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March 18, 2005
Michael Schiavo's Role
Ace has been blogging the heck out of this story. He, like me, has serious doubts about the motivations of Terri Schiavo's husband, who ordered her killing earlier today.
The immediate cause of Terri's brain damage was cardiac arrest, which caused her brain to be deprived of oxygen for more than five minutes. In January 1993, Michael Schiavo won a malpractice award of $1.6 million from the hospital that treated Terri. He was also personally awarded $600,000 for loss of consortium. In his testimony, Michael spoke of his love for his wife and his intentions to honor his wedding vows for the rest of his life and to use the award money for Terri's care and rehabilitation. Indeed, Michael repeatedly assured Bob and Mary Schindler that he would seek rehabilitation therapy for Terri once he had obtained a settlement.Yeah. This guy's a prince, all right. And Judge George Greer felt, despite his disregard for his wife's health, that Michael Schiavo was the best guardian of Terri.A month after Michael received the money, the Schindlers approached their son-in-law to remind him of his promise. This led to a heated argument, with Bob and Michael yelling in the hall outside Terri's room. Michael stormed off and vowed that he was going to see his lawyer and that Bob and Mary would "never see [their] daughter again."...
Later that year, Bob and Mary learned that Terri had a serious urinary tract infection and that Michael had ordered the nursing home not to give her treatment, which would have consisted of a simple course of antibiotics...
In his deposition for this proceeding, Michael admitted that he had ordered the nursing home to deny Terri treatment for the infection and that he knew the infection, left untreated, would have caused Terri's death. When asked in the deposition if he would do it again, he said he couldn't "because evidently there's a law out there that says I can't do it."
With Terri's feeding tube removed, there's little we can do to save her. But we can change the culture of judicial activism that leads men like George Greer to hold such power over life and death. It starts with the impeachment of Greer for his disregard of the facts of the case and for contempt of Congress.
UPDATE - Ace has graciously linked this site. I agree with him on Schiavo - I don't think we should hang the guy with a blogstorm, but to be honest, the more I learn about this case, the less I think of the husband.
The real question should remain,though, why was this man given guardianship of his wife? His actions bordered on neglect. On what basis did Greer rule in Michael Schiavo's favor?
Posted by slublog at March 18, 2005 04:40 PM
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Comments
Just keep in mind this little thought: If Terry Schiavo can have this done to her by the very institutions of power that are supposed to be protecting her and others like her, there is nothing that can prevent those same institutions from doing this to you or your loved ones.
If you want some real fun why not put in a couple of cages out in front of the Hospitial where she is now being starved to death, a horse, a cow, some dogs and some cats. Treatment of those animals in the same manner that Mrs. Schiavo is being treated would get you hauled off to jail by the authorities in a heartbeat.
The same thing would happen if you just randomly grabbed some homeless person living under a nearby overpass. After all they have a 'poor' quality of life and they have probably even stated they would be better off dead. And you could probably ask them and they would be able to reply that they wanted to end it all.
Just out of curiousity has Judge Greer ever gone to see Terri Shiavo in person?
Posted by: Mike Boelter at March 19, 2005 12:08 PM
As a mother of five children I find it outrageous that a man who has known her only a few years, should have control of her life, over her mother and father who bought her into this world and have always loved her. He is guilty of neglect at the very least. Why does he not just walk away and let her family care for her? He has NO right to have this control over her life. Her parents are the only ones who should be making the choice for her to live or die. I have to say honestly that if this were happening to any of my own five children I would be so out of control that I would probably shoot him dead. I would view this as any mother, human or animal....this man is trying to kill their child. I would protect my children to the death. To the death!
Posted by: MotherOfFive at March 23, 2005 07:34 PM