What - Liberals for Terri?

The purpose of Liberals For Terri is to draw from across the political spectrum - liberals, conservatives, progressives, left-wing radicals and right-wing curmudgeons - to agree on the following point:

There are other reasons besides the "right-to-life" platform to remove Michael Schiavo as Terri's guardian, and restore Terri's right to choose.


What if Terri was Set Up?

Ask yourself: What if your spouse had abused you, injured you by strangulation or head trauma, then driven you to the hospital and demanded "your" right to die? What if the only evidence presented to the court that you "wanted to die" was hearsay testimony from the same spouse that materialized only after they got your $1.5+ million settlement? What if they spent $500,000 of that settlement money not on you, but on a prominent euthanasia attorney they hired specifically to lobby for "your" right to "die"? What if a pittance was spent on your rehabilitation, despite signs that you might improve, and the remainder spent on living expenses with their new girl- or boyfriend?

That would be not only wrong but suspicious; what if - despite eyewitness and video evidence that you communicated regularly (though not very well given that any rehabilitation or therapy had been denied you) - your spouse's lawyer and his doctors all insisted that you had persistent vegetative state (PVS)?

That alone would be suspicious enough to trigger alarm bells. But what if it was common knowledge around the hospice that you were not in PVS, but the judge had instituted gag orders forbidding the nurses from saying anything about it, then ordered that no cameras or recording devices be allowed near you (with no justification or explanation) so that any claims of your attempts to communicate your will to live would degenerate into "he said, she said" absurdity? What if your spouse and his lawyer had arranged that you be denied daylight, medical care and basic hygiene for no apparent reason? What if the world ignored you and your plight thinking they were hearing the real story in the news, and the original diagnosis was supported by more than a CT scan (which doesn't diagnose PVS) and a cursory examination (which doesn't diagnose PVS either)? What if over 30 neurologists - not right-to-life ideologues, but normal doctors at the top of their professional careers - disagreed with your "diagnosis" but were overruled by the "impartial" doctor appointed by the court?

And what if the judge insisted that, since they had already proven you had PVS, he would refuse to consider any other information, even if it showed the initial findings were bogus? What if the appeals courts supported his decision every time, not because the old "facts" were shown to be valid, but because the judge had followed correct "procedure" in establishing those facts [scroll to the bottom] so there was no issue of law for them to address?

What if your parents had tried to approach the judge time & time again as the appeals court instructed with the evidence in hand and yet the judge simply refused to listen, and the appeals court refused to compel the judge to do anything about it, or look at the videotapes, since they were inadmissible as evidence?

And what if these attempts did nothing but get your parents in trouble with the court, almost losing their "right" to visit you in the court-appointed hospice run by the euthanasia lobby on whose board your spouse's lawyer used to sit (and who had arranged "free medical care" so your spouse didn't have to spend a dime)?

And then, after everything that had happened, what if your spouse went on television and tacitly admitted that everything he had told the court about your supposed wish to "die" was bogus?

Think this is all made up? Why don't you ask somebody.

There are some of us who used to believe the Terri Schiavo case was just a bunch of hot air. "Let the woman be with God. Let the woman die in peace." Then come to find out she's been trying to communicate with her parents, no competent diagnosis has ever been performed, and the court, husband, the lawyer, doctor & the hospice are working together as a team. That team has imposed cruel and inhumane treatment by judicial fiat, and now intends to impose the husband's discredited hearsay testimony as a death sentence on this woman despite her desperate attempts to speak out against it.

That's what's at stake here. The euthanasia hoopla is a sideshow. This isn't about euthanasia or letting Terri "die with dignity": She can swallow food but the husband won't let her. She can speak but her husband won't let anyone see her do it. Eyewitness reports are dismissed. Competent doctors are stonewalled. Her settlement money is spent on legal fees supporting her "right" to death by dehydration. And, most importantly, the husband may have caused her current condition. So let me ask you: would you want that man making your life-and-death decisions? Would you still want him as a spouse?

Apparently the feeling is mutual. He has moved on to a new "common-law wife" and two new kids. Her care is being provided free of charge by a terminal-patient hospice run by his lawyer's cronies at no expense to her husband or her vanishing estate. The only condition is that he continue to support the "decision" to kill her - something he apparently has no problem doing.

