Dear Facearmy and Tim,
I've been interested in this case and so done a deep study. As Tim said, it is
very complicated. There are many things at issue that have to do with politics,
religion, money, and so on, and not with compassion at all. This is a very difficult situation for the the people and government of the United States. As a citizen of Canada I don't want to make any personal judgements or heap scorn against them because it could happen to any country that gets tied up in such a scrambled bundle of conflicts as has happened here.
There are many important issues at stake. There are precedent setting political
issues at stake that can change the governing of the United States. It is almost an impossible situation.
For instance, if the Federal Government intervenes and overrules the State of Florida, it is interfering in "States' Rights." That would set a precedent. Such
a precedent would allow more and more federal moves of various kinds against States' Rights, and all would be based on the precedent set by this case.
Mr. Schiavo is in a very difficult situation, too. I have read that in Florida
the law does not allow a person whose mate has become incapacited to divorce that mate. The idea is that the costs will fall very heavily then on the state system, and not be born by the person married to the incapacited one. If this is true, as it seems to be, then fifteen years is a long time for a young, strong man to be shackled to a woman who is unable to do anything at all. Mr. Schiavo has been living with another woman for ten years and has two children with her. He had another relationship during the first year of his wife's hospitalization.
In the present day culture this is perfectly usual behaviour, isn't it. I expect he loves his present companion and children and would like to be free of this
whole situation in order to carry on with his life.
There was a legal case won against the hospice where Mrs. Shiavo has lived now for five years. It was won by the US government, and the hospice was ordered to
pay back very many millions of dollars illegally spent on patients at the hospice and paid for by the US Medicaid system. The Medicaid system was gyped by the
hospice. The US government is trying to collect this illegally obtained money because it won the case, and got a court judgement against the hospice.
Mrs. Schiavo has been in that hospice for the past five years now. Only six months are legally allowed for patients to be kept there. When she was accepted there it was because she was supposed to have a terminal illness that would kill her within six months. (Those were the rules for the hospice.) Instead, she has continued to live on and on. By the way, no physician properly signed her into that hospice, as is the law.
The lawyer of her husband is the head of the Hemlock Society, which is a society
that is for euthanasia. He has also been a director of the hospice for some time now over the past five years. There seems to be a clear conflict of interest
there.
There are at least fifteen highly qualified physicians, one a Nobel prize winner
in a field that allows him to be an expert about such cases as Mrs. Schiavo's.
who say she is not in a persistent vegetative state. All of them say that Mrs.
Shiavo is not in a persistent vegetative state. They believe she is in a variable semi-conscious state. They say she can probably learn to eat without tubes
and to communicate and do much better than she does now.
There are practical nurses who take care of Mrs. Schiavo at the hospice who have
made legal declarations in writing that Mrs. Schiavo has far more response than
is being acknowledged. They say she responds for them all the time. They also
say that she is conscious of when she is clean or dirty, or has soiled her diaper, and that she loves to be clean, and tries to move away from it when she soils. A person in a persistent vegetative state would not do any of those things.
They also say that her husband has not had her broken wheelchair repaired for a
long time, although she can sit up all afternoon in a chair. He will not allow
the blind of her room to be raised so that she can see outside, which is her only pleasure, and which she enjoys, and so she lives without sunshine most of the
time. There are other claims against him of a scary nature that can be read in
the documents. He dominates and scares the practical nurses. He seems to have
an understanding with the people who run the hospice so that they are said to destroy what the practical nurses write about her responses to them in their daily
reports. They have seen their reports in the wastebasket the same day. Mr. Schiavo's word is law about how she is to be treated in that hospice. They were told to listen to nobody about her treatment except her husband. They say that they were able to give her jello and she swallowed it and loved it. They say that they were able to give her ice-cubes in a washcloth, and she could swallow the
water from them. They added juices, which she enjoyed, and she could swallow that, too. She also swallows her own saliva. She tries to speak, and makes partial words that fit to what is happening to her at the time. All this has been legally notarized. It is on the net.
The two main political parties in the USA (the Republicans and the Democrats,) are being put on opposite sides by this case. Although I haven't seen anything much from Democrats that I recognized as being from them. It is believed that the
Republicans are trying to gain continued power through this case. It is said that the Christian Fundamentalist right wing people, who voted heavily for the present President of the USA, are the ones insisting on Mrs. Shiavo's "Right to Life." Right to life in the USA is a political statement. It also includes abortion which they don't want to see allowed to happen under almost any circumstances at all, including incest. Abortion is a 'hot' political issue in the USA. The President of the USA, Mr. Bush, and the US Congress took extraordinary measures in an attempt to stop the removal of Mrs. Schiavo's feeding tube, but were not
able to accomplish it because they couldn't overturn a State judge's ruling. Also they wanted to have someone else rather than her husband be her guardian. They were not successful. I think they weren't successful because of the importance of the States' Rights issue and a possible precident setting situation.
Mrs. Schiavo's parents have never appeared to be Right Wing Fundamentalists, (they are Roman Catholics,) I think that all of the court cases and lawyers fees must be costing them a tremendous amount. It is being funded from somewhere. This issue is also an issue of great and historic importance to the Roman Catholic
Church. They also have extremely strong and old teachings against abortion and
euthanasia. The beliefs are not just those of Protestant Christian Fundamentalists who have worked so hard against the removal of her feeding tube.
