Time to Let Go

I’m sure by now that you have all heard about the Terry Schiavo case in Florida. The woman is brain damaged and some doctors say that she is in a ‘persistent vegetative state.’ She has been this way for 15 years. Her husband says that she had told him that she did not want her life artificially extended through life support, her parents deny that.

But her parents are in denial about a lot of things. Not the least of which is the fact that their daughter is already gone. I challenge just about anyone that reads this to watch the video of Terry that the family has released and tell me that you would WANT to live that way. What quality of life does Terry have … they say that her husband is trying to murder her … it looks to me more like they are trying to torture her.

The good news is that if Terry DOES somehow … against the best projections of doctors … ‘wake up’ she’ll have completely missed the Clinton presidency and all of the insanity that went with it.

They say that the courts and the doctors are ‘playing God’ in forcing the removal of the feeding tube … the only way that Terry is able to get the nutrition that she needs to keep her alive. I would say that the people ‘playing God’ are the people keeping her alive through artificial means. If you want to bring God into this then take the feeding tube out and let God decide if Terry lives or dies … if God wants her to live then she’ll recover enough to eat and drink in order to get the nutrition that she needs to continue to survive.

Terry’s parents say that her husband, Michael Schiavo, is just trying to get her life insurance money … but Michael has turned down offers of millions of dollars to let her live … they also say that he just wants her dead so that he can marry his girlfriend and have begged him to divorce their daughter and let them care for her.

That would have been the easy way out for Michael. This battle has been raging since 2001 … the first time that the courts ordered the tube removed … it was then ordered re-inserted when a new witness surfaced. The tube was ordered removed again in 2003 but 6 days later Gov Jeb Bush of Florida passed a law called “Terry’s Law” that effectively made Terry a ward of the state and took away Michael’s rights to her care and had the tube re-inserted again. The Florida Supreme Court later ruled that the Governor had overstepped his authority and declared “Terry’s Law” unconstitutional leading to the Feb 2005 court ruling to remove the tube for a third time.

So why would someone turn down millions of dollars to continue the legal fight to let his wife die naturally? Why would he refuse the easy ‘uncontested’ divorce in favor of long drawn out court battles? Money? Not likely … the trust fund from her malpractice suit has been emptied and I find it unlikely that her ‘life insurance’ would match the offers of millions. To marry another? I’m sure that Michael will likely re-marry after Terry dies … he has children and has been involved with this other woman for several years now … but it would have been much easier to do that if he’d just given in and divorced Terry. The only answer that truly makes sense is that he really believes that it is what Terry wants … and that he could not, in clear conscious, let her parents have their way against Terry’s wishes.

There are plenty of you that read this and know me personally … to all of you I say publicly don’t let that happen to me. I do not want to be kept alive through artificial means … I don’t want to be a lump in a hospital bed with machines keeping me alive. If it is me there in Terry’s place … pull the plug … and if the government tells you that you can’t pull the plug … put a bullet in my head instead.

To Terry’s parents I say … your daughter is gone … you are not helping her with this fight … you are not giving her a better life … you are not saving her. It’s time to let her go.