. I don’t know that’s what he feels, or that it’s his motivation, but it’s what I’d feel in the same situation.

80

I didn’t say you had. My point was that their position for keeping the sack of skin around was irrelevant according to both you and I. Husband has first right to make decisions for wife. Therefore wife ought to have departed this world long ago.

And she wouldn’t “die”. She would simply cease to be supported, and expire. She’s not “living” now.

No doubt.

So? Marriage in name only. Marriage to an open wound. A current relationship with a woman with children produced of the relationship and they cannot enjoy a life together “in name”, because his In-laws refuse to move on.

In reality, it is marriage in name only, but it is also a legal marriage with all of the rights and responsibilities that come along with it.

See above. He cannot have a whole life with a new wife and children to him in a marriage. He does not have a “whole life”. They do not have a daughter, but they haven’t had one on 15 years. He must continue to go on, married to her(either because of the law, or because of his dedication to his wife-so choice or force).

I cannot understand why they will not step out and leave his wife to him. Maybe he cares for her as a human or maybe he made a promise of sorts to her to see this through to the end.

We will never know, even when it is over. The media hype, religious factions, political and legal organizations, right to lifers, right to death-ers, and the animosity betweens the parties will all take this and use it to their advantage so the message will be destroyed.

I do know that my wife has the final say, and were the shoe on the other foot, I would want my family to bite the bullet and recover from my passing gracefully and in a dignified manner-quite the opposite of this entire situation.

Sam