Tom McMahon

Michael Schiavo’s World

An excerpt from Chuck Colson:

Joking aside, Michael Schiavo’s world is a dangerous and scary place, a place where the “survival of the fittest” is taken to a whole new level—a place where a badly brain-damaged woman should have her food and water taken away simply because she is badly brain damaged and her husband says she would not want to live that way. It’s a place where it’s easy for even a registered nurse like Michael Schiavo to confuse food, which everyone needs, with the kind of life support, like a respirator, which his wife did not need. It’s a place where, as Schiavo is accustomed to saying with a straight face, taking someone’s food away is not starving her to death; it’s simply allowing her to die peacefully and painlessly. (Why a hospice needs to administer morphine to a person dying painlessly is something that Schiavo does not bother to explain, like so many other issues.)

A Matter Of Life And Death

Excerpts from The Evangelical Outpost on how Michael Schiavo got away with killing his wife:

While he was still married to Terri, Michael cohabitated with Jodi Centonze, a woman with whom he shares two children. He later married Centonze in January 2006. Under Florida state law, if Michael had attempted to marry Jodi while Terri was s still living, his action would be considered “illegal, bigamous, and void from its inception.” In fact, if a marriage license were found showing that Michael and Jodi had secretly married before Terri’s death, he would have been denied guardianship of his invalid wife. Yet because Florida repealed common law marriage laws in 1968, Michael Schiavo was able to live like a bigamist without having to suffer the legal consequences.

Florida is also a "no fault" divorce state, which means that a history of infidelity is of no concern to the courts. While adulterous conduct might be used in determining the "moral fitness" of a parent seeking custody, it apparently can’t be used as evidence of lack of “moral fitness” to be a husband. Even though he committed adultery, sired illegitimate children, and openly shared Terri’s marriage bed with another woman, he was still considered fit to undertake his role as a “husband.” By giving Michael Schiavo guardianship over his “wife”, the courts proved that the marriage laws in Florida can be as absurd as those in India.

Social conservatives spend an inordinate amount of hand-wringing over the threat to traditional marriage posed by the legal recognition of same-sex relationships. Gay marriage is, of course, a legitimate concern. But it would take an army of homosexual rights activists several decades to do as much damage to the sacred institution as heterosexuals have done by tolerating no-fault divorce and the repeal of common law marriage. The looming threat pales in comparison to the present danger of destructive marriage laws which have, for at least one young woman, literally become a matter of life and death.

One Year Ago: March Madness

One Year Ago: March Madness

That Darn Brain Damaged Florida Woman

From a newly-discovered (by me, anyway) satire site, BlameBush:

Florida Woman is Brain Dead, Autopsy Confirms

An autopsy performed on the Brain Damaged Florida Woman, or "Terri Schiavo" as her ignorant parents call her, confirms that she is in fact brain dead, and chances of a full recovery are slim at best. This must be tragic news for the right-wing cons who have maintained all along that she was a living human being, and thus deserving of the same rights to life and liberty typically reserved for cop killers and terrorists. Science trumps superstition once again. Progressives: 9,974, Religious Zealots: 0.

The Terri Schiavo Grave Marker (Corrected Version)

The Terri Schiavo Grave Marker (Corrected Version)

Satire

Love Acts The Part

Love Acts The Part
                                     -Emmet Fox

In his book 50 Ways to Create Great Relationships, Steve Chandler admits that it took him a long time to let that sink in. Love acts like love would act. It doesn't act some other part. In our ordinary lives, we know this. We can spot a young couple in love a mile away. We can spot it in the old couple who are still genuinely fond of each other. We can do this because love acts the part. We can even spot this love in people long dead  --  through their photographs. One reason I get such a kick out of photos of old-time radio comedian Fred Allen and his wife Portland Hoffa is that you can just tell they're still in love, many years after their wedding. And you can tell this in the recordings of their long-ago radio broadcasts. Their affection for each other almost literally leaps out at you from the speakers in the radio. You can tell this because love always acts the part.

You can tell the love in life's tougher situations, too. Love takes care of you when you are sick. It visits you in the hospital. It comes to the funeral when your loved one dies. Love doesn't forget to call. It doesn't forget to visit. Because love always acts the part. It doesn't act some other part.