Am I the only one who thinks this is a case for CSI Tampa, not euthanasia court? If they manage to kill Terri Schiavo, Franz Kafka is reportedly coming back from the grave to write another book.

The Terri Schiavo question is not about the Right To Life or the Right To Death with Dignity. It is really about the Right To Indemnification from acts of Mortal Treachery, Medical and Legal Fraud. It is also about the Right To Have Our Mortal Wishes Respected.

We can argue the larger point all day long, but we can't let those that engage in incriminating and fraudulent behavor make life-or-death decicisions - whichever way they may go - on behalf of someone who may have been set up from the beginning. The truth is in there somewhere, and it's time to take a long, hard look at it before it's too late.


The Real Issue:  Terri's Right to Indemnification from Willful Cruelty, Medical Fraud and Legal Fraud

The champions of different sides in the Right To Die debate have clearly been fighting each other. The larger debate is certainly important for the nation as a whole but is not mandatory for Terri's cause. It has become clearer than ever that the real issues in the Terri Schiavo case - the skeletons in the closet that cast suspicion on the entire "right to die" posse - are Michael Schiavo's ulterior motives, alleged criminal behavior, selective medical diagnosis and legal fraud by those deciding and implementing Terri's fate.

This story continues to be sidestepped by our friends in the political and media establishments. (UPDATE: Thank God Larry King gets it.) On TV last night, the renowned euthanasia attorney and author George Felos - who is also Michael's ("Terri's") attorney - gave a stirring indictment of our federal government and the power they seek to usurp from the states. He makes excellent points - yet he didn't answer the basic question directed toward his client, still not answered to anyone's satisfaction: How did Terri Schiavo end up in the hospital in the first place?

Even Forensic Pathologist Michael Baden publicly stated that he believes that her original injuries were consistent with strangulation. (Hat tip: BlogsForTerri.)

And what about George Felos's own whopping conflict of interest in the Terri Schiavo death equation?

To be fair Felos is an attorney for the euthanasia lobby, not a criminal defense attorney. But it might be time to change careers. To give you a hint of where this is going, consider the following poll conducted on AOL News Thursday:

Who should decide Terri Schiavo's fate?
Her husband - 58%
Her parents - 35%
Federal courts - 4%
Florida courts - 2%

So the husband gets the vote. But what would the results have been had they asked the following questions instead:

1.   Who should decide Terri Schiavo's fate if she had complained of her husband's physical and mental abuse on numerous occasions prior to her brain injury?

2.   Who should decide Terri Schiavo's fate if there is evidence that Michael Schiavo was abusive or showed pathological behavior toward other women?

3.   Who should decide Terri Schiavo's fate if there is reason to suspect her brain injuries were precipitated by domestic violence?

4.   Who should decide Terri Schiavo's fate if Terri had expressed a wish to divorce her husband shortly before the injury but was afraid to for fear her husband would react violently?

5.   Who should decide Terri Schiavo's fate if the husband's comments on the record show that his earlier claims to the court about Terri wanting to "die" were misleading and likely to be false?

I predict the winner would shift from "Her husband" to "Her parents".


The Purpose of Liberals For Terri

That's what this blog is about. It's about adding the conditional clause, "...assuming Michael Schiavo didn't put her in the hospital to begin with" to every issue we discuss in the abstract. It's about infusing the more theoretical "life vs. death" arguments with the real-world emerging details of Michael Schiavo, bringing the discussion down to where it belongs: the basics of loyalty and trust.

Surely that's something we can all appreciate. Those of us who love Sean Hannity can agree with those of us who love Al Franken on that much, can't we? (And with those of us who can't stand either one?) :) Hopefully most of us could also agree on the following:

If the only evidence to support withholding food and water is hearsay testimony offered by the spouse (which, in Terri's case, was the alleged offhand comment "I wouldn't want to live like that"), then - assuming it is even possible to establish the victim's precise intentions from that testimony (which usually it isn't) - the motives and objectivity of the spouse must count for everything. If there is any valid reason to suspect the spouse's motives or behavior - before, during or after the time of injury - it ought to extinguish all credibility given to that hearsay testimony. Any life or death decisions based on that hearsay testimony ought to be removed from the control of the spouse or their representatives and returned to the parents or other trusted blood relatives. The onus should be on the spouse to prove to the court (and to the parents) that their suspicious behavior has a rational and exculpatory explanation. They should also have to prove to the court that they have extinguished all relevant conflicts of interest. That burden of proof should extend to their legal representatives as well. If conflicts of interest are found subsequently to have existed prior to the petition for guardianship and not properly disclosed, criminal charges ought to be pressed against the spouse (and any representatives who were involved).
And so on.


