FL. Loses Appeal in Terri Schiavo Case

^Angel^ said:
That's true, but still it doesn't prove that Terri told her husband that her wishes is to die and not telling her parents too, I don't believe that at all I'm sorry....
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I understand and know it´s hard to prove that Terri told her husband about her wishes.

Accord German media:
Michael hope that therapies would helps Terri after an accident. He realized few years later that the therapies does not help her because of her severe brain damage, that´s why he gave up and remember his wife´s wishes but Terri´s parents reject and want their daughter alive due their reglious ground. That´s all what I know from German media yesterday and also saw Terri on the TV for a first time yesterday. Would Terri like to carry like this for other 15 years?

I really dont know what I should say. I has mixed feeling when I saw Terri on the TV. :tears:
 
deaflibrarian said:
You made some good points there Liebling. You are right that Michael tried for a few years to get Terri help. He tried brain implants, physical therapy, neurological examinations, etc. Heck, he even went to nursing school to become a nurse so he could take care of Terri. This doesn't seem like the Michael everyone else makes him out to be: A money-greedy, selfish husband who wants to get rid of an ugly, disabled wife so he can be with his pretty new wife and their two precious children.
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That is not what it says, because I had provide the link you haven't read it yet again, but it says that Terri has received no therapy for the past ten years who is lying here?

It wasn't until Michael tried all he could that he gave up and decided it was time for him to let Terri go. He could have done this from the very beginning, but he hung up for those few years trying various ways to see if a treatment would work. When he finally gave up, that's when the parents got involved and started making him out to be this mean husband who is going off having affairs and stuff. That's why there's such public disdain for Michael right now, that he's committed adultery and isn't taking care of Terri. They've forgotten that he was the ultimate and devoted husband trying everything he could in the first few years of Terri's illness and eventual brain damage.
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You have proof to back that story up? I did not see no link provide to back that story up because I read the other links that Michael did nothing to help Terri.
 
deaflibrarian said:
You made some good points there Liebling. You are right that Michael tried for a few years to get Terri help. He tried brain implants, physical therapy, neurological examinations, etc. Heck, he even went to nursing school to become a nurse so he could take care of Terri. This doesn't seem like the Michael everyone else makes him out to be: A money-greedy, selfish husband who wants to get rid of an ugly, disabled wife so he can be with his pretty new wife and their two precious children.

It wasn't until Michael tried all he could that he gave up and decided it was time for him to let Terri go. He could have done this from the very beginning, but he hung up for those few years trying various ways to see if a treatment would work. When he finally gave up, that's when the parents got involved and started making him out to be this mean husband who is going off having affairs and stuff. That's why there's such public disdain for Michael right now, that he's committed adultery and isn't taking care of Terri. They've forgotten that he was the ultimate and devoted husband trying everything he could in the first few years of Terri's illness and eventual brain damage.
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***nodding agreement***, That´s what my German co-workers said the same today. We talked about her half day today and realized that we have to let Terri go.

Michael is a man. It´s natural for him to need company. It´s impossible for him to sit to watch Terri rest of his life. I beleive that Terri would not want him to do that.

Nobody expects Michael become "monk" and faith to his wife. I know Terri would never want him like this.
 
Whatever :roll: Where the links! Hello? I bowing out of this thread it's nonsense. :dizzy:
 
No link, but German medias on the TV.

Give up!

I really dont know what I should say because of both stories sides on the different medias.
 
That's right, I have a hard time believing it cause I don't fall for rumors or lies, and beside there no exactly proof at all that link to Terri telling her husband that she wish to die, there is no papers NOTHING, it may be so darn easy for others to read and watch news about this story, and just fall for it cause they hear it form the husband, no one knows the truth, but only Terri and God...I'm not going to be assuming anything at all, without proof that show that Terri actually do want to die then yeah I'll accept whatever she wants but there nothing at all....Terri's parents are not selfish, and they love their daug and they have not heard her daug said she wish to die, none of you were there, so never assuming things that you aren't so sure....

I have nothing more to say, I'm done with this thread, PEACE!
 
^Angel^ said:
That's right, I have a hard time believing it cause I don't fall for rumors or lies, and beside there no exactly proof at all that link to Terri telling her husband that she wish to die, there is no papers NOTHING, it may be so darn easy for others to read and watch news about this story, and just fall for it cause they hear it form the husband, no one knows the truth, but only Terri and God...I'm not going to amusing anything at all, without proof that show that Terri actually do want to die then yeah I'll accept whatever she wants but there nothing at all....Terri's parents are not selfish, and they love their daug and they have not heard her daug said she wish to die, none of you were there, so never amusing things that you aren't so sure....

