Also O/T

W_B get outa here now!

***

Posted on Thu, Mar. 31, 2005


 
 R E L A T E D   C O N T E N T  


In this undated photo released by the Schindler family, Terri Schiavo
is shown before she suffered catastrophic brain damage. AP


R E L A T E D   L I N K S  
•  Schiavo remembered: 'The light side of life'  
•  Blog | Michael Vitez reacts to her death  
•  Friends share Schiavo memories  
•  The woman behind the maelstrom  
•  Mourning, prayers mark Schiavo's death  
•  Send your condolences  
•  Timeline  
•  Complete coverage of Schiavo case  
•  At Schiavo's hospice, mourning, prayer mark her death  
•  Black leaders split on Schiavo case  



Terri Schiavo has died

By Oliver Prichard and Larry Fish

Inquirer Staff Writers

PINELLAS PARK, Fla - Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman who
inspired an unprecedented debate on life, death and the role of man
and God, died this morning shortly before 10 a.m.

"I have some very sad news," said Brother Paul O'Donnell, speaking at
9:52 a.m. outside the hospice that has been the focus of a two-week
vigil. "Terri Schiavo has passed away."

The news was confirmed by George Felos, attorney for Michael Schiavo,
Terri's husband, who fought a bitter battle with her parents that went
through state and federal courts, the Florida legislature and
Congress, the Vatican and the world media.

Death did not ease the bitterness of the struggle. The Rev. Frank
Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, said he had been in the
room with Terri Schiavo's brother and sister shortly before the end.

"Unfortunately, just 10 minutes or so before she died, we were told we
had to leave the room for an assessment of her condition and then a
visit by Michael," Pavone said.

Pavone said that Terri Schiavo's brother, Bobby Schindler, protested
that they wanted to be in the room when she died, but "Michael said
no."

"So his heartless cruelty continued to the very last moment," Pavone
said.

Michael Schiavo did not appear or speak to the crowd outside, nor had
his attorney, by late morning.

Many of the protestors who had kept watch outside Woodside Hospice
broke into tears or hugged at the announcement.

Denise Holland, 59, who had come from Renton, Wash., to be at the
hospice, said, "I do not weep for Terri, because she has graduated and
now is dancing. I weep for her family and our world."

The 41-year-old woman, who grew up in Huntingdon Valley, had been in
what doctors had testified was a "persistent vegetative state" since
suffering a heart attack in 1990.

Her husband said she had expressed a wish never to be kept alive
artificially. Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, said her deep
Catholic faith required that the sanctity of her life be respected.

The Florida legislature had already tried several times to find a way
to force the hospice to continue the tube delivery of food and fluids.
A 2003 law that empowered Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to intervene was found
to be unconstitutional.

After the last of many court-ordered stays expired March 18, both
houses of Congress worked with extraordinary haste to pass a bill
giving the Schindlers the right to appeal to the federal courts,
instead of the Florida courts where they had consistently lost.

But in the frantic last two weeks, the Schindlers were rebuffed again
repeatedly by federal courts, including the Supreme Court, which twice
refused to become involved.

The courts became the focus for much of the anger by those who wanted
her kept alive.

"From my perspective, one of the key, ongoing fights that's going to
come out of this is the clear need to rein in the judiciary," said
Randall Terry, the founder of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue
who had rarely left the Schindlers' side in the past month.

"The U.S. Congress passed a law and a federal judge just thumbed his
nose at them."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Associated Press contributed to this article.  

     email this       print this       reprint or license this    


**

Posted on Thu, Mar. 31, 2005




Timeline of the Terri Schiavo Case

Associated Press

1990
Feb. 25: Terri Schiavo collapses in her home. Doctors believe a
potassium imbalance caused her heart to temporarily stop, cutting off
oxygen to her brain.

1992
November: Terri Schiavo's husband, Michael, wins a malpractice suit
accusing doctors of misdiagnosing his wife. A jury awards more than
$700,000 for her care; Michael Schiavo receives an additional
$300,000.

