Schiavo’s death date

By Susan Brinkmann
CS&T Correspondent

A day after his sister narrowly escaped another date with death, Bobby Schindler, Jr., the brother of 40-year-old, cognitively-disabled Terri Schindler-Schiavo, delivered a hard-hitting speech at a prayer breakfast held a few miles from the suburban Philadelphia parish where Bob and Mary Schindler raised their three children. Schindler addressed members of the Pennsylvanians for Human Life and the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, who sponsored the Saturday, Oct. 23 breakfast at Williamson’s Restaurant in Horsham. Schindler’s message was particularly poignant in the wake of legal setbacks his family has recently suffered in their decade-long fight to keep Terri supplied with food and water, against the wishes of her estranged husband, Michael Schiavo. Michael Schiavo has been living with another woman for the past10 years, and has two children with her.
On Friday, Oct. 22, Pinellas-Pasco Florida Circuit Court Judge George Greer denied a request to hear arguments that death by starvation would violate Terri’s religious beliefs. This ruling followed the Thursday, Oct. 21 Florida Supreme Court decision to deny a motion from Governor Jeb Bush for a rehearing on the constitutionality of “Terri’s Law.”
Schindler began his speech by recounting two recent cases where family members were charged with murder for starving their disabled siblings. In April 2004, prosecutors in Harrisburg, Pa. charged Kimberly Loebig with first-degree murder for starving a disabled brother to death. In September 2004, a California woman received 29-years-to-life for the starvation death of an autistic brother, and an additional 14 years for dependent abuse. When Johnson’s 38-year-old brother was found, he weighed only 70 pounds.
“An official said that to see the man, with his clothes hanging off him, was like seeing a holocaust victim. Yet the removal of my sister’s feeding tube will produce exactly the same outcome as the Loebig and Johnson case,” Schindler said. In Terri’s case, however, the starvation is being mandated by the courts.
“Just yesterday, Judge George Greer issued his third death date, Dec. 6, to remove my sisters feeding tube.”
Michael Schiavo, Terri’s estranged husband, has twice won the right to remove Terri’s artificially supplied food and water. An emergency session of the Florida Legislature in October 2003 produced a bill offering protection to the cognitively disabled in circumstances where family members are in dispute and no prior written directives were left by the patient. Called “Terri’s Law,” it narrowly saved Terri’s life after six days without food and water.
“I’m sure you share my outrage about the two people that were starved to death by their sisters,” Schindler said. “So why is it that a court order mandating the removal of food and fluid from my sister — or anyone for that matter — is any different from those two cases that resulted in the same outcome, which is death-by-starvation? How is it that a simple piece of paper and ink magically transforms the experience of dehydration and starvation into something that is legal and, as death groups proclaim, a peaceful and painless death?
“It seems that we have become selective in our outrage,” Schindler said. “When someone forcibly starves and dehydrates a defenseless person . . . we are shocked and appalled. Yet when a judge rubber stamps the very same thing, we turn our heads in utter apathy.”
Unfortunately, the Florida Supreme Court recently overturned “Terri’s Law,” calling it unconstitutional in its unlawful delegation of authority that violated the separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.
According to many legal experts, the ruling was pure nonsense. Governors intercede all the time in matters previously settled in courts — such as when they pardon or issue stays-of-execution to death row inmates.
“We always tell people it’s too bad Terri didn’t kill somebody,” Schindler said, “because she would have been better protected if she had murdered somebody than the protections that are being afforded her right now. Even Governor Bush said yesterday that some people will be on death row for 20 years going through the appeal process and they do everything they can to see to it that this person gets his due process rights. Yet the governor can still step in at the very last minute and save this person’s life. It doesn’t make sense. Why can a governor step in and protect someone on death row and he can’t protect someone who’s innocent, especially with suspicious circumstances surrounding the case?”
This was one of several inconsistencies highlighted by Schindler during his Horsham visit. Another was the questionable reference to “compassion in dying” put forth by Michael Schiavo’s prominent right-to-die attorney, George Felos.
“Michael’s attorney seems to be out of touch with what it means to be compassionate,” Schindler said. “At a recent hearing, he compared my sister to a houseplant.” Felos repeatedly presents Terri to the “all-too-accepting press” as a “brain-dead vegetable,” Schindler said.
The Schindler family recently put a video of Terri on the family website, www.terrisfight.org, showing that Terri was not in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) but alert and watchful. Schindler told about “how vehemently Michael’s attorney tried to stop the video from being shown because they were worried the public might see that they were going to starve-to-death a human being. ... We were threatened with contempt of court if we didn’t remove it from our website. This is just an example of the bullying my family has endured.”
Terri has fared even worse in their “compassionate” hands. Schindler listed some of the inhumane conditions imposed upon his sister, including the fact that Michael permits no therapy, and allows only minimal care for Terri. She has not been outdoors for four years and recently had five teeth removed because her dental care has been neglected since 1995. Terri is not permitted to receive flowers or have any family photos on display in her room.
In stark contrast was the recent allocution by Pope John Paul II during the International Congress on “Life Sustaining Treatments and Vegetative State” wherein he asserted that every human being, regardless of illness or disability, has “intrinsic value and personal dignity” and can never become a “vegetable or an animal.” The allocution called for loving and humane care for people in Terri’s condition.
Schindler issued a strong warning to the public about the right-to-die movement, calling it an “extremely dangerous death circle” that is using millions of dollars to lobby state legislators to manipulate public opinion into believing abuse of the disabled and seriously-ill is somehow justified.
“Laws are being changed and it is happening so secretly that most, if not all, of the public is not even aware of it.” He cited a recent editorial written in the Lakeland Ledger by George Felos that nonchalantly refers to the Schiavo case as only one out of “tens of thousands” of similar cases happening throughout the country.
“I cannot help but remember what was said by a Dutch journalist when commenting on her country’s legalization of euthanasia,” Schindler said at the close of his remarks. “She said, ‘It only took one generation to turn a war crime into an act of compassion.’”
The Governor’s office has requested a stay until the case can be reviewed by the United States Supreme Court.
For more information, visit www.terrisfight.org

Contact Susan Brinkmann at fiat723@aol.com or (215) 965-4615