Coalition of the Willful

The husband and his lawyer have befriended doctors willing to give dubious testimony and the presiding judge who blocks any competing testimony from reputable doctors (not only of Terri's condition but of the conditions surrounding her "accident"). Like CBS during the Memogate controversy, they are all indignant that anyone would second-guess their good judgment. They point to the endless appeals and rulings that have done nothing but support their case (unlike CBS during the Memogate controversy).

Yet these rulings have given false comfort to all of us because to date they have addressed only procedural questions, not evidentiary ones. That means whatever evidence the judge decided was "sufficient" originally has remained the basis of all findings of "fact" to date, and nothing anyone else reports can change the outcome. And since the judge has followed "procedure" throughout, there's nothing to appeal.

Meanwhile the original evidence on which the Terri Schiavo evaluation is based did not include the most basic medical diagnostic procedures, nor was it obtained honestly. So far the judge has not had to answer for that. I'll get to that soon on this blog. In the meantime however, chew on this comment and imagine if it could possibly, just maybe, be true.

If any of this is true, then how could it have been missed for the last fifteen years? Good question. It seems the information has been available but no one in Big Media has taken an interest in it.


Time's Running Out: It's Time to Unite, Not Fight

Those with the loudest voices and the deepest pockets are those representing a political platform. Euthanasia advocates appear to be glad that the "facts" seem to support the decision they favor and they don't question them at all; those who fight euthanasia on principle don't examine the specific reasons why even a euthanasia advocate might want to forego this particular case. Incriminating specifics are ignored in favor of more general arguments with higher stakes. The machinery of both sides is structured to fight the larger battle their way, to either vanquish the other side or hold them at bay.

In the meantime, poor Terri Schiavo is trying to tell her caregivers she doesn't want to die, but Michael won't let anyone record her voice, so the "debate" remains deadlocked in "he said, she said" absurdity. Each side of the Bigger Issue digs their heels in and takes up the available political oxygen, leaving Terri Schiavo to suffocate.

I'll say it again: I have friends on both sides of the right-to-die issue. But we all agree that the Terri Schiavo case isn't the right test case. Done wrong, it will harm the agenda of both sides - for reasons I'll blog on later - but basically it boils down to the obvious: when we make a grievous error in basic judgment, whatever form it takes (whether position or tactics), we all lose credibility.

More on that later. Visit the links included on this post. Read them. For those intrepid progressives who want to bone up on the topic: Some of the links you will encounter are websites with names like "World Net Daily" or "National Review Online". Just grit your teeth, read, and ignore the pro-Bush banner ads (or the lack of anti-Bush ads) & off-topic comments and you'll be okay I promise. :-)

Some other links worth reading are here, here, here (read the comments!) and here (& comments).


A Final Word: Comment Policy

For now comments are open to all posters. But also be aware that any comments which (1) take for granted the very facts now in dispute, such as Terri being a "vegetable" (e.g. "Right - because there's soooo much dignity in living as a vegetable"), (2) don't take into account conflicts of interest, Michael Schiavo's incriminating behavior or the judge's unwillingness to re-evaluate Terri's medical diagnosis, or (3) show you clearly haven't read or understood any of the content provided in the links, can be nixed at will. (So save a local copy if you want to keep them.)

On the other hand, if you have evidence supporting a medical decision not to perform an MRI or PET scan, evidence supporting a judicial decision not to order one, evidence falsifying the claim that Terri is attempting to communicate, or exculpatory evidence for Michael Schiavo, George Felos, the doctors or the judge -- then go ahead & provide links. But it had better be new stuff, not the stuff we've already seen & heard. Otherwise...

Otherwise, comments are intended those of us who are not necessarily right-wing ideologues but still see a problem with the way Terri is being handled.

Thanks
RD