Life as a Spectator Sport

I stopped in to a client's office today to do some maintenance on their network, and managed to arrive while Focus on the Family was being aired on the local AM station. No one was paying much attention to it, but the comments from program guests alluded to "judicial murder" and other items of inflammatory language.

I'm careful not to get involved in controversial discussions in my clients' offices, so I don't know what the general opinion was there about the Terri Schiavo case. But I have to wonder what these people would have thought if they had read the report of the Guardian Ad Litem appointed by Governor Jeb Bush in 2003.

I tried to get to the original report, but my blankety-blank flaky memory won't let me run Adobe Acrobat (it's a pdf file), so I'm going to take the liberty of quoting another blogger's excerpts from the report (Corndog, posted on Daily Kos) He abbreviates the Guardian Ad Litem as "GAL." Quotes from he GAL report are in italics (my editorial change, to make those sections stand out better from Corndog's comments).

Theresa’s husband, Michael Schiavo and her mother, Mary Schindler, were virtual partners in their care of and dedication to Theresa. There is no question but that complete trust, mutual caring, explicit love and a common goal of caring for and rehabilitating Theresa, were the shared intentions of Michael Shiavo and the Schindlers.

...

His [Michael’s] demanding concern for her well being and meticulous care by the nursing home earned him the characterization by the administrator as “a nursing home administrator’s nightmare”. It is notable that through more than thirteen years after Theresa’s collapse, she has never had a bedsore.

He even went to extraordinary lengths to pursue any treatment that held promise. After “aggressive physical and voice therapy” failed to show signs of improvement,

In late Autumn of 1990, following months of therapy and testing, formal diagnoses of persistent vegetative state with no evidence of improvement, Michael took Theresa to California, where she received an experimental thalamic stimulator implant in her brain. Michael remained in California caring for Theresa during a period of several months and returned to Florida with her in January of 1991.

During all this, for nearly two years, Michael lived with the Schindlers. It was during that time that they even brought Terri home for a period and tried to give her around the clock care with family taking shifts. This proved unworkable and after a couple of months, Terri went back to the skilled nursing facility. Michael struggled with moving on. In fact, it was the Schindlers, Terri’s parents, that urged him to move on romantically:

It took Michael a long time to consider the prospect of getting on with his life – something he was actively encouraged to do by the Schindlers, long before enmity tore them apart. He was even encouraged by the Schindlers to date, and introduced his in-law family to women he was dating.

It was, however, shortly after this that the malpractice settlement happened. The GAL report delicately sidesteps the question of what went wrong between Michael and the Schindlers, but the malpractice settlement appears to be when it happened. Reading between the lines, I got the impression that it was the parents who started the fight, but I could be wrong. So, what about all that money that Terri got in a malpractice settlement?

Michael Schiavo, on Theresa’s and his own behalf, initiated a medical malpractice lawsuit against the obstetrician who had been overseeing Theresa’s fertility therapy. In 1993, the malpractice action concluded in Theresa and Michael’s favor, resulting in a two element award: More than $750,000 in economic damages for Theresa, and a loss of consortium award (non economic damages) of $300,000 to Michael. The court established a trust fund for Theresa’s financial award, with SouthTrust Bank as the Guardian and an independent trustee. This fund was meticulously managed and accounted for and Michael Schiavo had no control over its use. There is no evidence in the record of the trust administration documents of any mismanagement of Theresa’s estate, and the records on this matter are excellently maintained. [My comment: Shelley called me the other day, sputtering with indignation, after hearing a Focus on the Family guest say he knew that "not one penny" of the award money had been spent on Terri. Evidently that guest didn't read the Guardian Ad Litem's report either.]

...

Michael Schiavo had earlier, formally offered to divest himself entirely of his financial interest in the guardianship estate [in order to remove any hint of bias in his decision to remove the feeding tube].

I have read in other sources, including quotes from the Schindlers’ attorney that the Schindlers refused to go along with Michael’s plan to disinherit himself. Interestingly, they also are not asking themselves to be the new guardian, but rather they are asking for Terri’s siblings to be appointed guardian.

After several years, the aggressive physical therapy appeared to be not working.

