Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube is set to be removed at 1:00 pm, barring last minute reprieves.
President Bush comments on Terri Schiavo, “The case of Terri Schiavo raises complex issues, yet in instances like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life. Those who live at the mercy of others deserve our special care and concern.”
Update (12:15pm): U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, M.D. (R-TN) today released the following statement, which in theory provides that last minute reprieve:
The Senate and the House remain dedicated to saving Terri Schiavo’s life. While discussions over possible legislative remedies continue, the Senate and the House are taking action to keep her alive in the interim.
HELP Committee Chairman Mike Enzi has requested the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Schiavo at an official committee hearing. He has sent a letter to the Schiavos to appear at a hearing on Monday, March 28, 2005 regarding “Health Care Provided to Non-ambulatory Persons.” The purpose of the hearing is to review health care policies and practices relevant to the care of non-ambulatory persons such as Mrs. Schiavo.
Federal criminal law protects witnesses called before official Congressional committee proceedings from anyone who may obstruct or impede a witness’ attendance or testimony. More specifically, the law protects a witness from anyone who — by threats, force, or by any threatening letter or communication – influences, obstructs, or impedes an inquiry or investigation by Congress. Anyone who violates this law is subject to criminal fines and imprisonment.There’s no indication that the removal of the feeding tube has been delayed in response…
Update 2(2:10pm): Judge Halts Removal of Feeding Tube After Congress Intervenes
MIAMI, March 18 -A Florida judge has delayed an order to remove the feeding tube from a brain-damaged Florida woman at 1 p.m. today after Washington lawmakers intervened by issuing subpoenas for the woman and her husband to appear at Congressional hearings later this month.
Update 3: (3:07pm): The original judge smacked down the judge in Update 2…
PINELLAS PARK, Fla. (AP) – The presiding judge in the case of Terri Schiavo ruled Friday that the feeding tube keeping the brain-damaged woman alive must be removed, despite efforts by congressional Republicans to block the move by seeking her appearance at hearings.
Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer refused a request from U.S. House attorneys to delay the removal, which he had previously ordered to take place at 1 p.m. EST. Greer determined that it should go forward about an hour after another judge issued a temporary delay blocking the tube’s removal.
The tube is coming out today…
Update 4(3:52pm) Terri Schiavo’s Feeding Tube Removed Fox News
Imagine that, Lefties are supporting the husband over the wife, I thought feminazis thought men were all evil?
Brian, what pray tell does Gingrich have to do with the situation at hand?
Distarction is a useful tactic but it does not fly that well in a forum such as this. Stay on topic please.
You seem to have your head fairly well wedged in to a tiny little box of your own design and, like many such afflicted you seem to think that the rest of the world should follow suit.
Look out the window in wonder Bri, there are about five billion people out there not enlightened enough to see your point of view as the one and only truth.
Call me a nutbar if you like but I was raised to believe that human and civil rights do not just apply to those with money, power and connections.
As for the treatment of ones spouse: When my wife and I got together I knew she had multiple disabilities. That is the deal I signed on for with my eyes wide open. I did not dump her because of her homcidal siblings and I sure as Hell am not going to dump her if/when her disabilities progress.
She is quite a sharp woman though and asked me to pass on word that you appear to have the maturity level of a 12 year old in her estimation (educated opinion). On my own dime I would advise that if you are not below the age of 14 you might consider getting a bit of professional help to get beyond this level.
Imagine that, Lefties are supporting the husband over the wife, I thought feminazis thought men were all evil?
Turn off the Rush Limbaugh, Henry, and repeat after me:
“I can think for myself”
“I can think for myself”
Henry, Been there, and others: Please don’t feed the trolls; they will simplyl linger here and bloviate instead of returning to KOS or DU. It’s kinda like wrestling with pigs, you get tired and muddy and the pig has fun. Regards.
Point taken, I defer to the wisdom of an older and wiser coot.
Perhaps a lu’au before we give up though?
Wiser? My wife would not agree. Baiting trolls can be fun, but I’m not in the mood to do that on a thread about the court-sanctioned murder of an innocent young woman. My wife (who is MUCH wiser than I) has a feeling that this sad story will have a happy twist; with Terri getting the therapy she deserves and arriving at a point where she can tell us what happened to her. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
Brian it is as simple as-if my husband wants to move on and take up with another woman and make babies, that is his choice, but I do not want him making any choices for me any longer in that situation.
