Terri Schiavo to be Starved to Death

Source

Previous discussion, with a lot of good info:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=13906

It is probable that his thinking began at a point somewhat different than it is today. That does not prove he is being self swerving. And, he has refused substantial sums of money, the last time just in the news yesterday.

While I respect your input to A2K enormously Debra, in this instance I think you're blinded by your profession. Terry has been a political football long enough. IMO

On this issue I have to totally agree with Debra.. To withhold food and hydration to this woman is clearly an act of murder. I have no doubt in my mind about that. I just can't understand Michaels' motives NOW, after so long has passed and as Debra says, everything he says now is clearly suspect.

I was very close to a similar though not exact situation about 3 years ago.
A woman whom I had known all of my life developed ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) and yes, that disease always results in death at some point. Her husband and her had built a hugely successful business and had been married 31 years. They were both getting ready for an early retirement, turning the everyday operations of the business over to their son and their plan was to travel, spend time with their two grandsons and just enjoy life to the fullest.

Wrong. After her diagnosis, her husband literally spent hours and hours talking with her, telling her that if it were him, there was no way he could live like that. For her to think about the long term.... of her grandsons eventually seeing her in a wheelchair and what a hideous memory it would impose upon them the rest of their lives as they watched her deteriorate over the years, eventually losing all voluntary muscle control, including her speech. He tried time and time again to get her to try morphine to "help her relax", when in reality, ALS patients have no pain during the progression of their illness.

Her and I and also her and her mother used to have many talks about her conversations with her husband and her wish NOT to die before the illness itself took her. Her greatest joy in the world was watching and playing with her grandsons. Even had it come to a point where she was completely immobilized by her disease, she would still be able to see and still be able to think with the same clarity of you and I and according to her ALS Specialists, based on her progression during her first 9 months of having it, they prognosed about a 10 year life expectancy.

Wrong again. Nine months after her diagnosis and still a very strong woman, she mysteriously passed away one night in her sleep. Her husband called her parents at 6:30 in the morning (even though HE rarely ever woke up before 8 or 9 and they were there within 15 minutes. He was showered and dressed and working on some mortgage loan papers in their family room and he had a raging fire in the fire place. Their daughter was still very warm to the touch, not surprising since he had an electric blanket on her and he had a swollen lip and a scratch down the side of his cheek.

After her parents had seen her, lying in her bed with her mouth agape, her husband began calling the mortuary to come and get her as soon as possible and by nine that morning, all traces of any medical equipment that she had been using and her were gone. He ordered an immediate cremation of her body and since she DID technically have a fatal disease, the mortuary complied and no autopsy was performed. She had a medical directive asking that her brain and spinal column be donated to the ALS foundation for further research and he nixed that completely.

His first words to her parents were. "Well, she's gone now. We can all turn the page and get on with our lives, thank god." A week later was her memorial service (he showed literally NO emotion at all) and a week after that he took a female companion away for a long weekend. Two weeks after that, he had another woman move in with him and she has been there ever since.

Did this beautiful, loving woman at the age of 49 really just die in her sleep during the night? Or was she murdered? Any evidence to the latter was immediately destroyed and this will be an unanswered question for her parents and myself for as long as we live....

I'm sorry this was so long and if it has any relevance to Terry's case it is probably minimal. I guess the point was, that even with medical directives, anything can and does happen. And sometimes people walk away scott free......

interesting post

Lady J:

Suspicions based on circumstances such as you outlined concerning your friend's death are gut-wrenching. Her husband displayed behavior that is typically described as "consciousness of guilt" when prosecutors argue the significance of circumstantial evidence to a jury.

Just as there was no absolute, direct evidence of Scott Peterson's guilt in Lacy's murder. His actions and statements were of an extremely suspicious nature. When you add it all together along with other circumstantial evidence, a jury could find beyond a reasonable doubt that he was guilty of murder.

There are similar, gut-wrenching circumstances that nag Terri's parents concerning Michael's behavior and actions. Reviewing the abundant amount of information on Terri's case, there were several times that the warning flags were waving red and wild; my suspicions were raised sky high.

It is so true that sometimes, and probably more often than we can possibly imagine, people can commit atrocious crimes and walk away scot free.

People change their minds
What constitutes "clear and convincing" evidence of someone's intent when they are incapable of expressing it for themselves?

Often times, people will make proclamations:

"If my husband (or wife) ever cheated on me, I would divorce him (or her)."

"If I was nothing but a vegetable hooked to machines, I wouldn't want to live like that! I would want to die."

But, people who make proclamations of what they would do based upon hypothetical situations often change their minds when actually faced with the reality of the situation.

