The Terri Schiavo case is an evolutionary link between the defamatory slander perpetrated by St. Simon of Trent’s acolytes against the Jews from 1475-1960s and the malignant slurs launched by Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Fox News, and right-wing talk radio hosts against President Obama 2007-2012. From the top Republican M.D. in the United States Senate, Senator Frist, to the top political and media operatives in the Republican Party, (including President George W. Bush and Florida governor, Jeb Bush), all connived at a total falsification of Schiavo’s true medical condition in the blinding glare of spotlights of the world-wide media on the world-wide stage.
As will be seen in the medical and legal details below, they displayed absolutely no shame in repeating practically ad infinitum what they knew to be an total falsehood before the entire world. Given such brazen lying, is there anything that they would not lie about—if they felt sufficiently convicted by the Holy Spirit that Truth needed a foundation of lies?
Below follows the simple medical and historical facts. Scrutinize the details assiduously if you would know the truth. Remember the Pearl of Great Price requires that one sacrifice all the idols of preconception and prejudice.
Terri Schiavo experienced a catastrophic brain injury termed a persistent vegetative state (PVS). She had collapsed after suffering from an eating disorder (and resultant extreme electrolyte imbalance) during the course of which her weight dropped from about 250 to 110 pounds. Her brain injury, something bordering on brain death, was shamelessly exploited by a combination of right-wing political and religious forces for partisan political purposes. Her parents, the Schindlers, sadly, demonstrated an inability to accept their daughter’s condition. Their distraught state led them to attract political operatives and religious opportunists who compounded the tragedy by adding misrepresentations to her parent’s lack of comprehension. Eventually, the U.S. Congress and the President of the United States participated in a tragic farce, but they were only the stars in a farce that had many actors.
The climax of the national political farce occurred when George W. Bush flew from Texas to sign a special piece of legislation purposely designed to make a mockery of medical and legal findings based on the best legal and medical judgment possible.
The shameless demagoguery was best demonstrated by a contemptible political talking points. In March 2005 Brian Darling, the legal counsel to Republican Senator Martinez of Florida, suggested that Republicans exploit Terri Schiavo because her case would be a “great issue” that would appeal to the party’s right-wing political base and could be used against Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat from Florida who was up for reelection in 2006, because he had refused to co-sponsor the bill. When the memo first was made public, Republicans denied its existence. One Republican pundit even said that the memo had to be a Democratic trick, that “the memo that was supposed to show how craven the GOP is instead shows how gullible the media is,” and that “only a moron would be dumb enough to put on paper” the memo’s message. On April 6, 2005, however, Darling admitted to writing the memo, and resigned his position as legal counsel to Senator Martinez. The memo said: "This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue. . . . This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats."
The medical and legal professionals that dealt with the Schindlers all expressed sympathetic comprehension for the fact that they found it difficult to accept a diagnosis which could mean “letting their daughter go.” Nonetheless, multiple independent medical professionals confirmed the diagnosis of PVS. Multiple legal professionals, from the lowest courts to the U.S. Supreme Court found that Michael Schiavo, Terri’s husband and guardian, made an appropriate decision to terminate treatment. This was because they found clear and convincing evidence that Terri Schiavo would not desired to continue to exist, as the colloquial expression says, “as a vegetable.”
Given that eventually the Schindlers and the political operatives they attracted would accuse Michael Schiavo of abusing Terri, it is important to know that this antagonistic relationship only developed after large amounts of money came into the picture. Originally, Michael Schiavo and his in-laws were close. Bob Schindler, Terri’s father, told Larry King that Mary and Michael had been “joined at the hip.” Michael even lived with the Schindlers who approved of his initial management of Terri’s care. Michael even attended nursing school to learn how to better care for her. He even sought extraordinary experimental therapy, implanting a thalamic stimulator into her brain. When it appeared that her condition remained hopeless, the Schindlers even encouraged Michael to get on with his life to the extent of dating other women.