I have nothing more to say, I'm done with this thread, PEACE!
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Which word you mean "amusin'" or "assumin'" ? lol
 
How did it start?

St. Petersburg, Fla. -- If he spoke to his wife one last time, Michael Schiavo does not remember. It was a Saturday night, the busiest of the week at the restaurant he managed in Clearwater, Agostino's Ristorante. It was past midnight by the time he closed the restaurant and came home. His wife, Terri Schiavo was already asleep. "I came in the house," he said. "Terri woke up. She heard me. I gave her a kiss goodnight. She gave me a kiss goodnight."
Because they worked opposite schedules, the Schiavos often greeted and parted like this, with a groggy kiss in the late night or early morning.
The temperature was in the 30s, exceptionally cold for Florida, on the night of Feb. 24, 1990. Terri felt the cold easily. She was 26 and, at 5 feet 6 inches, weighed 110 pounds, the trimmest she had ever been. She once weighed 200. She did not lose the weight by exercising, but by adhering to a strict diet. She was very unathletic.
Michael said, "She didn't know what sports was." Michael had become concerned about her weight loss. When they married five years earlier, she weighed about 150 pounds. Now when she took off her clothes, "I could see her bones," Michael said. He let it cross his mind that she might have an eating disorder. Once after dinner she went into the bathroom, letting the water run the entire time. She told him she was just warming her hands.
She was capable of eating large quantities of food, an entire pizza or a giant omelet. She seemed to guzzle iced tea, sometimes a gallon at a time. Her menstrual cycle had become irregular. But Michael said none of this had alarmed him. She had been to doctors for a benign lump in her breast, a wart on her toe and dizzy spells. She had not become pregnant although she and Michael did not use birth control. But she seemed otherwise healthy.
Nothing Michael or Terri knew at the time would have foretold what would happen that night. In the early morning hours of Feb. 25, 1990, Terri Schiavo collapsed in the hallway outside her bedroom. As Michael remembered it, "I was getting out of bed for some reason and I heard this thud. So I ran out into the hall and I found Terri on the floor." He called 911 and her brother, who lived in the same apartment complex. "I held her in my arms until her brother got there. I rocked her. I didn't know what to do. I was hysterical."
Since that night, Terri has not moved or spoken. Doctors believe she has no cognitive ability - that she cannot think or feel. Hers is a life of gray, something more than death but less than life. She breathes on her own but needs a gastric feeding tube to drink a slow and steady stream of nutrients similar to baby formula. She is fed all night as she sleeps, from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. Within weeks, the Florida Second District Court of Appeal will decide whether she will live or die. Michael, her guardian, wants to remove the feeding tube that keeps her alive because he says it's what she would have wanted. A lower court has already given him permission to do so.
Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, and her siblings want to keep her alive for more treatment and therapy. They do not believe she is in a permanent vegetative state or that she would want to end her life. In such cases, relatives who want to keep the patient alive "are not thinking so much about the patient, but themselves," said Dr. Larry Schneiderman, ethics consultant to the University of California, San Diego medical school. "They might have their own agenda, or they're so terribly wrapped in grief. It takes an act of humanity to acknowledge that we all die and come to terms with this. Those are the heroic people, the compassionate people. The ones that won't quit are just being unrealistic."

Nonetheless, in the almost 30 years since a court first adjudicated a patient's legal right to die, judges have rarely approved withdrawal of life support over the objections of a patient's immediate family and the absence of a patient's written instructions. It is unlikely the state or U.S. Supreme Court will take the case should either party appeal again. So the coming decision is expected to end what has become a 10-year legal battle.

"I think about her every day," Michael said. "I see her once or twice a week. It's heartbreaking. ... Terri's made the same sounds and motions for years. Back when I knew nothing about this, and I'm sitting there watching her, I was encouraged because you grasp for anything. Now, it's like visiting a shell of a person."

When paramedics brought Terri into the emergency room of Northside Hospital and Heart Institute in 1990, she appeared to have had a heart attack. Her brain had been deprived of oxygen for at least 10 minutes. Because she was so young, doctors initially suspected a drug overdose. Conversations with her family ruled it out.

The cause of her collapse was never fully determined but was eventually linked to severe potassium depletion, which could have been caused by her diet, but could also have been caused by efforts to resuscitate her. When she emerged from a coma weeks later, the damage done to her brain was obvious.

To the casual observer, she seemed then and now to be very much alive, if not coherent. Her eyes are open and at moments alert. She focuses and stares. She reacts to sounds and objects and people. She moans and wails. She appears to take joy in the sight of her mother.

