Schiavo family spends day with Terri; Lieberman backs Gov. Bush

EDITOR'S NOTE: This new story was posted at 10:00 a.m. Oct. 24.

PINNELLAS PARK (FBW)-Thankful for a almost a full day Oct. 23 visiting at Woodside Hospice with their sister and daughter, Terri Schiavo’s family said the redness around her eyes has subsided and it appears her kidneys are functioning.

Schiavo is the 39-year-old brain damaged Clearwater woman at the center of a national debate which has brought to the forefront moral and legal arguments concerning her quality of life and her so called “right-to-die.”

Oct. 15, the feeding tube which has sustained her life since a 1990 unexplained heart failure left her brain-damaged, was removed on court orders. Doctors disagree over whether she is in a “persistent vegetative state,” but the courts have sided with that opinion.

Michael Schiavo, Terri’s husband, and her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler have been in a court battle for over five years. He says his brain-damaged wife would not want to live. The Schindlers say their daughter has never had the care and rehabilitation she needs in order to improve.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush signed an executive order into law Oct. 21, providing for the immediate rehydration and nourishment of Terri Schiavo, after both chambers of the state legislature scrambled for nearly two days to pass a bill giving Bush the authority to intervene.

Late Oct. 21 Schiavo was moved to Morton Plant Hospital from Woodside Hospice, where she had been cared for. At Morton, doctors began IV therapy to rehydrate Schiavo in preparation for installing a new feeding tube by which she could receive nourishment. Oct. 22 her feeding tube was reinserted and Schiavo was whisked back to the hospice.

Though they were barred from visiting Schiavo at Morton Plant Hospital and had not received any official word on her condition, the Schindler’s were told late Oct. 22 they could visit their daughter and sister at Woodside Hospice.

Family members visit

“The family is staying with her almost non-stop now,” Bill Bunkley, legislative consultant for the Florida Baptist Convention, told Florida Baptist Witness late Oct. 23. “They reported the redness has gone away from her eyes and she’s passing urine.”

Bunkley said the news indicates her kidneys are operating and not damaged. He said the family had expressed concern that there doesn’t appear to be the kind of constant medical monitoring people in Schiavo’s condition would typically receive.

After six days with no food or water, George Felos, attorney for Michael Schiavo, had speculated in news reports issued by the Associated Press, Terri Schiavo’s organs most likely would had been severely damaged and her kidneys would have ceased to function.

Schindler attorney, Pat Anderson, on the television news show “On the Record” with Greta Van Susteren late Oct. 23, said, “[Terri’s] not going to spring back after being dehydrated for a week,” but reported she appeared much improved over her condition just a few days before.

Anderson, who also said there is a 43 percent error rate in diagnosing a patient as in a “persistent vegetative state,” added that typically a patient in Terri’s condition, after being dehydrated for so long, would be in a hospital’s intensive care unit.

On the same show, Schiavo’s brother, Bobby Schindler, said he believed his sister “looked rather good” considering what she had just been through.

Schindler told Van Susteren his father turned 66 Oct. 23 and the family celebrated by bringing a birthday cake to the hospice and singing “Happy Birthday” with Terri. There were “big” smiles all around, he said.

After fielding comments from “right to-die” advocates and constitutional analysts, Van Susteren, wrapping up her news show, told viewers that “frankly” she wouldn’t let an animal in her care die from starvation.

Lieberman backs Bush

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Lieberman told Associated Press Oct. 22 he supports Gov. Bush’s actions in the Schiavo case. Government must “honor life,” he said.

Ironically, Lieberman, who has backed pro-abortion efforts, said he supported the GOP-led Florida Legislature for giving Bush the authority to intervene, since in her case there is no advance directive on file.

“”I believe that certainly in cases where there is not a living will … I feel very strongly that we ought to honor life and we ought not to create a system where people are being deprived of nutrition or hydration in a way that ends their lives,” Lieberman told AP.

Siding with Michael Schiavo, the American Civil Liberties Union told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel news Oct. 23 it will help Michael Schiavo in his fight against Gov. Bush and the Florida Legislature.

At the heart of the issue is whether the state’s top leaders acted unconstitutionally in disregarding various court rulings in the contentious case.

The Sun Sentinel reported leaders of the AARP, a group claiming 2.6 million Floridians age 50 and older, as well as member of the Florida Bar Association’s elder law section might also get involved.

Pamela Hennessy, a spokesperson for the family, told the Sun Sentinel she is “outraged” at the ACLU’s latest move.

“I’ve been contacting the ACLU since the beginning of my involvement in this case to have them speak out against what’s going on with Terri,” Hennessy told the Sun Sentinel. “It’s going on against her will. She’s had her religious freedoms stripped from her. She’s had her civil liberties stripped from her. And they’re defending the husband?” [For information about earlier judicial involvement see Witness editorials "Starving a woman to death in Clearwater," Sept. 4, and "Date Set: Starving..," Sept. 25. ]

Husband pledges to continue fight

Though there had been talk Oct. 23 that Michael Schiavo might be considering a settlement in the case which would transfer guardianship to Terri’s parents, Schiavo attorney George Felos told reporters in a press conference that afternoon his client would continue to pursue a legal fight to end his wife’s life.

Felos is expected to petition Florida’s Supreme Court Monday, Oct. 27 to say that “Terri’s Law” as it’s now called, it unconstitutional.

