Terri Schiavo dies

After years of trying, Michael Schiavo was finally successful at killing his wife. And he would not even let her parents and brother be with her when she died. I cannot think of enough bad things to wish upon him, that sadistic son of a bitch.

And please spare me the criticisms that the above is not a "Christian" sentiment. Says who? Sometimes people deserve the epithets levelled at them.

In this country, we chop babies up into pieces and starve disabled people to death. I am completely disgusted.

Pro-lifers - this is a chance not to be missed

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.

Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

When I was a law professor living in Michigan in the 1990's, I became heavily involved with the movement to defeat the assisted suicide initiative that was being placed on the Michigan ballot. I was largely involved via a number of Catholic organizations. But one of the most active groups joined with us was Not Dead Yet, a disability rights organization.

As part of that consortium, the assisted suicide ballot initiative was defeated. And in the process, I learned plenty - about disabled people's viewpoints, about hospice, about palliative (pain-relief) care for the terminally and chronically ill. It was an education that has stayed with me and shaped my views to this day. Some said then that the alliance of pro-life Catholics and disability rights advocates was an uneasy one. I didn't see why then - and I still don't see why now.

And yet over the past few days I have read article after article written by advocates for the disabled that bespeak the same discomfort now. The Not Dead Yet crowd is incredibly nervous about being aligned with "the Christian right" in opposing the starvation and dehydration of Terri Schiavo.

Don't take my word for it. Here's a great link to a number of articles - and they all say the same thing:

http://www.notdeadyet.org/ (Scroll down to the links below the header which reads, "SCHIAVO: PUBLISHED OPINION from the disability community")

And here's why - in one article from the Boston Globe, reporter Nina Easton interviews Diane Coleman in the following exchange:

Disability rights groups have struck an uneasy alliance with Christian conservatives and are prepared to use the partnership to press for broad legislation restricting the ability of families to remove life-sustaining treatments from patients unable to communicate their wishes.

'Both sides of the culture war want to make this about their issues,' said Diane Coleman, whose group, Not Dead Yet, was named for the same refrain in the movie 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail.'

Disabled-rights supporters 'as a whole lean toward being prochoice' on abortion, Coleman said, but worry about protecting individual rights of incapacitated people who might be considered a burden to both relatives and authorities. Coleman added that the partnership with Christian conservatives is 'very awkward.'"

Fascinating. And that's why I included the Niemoller quote at the top of this post.

I remember very well that in the pro-life movement thirty years ago (and during all the decades since), those arguing against abortion said that once courts could declare unborn children "non-persons" for purposes of letting other people kill them, it would only be a matter of time before those same arguments would be used against others - the ill, the disabled, the elderly.

Apparently, the disability crowd didn't get the message. But maybe they get it now.

Guess what? Now they're coming for YOU.

But this is not a time to say "we told you so." This is an opportunity for those on the side of life to reach out to the disabled, the ill, the elderly, the vulnerable. Life in all its imperfections (and we are ALL imperfect in one way or another) is deserving of RESPECT, is worthy of PROTECTION, is inherently of VALUE.

If advocates for the rights of the disabled can get over their love affair with abortion, perhaps they will be able to see that the alliance with pro-life Christians and like-minded others is a natural alliance, not an uneasy one.

Quotes to remember about the Schiavo case

Some of those who have written about the Schiavo case in recent days and weeks have summed up the situation beautifully. A lot of those writers have asked, in one form or another, the question, "Where are the liberals, those self-proclaimed defenders of the weak, the forgotten, the oppressed, the downtrodden?" I have decided to post excerpts from those articles I have found.

From Thomas Sowell:
"Terri Schiavo is being killed because she is inconvenient to her husband and because she is inconvenient to those who do not want the idea of the sanctity of life to be strengthened and become an impediment to abortion. Nor do they want the supremacy of judges to be challenged, when judges are the liberals' last refuge."

From the Independent Women's Forum:
"'We are appalled that the Florida courts have not removed Mr. Schiavo as Terri’s guardian,' says Nancy Pfotenhauer, president of the Independent Women’s Forum. 'There is an inherent conflict between the interests of Mr. Schiavo, his live-in girlfriend, his children with this woman, and the needs of his wife. Given this conflict of interest, it shocks the conscience that Mr. Schiavo still controls whether Terri lives or dies.