Doctors cannot account for Terri's every movement and reaction, but the medical orthodoxy is clear about its view: She is in a permanent and irreversible vegetative state, incapable of interpreting the world around her. "If the brain stem is intact," Dr. Schneiderman said, "their eyes can drift, they react to sounds, their arms and hands move if you hurt them. These are spinal cord reflexes. What makes it so tragic is that loved ones are convinced they're reacting to them."

In the days after her collapse, at the urging of a lawyer friend of Michael's, the Schindlers signed a document making Michael Terri's sole legal guardian - a decision the Schindlers would later regret. Six months after her collapse, the family moved Terri to her parents' house, where Michael also had begun living. The family took turns caring for her around the clock. The care became too difficult, so they moved her back to a nursing home.

Doctors were not optimistic about Terri's chances for improvement. They recommended an experimental surgery, and in December 1990, electrodes were implanted in Terri's brain to stimulate dormant brain cells.

When no improvement was noticed, the family moved her in July 1991 to the Sabal Palms nursing home in Largo, Fla., where she would live for the next three years.

There, Michael was Terri's most constant companion. He kept her clenched hands dry so they would not become infected. To keep her muscles flexible, Michael and nurses moved her joints and put braces on her legs each day. He braced her head to keep it from falling forward. He brushed her teeth with great difficulty because she often bit down on the toothbrush. He suctioned the saliva and toothpaste from her mouth. He applied her makeup.

About that time, Michael enrolled in nursing school, saying he wanted to learn how to take care of Terri. Her parents visited about once a month, said a nurse, Diane Gomes, who cared for Terri at Palm Gardens nursing home in Largo almost every day from 1994 to 1996. But Michael, Gomes remembered, "was there every day," eight hours a day.

In 1992, Michael sued the doctors who cared for Terri before her collapse. He claimed she might have had an eating disorder, and that had the doctors tested her, they would have detected the potassium imbalance. One doctor settled. Another chose to go to trial.

At the trial, in November 1992, Michael spoke optimistically. "I see myself hopefully finishing school and taking care of my wife," he said. "I want to bring my wife home." His lawyers asked for $12 million for Terri's treatment and care, on the presumption that she would live another 51 years, and $4 million to compensate Michael for the loss of his wife.

The jury found the doctor only partly responsible. In the end, the trial and the settlement netted Terri about $700,000 and Michael $300,000.

Michael and the Schindlers would soon become adversaries.

On Valentine's Day 1993, they argued about the money. Michael said the Schindlers demanded a share of his award. The Schindlers say Michael refused to spend the money on Terri's treatment. In any case, they never spoke to each other again.

After the argument, Michael took away the Schindlers' privileges to view Terri's medical records. He said he did it out of spite and later regretted it. Three years later, he would restore their access. The Schindlers unsuccessfully sued to remove Michael as Terri's guardian.

In the summer of 1993, Terri developed a urinary tract infection. Doctors suggested Michael not treat the infection, and he agreed, he said. It was the first sign that Michael had given up some hope.

He also revealed for the first time to doctors - and the Schindlers were informed - that Terri had told him more than once that she would not want to be kept alive artificially, that the two had promised they would never allow each other to live hooked up to a machine. When her parents objected, Michael ordered the infection treated.
 
Part two

His visits became less frequent, twice, maybe three times a week. He stayed about an hour at a time. He helped wash Terri's hair and get her dressed.

By 1995, Michael was in love with and living with another woman, whom he had been seeing for about two years. They would eventually have a child, even though Michael stayed legally married to Terri.

In 1997, Michael's mother died from cancer. The following year, Michael petitioned the court for permission to stop artificial feeding. In April 2000, after a probate judge approved the removal of the feeding tube, Michael moved Terri to a Woodside hospice. By then, he had finished nursing school and had started working as a respiratory therapist, the legacy of the years he spent caring for Terri.

"Only after his mother's death did Michael gain the emotional strength to end Terri's life," his lawyer George Felos said.

If the Florida appellate court permits Michael to stop feeding his wife, she will probably die within weeks. For patients already close to death, dehydration and starvation can be a relatively pleasant way to die, doctors say. Terri's eyes will become dry and bloodshot. Her face will become thin. In the final days, her body will begin shutting down. Her heart will beat faster as her blood volume drops from lack of water. Blood pressure will drop and her hands and feet will become cold and mottled. She will no longer urinate and her kidneys will fail as toxins build up in her body. An infection might set in. Before she dies, she might have seizures or fall into a coma. Eventually, for the second time in her life, her heart will stop. Her parents' struggle.

http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-schiavoday2,0,2998635.story?coll=ny-health-headlines Now tell me where it shows that Michael did everything for Terri even brain implants, physical therapy, neurological examinations, etc? When it was her parent took Terri in their home to take care of her while Michael lives there to help. But then he won the settlement and did not provide it for Terri's care where did that money went?
 