If someone says "I'm sorry I never visited you when you were in the hospital for 6 months, but I still love you.", you know it's not true, because that's not how love would act. The not-coming-by-for-6-months is a different part, one that love doesn't act.

Jessie Arbogast

In that long-ago summer before 9/11 Jessie Arbogast was in the news because he was saved from a shark attack by his uncle. But unfortunately Jessie lost so much blood that he suffered a brain injury similar to our son Ryan. That's a picture taken in 2004 of Jessie with his parents David and Claire Arbogast. David Arbogast gave up his job as a tile setter three years ago and became Jessie's full-time caregiver.  They take care of him at home and Jessie interacts with his brothers and sisters with smiles and laughter.

Love Acts The Part. Love takes care of you, even when it isn't easy. Love is there for you, even when all seems hopeless. And when it gets knocked down, love picks itself off the ground and carries itself with as much grace and dignity as it can muster.

And love doesn't act some other part. It doesn't win money for your care, then try to keep it for itself. It doesn't abandon you. It doesn't run off with someone else. And of course, it certainly doesn't starve you to death. It wouldn't think of denying you water until you died a slow, slow painful death of dehydration. And love wouldn't make your grave marker a grotesque monument to its own ego. That's all acting out some other part, but that part isn't love.

Because what is true is true always: Love Acts The Part.

UPDATE 6/30/2005: Charlie Sykes of WTMJ radio in Milwaukee read part of this post on his morning show to-day. Thanks, Charlie!

Terri Schiavo's Final Hours: An Eyewitness Account

An excerpt from Father Frank Pavone:

Brothers and sisters to describe the way she looked as peaceful is a total distortion of what I saw. Here now was a person, who for thirteen days had no food or water. She was, as you would expect, very drawn in her appearance as opposed to when I had seen her before. Her eyes were open but they were going from one side to the next, constantly oscillating back and forth, back and forth. The look on her face (I was staring at her for three and a half-hours) I can only describe as a combination of fear and sadness … a combination of dreaded fear and sadness.

Her mouth was open the whole time. It looked like it was frozen open. She was panting rapidly. It wasn't peaceful in any sense of the word. She was panting as if she had just run a hundred miles. But a shallow panting. Her brother Bobby was sitting opposite me. He was on one side of the bed I was on the other facing him. Terri's head in between us and her sister Suzanne was on my left. We sat there and we had a very intense time of prayer. And we were talking to Terri, urging her to entrust herself completely to the Savior. I assured her repeatedly of the love and prayers and concern of so many people.

We held her hand and stroked her head. During those hours, one of the things I did was to chant, in Latin, some of the most ancient hymns of the Church. One of the chants I used was the "Victimae Paschali Laudis," which is the ancient proclamation of the resurrection of Christ. There, as I saw before my eyes the deadly work of the Culture of Death, I proclaimed the victory of life. "Life and death were locked in a wondrous struggle," the hymn declares. "Life's Captain died, but now lives and reigns forevermore!"

And then we had just times of silence … just sitting there in silence trying to absorb what was happening.

More Thoughts on Terri Schiavo

From George Neumayr:

Under judge-made law, euthanasia has become America's most astonishing form of premeditated murder, a cold-blooded crime in which husbands can kill their wives and even turn them into accomplices to it through the telepathy of "their wishes." To wonder if we're on the slippery slope sounds like an obtuse moral compliment at this point. The truth is we're at the bottom of the slope and have been for quite some time, standing dumbly as the bodies of innocent humans pile up around us. As we sift through them -- puzzling over how they got so numerous -- we're reduced to mumbling sophistries about compassion and consent.

This is the "humane holocaust" of which Malcolm Muggeridge wrote, a culture that kills the weak, from deaf unborn children to mute disabled women, and calls it mercy. Those responsible for this humane holocaust look into the mirror and see Gandhi, but it is Hitler who glances back. If someone had taken the passages of Mein Kampf that speak of euthanizing "unfortunates" and inserted them into the columns from newspapers and magazines cheering Schiavo's death, would anyone have known the difference?