When faced with a marital indiscretion, someone who previously proclaimed they would get divorced may feel completely different. Instead of running to get that divorce, the injured spouse may instead choose to forgive and work on building a better marriage.

People who claim they would rather die than "live like that" often change their minds when actually faced with the choice. In the years before her death, my mother suffered from end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Every breath was a struggle. When she was younger and healthier, she said she never wanted to be hooked to ventilator. But as her illness progressed and her physician asked her what she would choose -- whether she would want machines to breathe for her or whether he should allow her to die -- my mother's views changed. Every breath became precious to her. She didn't want to die after all. She would not refuse a ventilator.

Tonight, my honey and I watched a movie called "Saving Milly" based on a true story. Milly was ravaged with Parkinson's disease. She could no longer feed herself and the time would soon come when she would need a feeding tube. She told her husband she would refuse the feeding tube -- she said she wanted to die. But, when the time grew closer to the reality, she changed her mind.

I verified the movie version from the transcript of an interview that Milly and her husband, Morton Kondracke, gave a few years ago:

TV journalist, wife wage war on Parkinson's



People often make emphatic statements that they would want to die if faced with a hypothetical situations or a situation that not impending. But, when the reality hits them, they often change their minds. A past statement is NOT clear and convincing evidence of what an individual would truly want if actually faced with the situation.

And with living wills, I've had elderly clients in my office that emphatically state that they don't want to be kept alive by machines. Pull the plug, they say as they envision an immediate death.

But . . . what if you don't die when life support is removed? When asked if they wanted nutrition and hydration withheld . . . I have seen shocked looks. "You mean, do I want them to starve me to death? NO, I don't want that!"

It doesn't necessarily follow, if someone proclaims that they would not want to be kept alive by "artificial means" that they would also agree to be starved to death.

Milly Kondracke emphatically expressed her wish NOT to have a feeding tube. BUT, as the time drew closer, she changed her mind and wanted the feeding tube after all.

quote="Debra_Law"]Lady J:

Suspicions based on circumstances such as you outlined concerning your friend's death are gut-wrenching. Her husband displayed behavior that is typically described as "consciousness of guilt" when prosecutors argue the significance of circumstantial evidence to a jury.

Just as there was no absolute, direct evidence of Scott Peterson's guilt in Lacy's murder. His actions and statements were of an extremely suspicious nature. When you add it all together along with other circumstantial evidence, a jury could find beyond a reasonable doubt that he was guilty of murder.

There are similar, gut-wrenching circumstances that nag Terri's parents concerning Michael's behavior and actions. Reviewing the abundant amount of information on Terri's case, there were several times that the warning flags were waving red and wild; my suspicions were raised sky high.

It is so true that sometimes, and probably more often than we can possibly imagine, people can commit atrocious crimes and walk away scot free.[/quote]

Thank you Debra for replying to my post. I never realized that circumstantial evidence could hold so much weight, even though I followed the Peterson case very closely. I never thought it could apply in the death of my best friend. This is especially disturbing for me because I knew what he was capable of but I also knew he knows some people in very powerful positions government wise. Powerful enough anyway that our entire State Assembly took a five minute break, in silence in honour of my friend on the day of her memorial service. I kick myself every day that I didn't DO something, but I had no idea where to begin.

Giving a bit of his history if I may indulge you. He served in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam era. He served for 14 months of active duty as an enlistee but retired, was not just discharged, but retired with a hefty lifetime military pension and full benefits. He was in a Force Recon unit and his job with them was to be dropped behind enemy lines after dark with nothing more than a large knife, take out his "target" and make his way back to the front line. Basically, he was an assassin. For about the first ten years of their marriage, he would occasionally (a few times a year) get a phone call, he would pack a bag, tell my friend that he had to go away on some business but that he would be back. And he always came back. His passport would verify that he had gone to many overseas places during his business trips. Later, when their own son wanted to follow in his dad's footsteps and join the Marine's, he did and so did his best friend under the buddy program. They both finished boot camp and then interestingly, both of them were given honorable discharges due to "medical" reasons. One for what the military said was perhaps a very slight degenerative disc problem and the other for some bone alignment in his ankle not being quite right.

One particularly rough patch in their marriage, my friend actually thought of leaving him. After he told her that if she left, he would find her and kill her and reminded her that there was no place in this entire world that she could hide that he could not find her, she decided to stay.

Honestly, I believe this man has no conscience and human life holds no value to him. I think he took my friends life simply because her illness ruined his plans for the future. He walked away with over a million dollars in life insurance money (and bragged about that). EVERY single employee that worked for him and my friend quit his employee within a month of my friends death, including HIS best friend and they have not spoken since.. Last I heard, he had just gotten back from the Galapagos Islands and has been traveling the world just as he had wanted to do.