Terri Schiavo is hungry and thirsty, She's not to blame.

That happens to a person being starved to death. And she didn't remove her feeding tube.Terri's story is so sad. The family that loves her, and wants to care for her, at its own expense, is thwarted by the husband who stopped her therapy and sought judicial permission to starve her to death, at a time when he would have inherited hundreds of thousands of dollars, tax-free.

IF that family had stood aside instead of at Terri's side, fighting for her God-given and inalienable right to life mentioned in the Declaration of Independence instead of a diabolical "right to die" championed by attorney George Felos. Who described himself as an agent of God in his book.
And, at best, confused God with Satan. Terri's family did not abandon her to a horrible death. Terri's parents and siblings have tried mightily to prevent what is well described as "legalized" murder. Even though a priest actually helped Terri's husband secure judicial approval. And the local bishop is distressed with the use of the word "murderer" and the absence of peace between Terri's husband and parents than instead of premeditated murder.

Which is what deliberately removing the feeding tube of a person who needs it to receive food and water is. Bishop Lynch, pay attention to Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Martino. They know far better than you do what they are talking about. To all, especially those who support Michael Schiavo (including the vulgar emailer with the terrible, terse comment, "Just kill the bitch already."). Try to imagine being starved to death By your lawful spouse.
With the approval of a judge. Who is morally as well as legally blind. Who was rebuked for giving approval by the Senior Pastor of his Church.
And then left his Church instead of repenting. Rod Serling had an incredible imagination. But even the creator of "The Twilight Zone" never conceived a story along the lines of this real-life tragedy. A wife with a documented history of physical trauma collapses under mysterious circumstances. Her husband takes control. Hires a lawyer to bring a medical malpractice action.
Wins a million dollars for his wife and himself. Promising to take care of her for the rest of her life. Then announces that she really wanted to be starved to death.Discontinues her physical therapy. Lets her teeth rot, Melts down her wedding ring. Hires a lawyer who champions the so-called "right-to-die" to secure judicial approval for his plan. Takes up with other women and has a couple of out-of-wedlock children by her. Refuses to divorce his wife. But plans to marry again as soon as his wife expires. Finds a judge who is sympathetic to him and his lawyer instead of his wife and her parents. A legally blind judge. A judge who hold a hearing and finds the wife wanted to be starved to death. Supposedly by "clear and convincing evidence."
By rejecting the embarrassing, and therefore even more credible, testimony of a friend of the wife who recalls with shame telling a cruel Karen Ann Quinlan to the usually mild-mannered wife and being upbraided by her for it, so passionately and effectively that the wife's inspiring words, "Where there's life, there's hope," are indelibly fixed in her memory. By rejecting the conclusions of the independent attorney he had appointed to investigate.
By WRONGLY taking judicial notice of what was supposed to be a fact--Karen Ann Quinlan's date of death--to discredit that friend's sworn testimony.
A judge who repeatedly orders that the wife be starved to death.
Without ever seeing the wife.
(Cases like this NEVER should be decided by legally blind judges.)
With the appellate courts automatically deferring to the factual determinations of the legally blind judge.As though the usual deference accorded to judges who are in a position to see and judge the credibility of witnesses should be accorded to a legally blind judge. With the matter taken up in Congress. Where a former pest exterminator (Tom DeLay) champions the wife's right to life. And an ardent pro-abortion feminist (Barbara Boxer) champions the husband's right to starve the wife to death. At common law, married women had little, or no, right to contract, own property, or sue.
At common law, husbands were exempt from prosecution for raping their wives. But they were not entitled to starve their wives to death!
Incredibly, Senator Boxer is helping a husband starve his wife to death.
Perhaps she should stop her obstructionism and reflect on these words of Elizabeth Cady Stanton: "The rights, to vote, to hold property, to speak in public, are all-important; but there are great social rights, before which all others sink into utter insignificance. The cause of woman is . . . . not a question of meats and drinks, of money and lands, but of human rights-the sacred right of a woman to her own person, to all her God-given powers of body and soul. Did it ever enter into the mind of man that woman too had an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of her individual happiness?" NOT a right to be starved to death by her husband

http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_7337.shtml

I agree with everything that states in this story.
 
Supreme Court is next

Court rejects Schiavo parents' request

By ELIOTT C. McLAUGHLIN
Associated Press Writer

ATLANTA (AP) -- For the second time in less than a day, a federal appeals court Wednesday rejected a bid by Terri Schiavo's parents to have her feeding tube reinserted. Florida lawmakers, meanwhile, debated another last-ditch effort to prolong her life.

