Ally Responds

Ally objects (as I knew she would) to my piece on the Schiavo situation.

Before I address her points, let me make clear that the quotation marks around the word "conservative" were not intended to negatively characterize conservatives in general. The intent was to highlight the point that those who want the government to intervene in the dying process are hardly acting conservatively - inasmuch that conservatives generally believe in individual free will and a minimum of government intrusion in our lives.

Go read Ally's post. I'll wait.

Ally writes:

1. Terry is not in a persistent vegetative state. She is brain damaged, and has
had no therapy. I have seen video footage of Terry smiling and laughing, holding
her mother's hand, and looking in her mother's eyes. Her parent's claim that
they showed the footage to a doctor, who claimed he could work Terry and help
her speak and regain movement again. The woman is brain damaged, so no, she is
never going to be the Terry Schiavo she was. However, certainly, it is worth
looking into the therapy that might help her regain a little of who she is.

First of all, my understanding is that she had extensive therapy against the advice of doctors back in 1990. The doctors pointed out that her cerebral cortex was destroyed by her heart attack. Both her husband and parents sought therapy anyway, even moving her out of state to California for additional therapy when Terri was unresponsive to the therapy she was receiving in Florida. All in all, she had FOUR years of therapy with no improvement.

In fact, let's not use the phrase "no improvement." Evidently, because her body continued to breathe despite the death of her brain, her body kept trying to heal the brain damage and gradually filled the space that once contained her cerebral cortex with spinal fluid.

Eventually, Michael realized that his wife was dead. Although he had been cooperating with Terri's parents for four years, he became irritated that they would not acknowledge reality and moved out of their house and began trying to withdraw the maintenance of Terri's body. (The move out of the parents' house also involved an argument over splitting the proceeds of the malpractice settlement.)

The gambit of trying to give her new "therapy" is an attempt by the parents to make Michael look bad. If, as all the diagnostic tests and doctors are correct, there is not much "therapy" can do to teach spinal fluid to act as a conscious mind.

Ally also writes:

2. Michael Schiavo has consistently tried to end Terry's life. There are nurses
who took care of her who were willing to testify that he would call in and ask
if "the bitch" had died yet. He was given the insurance monies, with which he
swore he would take care of her and get her therapy - which he has not done. He
has prevented her from having dental exams, female exams, etc. Her blinds are
not allowed to be raised, and he frequently bans her parents from going to see
her. And of course, he is living with another woman and has children with her.
I'm not thinking he's a real good cheerleader to have on Terry's side.

Um, Michael clung to hope for FOUR years. Hell, I would have realized the inevitable well before that. As I mentioned in an earlier post, one look at my beloved Uncle John's MRI was enough for me to know that he was well and truly gone. So Michael deluded himself for four years. This is understandable – denial is a powerful thing. Terri's parents have constructed an elaborate fantasy over the last fifteen years. The fact that Michael has grieved for his wife, and moved on after a decade - finding a new life partner isn't particularly appaling.

Ally then writes:

3. The judge has never been to see Terry, and doctors who are paid for by
Michael is the only testimony he has heard.

Does Ally really believe that the doctors are really part of some anti Terri cabal? That the doctors at her various treatment facilities have all somehow been bought off by Michael? This beggars the imagination. The party line about the bias of the doctors has been trumpeted by the pro-life fringe movement so often that people have come to accept it uncritically. I would ask Ally to stop and think about this for a couple of minutes. Does it really seem plausible that ALL the medical professionals who have worked with Terri are venal bribe-taking murderers? That none of them have a conscience? Are they faking the MRIs showing the spinal fluid where the cortex ought to be? Are all the MRI technicians bought off?

As to the judge meeting Terri - why would he? When all the medical professionals say that she is brain dead, what would his visiting her hospice bed add? Note that Terri's parents could not produce any medical professionals who would testify that she is not in a persistant vegetative state. They did find two guys (hmmm, sought out and paid for by them), who, without actually examining Terri, opined that there were new therapies being developed that might be tried- but had no medical literature with which to back their claims.

Let's pause and weight the testimony for a second. The pro-life folks want us to believe that two isolated doctors are telling the truth and every other doctor is lying? That the one doctor who was specifically sought out to a party in the case is more reliable than all the doctors who were not selected by any party but only became part of the case when Terri entered their facility?

Ally, while agreeing with me* that "Michael's character, while dubious and disgusting, has nothing to do with the case itself. People get caught up in hating him, and forget the reality and law of the case," still seems to be caught up in the "conflict of interest" issue:

She writes:

Given that Michael has clearly conflicting interests, why shouldn't her family
be in charge of Terry's fate? THERE IS NO LIVING WILL STATING SHE WANTED TO DIE IF IN SUCH A SITUATION.

I assume this is a reference to the fact that Michael will inherit Terri's estate when she dies. I am not aware of the extent of the estate, but it would have to be substantial if it is worth a decade of legal wrangling. And if Michael does have this financial conflict of interest, doesn't that mean that her parents do too? If the Schiavos are divorced, wouldn't that shift the estate to her parents as next of kin? And wasn't part of their falling out with Michael financial?

As to the living will, Ally is correct. This underscores the importance of everyone getting a living will. But the court judge found that there was clear evidence of Terri's beliefs on the matter. See the court ruling here - scroll down to pages five and six. The only person to argue that Terri would want to live was her mother - whose memory of a decades-old event suddenly became clearer between deposition and trial and was clearly in conflict with chronology. Go ahead and read the court ruling - it is pretty damning of the mother's testimony.

Keep reading through the court opinion - it shows that the testimony that Terri is brain dead was UNREFUTED:

"The medical evidence before this court conclusively established that she has no
hope of ever regaining consciousness and therefore capacity, and that without
the feeding tube she will die in seven to fourteen days. The UNREBUTTED
(emphasis Smallholder's) testimony before this court is that such death would be
painless...

...The overwhelming credible evidence (overwhelming the
duly noted mother's "perceptions" - Smallholder) is that Terri Schiavo has been
totally unresponsive since lapsing into the coma almost ten years ago, that her
movements are reflexive and predicated on brain stem activity alone, that she
suffers from severe structural brain damage and to a large extent her brain has
been replaced by spinal fluid, that with the exception of one witness whom the
court finds to be so biased as to lack credibility, her movements are occasional
and totally consistent with the testimony of the expert medical witnesses.
The testimony of Dr. Barnhill establishes that Terri Schiavo’s reflex actions
such as breathing and movement shows merely that her brain stem and spinal cord
are intact...

...the UNREBUTTED (Emphasis Smallholder again) evidence
remains that Terri Schiavo remains in a persistent vegetative state."

Whew. Given that the Schiavos had the immense resources of both the pro-life movement and (later) the governor's mansion and were still unable to even challenge the medical evidence is pretty telling. Unable to win on the medical level, the Schiavos and the pro-life crowd behind them have turned to public opinion. The parents and not the facts seem to be winning, at least in this little corner of the blogosphere.

I await Ally's reply. Unless of course, you humble servant of the soil is unrebuttable.

FOOTNOTE: Links to court decisions found here.

* After reading the court decisions, it appears that I was a bit hasty in condemning Michael - he appears very differently when not viewed through the prism of the Schindler's propaganda machine.