'All organizations that claim to speak for women should be outraged at this injustice. Effectively, Terri is being sentenced to an early grave because her husband would prefer her death to a divorce,' Pfotenhauer continued.

'Why is there no outcry from so-called women’s organizations about Terri’s rights? Where are N.O.W, the Feminist Majority, the National Council of Women’s Organizations and the National Women’s Law Center in defending her?' Pfotenhauer added."

From Eric Cohen in The Weekly Standard:
"Procedural liberalism (discerning and respecting the prior wishes of the incompetent person; preserving life when such wishes are not clear) gave way to ideological liberalism (treating incompetence itself as reasonable grounds for assuming that life is not worth living). ...

A true adherence to procedural liberalism--respecting a person's clear wishes when they can be discovered, erring on the side of life when they cannot--would have led to a much better outcome in this case. It would have led the court to preserve Terri Schiavo's life and deny Michael Schiavo's request to let her die. But as we have learned, the descent from procedural liberalism's respect for a person's wishes to ideological liberalism's lack of respect for incapacitated persons is relatively swift. Treating autonomy as an absolute makes a person's dignity turn entirely on his or her capacity to act autonomously. It leads to the view that only those with the ability to express their will possess any dignity at all--everyone else is 'life unworthy of life.'

This is what ideological liberalism now seems to believe--whether in regard to early human embryos, or late-stage dementia patients, or fetuses with Down syndrome. And in the end, the Schiavo case is just one more act in modern liberalism's betrayal of the vulnerable people it once claimed to speak for. Instead of sympathizing with Terri Schiavo--a disabled woman, abandoned by her husband, seen by many as a burden on society--modern liberalism now sympathizes with Michael Schiavo, a healthy man seeking freedom from the burden of his disabled wife and self-fulfillment in the arms of another."

From Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal online:
"I do not understand why people who want to save the whales (so do I) find campaigns to save humans so much less arresting. I do not understand their lack of passion. But the save-the-whales people are somehow rarely the stop-abortion-please people.

The PETA people, who say they are committed to ending cruelty to animals, seem disinterested in the fact of late-term abortion, which is a cruel procedure performed on a human.

I do not understand why the don't-drill-in-Alaska-and-destroy-its-prime-beauty people do not join forces with the don't-end-a-life-that-holds-within-it-beauty people.

I do not understand why those who want a freeze on all death penalty cases in order to review each of them in light of DNA testing--an act of justice and compassion toward those who have been found guilty of crimes in a court of law--are uninterested in giving every last chance and every last test to a woman whom no one has ever accused of anything.

There are passionate groups of women in America who decry spousal abuse, give beaten wives shelter, insist that a woman is not a husband's chattel. This is good work. Why are they not taking part in the fight for Terri Schiavo? Again, what explains their lack of passion on this? If Mrs. Schiavo dies, it will be because her husband, and only her husband, insists she wanted to, or would want to, or said she wanted to in a hypothetical conversation long ago. A thin reed on which to base the killing of a human being."

And here's an interesting one. If the disabled gay community has to complain, the liberal abandonment is complete, is it not?

From Not Dead Yet's website, a statement from Disabled Queers in Action:


"MARCH 23, 2005 4:30 a. m. -- In a 2-1 decision, the court ruled early this morning that Terri has no right to eat, thus no right to live. Although our justice system presumes innocence until proven guilty, Terri has been tried and convicted without any charges against her -- for the capital offense of being disabled. Society and the courts have deemed her "better off dead than disabled". America was built upon presumed checks and balances, yet for people with disabilities like Terri, those balances failed again and again.

Today is one of the darkest hours in disability history for three reasons:

(1) This is a civil rights issue.

