Terri's Death: Catalyst for Reform, Cause for Shame
by Allie Martin and Bill Fancher
April 4, 2005
(AgapePress) - The president of a Florida-based Christian law firm says the death of Terri Schiavo may serve as the catalyst for a change in the law.For almost two weeks, Terri Schiavo lay in a Florida hospice without food or water. Her estranged husband, Michael, said his brain-damaged wife would never have wanted to be sustained through a feeding tube. Florida Judge George Greer ultimately agreed with him, ordering the tube removed on March 18 -- and she died on March 31.
Liberty Counsel, based in Orlando, filed briefs with district and appeals courts in support of Terri. Mat Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, says the case illustrates the need for changes in the law when a legal guardian -- such as in case of Michael Schiavo -- has a direct conflict of interest.
Mat Staver | |
"We ought to turn this into a time of triumph," Staver says. "Terri's life must not end in tragedy; it must begin the beginning of triumph -- and I think it can do that in several ways." One of those ways, he notes, is by "sparking judicial reform and legislative reform." The attorney explains what he means."When you start to equate food and water with medical treatment, that's a slippery slope that we've passed and we must regain. We must respect life," he continues, "because if it's Terri Shiavo today, it's an Alzheimer's patient tomorrow. It's an elderly individual in a nursing home, as well, who cannot bring a spoon to her mouth to feed herself -- or it's someone at the very beginning of life who is unable to feed themselves because of their circumstances."
Staver is convinced that if Terri Schiavo had been convicted of capital murder and sentenced to die, there would have been universal outrage had she been sentenced to die by starvation and dehydration.
A New American Tradition?
A constitutional expert says the Terri Schiavo tragedy represents a national failure. Howard Phillips says there is plenty of blame to go around in the court-ordered killing of the invalid woman. The founder of the Conservative Caucus says it begins with an activist judiciary that showed it is out of control by ordering Terri's starvation death.
"The Congress of the United States blew its opportunity [when] its message to the Florida judiciary was inexpertly and ineffectively drawn," Phillips suggests, adding that in his opinion, the executive branches of government -- specifically Jeb and George Bush -- also failed.
"Neither Governor Bush nor President Bush used the authority assigned them respectively under the Florida and the federal constitutions to do what they could have and should have done to prevent this Hitlerian judge [George] Greer and this Hitlerian so-called 'husband,' Michael Schiavo, from killing an innocent woman," the conservative leader says.
The death of Terri Schiavo, he says, demonstrates just how ineffective and misled the various branches of American government currently are.
"Neither the executive, nor the legislative, nor the judicial branches of our government at the federal and state levels distinguished themselves on this issue," he says.
Phillips adds that he is ashamed of his nation's handling of the entire Terri Schiavo incident -- and ashamed that court-ordered killing how now become a practice in America.
Allie Martin and Bill Fancher, regular contributors to AgapePress, are reporters for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
