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Terri Schiavo
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Topic Started: Jun 15 2005, 05:48 PM (188 Views)
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flea dip
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Jun 15 2005, 05:48 PM
Post #1
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Rock Star From Mars
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My position was even if Schiavo was severely brain damaged, she was still a human being and the feeding tube should have been left in, so these autopsy results don't change my opinions.
The part about her being blind is weird, though.
Schiavo had irreversible brain damage - autopsy- LARGO, Fla. (Reuters) - Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman who died in March after a fierce right-to-die battle that went all the way to the White House, was massively and irreversibly brain-damaged, pathologists announcing the results of an autopsy said on Wednesday.
The results supported clinical findings and the contention of her husband that Schiavo had been in a "persistent vegetative state" since collapsing 15 years earlier from a cardiac arrest that deprived her brain of oxygen, said Dr. Stephen Nelson, a forensic pathologist who assisted in the autopsy.
"She would not have been able to form any cognitive thought," said Nelson, speaking with Pinellas County Medical Examiner Jon Thogmartin at a news conference. "There was a massive loss of brain tissue."
During a long and bitter family feud over Schiavo's fate, courts consistently ruled in support of Schiavo's husband and legal guardian, Michael Schiavo, that Schiavo would not have wanted to live in such a state. A persistent vegetative state meant she was unable to think, feel or interact with her environment.
Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, insisting she responded to them and could improve with treatment, fought for seven years to keep her alive, joined by right-to-life activists, Christian evangelicals and the Vatican.
Their battle ultimately failed and Schiavo died on March 31, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed under a court order. She was 41.
The autopsy found no amount of therapy would have helped to regenerate Schiavo's brain, and determined she was blind, belying videotapes that appeared to show her eyes following objects. The videos were cited by her parents' supporters as proof she should be kept alive.
Schiavo's brain weighed about half of what a healthy human brain would, Thogmartin said. "Her brain was profoundly atrophied ... This damage was irreversible."
MYSTERY OVER COLLAPSE REMAINS
The autopsy, however, did not solve the mystery of what led to her 1990 collapse.
The Schindlers' cause rallied the Christian right and prompted President Bush and the Republican-led Congress to rush through laws giving the federal courts jurisdiction in what is normally a matter for state courts.
.... Michael Schiavo's lawyer, George Felos, said the autopsy results supported his client's contention on the extent of Schiavo's brain damage.
"He was very pleased to hear the results," Felos said. "Mr. Schiavo has received so much criticism. We have seen baseless allegations in this case fall by the wayside time and again."
David Gibbs, an attorney for the Schindlers, disputed the autopsy's findings. "I don't know if she was totally blind. She was clearly interactive," he said. "I believe she did have a life that was worth saving."
The autopsy found no evidence to support accusations that Schiavo was abused and cast doubt on a theory that she had an eating disorder before her collapse. ....
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flea dip
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Jun 19 2005, 09:36 PM
Post #2
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Rock Star From Mars
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Op / ed piece: CWA Responds to Schiavo Autopsy Report: No Excuses for Dehydrating the Disabled - Washington, D.C. – Concerned Women for America (CWA) responded to the autopsy report on Terri Schiavo, released today by a medical examiner for Florida’s Pinellas-Pasco County, which confirmed that the “removal of [Terri’s] feeding tube resulted in her death.”
“Terri Schiavo’s autopsy results confirm what was feared – she was disabled, and her death was due to the deliberate denial of hydration,” said Wendy Wright, CWA’s senior policy director. “The autopsy report described Terri’s medical history and condition in detail, but the cold reality of the truth is that her cause of death was ‘dehydration.’ Terri Schiavo died because the court ordered the removal of the instrument that provided her water.
“There is no medical condition or disability that should ever be championed as a justifiable reason to deny water to a human being. Every human life has worth and a purpose apart from its ‘merit’ to society that must be vigorously defended and upheld, not crushed.”
“While people may personally dread becoming handicapped, people with disabilities deserve mercy, not malice. Only a calloused society in moral freefall would deny a disabled person her most basic need – water,” said Wright.
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flea dip
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Jun 21 2005, 01:59 PM
Post #3
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Rock Star From Mars
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I believe that Michael Schiavo meant to piss off Terri's family. He can claim innocence all day long, but he was trying to insult them one last time.
Husband's kin: Schiavo grave marker not meant to anger parents - TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — The inscription on the grave marker belonging to Terri Schiavo that reads "I kept my promise" is simply a message from her husband to his dead wife and is not meant to anger her family, the woman's brother-in-law said Tuesday.
Brian Schiavo told The Associated Press that he and a handful of other people attended the burial of Terri Schiavo's remains on a rainy Monday afternoon at a Clearwater cemetery. Others present included her husband, Michael Schiavo, her other brother-in-law, Steve Schiavo, and a priest.