Let's answer the following logic puzzles to determine various civil rights.

a. If "B" is an African American, should she be denied food and water because of her race? Yes or No. NO of course not.
b. If "I" is a woman, should she be denied food and water due to her sex? Yes or No. Absolutely NOT.
c. If "A" is an alleged criminal, should he be denied food and water because of his legal status? Yes or No. NO- that is cruel and unusual punishment-he is not yet proven guilty.
d. If "S" is a mother with 2 children, should she be denied food and water because of her being a mother? Yes or No? That is absurd.
e. If "E" is 18 years old and just coming out as gay, should he be denied food and water because of his sexual orientation? Yes or No? Even the most radical antigay person would say no.
f. If "D" is disabled, and thus can not speak, should she be denied food and water? Yes or No? According to the court's illogical rulings, the answer is YES.

Solely based on her perceived disability, she was denied the rights afforded to other classes of people. The court deems her 'non-human' and thus will not feel pain to not eat or drink. Does anyone know with 100% clarity that Terri will not feel anything or even wants to die? Oddly enough for 15 years without any life supports, she continues to live. She deserves food, water, and civil rights.

Research shows that non-disabled people and medical professional devalue the quality of life of disabled people, yet the court took only the word of non-disability experts-those who historically have devalued people like Terri. Those 'experts' the court deemed more reliable are exactly those that research demonstrates devaluing people with disabilities.

(2) There was 'reasonable doubt' on Terri's wishes and conflicting testimony from her husband.

In 1993, he won $750,000 to care for Terri by promising to bring her home and care for her. "She's my life and I wouldn't trade her for the world. I believe in my marriage vows." Yet after he received the money, he started living openly with a fiancee and has fathered two children by her.

After this malpractice award, he refused to allow even the most basic rehabilitation and then requested court authorization to starve her to death.

At the 2000 trial, Schiavo suddenly remembered that Terri would not want "to live like that."

The court-appointed guardian ad litem found that Schiavo had a conflict of interest, since he would inherit the money intended for her care. Upon Schiavo's request, the judge dismissed the guardian and never appointed another! Terri Schiavo has had no representation ever since.

Over $500,000 of the money intended for Terri's care has been spent on lawyer fees trying to have her killed. $400,000 has gone to the traveling "better dead than disabled" lawyer.

(3) She has never been judged by a jury of her peers -- which would be people with disabilities.

The courts in essence used Jim Crow methods -- non-disabled people to judge, assess, and condemn her.

Not Dead Yet's briefs with more than 26 disability groups fell upon 'deaf' judicial ears.

Today is the 6th anniversary of my mother's death. She too was declared 'in a vegetative state" like Terri. Yet for the three months in the hospital with this diagnosis, the medical staff nagged us daily to 'pull the plug'. However my mom made clear her wishes and kicked out her abusive husband without any of our family there -- the nursing staff called us to inform us how my mom cussed him out and told him to never visit again. Then she went back to "sleep". When we saw her that day, she smiled, spoke about her kicking him out, then back to "sleep". She hung on, in various ways, until she decided to die -- after everyone in our family visited her and told her she was loved, and we respect her decisions, whatever they were.

No one knows exactly what Terri is thinking or feeling, but it's clear -- she has an amazing power to hang on to life without any 'life supports'. She is not terminally ill except for the court's ruling. Why can't we give her the benefit of the doubt, and follow the logic that she should not be killed for the crime of being disabled?"

Yet another of my posts from Townhall.com's weblog

Since I seem to be doing a lot of my writing for Townhall at the moment, I am cutting and pasting again. It occurred to me this evening that a lot of non-lawyers might well be asking, "Why aren't any of these judges and courts doing anything for Terri?" So I decided to try to answer that question.

Standard of review is no standard at all for Terri Schiavo

What a lot of people do not understand about what's been happening with the Terri Schiavo case over the past week is related to what is commonly known in the legal process as the "standard of review." This relates to the criteria that appellate courts use to evaluate what was done at trial. And what most people also don't know is that it is very, very difficult to overturn the decision of a trial court.

Thomas Sowell alludes to this in his recent column, when he argues that you can't claim Terri's case - including evidence that was excluded during the original hearings - has been "heard" by a large number of judges, as some claim. In fact, what has happened - over and over again - is that the other courts, using some version of the standard of review, have refused to reexamine the case.