In a 10-2 decision, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused Bob and Mary Schindler's request for an "expedited rehearing" by the full court. A three-judge panel from the court ruled against the family earlier Wednesday.

The court did not immediately give an explanation for its decision. The parents have vowed to take their fight to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has refused to get involved previously.

Supporters of the parents grew increasingly dismayed by the developments, and 10 protesters were arrested outside Schiavo's hospice for trying to bring her water. The severely brain-damaged woman's mother pleaded, again, to keep her daughter alive.

"When I close my eyes at night, all I can see is Terri's face in front of me, dying, starving to death," Mary Schindler said outside the hospice. "Please, someone out there, stop this cruelty. Stop the insanity. Please let my daughter live."

© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.
 
A Doctor Who Has Examined Terri

Transcript: A Doctor Who Has Examined Terri Talks with Hannity & Colmes
Wednesday, March 23, 2005

•Transcript: A Doctor Who Has Examined Terri Talks with Hannity & Colmes
This is a partial transcript from "Hannity & Colmes," Mar. 21, 2005, that has been edited for clarity.



SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: As we continue on "Hannity and Colmes," I'm Sean Hannity. Right now, we're broadcasting live outside the hospice where Terri Schiavo (search) is right now. Of course, her feeding tube has not been reinserted as of this point.

Joining us now is Dr. Bill Hammesfahr. And Dr. Hammesfahr, thanks for being with us.

DR. BILL HAMMESFAHR: Thanks for having me.

HANNITY: You were nominated for a Nobel Prize (search) in medicine?

HAMMESFAHR: Yes.

HANNITY: In 1999? For your work...

HAMMESFAHR: ... in patients like Terri. For brain injury and stroke patients. We discovered how you get these people better, and we did it for 10 years with Medicare. We got evaluated by the state of Florida and we first discovered a technique that works in people like Terri.


HANNITY: This is what I want to talk about. You have spent, unlike Robert Wexler, who was commenting on medical issues this weekend, you spent how many hours with Terri?

HAMMESFAHR: I spent about 10 hours with Terri across three separate occasions, and I spent a lot of time with videotapes, the medical record which is in boxes and boxes and boxes. for about a year. And of course, you know, I spending time interviewing the family and people who actually have seen her. So I've spent a lot of time with her.

HANNITY: Do you believe she is aware, conscious and responsive?

HAMMESFAHR: Terri is completely aware and conscious and responsive. She is like a child with cerebral palsy. We have kids in the Pinellas County school system every day that are much worse than her, that we're educating.

HANNITY: Doctor, wait a minute. I've got to get this straight here.

You were nominated to get a Nobel Peace Prize in this very work. Are you saying that this woman could be rehabilitated?

HAMMESFAHR: Absolutely.

HANNITY: Could she talk one day?

HAMMESFAHR: Yes.

HANNITY: Then how is it possible we're in this position if you have examined her, you were up for a Nobel Prize. I -- this is mind boggling to me.

HAMMESFAHR: I don't understand it myself. You know, this is a -- this is a case of a terrible error that's happened and it's a grievous case.

You know, what struck me about Congress, in the last couple of days is that there we have physicians who examined the videotapes, examined the same evidence I had, examined my records, my evaluation of her, stepped forward and said, this is not a person in a coma. This is not a person in PVS (a persistent vegetative state). We have to stop this.

HANNITY: All right.

HAMMESFAHR: It just goes to show, you do not want your medical care delivered by a judge.

HANNITY: Well, this is what I want to understand. This is your area of expertise that got you nominated for one of the most prestigious awards in medicine, the Nobel Prize.

And you're saying after a thorough examination of 10 hours total with her, and an examination of records and an examination of records and an examination of tapes regarding her, that she could be rehabilitated. What about all of these other people that have said that that's not possible, how can we have disparaging?

HANNITY: It's not all of these other people. There's four people on the other side, who say she can't be rehabilitated. All were paid individuals. Three by George Felos...

HANNITY: ...and you're not paid?

HAMMESFAHR: I was not paid. Now, if you look at the people who are on Terri's side and stepped forward, at last count, two weeks ago, 33 M.D.s, brain injury specialists from around the country, places like UCLA, Tulane, LSU, Boston University --Thirty-three physicians has stepped forward to say that this person can be rehabilitated. She's not in PVS, not in a coma. And the -- Judge Greer ignored this.

ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: Dr. Hammesfahr, it's Alan Colmes in New York. Thank you for being with us.

One of the other doctors who examined her, and by the way, among those doctors there were those who were not paid, who were independent, who were not on either side. --

Dr. Ron Cranford, who'll be on this show tomorrow night. I want to put up what he said:

He said, "She's vegetative. She's flat out vegetative. There's never been a shread of doubt that she's vegetative, and nothing's going to change that."