That said Brian, I really do not see my husband doing this. For one thing we are both sickened by what is happening with Terri Schiavo. We are very like minded. But if for some reason he does, then I would just rather he break the tie completely and let somebody I know loves me and still has my best interest at heart make the decisions.
I hope your wife is right Coot, Given what we have seen the last few years it seems though the killing machine is fairly well dug in. A very frightening prospect as we age.
One of my customers is diagnosed as having a developmental disability. Funny thing is though that she has a much better grasp on the problem than most so called normal people about.
been there wrote:
Brian, what pray tell does Gingrich have to do with the situation at hand? Distarction is a useful tactic but it does not fly that well in a forum such as this. Stay on topic please.
Try reading more carefully. I was entirely on topic, asking if the “find out she’s sick, dump her” approach was more acceptable. This was a tactic embraced by Gingrich, and so I invoked him as an example.
You seem to have your head fairly well wedged in to a tiny little box of your own design and, like many such afflicted you seem to think that the rest of the world should follow suit. Look out the window in wonder Bri, there are about five billion people out there not enlightened enough to see your point of view as the one and only truth.
Lofty words coming from someone whose point of view was repeatedly invalidated by multiple state, circuit, federal, and Supreme Court judges. Oh, but are these activist judges?
Seems like you’re the one whose head is wedged in a tiny little box and wants the rest of the world to join you. Of those five billion people you mentioned, the vast majority agree with me, and believe that a vegetative person should be allowed to die with dignity rather than have the government keep them on machines. I don’t need the rest of the world to follow suit. They’re already there.
Call me a nutbar if you like but I was raised to believe that human and civil rights do not just apply to those with money, power and connections.
And you accuse me of lobbing distractions? What the hell does this case have to do with money, power, or connections? The only people with money, power, or connections in this case are the ones who want her kept alive. And they are the ones who are continuously shot down.
I’m sorry your wife feels I have the maturity of a 12 year old simply because I challenge your posts with facts, opinion, and a different way of looking at the world. Though I assume that you wouldn’t appreciate me insulting your wife in response, so I am bewildered as to why you would invoke her as a means to insult me. So I shall take the higher road here.
I suppose you would be more comfortable if I just called you names, instead. That is, perhaps, the maturity level that you appear to be used to. So feel free to follow the advice of Old Coot, who doesn’t even know the proper usage of the word “troll”. That does seem to be the standard tactic here. We don’t have to agree with each other, but it did, at least, appear to be a civil debate. I guess that is too much for people like Old Coot to endure. He’d rather polite dissenting opinion be insulted and ignored, rather than openly discussed. So please, by all means, follow his advice. After all, we’ll become a much more efficient country once we get rid of intelligent debate.
“Lofty words coming from someone whose point of view was repeatedly invalidated by multiple state, circuit, federal, and Supreme Court judges. Oh, but are these activist judges?”
I don’t know that you could go so far as to say that the federal courts invalidated the point of view, the federal courts never really heard the merits of the case, they generally said they didn’t have jurisdiction and sent it back, saying that this was a matter for the state courts.
Also, just because a law is on the books, and a judge makes a decision that does not make the law of the decision a moral one. This action is immoral.
New national poll by Fox News.
45% of people think spouses should decide the fate of a person in a persistent vegetative state.
38% think parents should.
2% think the government should.
Still think that I’m the one in a “tiny little box”? If so, then I’m in here with 98% of the country.
He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt
He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.
-Albert Einstein
The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil,
but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.
-Albert Einstein
Political correctness is just tyranny with manners, I wish for you
the courage to be unpopular. Popularity is history’s pocket change.
Courage is history’s true currency.
-Charlton Heston
You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.
-James Thurber
THE COWBOY CODE
The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man or
take unfair advantage.
He must never go back on his word or a trust confided to him.
He must always tell the truth.
He must be gentle with children, the elderly and animals.
He must not advocate or possess racially or religiously
intolerant ideas.
He must help people in distress.
He must be a good worker.
He must keep himself clean in thought, speach, action and
personal habits.
He must respect women, parents and the nations’s laws.
The Cowboy is a patriot.