There are a number of different applicable standards - too complicated to go into here - but suffice it to say that an appellate court will not overturn the factual findings of a trial court unless they represent "clear error". (Or, when a jury is involved, if the verdict of the jury is "against the manifest weight of the evidence.") And just so you know how tough a standard that is to meet, you need only read a batch of appellate cases (as everyone who has been to law school and practiced law has to have done), to see over and over again that appellate courts will say, we cannot overturn the factual findings of the trial court even if we, with the same evidence, would have found differently.

This has nothing to do with the Schiavo case in particular; it is the standard operating procedure for appellate courts in general. In general terms, it is simply very difficult to win on appeal if you lose at trial. (And this is despite what Hollywood would have you believe from films and TV.)

The decisions that Judge Greer in Florida state court has made - that Terri Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state, that she expressed her intent not to be kept alive - even with basic nutrition and hydration - these are not determinations of law; these are findings of fact. And it is precisely for that reason that no other courts have been willing to step in and overrule Judge Greer. It is also why those of us who understand the legal process in detail have held out little hope for any turnaround in this case on the part of the judiciary.

This is also why Congress drafted the "midnight statute" granting the federal court subject matter jurisdiction to hear Terri's case de novo - in other words, as from the beginning. (Congress - and only Congress - has the Constitutional authority to give the federal trial and intermediate appellate courts their subject matter jurisdiction.) Congress recognized that without some special grant of authority, the federal courts would do just what the Florida appellate courts have done - which is defer to the findings of fact made by the trial court judge - in this case, Judge Greer.

And even despite this grant of Congressional authority, the federal district court (in an opinion written by Judge Whittemore) refused to reexamine Terri's case.

That has left Terri's family with few legal options, except to ask the trial court - i.e., Judge Greer - to revisit his own findings of fact, by showing that they have new evidence, of Terri's condition, of improper or inadequate diagnoses, of her expressed intent to stay alive. But, as Judge Greer has demonstrated over and over again, trial judges are not eager to overturn themselves, either.

So, what we have left, as I have indicated in previous weblog posts, is a situation where the original findings of fact - that Michael Schiavo is a proper guardian, that he has Terri Schiavo's best interests at heart, that Terri Schiavo is in a "PVS," that she wants to be starved and dehydrated to death - are all but carved in stone.

The standard of review is intended to preserve the integrity of the trial process, acknowledging that appellate courts do not get to hear testimony, see witnesses, evaluate their demeanor and their credibility. All sensible. But this standard leaves no protection for someone like Terri Schiavo, who was unrepresented by independent counsel at trial, and whose "guardian" is the very person she needed to be protected against.

Jurists March Us Cheerfully Down the Slippery Slope

I posted on Townhall's weblog today (where I am a contributor), and the post was so long that it occurred to me it really belonged on my own weblog. So here it is, reproduced in its entirety.

As an attorney and a former law professor, I have never been so disgusted with the legal process in my life. By that, let me be clear - I mean the court system. Throughout nearly twenty years of being an attorney, I have always defended "the process," even when I disagreed vehemently with the results. But that is because the process, to me, always seemed to have a certain basic integrity.

The Terri Schiavo case has changed all of that. I have heard the most appalling lack of concern for basic legal procedures on the part of Judge Greer in Florida state court - such as excluding evidence that tends to discredit Michael Schiavo as a dispassionate guardian of his wife's best interests (as if his living situation and his spending her rehabiliation money on his legal fees isn't enough), refusing to order basic medical tests, refusing to hear any new evidence at all. But the worst part of all is rendering a decision - that Terri Schiavo "wants" to die by two weeks of starvation and dehydration - despite her lack of any written directive or will, on the basic of an alleged comment she made in passing to her husband after watching a movie. Nothing in writing. No witnesses. You would think, then, that the only person - the only witness - who could attest to such a statement would have to have profound credibility, and no conflicts of interest, in order for the court to starve and dehydrate someone to death on the basis of his or her testimony.

But you would be wrong. Instead, the Florida court has taken the word of a philandering, adulterous bigamist with a financial incentive to see his "wife" dead, and called that "legal process." And as Ann Coulter points out beautifully in her column today, everyone - from the Florida legislature to the federal district and appellate court, to journalists across the country - is falling all over themselves calling for respect for that decision under the guise of "the rule of law" and "states' rights."