1993
Feb. 14: Terri Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, fight with
Michael over the malpractice-suit money and Terri Schiavo's care.

July 29: The Schindlers file a petition to have Michael Schiavo
removed as his wife's guardian. The case is later dismissed.

1998
May: Michael Schiavo files a petition to remove his wifei's feeding
tube.

2000
Feb. 11: Circuit Judge George W. Greer rules the feeding tube can be
removed.

2001
Jan. 24: The Florida Second District Court of Appeal upholds Greer's
decision.

March 29: Greer rules the feeding tube will be removed April 20.

April 24: The feeding tube is removed.

April 26: A circuit judge orders doctors to reinsert the tube.

Oct. 2: The appellate court delays removal of the feeding tube
indefinitely.

Oct. 17: The court rules that five doctors can examine Terri Schiavo
to determine whether she has any hope of recovery. Two doctors are
picked by the Schindlers, two by Michael Schiavo, and one by the
court.

2002
Oct. 12: A weeklong hearing begins in the case. Three doctors,
including the one appointed by the court, testify that Terri Schiavo
is in a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery. The two
doctors selected by the Schindlers say she can recover.

Nov. 22: Judge Greer rules there is no evidence that Terri Schiavo can
recover.

Dec. 13: Greer orders the feeding tube to be removed Jan. 3, 2003; the
order is later stayed.

2003
June 6: The appellate court upholds Greer's ruling and refuses to hear
the case.

Aug. 22: The Florida Supreme Court declines to hear the case.

Sept. 17: Greer sets Oct. 15 as the date for removal of the tube.

Oct. 13: Protesters and the Schindler family begin a 24-hour vigil at
the Pinellas Park hospice where Terri Schiavo lives.

Oct. 15: Doctors remove the feeding tube. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush
searches for legal reasons to resume feedings.

Oct. 21: The Florida Senate and House pass a bill allowing Bush to
intervene. He signs the bill, called "Terri's Law," then issues an
order to reinsert the tube. Morton Plant Hospital begins rehydrating
Terri Schiavo, six days after her feeding tube was removed.

Dec. 2: An independent guardian concludes there's "no reasonable
medical hope" that Terri Schiavo will improve.

2004
Sept. 23: The Florida Supreme Court strikes down "Terri's Law" as
unconstitutional.

Oct. 22: Greer refuses to hold a new trial sought by her parents. They
had asked the judge for the trial to determine whether - following
comments from Pope John Paul II calling the withdrawal of food and
hydration from the disabled a sin - Terri Schiavo would choose to have
her feeding tube removed.

Dec. 1: Bush's attorneys ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case
of "Terri's Law."

2005
Jan. 24: The U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear the appeal brought by
the governor's attorneys.

Jan. 28: An attorney for the Schindlers argues before Greer that
Schiavo's due-process rights were violated because she has never had
her own attorney.

Feb. 22: The appellate court clears the way for Michael Schiavo to
have the feeding tube removed. Greer issues an emergency stay blocking
the tube removal until 5 p.m. the next day.

Feb. 23: Greer extends the stay by two days, saying he needs time to
decide whether her parents should be allowed to pursue other legal and
medical options.

Feb. 24: An attorney for the Schindlers says the state Department of
Children and Families is seeking a 60-day stay on the removal of the
feeding tube while it investigates new allegations of abuse and
neglect.

Feb. 25: Greer gives Michael Schiavo permission to order the removal
of the feeding tube at 1 p.m. March 18.

March 10: Greer rules Children and Families can't intervene in the
case.

March 16: The appellate court refuses to block the removal of the
feeding tube. The U.S. House of Representatives passes a bill aimed at
keeping her alive.

March 17: The Florida House passes a bill intended to keep Terri
Schiavo alive. The U.S. Senate passes a bill different from the U.S.
House version.