-Gene Autry, 1939
Whenever, therefore, people are deceived…
it is clear that the error has slid into their minds
through the medium of certain resemblances to that truth.
-Socrates
Find out just what any people will quietly submit
to and you have the exact measure of the injustice
and wrong which will be imposed on them.
-Frederick Douglass
A great many people think they are thinking when
they are really rearranging their prejudices.
-Edward R. Murrow
missed this one:
How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young,
compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and
tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life
you will have been all of these.
– George Washington Carver
Appellate courts rarely address the merits of the issues on appeal. They mostly address legal procedures, i.e., if the correct laws were applied correctly.
45% of people think spouses should decide the fate of a person in a persistent vegetative state.
Would that 45% want their ex-spouse to decide?
For all intent and purposes, it is no longer a marriage.
If they were healthy and their spouse left them, established a household with another person and had several children, even if not divorced, would they believe it prudent to give that person the power of life and death over them?
« Amber Dolle: Terri Schiavo sentenced to slow, painful death | Main | Michael Schiavo and his attorney on offensive »
March 18, 2005
Medical Facts About Terri Schiavo
Many people have referred to the “medical evidence” that Terri has little to no brain matter remaining.
FACT: The only way to determine such a thing accurately is with an MRI or PET scan. Neither have been done, and they have been disallowed in her case per Michael Schiavo’s instructions.
From Blogs for Terri. Some of you should read it.
See also this Guardian article
A little known but interesting facet of this case is that Wolfson is not the first guardian ad litem appointed to represent Terri’s interests. When Schiavo first petitioned the court for permission to dehydrate his wife in 1998, he properly admitted that he had two significant conflicts of interest: He was likely to want to remarry and if Terri died, he would inherit the more than $700,000 then on deposit in her trust account. (For those who have not followed this case,
Terri received the money in a medical malpractice lawsuit.)
Because of these conflicts of interest, the Probate Court appointed Richard L. Pearse Jr. of Clearwater, Florida, as Terri’s guardian ad litem and instructed him to investigate the matter and report back with a recommendation. Pearse filed his report with the court on December 28, 1998 urging that the court deny the petition to remove Terri’s food and water.
Pearse unambiguously accepted the diagnosis that Terri is in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) based on the opinions of two doctors, one who treated her and one who consulted on the case. This diagnoses was–and remains– disputed by Terri’s parents, Bob and Mary Schindler. Indeed, subsequent to Pearse’s report, the Schindlers energetically attempted to garner evidence that she is conscious. To some degree, they have succeeded: Four board certified neurologists, two board certified internists, one neuro-psychologist, and two speech pathologists have testified in person or by affidavit that Terri is not PVS. These opinions were reinforced by the affidavits of three nurses who cared for Terri in the mid-1990s and who claim to have observed her being interactive. Moreover, millions have viewed videos of Terri and been shocked by the extent to which she appears to aware and awake.
Pearse claimed that Terri has muscle contractures despite receiving “regular physical therapy.” He may have assumed that she received such care–it is routine for bedridden patients, after all. Yet, according to Patricia Anderson, the Schindler’s attorney, there are no entries indicating that PT was ever performed in Terri’s chart after 1992. Indeed, in 1998, when a new doctor urged Schiavo to approve an evaluation of Terri so that a plan of physical therapy could be developed, he refused to permit it.
*Pearse confirmed the charge by the Schindlers that once the medical malpractice money was in the bank, Schiavo began to refuse medical treatment for Terri, writing:
After February 1993, Mr. Schiavo’s attitude concerning treatment for the ward apparently changed. Early in 1994, for example, he refused to consent to treat an infection from which the ward was then suffering and ordered that she not be resuscitated in the event of cardiac arrest. The nursing home where she resided at that time sought to intervene, which ultimately led the ward’s husband to reverse his decision and authorize antibiotic treatment.
Perhaps because of the intervention by the home, Schiavo soon moved Terri to a different nursing facility.
*Schiavo admitted to the guardian ad litem that he had at least “two romantic involvements” after Terri’s collapse. “It is apparent to me,” Pearse wrote the court, “that he has reached a point that he has no hope of the ward’s recovery and wants to get on with his own life.” (To say the least. At the time
of Pearse’s investigation, Schiavo was already living with the woman who would become the mother of his children.)
