ETHICS HOME>SCHIAVO CASE RESOURCES>TIMELINE

ETHICS HOME > SCHIAVO CASE RESOURCES > TIMELINE

KEY EVENTS IN THE CASE OF THERESA MARIE SCHIAVO

Steven Haidar, Dartmouth College/University of Miami
Kathy Cerminara, Nova Southeastern University, Shepard Broad Law Center
http://www.miami.edu/ethics2/schiavo/timeline.htm

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: the Schiavo case -submission
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 15:45:43 -0600 (CST)
From: Margie Burns margie.burns@verizon.net
To: apfn@apfn.org

[Do not be misled:]

Those television clips of Mrs. Schindler tearfully begging ?politicians? to ?save my little girl,? Mrs. Theresa Schiavo, leave out pertinent information.

The whole legal mess over Ms. Schiavo could probably have been avoided, had her parents kept her under their care.

As everyone knows, Ms. Schiavo?s situation has aroused a legal battle between her husband, Michael Schiavo, and her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, now joined by GOP members of Congress, the rightwing media outlets, and some prominent anti-abortion groups.

There seems a strange amnesia about earlier stages of the case, however:
?In the days after her collapse, at the urging of a lawyer friend of Michael's, the Schindlers signed a document making Michael Terri's sole legal guardian - a decision the Schindlers would later regret. Six months after her collapse, the family moved Terri to her parents' house, where Michael also had begun living. The family took turns caring for her around the clock. The care became too difficult, so they moved her back to a nursing home.
Doctors were not optimistic about Terri's chances for improvement. They recommended an experimental surgery, and in December 1990, electrodes were implanted in Terri's brain to stimulate dormant brain cells.
When no improvement was noticed, the family moved her in July 1991 to the Sabal Palms nursing home in Largo, Fla., where she would live for the next three years.?
http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-schiavoday2,0,2998635.story?coll=ny-health-headlines

One could hardly fault two parents for being unable to care 24-7 for an adult child in a vegetative state. Families ?pull the plug? on loved ones often, for understandable reasons. But it is puzzling that these particular parents seem convinced that it?s everyone else?s responsibility to take care of the patient they claim can live a viable life. When they stopped taking care of her themselves, they pushed medical and legal costs onto the taxpayers, the medical community, and private charity. (When poor people fall into such a situation, the GOP Congress is, how shall we say, not exactly there for them.)

Graver harms are being done here than the financial:
? Thousands of families across the country who have suffered similar situations themselves (without assistance from interest groups) are being compelled to relive a painful and wrenching experience.
? Congress is being diverted from larger and more important matters, to focus with favoritism and partiality on one person.
? Christian groups are being lied to.

Let?s take the last of those. Good and decent individuals in this country are at this moment absolutely convinced that the Schindlers tried to take their daughter in, but were prevented by her husband and/or by judges.

Eventually, it is true, the Schindlers did go to court to get Mr. Schiavo removed as guardian. But they did not try to get custody. In 1993, after large financial awards to each of the Schiavos from a medical malpractice lawsuit filed by Mr. Schiavo (the kind of award the Bush administration is now trying to prevent), the parents and the husband fell out, and the parents tried to get Schiavo replaced as guardian ? but by a brother or a sister, not by themselves as parents of the patient.

Common sense would tell you that offering a less mature sibling as guardian, either unmarried or with other family responsibilities, is not the likeliest way to win a custody case. Perhaps counsel was less interested in having Terri Schiavo quietly taken care of at home than in a cause celebre? One notes that the Schindlers? legal costs have been quietly borne by two large right-to-life groups.

By the way, when the Schindlers went back to court in 2003 to get Schiavo replaced as guardian (again by a sibling), Judge Greer allowed them to do so, refusing to dismiss the petition:
http://www.local6.com/news/2614235/detail.html
This is the same Judge Greer now under police protection for having received death threats, from the ?religious? fervor being whipped up about this case.

Our nation is being cheated terribly by the handling of this case, and Christian groups are being deceived. Almost never has the public been told, for example, that medical examinations of Mrs. Schiavo showed signs of physical deterioration from extreme dieting and use of diuretics:
??Further history revealed that she apparently has been trying to keep her weight down with dieting by herself, drinking liquids most of the time during the day and drinking about 10-15 glasses of iced tea. In the past, she lost about 65 pounds a few years ago . . .
The rest of the chemistries revealed LDH 376, SGOT 95, calcium 7.4, inorganic phosphorus 7.1, uric acid 8.6, albumin 2.0 and total protein 4.1, suggestive of some malnutrition. Total CPK did go up to 4,000, but isoenzymes were less than 2 percent. Serial CPK and other enzymes did not reveal evidence of myocardial infarction. Compliment studies were within normal range.?

Instead, some interest groups are circulating innuendos that Mr. Schiavo was somehow responsible for his wife?s initial collapse.

I can understand the exhaustion of relatives who have done everything they can for a loved one, who finally have to give up hope and give up. I can also understand the undying wish of a parent who keeps on hoping against hope, who insists on keeping the child alive despite everything said by anyone else.

But this case doesn?t fall into either category. Instead, it is being mounted as a continuous campaign, much like other campaigns. The Schindlers have set up a foundation for charitable contributions ? now being investigated for violations of charity law by Florida?s state government, according to the Palm Beach Post ? and have received extensive attention, publicity and favors of everything from transportation to hair care from the interest groups and politically-allied individuals aiding them.

[Pay particular attention to the timeline, attached in Word doc.]
http://www.miami.edu/ethics2/schiavo/timeline.htm

This content may be reproduced for non-commercial, education purposes only, with appropriate attribution to the source. (For more information, read our copyright policy.) Please send comments, suggestions and corrections to Ken Goodman, UM Ethics Programs, at ethics@miami.edu . News media and others seeking comment from Florida Bioethics Network leaders should call 305-243-5723.

====================================

March 22, 2005

Federal District Court Judge Whittemore refuses to order re-insertion of the PEG tube.
Federal Court Order