March 18: The feeding tube is removed. Greer rules against
congressional Republicans who had tried to put off tube removal by
seeking Terri Schiavo's appearance at hearings.

March 19: Congressional leaders from both parties agree on a bill that
would allow the tube to be reconnected while a federal court reviews
the case.

March 20: The Senate passes the bill, but Democrats in the House delay
passage.

March 21: The House passes the bill after members scramble to return
to Washington for an early morning vote. President Bush signs the bill
outside his White House bedroom. The parents file an emergency request
with a Tampa federal judge to have the tube reconnected.

March 22: U.S. District Judge James Whittemore refuses to order the
reinsertion of the tube. The judge said the Schindlers failed to
establish a "substantial likelihood of success" on the merits of their
arguments. The parents appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
11th Circuit in Atlanta.

March 23: On the fifth day after the tube removal, the 11th Circuit
declines to order the reinsertion of the tube. The Schindlers appeal
to the Supreme Court. Gov. Jeb Bush and state Department of Children
and Families ask the court for custody of Terri Schiavo.

March 24: The U.S. Supreme Court declines to remove the tube. Greer
rules that Gov. Jeb Bush and state agency cannot take custody of Terri
Schiavo.

March 25: The Schindlers again ask Greer to intervene, saying their
daughter tried to say, "I want to live."

March 26: Greer rejects another effort by the Schindlers to get the
feeding tube reinserted. The Florida Supreme Court declines to
intervene.

March 29: The 11th Circuit agrees to consider the Schindlers'
emergency bid for a new hearing on whether to reconnect her feeding
tube.

March 30: The 11th Circuit declines to intervene. Hours later, the
Schindlers appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which also refuses to
intervene.

March 31: Terri Schiavo dies at age 41

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Associated Press  

**

Posted on Thu, Mar. 31, 2005




Friends remember Schiavo before maelstrom

JERRY SCHWARTZ

Associated Press

She was not always Terri Schiavo, national obsession. Debbie Meyer
remembers when she was Terri Schindler, a chubby child with big brown
eyes behind Coke-bottle glasses, a guest at Meyer's 3rd-birthday party
at the Philadelphia Zoo.

As the birthday girl, Debbie was given a key to storybooks posted
around the zoo. Turn the key, and a recorded voice would talk about
the animals. Other children at the party wanted a key, too, and were
jealous.

But not Terri. "She was just so excited," so happy to be there, so
thrilled to among the animals she loved more than anything in the
world, Meyer said.

This is the Terri she remembers - not the heartbreaking figure whose
every facial tic was scrutinized for evidence of a conscious mind
within. Not the central figure of a maelstrom, silent as multitudes
debated her life and death.

For those multitudes who never knew her, it was easy to forget that
this was a real woman who led a real life. But for her friends and
family, it was impossible to forget.

Meyer, for instance, remembers the time more than 20 years ago when an
excited Terri called her at college. She had a date - the first date
this once overweight girl had ever had. Please, Terri begged, you have
to come home and help me get ready.

Meyer couldn't make it home in time, but she was there the next day,
to rehash Terri's spectacular night of romance. The boy was tall and
handsome and he had kissed her.

The boy was Michael Schiavo; she had met him at a sociology class at
Bucks County Community College, and they married a little more than a
year later.

He would be her only lover.

She did not go to her senior prom. She had had crushes, of course,
unrequited - a boy named Vincent in seventh grade, for one. She adored
Danielle Steel romances, pored over Tiger Beat magazine with her
friends, debated who was cutest - Starsky or Hutch. She liked Starsky,
and with her friend Sue Pickwell wrote scores of letters to Paul
Michael Glaser, the actor.

Once, she and Meyer went to see "An Officer and a Gentleman" four
times in one day.

She was a shy person. Her high school yearbook, from Archbishop Wood
in suburban Philadelphia, lists only one activity - library aide. The
Rev. Chris Walsh, the school minister, said while several teachers
remain from those days, only one remembers Terri, and not much about
her.