…As of April 4, 1998, Terri’s trust fund held $713,828.85. “Thus,” wrote Pearse, “Mr. Schiavo will realize a substantial and fairly immediate financial gain if his application for withdrawal of life support [tube-supplied food and water] is granted.” (Schiavo now claims that there is only $50,000 left in the account, the bulk of the money having gone to pay his attorneys.)
*At the time of the report, only Schiavo claimed that Terri would not wish to be kept alive if severely incapacitated. “However,” Pearse opined, “his credibility is necessarily adversely affected by the obvious financial benefit to him of being the ward’s sole heir at law in the event of her death while still married to him. Her death also permits him to get on with his own life.” (Subsequent to the filing of the report, and perhaps in response to it, Schiavo’s brother and sister-in-law came forward to claim Terri made similar statements in their presence. In this regard it is worth noting that no member of Terri’s family, or any of her friends, recall her ever making any such statements to them.)
*Pearse concluded, “Given the inherent problems already mentioned, together with the fact that the ward has been maintained the life support measures sought to be withdrawn for the past 8 years, it is the recommendation of the guardian ad litem that the petition for removal be denied.”
UNFORTUNATELY, Pearse’s opinion held scant sway with the court. After filing his report, he requested further court instructions to authorize him to continue to represent Terri as guardian ad litem. Schiavo’s attorney, George Felos objected, and attempted to have Pearse removed for bias. This attempt failed but after his report was received, Pearse was discharged from participating any further in the case. And despite Schiavo’s continuing conflicts of interest–which only deepened on the personal level as he sired children–no other guardian ad litem was ever appointed to represent Terri during the years of litigation, proceedings that culminated in an October 15, 2003 court order requiring Terri Schiavo to be deprived of all water and food toward the end that she dehydrate to death.
March 18, 2005
Medical Facts About Terri Schiavo
Many people have referred to the “medical evidence” that Terri has little to no brain matter remaining.
FACT: The only way to determine such a thing accurately is with an MRI or PET scan. Neither have been done, and they have been disallowed in her case per Michael Schiavo’s instructions.
From Blogs for Terri. Some of you should read it.
See also this Guardian article
A little known but interesting facet of this case is that Wolfson is not the first guardian ad litem appointed to represent Terri’s interests. When Schiavo first petitioned the court for permission to dehydrate his wife in 1998, he properly admitted that he had two significant conflicts of interest: He was likely to want to remarry and if Terri died, he would inherit the more than $700,000 then on deposit in her trust account. (For those who have not followed this case,
Terri received the money in a medical malpractice lawsuit.)
Because of these conflicts of interest, the Probate Court appointed Richard L. Pearse Jr. of Clearwater, Florida, as Terri’s guardian ad litem and instructed him to investigate the matter and report back with a recommendation. Pearse filed his report with the court on December 28, 1998 urging that the court deny the petition to remove Terri’s food and water.
Pearse unambiguously accepted the diagnosis that Terri is in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) based on the opinions of two doctors, one who treated her and one who consulted on the case. This diagnoses was–and remains– disputed by Terri’s parents, Bob and Mary Schindler. Indeed, subsequent to Pearse’s report, the Schindlers energetically attempted to garner evidence that she is conscious. To some degree, they have succeeded: Four board certified neurologists, two board certified internists, one neuro-psychologist, and two speech pathologists have testified in person or by affidavit that Terri is not PVS. These opinions were reinforced by the affidavits of three nurses who cared for Terri in the mid-1990s and who claim to have observed her being interactive. Moreover, millions have viewed videos of Terri and been shocked by the extent to which she appears to aware and awake.
Pearse claimed that Terri has muscle contractures despite receiving “regular physical therapy.” He may have assumed that she received such care–it is routine for bedridden patients, after all. Yet, according to Patricia Anderson, the Schindler’s attorney, there are no entries indicating that PT was ever performed in Terri’s chart after 1992. Indeed, in 1998, when a new doctor urged Schiavo to approve an evaluation of Terri so that a plan of physical therapy could be developed, he refused to permit it.
