Editorial

Terri Schindler Schiavo’s execution date has been set. Unlike criminals on death row who are given a last meal of their choice before the state administers their punishment, Schiavo—guilty of no crime but the misfortune of her marriage to a man determined to end her life—will have no last meal; her means of execution is starvation.

In collusion with her husband who has sought her starvation since 1998, the State of Florida—in the person of Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge George Greer—has decreed that at 2 p.m. on Oct. 15, Schiavo’s feeding tube will be removed. Death will come in one to two weeks.

In the Sept. 4 issue of Florida Baptist Witness I wrote about the tragic case of Terri Schiavo The 39-year-old Clearwater woman suffered an oxygen-depriving collapse in 1990, resulting in brain damage. Although her husband, Michael Schiavo, initially cared for Terri and later won a medical malpractice lawsuit on her behalf, since 1998 he has sought her death—claiming that she had previously expressed to him that she would not want to be kept alive artificially. Without any documented evidence to prove the claim, and in spite of his questionable motives, the State has repeatedly sided with Schiavo, declaring Terri to be in a persistent vegetative state.

Terri’s parents, Bob and Mary Schindler of Gulf Port, have fought Michael Schiavo every step of the way. The family’s Web site (www.terrisfight.org) includes an impressive array of evidence that Terri is quite aware of her surroundings and that there is hope for some rehabilitation with therapy.

What will Schiavo’s death be like? Nationally syndicated columnist Jane Chastain explains it this way:

"Death by dehydration is a painful, agonizing and arduous process that takes 10 to 14 days.

"In addition to feeling the pangs of hunger and thirst, the skin, lips and tongue crack. The nose bleeds because of the drying of the mucus membranes. Heaving and vomiting may ensue because of the drying out of the stomach lining. The victim may experience seizures.

"As the fluid level in the body goes down, the blood pressure goes down and the heart rate goes up. Respiration often increases as blood is shunted from the periphery to the central part of the body in a desperate attempt to sustain the primary organs. The hands and feet become extremely cold."

This is the fate of Terri Schiavo.

Perhaps the family’s last hope lies in an appeal to federal court by attorney Pat Anderson seeking therapy for her before the feeding tube is removed. Here’s how bioethicist/attorney Wesley Smith describes the legal strategy:

Ending a patient’s life by dehydration involves not one, but two, discreet acts:

(a) Act # 1 is removing/clamping off the feeding tube. Michael Schiavo requested, and has received, the right to this act. Alas, due to "right to die" advocacy, killing a person through intentional dehydration because they are cognitively disabled is legal.

(b) Act # 2 involves the deliberate withholding of food and water by mouth. Michael did not ask for the right to do this act.

The provision of food and water by mouth is not a medical treatment but is humane care, and thus cannot be withdrawn or withheld legally from a patient who can assimilate nutrition and hydration.

A speech pathologist, who has successfully weaned four cognitively disabled patients off of feeding tubes in the last month, testified that Terri "has a good or excellent prognosis for being able to be taken off her feeding tube."

Under Florida law, the right to rehabilitation is retained by the ward, and not delegated to the guardian.

Under Florida law, neither the guardian—Michael— nor the court—Judge Greer—has the right to harm the ward;

Absent some pre-incapacity expression by Terri to waive the basic right to food and water and the right to rehabilitative therapy, the legal rights to them must be honored and enforced. Testimony that she would not want to be maintained by "tubes" would clearly not be enough since no tubes would be involved in her care.

Terri has not been given the opportunity to receive rehabilitation or to be weaned off the feeding tube so that she can take food and water by mouth. Indeed, Michael has required that she just lay in bed for more than ten years.

Hence, while a Florida Court of Appeals ordered the removal of Terri’s tube-feeding—an order with which Judge Greer seems eager to comply, it cannot be done in such a way as to "harm" Terri, e.g. without giving her a chance to survive by taking food and water by mouth.

An amended lawsuit arguing for Terri’s therapy was to be filed by the family Sept. 22 (the date the Witness goes to press).

"I certainly hope this is the final date and we are approaching the end of the case and Terri’s wishes can be carried out," Schiavo’s attorney George Felos told Associated Press after Greer set the Oct. 15 date. The noted euthanasia advocate added, "It’s going to take some courage and fortitude on the part of a number of judges to see that this happens."

In the nearly six-year legal saga, this is the fourth time a date has been set to remove Terri’s feeding tube. Let’s pray that it is the last—not because food will indeed be withheld and her husband’s efforts to starve her will succeed, but because some further intervention will save her life.

Execution by starvation is a punishment that is undeserved by even the most heinous criminal. Terri Schiavo certainly does not deserve it.