A medical malpractice lawsuit resulted in a 1993 jury verdict awarding Michael $300,000 and awarding $700,000 to Terri’s estate. The Schindler’s demanded a share of the $300,000 awarded to Michael. They admitted to this in court. They also contested Michael’s conclusion that rehabilitative therapy was pointless and tried to have his guardianship revoked. They charged that Michael abused Terri and succeeded in having a guardian ad litem appointed to investigate. This person determined that Michael had been very attentive, so attentive that he had become a “nursing home administrator’s nightmare” so insistent was he that Terri receive special care and attention. In 1994, with the treating physician’s approval, Michael signed a “do not resuscitate” order. In 1998 Michael filed a petition to remove a PEG tube. This was an artificial tube to route food and fluid into Terri’s stomach. Her brain injury made it impossible that she could ingest nutrition without getting the liquid nutrition into her lungs. At this point judge George W. Greer had to decide two issues: 1) whether Terri would have agreed with terminating the PEG treatment and 2) whether there existed independent medical testimony that Terri indeed suffered from PVS. Two physicians confirmed that Terri’s diagnosis was PVS. Even the Schindlers acknowledged this at the time.
Michael testified that Terri had told him on several occasions that she did not want to live hooked up to machines. Michael’s brother, Scott, stated that when Terri discussed the status of his grandmother who was being kept alive on a ventilator at the time she had said: “If I ever go like that, just let me go.” Michael’s sister-in-law, Joan Schiavo, with whom Terri had been close, testified that Terri had said, while seeing a movie in which a person was comatose and had tubes coming out of their mouth and arms, that she “would want the tubes and everything taken out.”
The Schindlers produced witnesses that contradicted Michael’s witnesses. One claimed that when Terri was between 17-20 years old she had opined that in the Karen Ann Quinlan case she should have just been left alone. However, on cross-examination, her statement was found less than credible because she could have been only 11-12 years old at the time. The Schindlers themselves made several extreme claims: 1) that even if they knew that Terri would want the PEG removed, they would not do it; 2) that they were determined to keep her alive in a PVS even if they had to amputate each of her limbs should they develop gangrene. After obtaining evidence from both sides Judge Greer determined that there was “clear and convincing evidence” that Terri would not have wished the PEG treatment to continue. The Schindlers appealed and 1 year later the Florida District Court of Appeal found that there was “overwhelming” evidence that Terri did suffer PVS, “much of her cerebral cortex is simply gone and has been replaced by cerebral spinal fluid.” It also found that Michael had “always attempted to provide optimum treatment for his wife.” They concurred with Judge Greer that there was “clear and convincing evidence” that Terri would not have wanted PEG to continue. Then both the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court refused further review. The Schindlers then filed multiple dilatory procedural motions and lawsuits; they also, for the first time, began denying that Terri was in PVS. As a result, district courts, appellate courts and the Florida Supreme Court again reviewed multiple medico-legal aspects of the case. They all substantially affirmed the effect of Judge Greer’s original decision.
During the course of all these legal maneuverings two major issues which
would be tried in the court of public opinion emerged. First, the Schindlers and their various religious and political allies began to create a patently false and unsubstantiated narrative that Michael Schiavo was some type of heartless monster who 1) delayed calling 911 for 40 minutes when Terri first stopped breathing, 2) physically abused her while she was comatose, and 3) now wanted to kill Terri by terminating PEG treatment. Second, they not only began to deny that Terri was in a PVS but also that she was responsive and interactive in a way that was impossible for a PVS victim. Soon the disinterested, considered judgment of informed medical and legal experts was totally eclipsed by a media frenzy. Persons clearly ignorant of the actual facts of the case and persons clearly so ideologically biased that they could not and did not even want to consider the actual facts began to dominate the political-religious theater that enveloped the case.
All sorts of sordid characters and too many supposedly respectable characters started gravitating around the media feeding frenzy. Dr. William Hammesfahr proved the adage that it is possible to get some medical expert to testify to virtually anything. In 2003, Florida's Board of Medicine accused him of "performing medical treatment below the standard of care, engaging in false advertising concerning his treatment of strokes, and exploiting a patient for financial gain.” It found that he had charged a patient for treatment she did not receive. He claimed that Terri Schiavo did not have PVS and that he improve Terri’s condition with a “hyperbaric” and “vasodilation” therapy that no one else in the medical community believed in. Four hours of videotapes visually documenting Terri’s actual condition made at this time soon became a focal point for manipulating public perceptions. Other interested parties began to join the court proceedings (and media proceedings) via friend of the court filings: 1) an antieuthanasia group called International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide; 2) a disability rights group called Not Dead Yet.