AP reported Felos faces an Oct. 27 deadline to deliver legal briefs to Pinellas Circuit Court Judge W. Douglas Baird in which he plans to argue the new law violates an individual’s “right” to refuse medical care. The report said Felos also intends to argue the law violates the separation of powers by allowing the Legislature and governor by-pass a court’s decision. Legal scholars have said the Legislature cannot pass retroactive laws intended for specific individuals.

Independent guardian

While basic medical care has been restored per Gov. Bush’s executive order, Terri Schiavo continues to be under the guardianship of her husband Michael until a judge decides otherwise. The law signed by Bush gave both parties five days to agree on an independent guardian or accept one appointed by a Pinellas County Circuit Court judge.

If agreement has not been reached, Chief Circuit Judge David Demars has said he will appoint as guardian Jay Wolfson, both a medical doctor and a lawyer, who is a professor of health and law at Stetson University, and also works for the College of Public Health at Florida State University and the College of Medicine at the University of South Florida.

Advocates for Terri Schiavo have said they are concerned about views Wolfson may have already expressed about quality of life issues and believe he may have already publicly criticized the governor’s action in this case.

If appointed, Wolfson would become Schiavo’s advocate in legal proceedings, but it is still unclear what the scope of the new guardian’s powers would be.

CNN news reported Oct. 23 Terri Schiavo’s parents have accused their son-in-law of selfish motivations in the case. Michael Schiavo, who is engaged to be married to another woman with whom he has one child, won a $1.2 million malpractice case against his wife’s gynecologist and another $250,000 in a settlement with her general practitioner. In addition, he received $300,000 for pain and suffering and loss of consortium.

Though most of the money was to go towards therapy for Terri, the Circuit Court judge has routinely approved expenditures from Terri’s trust for attorney’s fees for Michael Schiavo.

CNN reported Michael Schiavo has refused to comment on whether there is an outstanding life insurance policy on Terri Schiavo.

Tallahassee’s phones ringing

Meanwhile, in Tallahassee, a Bush spokeswoman told the Tallahassee Democrat the governor’s office had received nearly 165,411 e-mails and “thousands of phone calls” since Aug. 27.

In an Oct. 23 report, the Democrat quoted Alia Faraj who said the office normally gets an average of about 5,000 e-mails a week.

“We don’t have the lines to handle that many calls,” Faraj said. Not knowing the nature of each of the messages, she added that “people are generally in support of saving Schiavo.”

Florida’s Supreme Court, which has in the past refused to hear Schiavo’s case, has received about 100 calls in various offices, Craig Water, told the Democrat. Representatives for House Speaker Johnnie Byrd (R-Plant City), and Senate President Jim King (R-Jacksonville) told the Democrat they had also received numerous calls from people expressing their thanks.

Chicago paper points to ‘large holes’ in Schiavo story

In an Oct. 23 unattributed Chicago Tribune feature story “Death, life and politics in Florida,” a writer explores “the most complex and heartrending life-and-death drama imaginable” in the case of Schiavo.

“Truth is that even after exhaustive media coverage, large holes remain in the Schiavo story. The reasons for the bitter feud between her husband and his in-laws are still murky,” the writer asserts. “So is the question of why he didn’t turn over Schiavo’s care to her parents, and devote his energies to his new partner and their child.”

The writer continues to ask questions about Schiavo’s quality of life and then asserts that by preparing a living will, this situation could have been avoided.

“Legislatures are almost invariably wrong when they rush in to overrule court decisions because they don’t like them,” the writer said.

Evangelicals react

Bill Bunkley, legislative consultant for the Florida Baptist Convention, said he believes the fight has just heated up in the right-to-life debate.

“As many people have breathed a sigh of relief, this is the first wake-up call that this may be a long process as well as a gut-wrenching one,” Bunkley told the Witness Oct. 23. “This is a spiritual battle.”

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, told Baptist Press Oct. 21, “we need to have a presumption in favor of life, not a presumption in favor of death.”

“Our national leaders would be wise to begin addressing this issue to insure that all humans-regardless of their age and physical or mental condition-have a right to be protected from predators who might seek to 'pull the plug' on their life,” he continued.

"The Schiavo case is a terribly wrenching case wherein we see the clash of two very disparate civilizations-the Judeo-Christian civilization, which is based upon the sanctity of all human life, and the neo-pagan relativist quality-of-life civilization," suggested Land. "When these two totally antagonistic worldviews come up against each other, it makes a real difference in peoples' lives because real people die when the quality-of-life ethic usurps the sanctity-of-life ethic," he continued.

"The fight over Terri Schindler Schiavo's right to live and our society's reaction to that fight shows us just how deeply the sanctity-of-life ethic has been eroded in our culture," Land said.

Joni Eareckson Tada, an evangelical who is also a quadriplegic, told James Dobson on his radio program Oct. 22 that she views the case as "Roe v. Wade for people with disabilities."

"We see people at our Joni and Friends family retreat who are far more disabled than Terri," Tada said. "They come to these retreats with feeding tubes, with ventilators. They have no cognitive skills. They cannot seem to recognize their loved ones, and yet they have a right to live. They have a right to human treatment. They have a right to be fed. They have a right to rehabilitative therapy. And these are the things that up until this point have been denied Terri."

--A website set up by Terri Schiavo's supporters -- www.terrisfight.org -- has video showing her moving her head from side to side, opening her eyes, smiling and laughing.

--James Dobson's conversation with Joni Eareckson Tada is available on the web at: http://www.oneplace.com/Ministries/Focus_on_the_Family/.