By 1994, Michael’s attitude and perspective about Theresa’s condition changed. During the previous four years, he had insistently held to the premise that Theresa could recover and the evidence is incontrovertible that he gave his heart and soul to her treatment and care. This was in the face of consistent medical reports indicating that there was little or no likelihood for her improvement.

The courts would not let Michael remove the feeding tube though since they needed proof she would want the tube removed. Most media would have you believe he was the only source of that information. It turns out that two others testified as to her wishes. The conversations happened after funerals, which makes quite a lot of sense (and is hard to fake).

The hearings and testimony before the trial court leading to the decision to discontinue artificial life support included admitted hearsay from Theresa’s brother-in-law (Michael Schiavo’s brother) and his wife (Michael’s Schiavo’s sister-in-law) along with testimony from Michael. The testimony of these parties referenced specific conversations in which Theresa commented about her desire never to be placed on artificial life support. The testimony reflected conversations at or proximate to funerals of close family members who had been on artificial life support. The context and content of the testimony, while hearsay, was deemed credible and consistent and was used by the court as a supporting bases for its decision to discontinue artificial life support.

The Schindlers, however, were not willing, under any circumstances, to let Terri die. This is some particularly tragic information and my hat is really off to the GAL who went to some pretty heroic lengths to write this both fairly and with kindness.

The Testimony provided by members of the Schindler family included very personal statements about their desire and intention to ensure that Theresa remain alive. Throughout the course of the litigation, deposition and trial testimony by members of the Schindler family voiced the disturbing belief that they would keep Theresa alive at any and all costs. Nearly gruesome examples were given, eliciting agreement by family members that in the event Theresa should contract diabetes and subsequent gangrene in each of her limbs, they would agree to amputate each limb, and would then, were she to be diagnosed with heart disease, perform open heart surgery. There was additional, difficult testimony that appeared to establish that despite the sad and undesirable condition of Theresa, the parents still derived joy from having her alive, even if Theresa might not be at all aware of her environment given the persistent vegetative state. Within the testimony, as part of the hypotheticals presented, Schindler family members stated that even if Theresa had told them of her intention to have artificial nutrition withdrawn, they would not do it. Throughout this painful and difficult trial, the family acknowledged that Theresa was in a diagnosed persistent vegetative state.

My personal belief all along had been that the Schindlers were loving parents desperate to find some shred of intention and awareness in a brain-damaged daughter's autonomic responses. Medical literature is full of references to other equally tragic cases, and I have personally seen family members so hysterical that the rescue squad of which I was a member was threatened with literal violence because we withheld medical care of a woman with a Do Not Resuscitate order. We had to call for police backup to protect us from the woman's son. I know first hand that people can do crazy things when a loved one is beyond help, and I was prepared to excuse the Schindlers.

But after reading this report, I have to revise my opinion. Nothing could be more clear than this statement:

Within the testimony, as part of the hypotheticals presented, Schindler family members stated that even if Theresa had told them of her intention to have artificial nutrition withdrawn, they would not do it. Throughout this painful and difficult trial, the family acknowledged that Theresa was in a diagnosed persistent vegetative state.

In other words, they admitted that the doctors were right. Their daughter was not going to recover, she was gone forever. Most telling, even if she had told them she didn't want to be kept alive that way, THEY WOULD NOT HAVE ALLOWED HER TO DIE. That is not compassion—that is crazy.

What could their motive possibly have been? Learning that their breach with Michael Schiavo came at about the same time as the award of money gives a clue. Now that they have sold their mailing list of supporters to a conservative direct-mailing company, their reasoning is more obvious. I'm going to offer my opinion here, but I think it is probably as well-informed as that of anyone who calls this "judicial murder": it looks to me as though the Schindlers wanted some of the malpractice award, and failing to get it, decided that Michael wouldn't get what he wanted either. I've lost any sympathy I might have had for them. I'm aware that they must have enormous legal bills and that selling the mailing list will help pay those bills, but they brought that situation on themselves.

Now what I want to know is why none of the national media aired any of the Guardian Ad Litem's report, and why the news outlets allowed Michael Schiavo to be depicted as a greedy bigamist, at best, and an abusive husband at worst. This wasn't even yellow journalism; it was outright lying.

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