WorldNetDaily: Terri Schiavo dies of thirst

That happened at 14:05 UTC, or 9:05 a.m. EST. And, true to form, Michael Schiavo refused to allow any member of the Schinder family attend the moment of her death.

The article gives details of who was, and who was not, with Terri on this the final day of her life. Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, laid it on the line, in repeated interviews with Fox News: this was no mere death; it was murder.

And once again, I hope that certain players in this drama are satisfied. George Felos gets another death to swoon over. George Greer--well, his motives are difficult to pin down, but he, too, has a history of preferring death in such cases, though he has never given as many clues as has George Felos as to why he thinks this way. Michael Schiavo, of course, now gets to be with his Sweet Patootie.

The next event will be a medical examiner's autopsy. Ironically, Michael Schiavo might have triggered this by being so foolish as to insist on a cremation--because under Florida law (as is the law in most States), any body that is to be cremated must come to autopsy. The ME's will look at her bones, and will look at her brain. What they find, if the attitudes of my former medical colleagues is any indicator, will contribute to a rancorous debate that touches the proper interpretation of clinical signs and computed tomograms of the brain, whether she ever was in a "persistent vegetative state," and whether--as I strongly suspect--Michael Schiavo had put Terri into the condition she was in.

I know that this blog gets some regular readers, because of the comments I've gotten. To the person who threatened death to me and to all those who see abortion and euthanasia as the abominations that they are, let me warn you: maybe you didn't leave a signature, but HaloScan has your IP address. And if I ever catch another such threatening comment on my blog from that address, I will call the FBI, or whoever investigates cybernetic threats. Do not think that Internet correspondence is inherently untraceable.

That aside, many of you insist that Terri Schindler Schiavo would have wanted to die. But what do you rely on to determine that? All that Michael Schiavo ever adduced as evidence to support his claim was his own recollection and (though this is unconfirmed) the recollections of certain members of his own immediate family. That, sportsfans, is hearsay. The law in Florida, unfortunately, allows "evidence" of verbal wishes when no written documents exist concerning a patient's wishes for care while incapacitated. But the law also says that such evidence must be clear and convincing. How Judge Greer could pronounce himself convinced that Terri Schindler Schiavo would have wanted to die is beyond my comprehension. Therefore, if you are relying on Judge Greer's finding-of-fact in this case, then I say to you that that finding is in error and the facts are disputable.

More broadly, I stand by my earlier recommendation: Florida must amend its statutes so that hearsay will never again be admissible as evidence that any person would have wanted to refuse food and water. And as to this case, Judge George Greer has committed not only a number of reversible errors but also a number of impeachable offenses. Setting aside those Congressional subpoenas is the clearest of these.

And I repeat another thing that I have said: the Congress was entirely within its authority to act as it did. Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution clearly provides that Congress may by law regulate the jurisdiction of the courts. Congress could as easily have ordained and established a special federal magistrate, had such been its pleasure. Why it did not so choose, I can only speculate--though perhaps the creation of such a special court would have required selecting a candidate to sit on that court and holding confirmation proceedings in the Senate. Instead, Congress ordered the courts to review the facts of the case with a view to determine whether Judge Greer's fact-finding was in error. This Judge James Whittemore refused to do, and neither the Eleventh Circuit nor the Supreme Court caught that error.

In fact, I understand that one Justice of the Eleventh Circuit actually said that Congress' action was unconstitutional! On what basis, I ask? Does Congress have the authority to set the rules of the courts, or doesn't it? The only ground I could possibly see is an allegation that Congress' action somehow violated Article IV, which directs Congress to guarantee to the States that they will be under a republican government--meaning one in which interference in State affairs is kept to a minimum. Gee--I wonder whether the late General Robert E. Lee, Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, would agree that Congress has been so scrupulous in the past.

To those who insist that "this is a private family matter," I ask this: Why do we have laws against spousal or child abuse? Shall we vest in a husband the full authority to kill his wife at his pleasure, as husbands had in ancient Rome?

Oh, but you ask, this was a matter of her "right to die." If anything, this case, and the disgusting manner of its handling, ought to prompt our society to re-examine the entire question of a "right to die." I know perfectly well that many who will read these words would wish that our society had the full gamut of euthanasia "options" now available in the Netherlands. Fine--you just think about that when you become incapacitated, and your greedy heirs are already planning their vacations to St. Tropez just as soon as they can ram your will through probate, or whatever they call it in your State. Wives, think about that if your husbands start to cast roving eyes. And to Jodi Centonze, I repeat: Think about what happened to your predecessor as Mrs. Michael Schiavo. As you prepare to become Wife Number Two, watch out for Wife Number Three. I have no idea who that person might be. That is not my affair. But it is yours. What happened to Terri Schindler Schiavo might happen, someday, to Jodi Centonze Schiavo. Statistics clearly show that remarriages between adulterers and their co-respondents never last--and sometimes they don't even last as long as the original marriages that the co-respondents managed to break up. Because a man who will rove on his wife will rove again, and he can always--always--find another squeeze where the current squeeze came from. Think about that, Jodi Centonze. And one more thing: You're a big girl. You handle it--if you can.