*Pearse confirmed the charge by the Schindlers that once the medical malpractice money was in the bank, Schiavo began to refuse medical treatment for Terri, writing:
After February 1993, Mr. Schiavo’s attitude concerning treatment for the ward apparently changed. Early in 1994, for example, he refused to consent to treat an infection from which the ward was then suffering and ordered that she not be resuscitated in the event of cardiac arrest. The nursing home where she resided at that time sought to intervene, which ultimately led the ward’s husband to reverse his decision and authorize antibiotic treatment.
Perhaps because of the intervention by the home, Schiavo soon moved Terri to a different nursing facility.
*Schiavo admitted to the guardian ad litem that he had at least “two romantic involvements” after Terri’s collapse. “It is apparent to me,” Pearse wrote the court, “that he has reached a point that he has no hope of the ward’s recovery and wants to get on with his own life.” (To say the least. At the time
of Pearse’s investigation, Schiavo was already living with the woman who would become the mother of his children.)
…As of April 4, 1998, Terri’s trust fund held $713,828.85. “Thus,” wrote Pearse, “Mr. Schiavo will realize a substantial and fairly immediate financial gain if his application for withdrawal of life support [tube-supplied food and water] is granted.” (Schiavo now claims that there is only $50,000 left in the account, the bulk of the money having gone to pay his attorneys.)
*At the time of the report, only Schiavo claimed that Terri would not wish to be kept alive if severely incapacitated. “However,” Pearse opined, “his credibility is necessarily adversely affected by the obvious financial benefit to him of being the ward’s sole heir at law in the event of her death while still married to him. Her death also permits him to get on with his own life.” (Subsequent to the filing of the report, and perhaps in response to it, Schiavo’s brother and sister-in-law came forward to claim Terri made similar statements in their presence. In this regard it is worth noting that no member of Terri’s family, or any of her friends, recall her ever making any such statements to them.)
*Pearse concluded, “Given the inherent problems already mentioned, together with the fact that the ward has been maintained the life support measures sought to be withdrawn for the past 8 years, it is the recommendation of the guardian ad litem that the petition for removal be denied.”
UNFORTUNATELY, Pearse’s opinion held scant sway with the court. After filing his report, he requested further court instructions to authorize him to continue to represent Terri as guardian ad litem. Schiavo’s attorney, George Felos objected, and attempted to have Pearse removed for bias. This attempt failed but after his report was received, Pearse was discharged from participating any further in the case. And despite Schiavo’s continuing conflicts of interest–which only deepened on the personal level as he sired children–no other guardian ad litem was ever appointed to represent Terri during the years of litigation, proceedings that culminated in an October 15, 2003 court order requiring Terri Schiavo to be deprived of all water and food toward the end that she dehydrate to death.
Judge Greer’s eyesight is so poor he does not drive a car. Yet when confronted with the video taped evidence that Terri is not vegetative, but is responsive, he took off his glasses adn wouldn’t look at it.
“Many have seen the now-famous videotape that the Schindlers distributed to the press in their effort to show the world that Terri is not a vegetable. In this video, Terri gives every appearance of looking directly at those speaking to her, reacting to her mother’s embrace, and following (with her eyes) a balloon around the room. While many who saw the video found it compelling evidence that Terri is in fact conscious, Judge Greer did not.
Although he had to be asked twice to look at his monitor and to put his glasses back on so he could see it clearly, he did not find the video evidence sufficiently “consistent and reproducible.” He opined that “cognitive function would manifest itself in a constant response to stimuli.” Pat Anderson, the Schindlers’ attorney, explained in a World Net Daily article that Judge Greer, in evaluating the video, used a “scorecard” approach that “stacked the deck no matter how Terri responded. If she always responded—it was just primitive brain-stem activity. If she randomly responded—it was not repetitive enough.” Interestingly, Judge Greer and Felos have sought to suppress the video, and Judge Greer ordered the Schindlers not to photograph or videotape Terri in the future, under threat of legal sanction.”
Instead of the neutral evidence of a videotaped session with Terri, he prefers to rely on these witnesses:
“…Judge Greer accepted the medical testimony presented by Michael Schiavo that Terri is in a PVS and will not recover. That conclusion becomes even more dubious when you examine Felos’s well-known ties to the euthanasia movement and the background and testimony of Michael Schiavo’s principal medical witness, Dr. Ronald Cranford.