By now, the Terri Schiavo case had gone before two judges of the Pinellas County Circuit Court; there had been nine applications to the state court of appeal, yielding four formal written opinions; on three occasions the Florida Supreme Court had refused to intervene; and on one occasion the U.S. Supreme Court had refused to do so. The case had been very heavily litigated—more so than any other right-to-die case in the history of the United States.[i]
As multiple not disinterested and not unprejudiced interest groups started to join the fray, the question as to what reality was and how reality could be determined became more and more prominent. Several of the interest groups that joined forces with the Schindlers did not believe in determining reality empirically and with the aid of disinterested experts. They already had a very rigidly determined idea of what reality was and could be; their method of determining historical and medical fact was to twist established empirical reality until it fit their preconceived idea of what MUST be.
After multiple, independent disinterested medical experts had determined the undoubted fact that Terri Schiavo did indeed have PVS. The Schindlers, multiple law firms for various interest groups, multiple foundations that determined to bank-roll Schindlers’ further appeals, and various media personalities (like anti-abortion crusader Randall Terry), and thousands of rank-and-file members of right-wing religious groups all asserted the counter-factual that not only did Terri Schiavo not have PVS, she could meaningfully interact with them during their visits. Selectively edited short snippets of the 4 hour video were released to support such unfounded assertions. Soon it became “gospel truth” to some that Terri Schiavo had contemporaneously communicated her wish to continue her existence. Therefore, it became a religious duty to engage in street protests to protect her will to live; it became a religious duty to lobby Congress and President Bush to enact extraordinary legislation to completely nullify what it had taken years of careful medical and legal investigation to establish.
In the Wall Street Journal Peggy Noonan, speechwriter for former presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush trumpeted the crusaders’ political theme writing: “The Republican Party controls the Senate, the House and the White House. The Republicans are in charge. They have the power. If they can’t cave this woman’s life, they will face a reckoning from a sizable portion of their own base. And they will of course deserve it. . . . Politicians, please think of yourselves! Move to help Terri Schiavo, and no one will be made at you, and you’ll keep a human being alive. . . . You have to pull out all the stops . . . . You have to win on this. If you don’t you can’t imagine how much you’re going to lose.”[ii]
The apogee of absurdity was reached when Senator Bill Frist, a medical doctor, completely disregarded all appropriate procedures for making a medical diagnosis/judgment and said that, on the bases of the obviously distorted picture given by the heavily edited video-tape, that it was his considered medical opinion (as a physician and not as a politician supposedly) that Terri Schiavo was misdiagnosed as having PVS.
“I have had the opportunity to look at the video footage upon which the initial facts of this case were based. And from my standpoint as a physician . . . the facts upon which the case were [sic] based are inadequate to be able to make a diagnosis of persistent vegetative state.”[iii]
What can be said for the judgment of a physician who would make a medical diagnosis and political judgment in front of the entire country on the basis of snippets of videotape? Which would be worse: 1) that he knew what he was doing was medically absurd and did it anyway, or 2) that he did not know what he was doing was medically absurd? And what does it say for the judgment and wisdom of a political movement who would be led by such a leader? Yet this is precisely the type of sagacity demonstrated by the persons who gather around such movements. This is the same type of “thought” processes they engage in to determine whether the nation should worry about global warming, going to war to find weapons of mass destruction, or teach “Intelligent Design” to high-schoolers.