"This has been a massive propaganda campaign, which has been very successful, because it deludes the public into thinking she's really there."

Explain to me, as a lay person, what I'm supposed to believe, hearing medical authorities saying what you say and saying what Cranford says?

HAMMESFAHR: Well, I think you need to go and look at the videotape of Dr. Cranford. Dr. Cranford's videotape compliments Terri on following commands. At one point he moves a balloon around in front of her and he again compliments that she is able to see it that she can follow commands.

And I also think that you need to look a little closer. Dr. Cranford's work has been attacked by other medical professionals in peer reviewed journals such as "Lancet." So I think that we to look a little bit deeper at Dr. Cranford.

COLMES: Well, he's going to be here tomorrow night. We'll ask him. But Judge Greer also said that you said you've have treated patients worse off than Mrs. Schiavo but have not produced any case histories. Can you tell us of one?

HAMMESFAHR: Oh, that's not true. That's not true.

COLMES: You didn't produce any evidence?

HAMMESFAHR: Well, the specific request was to produce a videotape of a person exactly like Terri Schiavo. No two patients are exactly alike but, in fact, we have videotapes and we're releasing them tomorrow and have released them previously, if you call my office, you'll get informational videotapes of people much worse than Terri who are better, one of them three months into their treatment is talking.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,151148,00.html
 
I just think it's best that she should die instead of having those kinds of machines that keeps her alive for the rest of her life and it would just take many years to do research on getting her to talk, stand up, walk, etc...

I'm sorry that she has died, but if she was my wife I wouldn't stand to see her look all messed up, brain damaged, sitting on a chair with all the machines hooked up onto her just to keep her alive, especially with the feeding tube to help her not to be hungry...etc I just think it's best for her to die peacefully. I'm not trying to be cruel or anything, but sometimes I just think it's pretty pointless to have a machine hooked up on you to keep you alive for the rest of your life, where you would never walk, talk, or anything like that ever again.

anyone who've seen "million dollar baby" would be set a perfect example.

it was one of the best films I've ever seen this year.
great actors like Clint Eastwood, Hirlary Shawk, and Morgan Freeman were the perfect cast in this film.
 
FL law fails

Sorry, guys... There's another update in the case.

Florida Senate turns back Schiavo bill
By ELIOTT C. McLAUGHLIN
Associated Press Writer

ATLANTA (AP) -- For the second time in less than a day, a federal appeals court Wednesday rejected a bid by Terri Schiavo's parents to have her feeding tube re-inserted. The Florida Senate also turned back another last-ditch effort to prolong her life.

The Senate bill would have prohibited patients like Schiavo from being denied food and water if they did not express their wishes in writing. The 21-18 vote came five days after her feeding tube was removed under court order. Similar efforts in the Legislature have failed in the past.

In a 10-2 decision earlier Wednesday, the Atlanta-based U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused Bob and Mary Schindler's request for an emergency rehearing by the full court. A three-judge panel from the same court ruled against the family earlier Wednesday.

The court did not give an explanation for its decision. Matt Davidson, a clerk for the court, said it normally does not make statements when it votes on whether to consider a request.

However, the dissenting judges did make statements. Judge Charles R. Wilson, who also dissented in the three-judge panel's ruling, said he still stood by his earlier rationale that Schiavo's "imminent" death would end the case before it could be fully considered. "I fail to see any harm in reinserting the feeding tube," he wrote in the earlier ruling.

The parents have vowed to take their fight to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has refused to get involved previously.

Supporters of the parents grew increasingly dismayed by the developments, and 10 protesters were arrested outside Schiavo's hospice for trying to bring her water. The severely brain-damaged woman's mother pleaded, again, that her daughter be kept alive.

"When I close my eyes at night, all I can see is Terri's face in front of me, dying, starving to death," Mary Schindler said outside the hospice. "Please, someone out there, stop this cruelty. Stop the insanity. Please let my daughter live."

Terri Schiavo has not received any nourishment since the tube was pulled Friday afternoon. By late Tuesday, Terri's eyes were sunken, her skin was parched and flaking and her lips and tongue were parched, said Barbara Weller, an attorney for the Schindlers.

Doctors have said she could survive one to two weeks without the feeding tube.

A lawyer for Michael Schiavo said he was "very pleased" by the initial appeals court ruling. But he worried that, as her parents ran out of options, either Gov. Jeb Bush or lawmakers might try again to take Terri Schiavo into their custody and circumvent years of court rulings that support the husband's position. Michael Schiavo argued that his wife has no hope of recovery and would want to die.

