Gov. Jeb Bush wrote a letter to the editor which appeared in the St. Petersburg Times today. He begins,
On Thursday, I closed the state inquiry into the Terri Schiavo case.Bush procedes to suggest a course of action to prevent similar circumstances involving the signing a living will.This puts to rest a sad chapter in Florida state history. To me, this was not an issue about politics, but about life. Terri's case is one I was involved with for years - long before it became a media interest - and I was determined to see it through to completion. Although I am saddened Terri had years cut from her life, and I do not agree with all the courts' decisions, I respect those decisions.
Unfortunately, the governor does not affirm the sanctity of human life in his statement, suggests that the fundamental lesson to be learned from Terri's life and death is to to sign a living will and implies that there is an ethical justification for the purposeful starvation/dehydration of the incapacitated.
What are your thoughts?
Gov. Bush is easy to like, hard to respect.
Whether or not Michael Schiavo was the cause
of Terri's collapse I do not know, but his
delay (by calling her father or brother)and his
failure to do CPR did not help her status at the time of the incident leading to her brain damage. The attempt after Terri's death to catch
Michael Schiavo, then aborting the effort after
calling in a possibly compromised McCabe came off as another well-intentioned, but weak move.
As a nurse, I know very well that Terri was
not in a PVS and should not have been in hospice.
Those who recognize that she was not in a PVS, but still deemed her fit to toss because she
seemed like a futile care case don't realize the
advances in treatment available, treatment that
may have allowed us to know what she wanted.
The secrecy surrounding this case made Terri
seem less of a person. Anyone who has
seen the tapes with audio and has a background
in working with patients with neuro damage can
easily see the truth of her cognizant existence.
This truth is not diminished by physical evidence of a brain and body tortured by dehydration. She had value; she was worth keeping. I wish Gov. Bush, politicians, and more
physicians had the courage to call this outrage
what it is: knowingly killing the disabled.
Has lack of compassion created the faux
compassion of death with dignity;
How many people have been fooled into thinking that death by dehydration is acceptable, even natural and kind? One has to wonder if a new kind of national socialist worker has arrived and is swaying those weak and unsure of their political power. Ja, nicht nur in Deutschland.
I contacted Jeb Bush's Office and told his employee that Jeb should stay silent on Terri Schiavo because he is only making things worse for himself. Of course Schiavo was about politics, not about life. Jeb's title indicates Schiavo was about life. What Jeb meant in my opinion is "don't let this happen to you and I'm not letting this happen to my family." Note that Jeb seemingly blames Terri for putting her family through difficult times. Terri was the victim, not the perpetrator. She was starved and dehydrated to death on Gov. Bush's watch. That's all I need to know.
Please continue to ask God to bless Terri's parents the Schindlers and her brother Bobby, sister Suzanne and her niece, all other family members and all Terri supporters who are still demanding a rollback of treating our fellow human beings this way. FEDERALIZING A BAN IS OUR BEST HOPE. Call your U.S. Senators and Congresspersons.
i agree and disagree with both posts.
First, Jeb's silence is exactly what allowed Terri to die. He is a virtual Pontius Pilot. He washed is hands of the whole matter in fear of tainting his political career, and the political careers of his relatives. I believe Jeb is a moral person. However, he is also a coward. His abdication of authority in this matter allowed for the injustice we have witnessed...the Starvation of a human being.
Second, the very language "Permanent Vegitative State" has been deliberately coined for the purpose of killing off the "undesirables". The myriad of nurses who have been systematically trained to use this language don't realize that each time they utter this eugencic-terminology, they are in fact signing the death warrants of every Terri out there.
So many of the "higher-ups" in politics and Hospice itself are working to cut-the-numbers. It is a dirty job but someone WILL do it. Eugenics is embedded in our society. Planned Parenthood was founded on eugenics and Margaret Sanger's writtings. Hitler used some of Sanger's own speeches and writings to eliminate the undesireables...the useless eaters...the mentally challenged...the poor...the minorities...and the unborn.