From Frank Salvato:

Greer’s tenure presiding over the Schiavo case offered a plethora of questionable decisions.
Why did he admit hearsay evidence as fact? Why did he assume the role of Terri’s guardian in the face of a conflict of interest and against Florida judicial canon? Why did he refuse to appoint a Guardian ad Litem for Terri in light of Michael Schiavo’s compromised moral and ethical positions? Why did he fail to enforce Florida law that would have provided Terri therapy until her demise? Why did he allow Michael Schiavo to spend money designated for Terri’s care on legal services designed to end her life? Why did he allow Terri to be admitted to a hospice under false pretenses? Why did he fail to order confirming MRI and PET scan evaluations? Why did he admit into evidence the testimony of a biased medical panel some of whom were right-to-die advocates? And why didn’t he recuse himself in the face of his flagrant bias against the Schindler family when petitioned to do so? These glaring transgressions against Florida law, US law and Florida judicial canon should have sounded an alarm; instead they were upheld in court after court after court.

An even more disturbing fact is that the federal judiciary – whether you agree or disagree with how they came to be included in this case – refused to even address the inequities of Greer’s court. Charged with reviewing the case de novo, the federal judiciary did nothing of the sort. Instead they engaged in a deadly game of indignance with the legislative and executive branches of our federal government. They refused to hear arguments and gave no cause. They played constitutional politics while a life hung in the balance. Terri’s life clock clicked onward toward her hour of reckoning and the tyranny of judicial activism donned the dark shroud of death.

From Mary Mostert:

Terri went 60 hours without food or water before a different judge issued an emergency stay because new evidence had come to light, and her feeding was resumed. She died almost exactly 5 years later with Felos leading the legal battle to withhold food and water from Terri. Two years ago, Felos had already been paid over $400,000 out of Terri’s $1 million malpractice award. Bobby and Suzanne had visitation rights reinstated only on condition that they would not try to spoon feed their sister. Greer was reported to have said: "I don't want anyone trying to feed that girl!" In 2003 Judge Greer rejected a request by Robert and Mary Schindler asking that their daughter be allowed an eight-week trial of speech, occupational and physical therapy to teach Terri to swallow food so she could be spoon-fed once the feeding tube is removed.” ...

In 1861 it took a Civil War to reverse the U.S. Supreme Court Dred Scott decision, that declared people of African descent were not real people or citizens under the U.S. Constitution. How fitting it is that Jesse Jackson, a black man, in a last minute effort tried to rally black legislators in Florida to support a white woman’s right to food and water and life! Terri didn’t just die. Unelected judges in defiance of the US Constitution and the elected representatives of the people ordered her death.

Would You Rather Be OJ's Girlfriend Or Michael Schiavo's Fiancee?

From (who else?) Ann Coulter:

Opinions about the Schiavo case seem to break down less on morals than on basic knowledge of the facts of the case.

There are a lot of telling facts, but two big ones are:

• The only family member lobbying for Terri's death is her husband, who is affianced to a woman he's been living with for several years and with whom he already has two children. (Today's brain twister: Would you rather be O.J.'s girlfriend or Michael Schiavo's fiancee?)


• Terri's husband has refused to allow her to be given either an MRI or a PET scan, which are also known as: "The tests that could determine whether Terri is even in a permanent vegetative state." (I believe his exact words were, "PET scan? MRI? What do I look like, a guy who just won a $1 million malpractice settlement?")

On the basis of these facts, Pinellas County Judge George Greer found that it was Terri's wish to be starved to death. She requires no life support; all she needs is food and water. If being (a) on a liquid diet, and (b) unresponsive to one's estranged husband are now considered grounds for a woman's execution, wait until this news hits Beverly Hills!

So What Would You Do?

An excellent, thought-provoking piece by Therese over at Exultet:

Living next door to the Schiavos

What if you lived next door to Michael Schiavo and his household? Would you let your children play with his children? Would you speak to him? The mother of his children? Would you hire him? Would you do business with whoever employs him?

What are the charitable actions, the merciful attitudes, to pursue in living next door to a man whose heart is filled with such anger and evil? Do we shake his dust off our shoes, put him out from among us? Or do we extend our hand?

This is a dramatic example, but I'm sure you found out, as I have, how many hearts around you harbor cruelty and disdain for life, expressed in mean and callous water cooler conversations and dinner table discussions. Our response to them is, in a way, a proportional one to actually living next door to Terri's murderer.