Remember Sue Rodriguez and many others who have been forced to die by suffocation or other horrible deaths by the "Right-To-Life-Imprisonment in a shell" crowd? They died by strangulation, choking on their own tongues, rather than death by passing peacefully away with medication. The very same crowd that denied them the right to die as they saw fit is exactly the same crowd who sentenced Terri to death by starvation. No right to die as you yourself see fit. Your own life, stolen. No peaceful end for you should you desire it.
And it is at the hands of the very same names that have pulled your heartstrings, convincing you with no justification whatsoever that she wants to continue on with the miserable existence that such a life would surely be. Most others in such situations do not want it. Why are you so convinced that she does?
And about Micheal motivations. The "must die horribly crowds" telling of
events certainly doesn't match the facts, to wit:
The man returned to school to become a nurse after his wife's initial injury, when both were 26 years old.
He rented a house that would accommodate him, Terri and her parents; he and her parents continued to live under the same roof until the successful malpractice suit ($700,000 for Terri's care and $300,000 for Michael). According to his attorney, he has been offered up to $10 million to relinquish his guardianship to Terri's parents.
The woman he lives with, Jodi Centonze, washes Terri's laundry. He calls the hospice daily; he visits Terri several times each week. His life, as the reporter notes, would have been much easier if he had walked away, handing over his guardianship to her parents. It appears he took seriously "... til death do us part."
Some would call this behavior "dedicated" and "loyal" -- and the reporter quotes friends who use those terms. The picture here is a stark contrast to the "money-grubbing" opportunist painted by those who side with the Schindlers, Terri's parents.
When you have nothing else, impugn the motives -- a classic technique used to deflect attention from facts or evidence. The case, as many lawyers point out -- in their often dry, lawyerly manner -- is not a personality contest. The question is this: have the courts followed Florida law and provided appropriate due process in this case? Procedural law doesn't stir emotion, however, except, perhaps, among lawyers. And it certainly doesn't make for great TV -- whether on the 6 o'clock news or in a political campaign commercial.
http://uspolitics.about.com/b/a/156366.htm --
Gary Williams
Marta Russell wrote:
> From another list serve. My computer does not have the capacity to see
> this video but I do trust the person who sent it to me.
> marta
>
> Those neurologists must not have seen the video that David posted to
> ADAPT-CAL at
> http://4lifeshaperite.com/rumbles/Conversations_with_Terri.html . Terri was
> very clearly responding to her father--and she very clearly said "Yeah!" at
> a very appropriate and responsive point in the conversation.
>
> By the way, David, do you know whether this video was part of the same one
> that showed Terri following the balloon with her eyes? At the web site, the
> video is identified as "Forbidden Video," and as I recall, Terri's father
> made the video despite court instructions not to do it. Maybe that's why
> this was never allowed as evidence. But this is just one more example of
> how the court denied Terri the right to live.
>
> The New York Times article is intriguing because on the one hand, it
> acknowledges that we still don't know everything about human consciousness,
> and on the other, it seems to say, "But in Terri Schiavo's case, we know
> for sure that she was in a vegetative state, not minimally conscious."
>
> After seeing the "conversation" video, nobody will ever convince me that
> Terri was in a vegetative state.
>
> --Laura