The Battle for Terri Shiavo



Terri Schindler Schiavo's death by starvation and dehydration is scheduled to begin at 2:00PM today. Despite a Friend-Of-The-Court brief filed by Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the Florida courts have refused to block the removal of Terri's abdominal feeding tube.



Bravo.



Michael Schiavo says he is carrying out his wife's wishes that she not be kept alive artificially. Terri's parents say she responds to them and could be rehabilitated with therapy, despite testimony from court-appointed doctors that she will never recover. For my part, I tend to believe the husband, partly because the court agrees with him after seeing all the available evidence, and partly because I can't believe, absent more than mere speculation, that her husband would fight so hard for her death if she was actually alert and responsive.



Yes, the husband wants to marry a new woman, whom he's lived with for 7 years, but his wife dropped into this state thirteen years ago, and the husband waited until 1998 to file the petition to remove feeding. That doesn't seem like an outright callous decision to me. As for the new girlfriend, after 4, 5, or more years of living with your husband or wife in a vegetative state, I imagine that a great number of people might be ready to move on with their lives.



The only real issue now in this matter is Terri's wishes. Her husband now says "she wanted to die with dignity". When he was on the stand in the malpractice suit, he said "she wanted to get better." This should stress the importance of living wills to all. Everyone needs to have their wishes put in writing, should they ever be incapacitated.



Ms. Shiavo has been in her current state for 13 1/2 years now. It is medically safe to say that if you haven't recovered in 13 1/2 years, you aren't going to recover - this is as good as she's going to get. Even if she did, the brain damage from years of incapacitation would be catastrophic. She can't feed herself, can't speak, can't move voluntarily, and does not have the brain activity associated with conscious thought.



The courts in this case have heard sworn testimony from all of Schiavo's caregivers, that universally said they observed nothing indicative of conscious thought from her over many years. The court-appointed doctor agreed that she's in a persistent vegetative state. Now, because she likely did not specify her wishes, her family had to fight over her wishes.



The court got this one right, but I wouldn't risk this type of suffering for anyone. Make sure your wishes are clearly spelled out, in writing, for just such an event.