Terri's Father: She's 'Very Weak' but Valiant in Battle to Live
by Jody Brown
March 28, 2005
(AgapePress) - Ten days without food and water is taking its continued toll on the brain-damaged woman in Florida whose life and court-ordered death drama has been at the center of an often heated pro-life debate. According to Terri Schiavo's parents, she is fading -- but still determined to fight for her life.Terri Schiavo, who received communion and last rites on Easter Sunday, continues to hang on to life in Florida as she lies in a hospice care unit. The Roman Catholic priest who delivered the communion said the brain-damaged woman's mouth was too dry to receive the communion wafer, but that he gave her a droplet of sacramental wine. According to Father Thaddeus Malanowski, Terri did not react at all when he gave her communion.
"When someone faces imminent death, you've got to give [communion] to them," the retired priest told reporters. "They have the right to it -- and I have the obligation to give it to them. That's the teaching of the [Catholic] Church."
It has been 10 days since the 41-year-old woman's feeding tube was removed, as sought by her estranged husband Michael. She had relied on the tube for sustenance since suffering severe brain damage 15 years ago when her heart stopped beating and oxygen to the brain was cut off.
According to testimony from her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, Terri is "very, very, very weak" -- and their lead lawyer, David Gibbs III, told Face the Nation that she has "passed where physically she would be able to recover." But the attorney's claim has been disputed by pro-life protesters outside the hospice.
But despite Terri's emaciated condition, her father says she continues to fight for her life. "She has just incredible strength to live," Schindler told reporters. And he continued to plead to "the powers that be" not to give up on his daughter. "We haven't given up on her and she hasn't given up on us," he said.
Among Mr. Schindler's implied "powers that be" are Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who was urged late last week by a Michigan-based legal group to launch a criminal investigation into the circumstances surrounding Terri's disability. The Thomas More Law Center says the Florida governor has the constitutional authority to demand such an investigation, and suggests the brain-damaged woman may be a victim of domestic abuse and neglect.
But today (Monday) Governor Bush, saying his "heart is broken about this," told reporters his legal advisors have told him there appears to be no means through which the executive branch of the state government can get involved -- and that all he can do is abide by the decisions made by federal courts last week to not to have Terri's feeding tube reinserted.
Defiance of Judicial Tyranny?
But a noted evangelist has suggested that Governor Bush disregard those judicial orders and intervene. Dr. D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Ft. Lauderdale says Bush has "both the authority and the duty to do so under the state constitution."
The pastor points out that the Florida constitution states that "all natural persons, female and male alike, are equal before the law, and have inalienable rights, among which are the right to enjoy and defend life" -- and that "no person shall be deprived of any right because of ... physical disability." And the governor, says Kennedy, has "supreme executive power" -- as well as the constitutional duty -- to see that the laws of the state are carried out faithfully.
According to Kennedy, says WorldNetDaily, the governor is sworn to uphold the constitution and obligated to safeguard this constitutional guarantee of the "inalienable right ... to enjoy and defend life."
"The governor may not disregard that obligation even if a member of the judiciary has ordered otherwise. He is not bound by a court order that is at odds with a constitutional guarantee," Kennedy says.
But the same WND report carries comments from Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice, who says if Governor Bush were to step in now, he would be setting himself up for contempt of court. Consequently, Sekulow could not advise the governor to defy court orders.
But pro-life activist Randall Terry has no such reservations. He says state and federal lawmakers need to take a stand against Judge George Greer, who rejected the Schindler family's motion to have Terri Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted.
"What in the name of God and all that is good is going on here that the entire U.S. government and the entire Florida government lay prostrate at the feet of a tin-pot judge named Greer -- a little, petty dictator?" Terry wonders. "The question is, can a judge tell a governor he can't obey the law?"
The pro-lifer says that even by asking whether or not a judge should be defied, "we are playing into the hands of judicial tyrants."