Benjamin Shatz lived next to the Schindlers' four-bedroom colonial on
Red Wing Lane in the Albidale section of Huntingdon Valley. All he
remembers is "a nice child, respectful, polite."

Her shyness may have had something to do with her weight. Just
5-foot-3, she weighed 200 pounds in high school. "She cried a lot when
she went to get clothes," said her mother, Mary.

But Meyer remembers laughter, instead. "Among those who knew her, she
was always vivacious. She had a laugh that made everyone laugh," she
said.

She collected Precious Moments figurines, and stuffed animals - she
had more than 100 of them, and spent hours in her purple-and-white
bedroom arranging them. Real animals were her passion; she rode horses
and wanted to be a veterinarian, but she was an unenthusiastic student
and never graduated college.

Once, she came home crying at night, sure that she had run over a
rabbit or squirrel. Her family calmed her down and convinced her no
animal had died, but then her brother Bobby retrieved the dead bunny
and threw it in the bushes, so she'd never know.

Another time, the family's Labrador retriever Bucky collapsed, and
Terri tried to give him mouth-to-muzzle resuscitation. He died as she
held him.

The Schindlers - Mary and Robert (owner of an industrial equipment
company) and their children Theresa Marie, Bobby and Suzanne - were a
tight-knit family. Terri joined her mother for Mass on Saturdays, and
all would gather round the table for roast beef on Sunday.

She was especially close to her mother. "When people say I was her
best friend, I say no," said Meyer. "I was her closest friend. Her
mother was her best friend."

After she and Michael were married - on Nov. 10, 1984, at Our Lady of
Good Counsel Church, she in Victorian white with a pink-and-white
bouquet, he in a gray tuxedo - the couple lived in the Schindlers'
basement.

In 1986, they moved into a condominium her parents owned in Florida,
paying $400-a-month rent; the rest of the Schindlers also moved to the
Sunshine State.

By this time, the 200-pound Terri was no more. Dieting, she had lost
more than 50 pounds by the time she started college. She dyed her hair
blonde, wore a bikini, liked to tan and drive her Trans Am past
construction sites.

"Terri has always been beautiful from the inside out," Meyer said.
"And then when she lost all the weight, she really became quite
beautiful on the outside as well. What was inside she allowed to shine
out at that point."

In Florida, Michael was hired as a restaurant manager, and Terri was
an office worker for Prudential insurance. "Everybody liked her. She
was hardworking," said Jackie Rhodes, a co-worker and pal.

They would shop for clothes and eat at Bennigan's. When a colleague
ran a golf benefit for Angelus House, a home for the handicapped,
Terri and Jackie volunteered. Rhodes joined Terri in her frequent
visits to see her grandmother at a nursing home 30 miles away.

Was she happy? Rhodes said she wanted to have children and had stopped
using birth control, but had not become pregnant. She had seen a
doctor about it.

Her friends and family say she was unhappy with Michael. He was
controlling, they say, and tried to keep her away from them; he was
abusive, they say, and told her that if she ever got fat again, he
would leave her.

By this time, she weighed less than 120 pounds, and her ribs were
visible.

"I eat, Mom. I eat," she told her concerned mother.

Her family doubts that she had a real eating disorder; her doctors are
not sure whether anorexia or something like it was the root of the
potassium imbalance they say probably caused her heart to stop on Feb.
25, 1990, when she collapsed in the hallway outside of her bedroom.

She was 26 years old, an ordinary woman about to be thrust -
unwillingly, unknowingly, unconsciously - into an extraordinary
adventure. She died 15 years later, a symbol to millions around the
world, a person to those who knew and mourned her.


   

     20-some courts, including the Supreme one, unanimously disagree with you.

    Whatever you think of the case (I mostly just think it is sad) I think that
the politicians should have stayed out of it.

Regards
Vaughn