"They have no more power than you or I or a person walking down the street to say we have the right to take Terri Schiavo," attorney George Felos said in a state court hearing.

In Tallahassee, the state capital, Bush renewed his call for the Legislature to "spare Terri's life." The governor and the head of the state's social services agency also said they have filed a petition with a Pinellas County trial court seeking to take custody of Schiavo. It cites new allegations of neglect and challenges Schiavo's diagnosis as being in a persistent vegetative state based on the opinion of a neurologist working for the state. The doctor observed Schiavo at her bedside but did not conduct an examination of her.

Bush and Department of Children & Families Secretary Lucy Hadi suggested they have authority to intervene on Schiavo's behalf regardless of the outcome of the bill in the Florida Legislature or a myriad of court decisions.

Senate Democratic Leader Les Miller said the bill that failed in the Senate faced a similar fate to one that was pushed through in 2003 to reconnect the tube six days after it was removed.

"By the time the ink is dry on the governor's signature, it will be declared unconstitutional, just like it was before," Miller said. "So I don't see anything or any language that can persuade my vote."

Meanwhile, President Bush suggested that he and Congress had done their best to help the parents prolong Schiavo's life, and the White House said it has no further legal options.

Terri Schiavo suffered brain damage in 1990 when her heart stopped briefly from a chemical imbalance believed to have been brought on by an eating disorder. Court-appointed doctors say she is in a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery.

Her parents and their doctors argue that she could get better and that she would never have wanted to be cut off from food and water.

In their appeal, the Schindlers asked that the full court order the hospice in Florida where Schiavo is staying to immediately transport her to a hospital "for any medical necessary to sustain her life and to re-establish her nutrition and hydration."

"The process of dying by dehydration and starvation is not the euphoric experience (Michael Schiavo) would lead us to believe," the appeal said.

But the effort before the appeals court failed.

"There is no denying the absolute tragedy that has befallen Mrs. Schiavo," the ruling by Judges Ed Carnes and Frank M. Hull said. "We all have our own family, our own loved ones, and our own children. However, we are called upon to make a collective, objective decision."

Federal courts were given jurisdiction to review Schiavo's case after Republicans in Congress pushed through unprecedented emergency legislation over the weekend aimed at prolonging Schiavo's life.

"I believe that in a case such as this, the legislative branch, the executive branch, ought to err on the side of life, which we have," the president said Wednesday. "Now we'll watch the courts make their decisions."

But some of the Schindlers' supporters continued to try to take matters into their own hands. About a dozen people tried to bring water to Schiavo, but police arrested most of them, as they have done to others who had similar motives in recent days.


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"It's not all of these other people. There's four people on the other side, who say she can't be rehabilitated. All were paid individuals. Three by George Felos..." {quoted by HAMMESFAHR, Nobel Prize nominee}

This smells of 'conspiracy'....

If each one of us can carefully read the interview by Hannity with Dr. Hammesfahr...he does point out that there is the likelihood of Terri's state of condition being greatly improved in Codger's post...need I say anymore???

Peace out.
 
Roadrunner said:
"It's not all of these other people. There's four people on the other side, who say she can't be rehabilitated. All were paid individuals. Three by George Felos..." {quoted by HAMMESFAHR, Nobel Prize nominee}

This smells of 'conspiracy'....

If each one of us can carefully read the interview by Hannity with Dr. Hammesfahr...he does point out that there is the likelihood of Terri's state of condition being greatly improved in Codger's post...need I say anymore???

Peace out.
Click to expand...

There's ALWAYS conspiracy involved. Nuthin' is really new.
 
Codger said:
Transcript: A Doctor Who Has Examined Terri Talks with Hannity & Colmes
Wednesday, March 23, 2005

•Transcript: A Doctor Who Has Examined Terri Talks with Hannity & Colmes
This is a partial transcript from "Hannity & Colmes," Mar. 21, 2005, that has been edited for clarity.



SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: As we continue on "Hannity and Colmes," I'm Sean Hannity. Right now, we're broadcasting live outside the hospice where Terri Schiavo (search) is right now. Of course, her feeding tube has not been reinserted as of this point.

Joining us now is Dr. Bill Hammesfahr. And Dr. Hammesfahr, thanks for being with us.

DR. BILL HAMMESFAHR: Thanks for having me.

HANNITY: You were nominated for a Nobel Prize (search) in medicine?

HAMMESFAHR: Yes.

HANNITY: In 1999? For your work...

HAMMESFAHR: ... in patients like Terri. For brain injury and stroke patients. We discovered how you get these people better, and we did it for 10 years with Medicare. We got evaluated by the state of Florida and we first discovered a technique that works in people like Terri.