Many persons competed with Dr. Frist for being the most absurd. Republican House majority leader Tom DeLay claimed that Terri Shiavo was “lucid.” He equated his fight to save Shiavo to opposing an “effort to destroy everything we believe in.” House representative Dave Weldon asserted: “You look at the videos of her. She follows commands; she smiles. This is not a persistent vegetative state.” Jack Kingston, Republican of Georgia said: “Terri is not a PVS, someone in a persistent vegetative state. . . . Terri is able to laugh, she is able to cry, and she apparently can hear.” Hundreds of other Schindler allies made the same assertion based on the same evidence. Perhaps even more absurd and pathetic than Dr. Frist’s performance was the fact that a congressional committee chairman, Republican Tom Davis of Virginia wrote a subpoena to Terri Schiavo ordering her to appear to “testify.”[iv]
Politically motivated foundations controlling billions of dollars spent millions of dollars bankrolling a legal and media juggernaut dedicated to the proposition that Terri Schiavo was misdiagnosed as PVS and wanted to live. These included: 1) the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation with assets worth $584 million in 2001; the Scaife family foundations with assets worth 478 million in 2001; the Richard and Helen DeVos foundation with assets of $96 million in 2003; the Randolph foundation with assets of $49 million in 2002; the JM Foundation with assets of $21 million in 2002; the Koch family foundations whose two brothers have a combined net worth of $4 billion; and the Heritage foundation with assets of $129 million in 2003.[v]
When the autopsy on Terri Schiavo was completed it was even more evident that Dr. Frist and scores of his fellow travelers had shamelessly made multiple blatantly false statements. Multiple Schindler allies had claimed that it was certain that Terri could see them and respond to them in a meaningful way. One of their attorneys, Barbara Weller, even filed a court brief in the late stages of the case claiming that she had heard Terri Schiavo say: “I want to live.” The autopsy found that her brain had atrophied to half its normal weight, that the damage was irreversible and not amount of therapy could have helped, and that her vision center was dead, indicating that she was blind. Yet in Dr. Frist’s March 17, 2005 Senate speech said: “I have looked at the video footage. Based on the footage provided to me . . . she does respond.” “Speaking more as a physician than as a U.S. Senator . . . I question [the PVS diagnosis] based on a review of the video footage which I spent an hour or so looking at. That footage, to me, depicted something very different than persistent vegetative state.” “There is no question in the video that she actually looks up. She certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli.” So to Dr. Frist, there is “no question” that a blind person “looks up” and can “respond to visual stimuli.”[vi]
Like in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School Board case where the presiding judge experienced death threats, the outrageous, inflammatory statements made by the Schindler’s religious allies resulted in death threats. Both Judge Greer and Michael Schiavo received death threats. On March 25, 2005 FBI agents arrested a man who offered a reward of $250,000 for the killing of Michael Schiavo and $50,000 for the killing of Judge Greer.[vii]
Because the judiciary consistently rejected politically motivated attempts to pervert the justice system, because it was unwilling to accept pseudo-scientific claims about Terri Schiavo’s neurological condition, (like Dr. Frist’s statement that a blind person was reacting to visual stimuli), because her case represented to right-wing religio-political forces an “effort to destroy everything we believe in,” Focus on the Family called for “impeaching federal judges . . . as part of the fallout of the Terri Schiavo case.” Even after an autopsy conclusively proved all their medical assertions to be false, rather than admitting their error, these forces simply became more determined to derail objective, lawful, and scientific judgments by attempting to intimidate or replace judges who were not willing to accept their pseudo-scientific approach to reality. James Dobson, for example, has targeted Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy for elimination calling him “the most dangerous man in America.”[viii] Dobson’s allies like Lou Sheldon’s Traditional Values Coalition announced a campaign crying out: “We Must Defeat Our Robed Masters.” In their $10 million campaign that aim to “strip the courts of their tyrannical powers” with “an all-out assault” on federal and state judges.[ix]
Admittedly, the changes in medical technology have made traditional definitions of death outmoded. They also redefine the meaning of what “extraordinary” measures to sustain life are. It used to be that death was defined in terms of heart and lung function; when the “breath of life” left a body, it was dead. Now with machines able to replace multiple organs for extended periods of time, man seems to have trespassed into God’s domain in being able to determine who lives and for how long and who dies and whether they die today or next week. However, for political thugs to hijack a personal tragedy and attempt to use it as a lever to undermine our entire legal and legislative system in an attempt to cram their vision of morality down the nation's throat, on a foundation of the most ridiculous lies, is the most cynical of political manipulation possible.
By their fruits, you shall know them. Beware of wolves in Sheep's clothing.
[i] Jon B. Eisenberg, Using Terri: The Religious Right’s Conspiracy to Take Away Our Rights (San Francisco: HarperSanFranciso, 2005), 11-25.