Is there a statute of limitations if he did indeed murder her as I believe he did (and a LOT of other people as well)? Given the person that he is, would I just be opening a Pandora's box? I know him almost too well and in truth might fear for my own life or those I love the most.


Any advice?

Debra,

Are you saying that living wills should not be valid?

I say quite emphatically I would not want to live like that. I have made this very clear to my family and I am fully aware of the consequences of this decision. I have not formalized this legally, but this discussion is darn good motivation...

Of course the specifics of the Schiavo case are tragic, but I want to discuss my case.

Do I have the right to ask that I be allowed to die if I am ever in this situtation? Can't I make this decision now while I am healthy?

It seems to me that this is my decision to make now. If I am incapacitated the fact that I may have changed my mind should be irrelevant if I have made my will clearly known.

ebrown:

Yes. You ought to execute a living will and have a copy placed in your medical records. Make sure your living willing allows you to make a selection concerning all relevant matters including being kept alive by artificial means, extraordinary or heroic measures, and nutrition & hydration.

A living will is the clearest evidence of your wishes. Additionally, it doesn't become effective until you can no longer speak for yourself . . . and until then . . . it is always revocable in the event that you should change your mind.

I don't know it it has anything to do with the Schaivo case, but here in Florida, when you go to the hospital, they ask you if you have a living will. If you don't, they give you a generic one to sign.

It is very unsettling, when you go in for a minor procedure, to be asked about a living will. The first time that it happened, it really freaked me out. You begin to wonder about the medical staff in the hospital! :wink:

That being said, it seems like the credibility of Terri's husband is important in this case in that it does count as evidence of her wishes. Obviously it is not the clear evidence of her wishes that a legal document would be. But it seems clear there is a ethical argument to be made in the absence of a written document, that a spouse would have something to day. Many of us make our wishes known clearly to our loved ones and don't have the forsight to make it legal.

I am just pointing out that to many, the case is not as cut and dry as this debate is being presented.

Personally I am torn by this case and, being unable to judge motives, can see the logic of both sides of the argument.

Her husband has no right to have her starved to death, only to present evidence of her own desire to starve to death, and his unsupported word about something she whispered in his ear just isn't making it for me.

Exactly Brandon900

A living will isn't valid unless it is signed in the presence of two disinterested witnesses. It's the safeguard embedded in the process to ensure that the document truly evinces the maker's wishes.

On the other hand, the hearsay testimony of a husband, an interested party . . . someone who may have conflicting interests, simply does not meet the clear and convincing evidentiary standard. Hearsay evidence concerning the statements of an unavailable person has always been deemed unreliable and inadmissible in court proceedings.

Yet, in a guardianship proceeding, someone can hold the life or death of another person in their hands simply by taking the stand and saying something like this: "Well, ten years ago, Terri told me that she would never want to live like this." Well . . . what if she never said it . . . and what if she did say it, but changed her mind later?

Hearsay is unreliable and inadmissible in all other proceedings . . . therefore, I have a difficult time accepting that any court could possibly construe hearsay as "clear and convincing evidence" on a matter of life and death.

Exactly. If she had in fact told her husband her wishes, why did he wait years to announce them?
It simply isn't believable and now she's going to be starved to death because the courts believe him over her own loving parents.
I am amazed that her husband has more say in what happens to her than the people who gave birth to her and raised her!
This is one of the reasons why I'm not fond of marriage. My parents are the only ones I would truly trust with my life.

I want to explore the boundary a bit...

If the husband and the parents both agreed that it was her wish to end her life, would this, in your view, meet the moral bar to allow here to die? Would it meet the legal standard?

Or does this require the legal paperwork (which many of us haven't taken the time to do)?

Picture of Terry





link to article
link

ebrown:

You present the question in terms of "allowing" her to die. There's a difference between allowing her to die from her impairment and actually killing her.

If withholding medical treatment will "allow" Terri to die from the natural progression of her injury or illness, and there was clear and convincing evidence that this is what Terri would want, then sure . . . we should respect her wishes.

But, the administration of food and water is not medical treatment. If it were, all of us would be guilty of self-medicating every time we eat and take a drink of water.

Terri's injury or illness is not going to kill her. The cause of her death will be the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration.

Intentionally or knowingly causing the death of another is the very definition of MURDER. That's the legal and moral boundary that I refuse to cross.

It's a very slippery slope where causing the death of an incompetent person is not murder, but rather state-sanctioned. What if Terri had been born with the brain damage and had never been capable of expressing her wishes? Could we justify withholding food and water from a brain damaged baby and "allow" it to die from starvation . . . or would that be murder?