HANNITY: This is what I want to talk about. You have spent, unlike Robert Wexler, who was commenting on medical issues this weekend, you spent how many hours with Terri?

HAMMESFAHR: I spent about 10 hours with Terri across three separate occasions, and I spent a lot of time with videotapes, the medical record which is in boxes and boxes and boxes. for about a year. And of course, you know, I spending time interviewing the family and people who actually have seen her. So I've spent a lot of time with her.

HANNITY: Do you believe she is aware, conscious and responsive?

HAMMESFAHR: Terri is completely aware and conscious and responsive. She is like a child with cerebral palsy. We have kids in the Pinellas County school system every day that are much worse than her, that we're educating.

HANNITY: Doctor, wait a minute. I've got to get this straight here.

You were nominated to get a Nobel Peace Prize in this very work. Are you saying that this woman could be rehabilitated?

HAMMESFAHR: Absolutely.

HANNITY: Could she talk one day?

HAMMESFAHR: Yes.

HANNITY: Then how is it possible we're in this position if you have examined her, you were up for a Nobel Prize. I -- this is mind boggling to me.

HAMMESFAHR: I don't understand it myself. You know, this is a -- this is a case of a terrible error that's happened and it's a grievous case.

You know, what struck me about Congress, in the last couple of days is that there we have physicians who examined the videotapes, examined the same evidence I had, examined my records, my evaluation of her, stepped forward and said, this is not a person in a coma. This is not a person in PVS (a persistent vegetative state). We have to stop this.

HANNITY: All right.

HAMMESFAHR: It just goes to show, you do not want your medical care delivered by a judge.

HANNITY: Well, this is what I want to understand. This is your area of expertise that got you nominated for one of the most prestigious awards in medicine, the Nobel Prize.

And you're saying after a thorough examination of 10 hours total with her, and an examination of records and an examination of records and an examination of tapes regarding her, that she could be rehabilitated. What about all of these other people that have said that that's not possible, how can we have disparaging?

HANNITY: It's not all of these other people. There's four people on the other side, who say she can't be rehabilitated. All were paid individuals. Three by George Felos...

HANNITY: ...and you're not paid?

HAMMESFAHR: I was not paid. Now, if you look at the people who are on Terri's side and stepped forward, at last count, two weeks ago, 33 M.D.s, brain injury specialists from around the country, places like UCLA, Tulane, LSU, Boston University --Thirty-three physicians has stepped forward to say that this person can be rehabilitated. She's not in PVS, not in a coma. And the -- Judge Greer ignored this.

ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: Dr. Hammesfahr, it's Alan Colmes in New York. Thank you for being with us.

One of the other doctors who examined her, and by the way, among those doctors there were those who were not paid, who were independent, who were not on either side. --

Dr. Ron Cranford, who'll be on this show tomorrow night. I want to put up what he said:

He said, "She's vegetative. She's flat out vegetative. There's never been a shread of doubt that she's vegetative, and nothing's going to change that."

"This has been a massive propaganda campaign, which has been very successful, because it deludes the public into thinking she's really there."

Explain to me, as a lay person, what I'm supposed to believe, hearing medical authorities saying what you say and saying what Cranford says?

HAMMESFAHR: Well, I think you need to go and look at the videotape of Dr. Cranford. Dr. Cranford's videotape compliments Terri on following commands. At one point he moves a balloon around in front of her and he again compliments that she is able to see it that she can follow commands.

And I also think that you need to look a little closer. Dr. Cranford's work has been attacked by other medical professionals in peer reviewed journals such as "Lancet." So I think that we to look a little bit deeper at Dr. Cranford.

COLMES: Well, he's going to be here tomorrow night. We'll ask him. But Judge Greer also said that you said you've have treated patients worse off than Mrs. Schiavo but have not produced any case histories. Can you tell us of one?

HAMMESFAHR: Oh, that's not true. That's not true.

COLMES: You didn't produce any evidence?

HAMMESFAHR: Well, the specific request was to produce a videotape of a person exactly like Terri Schiavo. No two patients are exactly alike but, in fact, we have videotapes and we're releasing them tomorrow and have released them previously, if you call my office, you'll get informational videotapes of people much worse than Terri who are better, one of them three months into their treatment is talking.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,151148,00.html
Click to expand...


:::Speechless here:::

Thank you Codger for posting this :hug:, I find this quite interesting....I think it may be too late for Terri anyways, This is the most senstive issue I've ever got involved with and what's more is it does hurt so much to watch those videos of Terri and seeing the light in her eyes and the gentle smile, that something I can't get off my mind lately... :tears: I will pray over this....

May she rest in peace and be with God! ... :(
 
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