The only way to change the law with regards to cases such as this, and this case wasn’t the first and it will not be the last, is to work from within the system to change the law, and not advocate murder, as one idiot over at Lee’s site is doing.

And before anyone hits me with the “we don’t really know what Terri’s wishes are/were” argument, consider this.  Everytime, not one time, not two times, not three times, but everytime that argument was used in a court of law judges (yes plural) ruled in favor of the argument that Terri would not have wanted to live in such a state. 

For those of you who would say that there is some type of conspiracy on the part of Michael to kill Terri to get to the 1.6 million dollar malpractice damage award, consider the following: 

Number One—In order to believe that such a conspiracy exists one would have to believe that Judge Greer, the Appelate Division of the Florida Courts, the Florida Supreme Court, United States Federal District Court Judges, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal, and the United States Supreme Court are all in on it.  Or, at the very least, they are all unwitting dupes to it.

Number Two—Michael Schiavo has been in the past, and just here recently, offered siginificant sums of money to either transfer guardianship of Terri to her parents or re-insert her feeding tube, and both times he has said no (also, consider that the most recent offer was somewhere in the neighborhood of ten million dollars).

Consider those two things, and the whole monetary conspiracy angle falls apart.

“But Kevin”, people will say, “what about the allegations that he beat Terri!” Where is the proof that he did?  I am a former police officer, and believe me evidence of domestic violence which, for all intents and purposes, would point to murder in this case would be present almost immediately.  Yet detectives have investigated those very same claims and have found them wholly without merit.

Why won’t Michael transfer guardianship to Terri, even though he seems to have a conflict of interest in this case?  Other people might ask.  Where’s the conflict?  Courts of law have ruled in his favor time and time again, and they have found no conflict.

Michael has a new family!  Others will say.  So what?  He needs to be penalized for moving on with his life?  He must be punished because he procreated with another woman while his brain dead wife languishes in a waking coma, neither dead nor truly alive?

The timing is suspect, others might say.  During the malpractice trial he said he would use the award to keep Terri alive!  And after the trial was over and he moved on with another woman he remembers suddenly she wanted to die? He did attempt a rather, in my opinion, radical procedure to restart her brain.  He received training as a nurse to help Terri.  And after 7 years he came to the conclusion, in consultation with Terri’s doctors, that there was no Terri to help.  That there was no brain to restart.  In a sense it could be said he gave up.  Perhaps he thought he was being selfish by not following Terri’s final wishes.  Wishes I reiterate that have been found to be factual and true by the courts.

Why not transfer guardianship to Terri’s parents and walk away?  Perhaps Michael is just mule stubborn.  Perhaps he is adamant about seeing this ordeal through to the end.  Perhaps he is just a mean spirited bastard who never liked Terri’s parents and is doing this out of spite.  But that is nothing but idle speculation.

I well and truly feel for the Schindler’s (Terri’s parents) they do not want to say good bye to their daughter—and had I been the Judge in this case I would have transferred guardianship of Terri to her parents.  Which would have discounted the law completely, guess it’s a good thing I was not the Judge in this case.  No parent wishes to outlive their child.  I know I wouldn’t want to outlive my son.  However, that wish is, I believe, blinding the Schindler’s to one obvious fact; their daughter died 15 years ago, all that made Terri unique and special ended on that long ago evening.

All that said, I do disagree with how Terri is going to die, indeed as I stated eariler in this entry, I find it morally repugnant.  Dying of thirst (which is what is going to kill her first) is not a pleasant way to go.  And in a humane society it would better, at least for me, to give her a lethal injection of morphine or a euthanasia agent, and have her go quickly than linger.  But that’s me, the law apparently doesn’t allow for it.  Which says more about the law than it does me, I imagine.