Incidentally, it has been said the a feeding tube does not fall into the category of extreme efforts to maintain a life. It is extreme measures to maintain a life that can't maintain itself by using such equipment as a heart-lung machine,
and so on. There is controversy over that, too.
The people who say that Mrs. Schiavo would want to die are related to her husband. Also her husband says so. He says she told him that early in their marriage
. Her parents say that she was a good Roman Catholic, and would never had said
such a thing. This is all hearsay, but it has been attested to by her husband and his relatives, and been accepted by the court.
It is in her husband's material interest for her to die because he holds all control over the approximately original $1.6 million dollar malpractice settlement
that was won on her behalf for damage caused to her by somebody. I have never read a thing about why she received such a huge settlement and what it was for. Some try to say that her parents want that money, too. I think their consistent
behaviour has shown that they love her dearly and want her alive. Also it is against her's and their religion to let her die. A very high (Archbishop?) church
authority from Rome tried to intervene for her to remain fed and given water by
tube, but he had no influence, either.
Regarding the malpractice money settlement that Mr. Schiavo holds and uses: he
is paying the lawyers who defend him from that money. It was attested that he bought himself a car when it was first received. It should be noted that the amount left is now about $550,000 and none of it is said to have been spent on her
rehabilitation. A fairly large amount has been spent on lawyers to defend Mr. Schiavo and also to get the feeding tube removed, but not anywhere near as much as seems unaccounted for. If she dies he will own the half million dollars that are still left.
If she could speak (and there are excellent specialists who say she likely could
with the right therapy,) it is just possible that she would be able to say something to incriminate her husband for her present condition, and for all the trauma that has been shown to exist in her body. It is trauma that usually only appears in a person who has suffered a severe car accident. She never was in a car
accident. Otherwise it is trauma that usually comes from physical abuse. There have been broken bones all over her body in ribs on both sides, legs, spinal column, and so on. It is possible to tell how old such injuries are, and apparently they fall within the time period of her marriage.
The statue of limitations is over for any possible strangulation by her husband,
apparently. That's what I read athat Judge Greer ruled. So, if he caused her
to become like this 15 years ago, it appears that it doesn't play any part in the situation now. Evidence from that time contains many contradictions. There are documents from the hospital that received her that night which show she appeared to have neck injuries that were in spasm as the body tried to "splint" the injury. Xrays etc on the 25 Mar. (that night), and other examinations, don'
t show any internal head injury. On the 27th Mar. following, apparently such head injuries appeared. Top specialists in the field say that such injuries could
only have come from being dropped on her head in the hospital or being injured
there. All relative documents are available on the internet.
There are sworn documents by nursing assistants from the hospice where she is now, that Mr. Shiavo (who is 6'5 and weighs 250 lbs.) moved too close to the women
nurses so that he towered over them and scared them, as he ordered them to do nothing toward her rehabilitation, even though he had that money from the malpractise situation for the purpose.
Mr. Schiavo, the husband, had a history of sudden great angers according to displayed documents. He was on a number of strong medications at the time of her injury and hospitalization 15 years ago. There is said to be evidence available that they had been fighting all that day. It is said that she wanted a divorce.
This was confided to a close friend of hers at her work at the insurance office
where she was employed. When her parents phoned his psychiatrist at the time that he nearly strangled their other daughter, that doctor is said to have warned
them that the police should be immediately called if he (the husband) became violent again. Doctors make notes of such advice. It should be possible to find
that doctors' notes of the phone call, shouldn't it? A number of people, including the sister and brother of Terry Schiavo have sworn and testified that he was
dangerous to them.
A nurse from the same hospital went out with him and lived with him during the first year after Mrs. Schiavo was incapacitated. She broke off with him and then
, according to her sworn statements, he began to stalk her. The stalking went on for some time and is described. Stalking is an behaviour that is illegal in the USA.
I think that Mrs. Schiavo is an innocent and pitiful pawn, caught it a system in
which *many* conflicting powers are trying to make use of her situation for their own ends. Some for money, some for political and religious manipulations, some to look good to voters, some to get certain things changed in the USA. It is
extremely complicated. It is also difficult to be sure that you are getting the whole story in anything like this from news reports. However, all those documents posted on the internet for all to see are readable, and look real to me.
I think Mrs. Schiavo will be allowed to die. Then there will be other court cases about this. Already there are hints of severe charges to be laid, and of new
evidence that is now know to exist, that would be brought forward for any such
new court case(s).
The news media of many kinds, in my opinion after studying this closely, have not done a good job of reflecting all sides. I don't know why. But it makes me wonder how well any of us are ever told anything! This is why I try to glean our
information about anything I think is important from a number of varied sources
. Finally out of all of them a person may begin to glimpse the truth.
This is a very disturbing case. It is a great tragedy.
Presently the United States of America is suffering greatly under this terrible
case. It seems to be like a trap that they can't extricate themselves from. I
don't think those of us in other countries should jeer, because it is largely things that have been put into place in their government for good reasons, to protect, that are presently causing this.
Personally, I think that legal precedent, while it has good points, also should
not have the extremely commanding place that it does in law. Legal precedents seem to be too powerful; and yet it is good to have centuries of legal thought to
consult for insight, too. I absolutely believe that in the long run, all cases
should each be judged on their own merits for justice to be possible. In this situation, that is not happening. This is a sad situation and one that it is almost impossible for them to find their way through. It seems as thoughevery direction is blocked.
I hope you find this informative.
Mary