Although support for letting Terri Schiavo starve and dehydrate to death comes mostly from the left (who, it must be noted, would not be frothing at the mouth with respect for a Florida court's decision if it permitted parents to prevent their teenage daughter from getting an abortion, or ordered Intelligent Design to be taught in tandem with evolution in public schools), it does not come entirely from the left. In fact, a significant number of conservative commentators have expressed support for "letting Terri die," including (today) Neil Boortz.

They offer different reasons. Some echo the "states' rights" argument. Neil Boortz argues that those who believe in eternal life should be comforted at the notion that Terri would be going home to God.

What rot. I rarely find myself at such odds with conservative commentators, but that is the biggest bunch of garbage I've read so far. If we believe in eternal life, then why not kill a lot of other people, for a lot of other reasons? I can see it now: "My father has Alzheimers" Well, you believe in God, don't you? "My mother has a brain tumor." Ah, well, there's always eternal life. "My brother was paralyzed in a motorcycle accident." He'll be whole again, in Heaven.

Two days ago during Rush Limbaugh's program, he asked, "where will we go next?" I can tell you where we're going next. There have already been scads of doctors and nurses who have attested in news articles that death by starvation and dehydration is NOT "painless." A few more Terri Schiavos, and we will begin to hear the drumbeats for methods that are in fact "quicker," "more merciful," and genuinely painless. And then, the lethal injections will start.

Oh, but don't worry about that, the advocates for starving Terri (like Michael Schiavo's attorney George Felos) will say. This is a liberty interest. A matter of personal freedom. We're only going to kill those who have said they want to die. Uh-huh. With no better evidence than that produced in Judge George Greer's kangaroo court.

But there's more. There will be people - plenty of them - who are sick, or disabled, and who will, in fact say that they "want" to die, because they fear becoming a burden on their families. An emotional burdern. Or perhaps a financial one. The pressure is already mounting from all sides. In fact, information was released this week that now says the Social Security system will go bankrupt a year earlier than was previously anticipated. And in response to rising health care costs, there is an increasingly loud clamor (from the left, of course) for "single-payer" (read "government-controlled") health care. So, then the government will decide what treatment you merit? Who lives? Who dies? And what it costs?

Doesn't the confluence of all of these trends bother anyone? It damn well should. The slippery slope has never been laid out for us so clearly. Or so closely.

But this is the root of my disgust with the court system in the Schiavo case. Because historically, even if the "average Joe" didn't see the impending threats to his life or liberty on the horizon by what seemed (at the time) to be a banal case, jurists always did. That's their job. And they would seek to protect against government incursions against those liberties in the way they decided those cases.

But no more. The Florida courts, and the federal courts that have participated in Terri Schiavo's case have abandoned that esteemed tradition. And they should all be ashamed. More to the point, they should be afraid. Because what will come next will be worse. And they, unlike the protestors outside Terri's hospice, unlike Governor Jeb Bush, unlike this Congress, and unlike President Bush, will have to view themselves as complicitous in the impending erosion of the rights and protections for the elderly, the sick, the dying, the disabled, and the vulnerable of all stripes.

I can't speak for the medical profession (although I am sure there are those that can), but I think this is a sad day for the American legal profession.

FoxNews poll shows Americans side with Michael Schiavo

Depressing. Completely depressing. But understandable, I suppose. FoxNews has just released a poll which shows that a majority of Americans (59%) would remove Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. Even more (74%) say that they would want the feeding tube removed if they were in Terri Schiavo's position.

And this, I think, is what is driving the poll numbers - people are trying to figure out how they themselves would feel if they were completely incapacitated. And for most people, the prospect seems horrifying - to be trapped in a body that no longer functions, with a mind that no longer functions, or (worse yet, in many people's minds) with a mind that does function.

I am sympathetic. I can completely understand this perspective. I might even share it. But it doesn't negate the points that I was making earlier. First, that Michael Schiavo has abdicated whatever rights he once had to determine what is in his "wife's" best interest. He has too many conflicts of interest.

And second - and this is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING. No one - no spouse, parent, family member, friend - should have to be in the position of guessing what a loved one would want in Terri Schiavo's position.

If 74% of the American public would want nutrition and hydration removed were they in Terri's shoes, then I sure hope that that 74% of the population has a living will.

Well? Do you?