Terri Schindler-Schiavo: Why Do People Want To Kill Her?
Why do so many people want Terri Schindler-Schiavo dead? What has she done to deserve this bitter legal battle over the right to kill her as soon as possible?
Until today I thought I could understand some measure of rational arguement on the part of her husband, Michael. But, after reading a legal offer from Terri's family to her husband, publically released just over a week ago, I am baffled.
In this legally-binding offer, which can be read in full at Terri's website, the Schindler family says that they will take full responsibility for Terri's care, require no financial support from her husband, grant him full possession of any inheritance, insurance or malpractice money, allow him to divorce or dissolve his marriage to Terri (and, if he wishes, be married to the woman he now lives with and with whom he has had two children of his own) with assurance that they will waive any right they might have to take legal action against him in the future.
I do not understand how any otherwise sane human being would choose to reject this offer in favor of asserting their "right" to kill their wife.
By all accounts Terri is not only alive but able to respond to simple verbal directions, express emotion and respond to visual stimuli. Aside from a "brain freeze" caused by a still-unexplained collapse in her home in 1990, her body continues to function normally and well. Other than general hygene, her only external dependence for life is her need to be fed through a feeding tube. In this sense, she is not unlike tens of thousands of Americans who suffer from Parkinson's, quadrapelegia, stroke or other disabilities and diseases.
The care that she requires can easily be provided at home by minimally-trained family members and friends. She might also respond to various forms of physical and psychological therapies, all of which have been denied her by her husband since 1991.
I just don't get it! How can constitutional law refuse to affirm her unalienable right to life? What crime has she committed that requires her to be executed by court order? What precedent will this set, allowing future courts, medical panels or others to subjectively determine whether a living human being will live or die? (see a previous posting on this subject here)
Relevent laws written both before and after her collapse; laws written with the explicit intent of protecting people just like Terri, have been repeatedly set aside by the court. For example:
1. Alhough an advanced directive is required in Florida prior to removing nutrition, Terri never had one.
2 Florida Law defines Persistent Vegetative State as a complete lack of awareness and a complete inability to interact. In spite of clear evidence to the contrary, the court has insisted on declaring that Terri is in a Persistent Vegetative State.
Christian quadrapelegiac Joni Eareckson Tada has said this about Terri's situation:
"This is deplorable. What's happening here is just a part of a larger effort to class persons with severe cognitive disabilities as non-persons."
Please pray for Terri. Pray for her family. Pray that our country will be spared the doom of an ever-expanding culture of death.
Terri is every bit alive as you and I. She is every bit as alive as a living baby in the womb or a living baby nearly completely out of the womb!
In the end, I still cannot figure out why so many people want Terri dead when the clear option of life is readily available. Lord have mercy upon us.
Until today I thought I could understand some measure of rational arguement on the part of her husband, Michael. But, after reading a legal offer from Terri's family to her husband, publically released just over a week ago, I am baffled.
In this legally-binding offer, which can be read in full at Terri's website, the Schindler family says that they will take full responsibility for Terri's care, require no financial support from her husband, grant him full possession of any inheritance, insurance or malpractice money, allow him to divorce or dissolve his marriage to Terri (and, if he wishes, be married to the woman he now lives with and with whom he has had two children of his own) with assurance that they will waive any right they might have to take legal action against him in the future.
I do not understand how any otherwise sane human being would choose to reject this offer in favor of asserting their "right" to kill their wife.
By all accounts Terri is not only alive but able to respond to simple verbal directions, express emotion and respond to visual stimuli. Aside from a "brain freeze" caused by a still-unexplained collapse in her home in 1990, her body continues to function normally and well. Other than general hygene, her only external dependence for life is her need to be fed through a feeding tube. In this sense, she is not unlike tens of thousands of Americans who suffer from Parkinson's, quadrapelegia, stroke or other disabilities and diseases.
The care that she requires can easily be provided at home by minimally-trained family members and friends. She might also respond to various forms of physical and psychological therapies, all of which have been denied her by her husband since 1991.
I just don't get it! How can constitutional law refuse to affirm her unalienable right to life? What crime has she committed that requires her to be executed by court order? What precedent will this set, allowing future courts, medical panels or others to subjectively determine whether a living human being will live or die? (see a previous posting on this subject here)
Relevent laws written both before and after her collapse; laws written with the explicit intent of protecting people just like Terri, have been repeatedly set aside by the court. For example:
1. Alhough an advanced directive is required in Florida prior to removing nutrition, Terri never had one.
2 Florida Law defines Persistent Vegetative State as a complete lack of awareness and a complete inability to interact. In spite of clear evidence to the contrary, the court has insisted on declaring that Terri is in a Persistent Vegetative State.
Christian quadrapelegiac Joni Eareckson Tada has said this about Terri's situation:
"This is deplorable. What's happening here is just a part of a larger effort to class persons with severe cognitive disabilities as non-persons."
Please pray for Terri. Pray for her family. Pray that our country will be spared the doom of an ever-expanding culture of death.
Terri is every bit alive as you and I. She is every bit as alive as a living baby in the womb or a living baby nearly completely out of the womb!
In the end, I still cannot figure out why so many people want Terri dead when the clear option of life is readily available. Lord have mercy upon us.
posted by Bird of Paradise at 10:27 AM
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