But the woman's parents criticized Michael Schiavo for not notifying them about the burial beforehand and by inscribing "I kept my promise" on the bronze marker. Michael Schiavo had said he promised his wife he would not keep her alive artificially — a critical element of the acrimonious legal battle over her end-of-life wishes.
"That was something he was feeling," Brian Schiavo said Tuesday. "It would have been very easy for him to walk away from this thing. But they had as promise to each other and he stuck by it."
Michael Schiavo, who received possession of his wife's remains after her death March 31, had said her ashes would be buried at a family plot in Pennsylvania. But she was instead buried at Sylvan Abbey Memorial Park in Clearwater, near Michael Schiavo's home.
"I guess maybe he wanted to be closer to her," Brian Schiavo said. "It's just his decision to do so."
On the grave marker, Michael Schiavo also listed Feb. 25, 1990, as the date his wife "Departed this Earth." On that date, Terri Schiavo collapsed and fell into what most doctors said was an irreversible vegetative state.
Schiavo actually died March 31, nearly two weeks after her feeding tube was removed by court order. The grave marker lists that date as when Schiavo was "at peace."
Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, had opposed her cremation. Services for Schiavo already had been conducted in nearby Gulfport, where her parents live, and in Pennsylvania, where she grew up.
David Gibbs, the Schindlers' attorney, said the family was notified by fax only after Monday's service, when the family had already started getting calls from reporters.
Gibbs on Monday decried the inscriptions on the marker. "Obviously, that's a real shot and another unkind act toward a grieving mom and dad," he said.
But Brian Schiavo said the Schindlers "shouldn't consider themselves that important."
"I know the Schindlers look at it as a slap in the face," Brian Schiavo said. "They had nothing to do with it. That was based from Michael to Terri."
Gibbs did not immediately return a call seeking comment Tuesday.
Terri Schiavo collapsed in 1990 after a chemical imbalance caused her heart to stop. She left no written instructions in the event she became disabled, and her husband said she never would have wanted to be kept alive in what court-appointed doctors called a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery.
Her parents, however, doubted she had any such end-of-life wishes. They maintained she would benefit from rehabilitation, despite most doctors saying her condition was irreversible.
The seven-year battle engulfed the courts, Congress, the White House and divided the country.
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flea dip
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Aug 31 2009, 05:34 PM
Post #4
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Rock Star From Mars
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Terri Schiavo's father died.
Terri Schiavo's father dies in Florida
Terri Schiavo's father dies in Florida at 71- MIAMI — The father of Terri Schiavo, who became a national symbol in a closely watched right-to-die fight, has died, his son said Saturday. Robert Schindler was 71.
Schindler, a tireless activist through years of legal wrangling, died from heart failure at a hospital in St. Petersburg. Terri Schiavo, who courts ruled was in a "persistent vegetative state," died in 2005 after the feeding tube that had nourished her for years was removed according to her husband's wishes.
"I am heartbroken over the loss of my father and yet I know at this moment he is rejoicing with my sister, Terri," his son, Bobby Schindler, said Saturday in a statement.
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flea dip
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May 23 2010, 11:03 PM
Post #5
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Rock Star From Mars
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Terri Schiavo Foundation Allegedly Operating Without Permission, Using Deceased Relative's Name 'To Make Money' (hosted at Huff Po; I disagree with most of the reader comments on the page. Most laughable is one reader who said that the Republican party wants to control every aspect of a person's life - when it's a Democrat in office who has gotten government control over so much of the private sector)
Terri Schiavo's Family Profiting From Foundation
Excerpts:- Now more than five years after Terri Schiavo died at the hospice that was the scene of protests, lawsuits and even Congressional action, her family is still working to keep her name alive, but according to IRS records obtained by our sister station in Tampa, the Schiavo family are also profiting off of her name.
Schiavo's widower, Michael Schiavo, says the family should be ashamed of what they are doing. He adds if Terri ever knew this was happening she'd be horrified. Michael Schiavo is talking about the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation. While Terri Schiavo's brother Bobby says the organization is set up to help families in similar situations, Michael Schiavo says he doesn't believe it. Instead Schiavo says they are using their deceased sister's name to make money.
In most recent IRS report that the Foundation filed for 2008, it shows the foundation took in $91,568 and paid Terri's dad Robert Schindler Sr., her brother Robert Jr. and her sister Suzanne Vitadamo $59,275, or 64% of the money they raised.
Charity Navigator a respected Charity Rating organization says any charity spending more than 30 percent on salaries gets a zero rating. The foundation doesn't come close.
In the meantime, since the report was filed, the salaries have increased to $80,000 a year, but the Foundation says one salary is in arrears causing some family members to work without pay. Also since the IRS report was filed and Terri Schiavo's father died.
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