Felos has been a member of the infamous Hemlock Society. Amazon.com, on the Web page for Felos’s book Litigation as Spiritual Practice, describes him as “spearheading a social revolution to enable death with dignity in the state of Florida.” He certainly spearheaded the effort to bring about Estelle Browning’s death, spurred on by his belief that he can spiritually commune with those in a PVS. Although she couldn’t speak, he claimed that he detected her soul crying out to his soul, asking, “Why am I still here?”
In light of Felos’s association with the euthanasia movement, it’s hard to imagine that his choice of Cranford is coincidental, as Cranford is perhaps the leading medical exponent of the pro-death movement.
Cranford jokingly refers to himself as “Dr. Death” and, for a fee, will come to a trial and testify that the person whose life the plaintiff wants to end is in a PVS. He was the leading medical voice calling for the deaths of Paul Brophy, Nancy Jobes, Nancy Cruzan, and Christine Busalucci, all of whom were brain-damaged but not dying. Nonetheless, he advocated death for all by dehydration/starvation, just as he has for Terri.
Nancy Cruzan—one of his “patients”—required no skilled nursing, no care but food and fluids, hygiene, and turning to prevent bedsores. She didn’t even need tube feeding, but Cranford testified that he would even consider spoon-feeding “medical treatment.” Cranford wrote in the summer 1998 issue of Concern for Dying that he foresees “that there may be extreme situations, and in the future increasingly common situations, where physician-assisted suicide may not only be permissible, but encouraged.” In a 1997 op-ed for the Minneapolis–St. Paul Star Tribune, Cranford advocated the starvation of Alzheimer’s patients.
In contrast to the twelve hours Hammesfahr spent examining Terri, Cranford spent approximately 45 minutes. Rus Cooper-Dowda, who has endured neurologic exams himself, upon seeing the videotape of Cranford’s exam described it as “physically brutal.” He said that Cranford “clumsily poked, prodded, thumped, shoved, and pinched her.” Although Cranford admitted that Terri pulled away from him when he approached her, he did not deem that a voluntary response. When Terri moaned after he “thunked her hard between the eyebrows,” Cranford told the court that it wasn’t a response to pain.
Cranford prides himself on the fact that he was very influential in the development of the criteria used in diagnosing PVS. But in 1996, Dr. Keith Andrews, the medical director of the Royal Hospital for Neurodisability in London, along with several other staff members, published an article titled “Misdiagnosis of the Vegetative State” in the British Medical Journal. In that article, they revealed that 43 percent of patients sent to that hospital with the diagnosis of PVS—some of whom had been presumed to be in a PVS for more than a year—were not in a vegetative state at all. They found that the misdiagnosed patients had severe communication problems as a result of their disabilities, but with the proper clinical measures, “nearly all were able to communicate…some to a high level.” They concluded that:
The vegetative state needs considerable skill to diagnose, requiring assessment over a period of time; diagnosis cannot be made, even by the most experienced clinician, from a bedside assessment [emphasis mine]…. Recognition of awareness is essential…to avoid inappropriate approaches to the courts for a declaration for withdrawal of tube feeding.
The growing awareness of the difficulty in diagnosing PVS, and the widespread errors in making the diagnosis, have led many leading hospitals, such as the Northwestern University Rehabilitation Institute, to routinely reassess patients referred to them as PVS.
Cranford has testified that patients in a PVS have “no hope of recovery,” but this is simply untrue. A number of people found to be “unrecoverable” have, in fact, recovered. Cranford himself diagnosed Sergeant Richard Mack, a police officer shot in the line of duty, as “definitely…in a persistent vegetative state…never to regain cognitive, sapient functioning.” Almost two years later, Mack “woke up.” He eventually regained almost all his mental abilities.
Kate Adamson, who appeared on Fox News’s O’Reilly Factor on November 6, recounted her own chilling story. She had also been diagnosed as in a PVS, and doctors removed her feeding tube.
I could see and hear everything going on around me, and I had no way…of communicating with anyone…. I was completely paralyzed…. When the feeding tube was turned off for eight days, I was—thought I was—going insane. I was screaming out [in her mind], “Don’t you know I need to eat?” …Michael [Schiavo] on national TV had mentioned last week that it’s a pretty painless thing to have the feeding tube removed. It is the exact opposite. It was sheer torture…”
Crisis Magazine