By
More on Terri Schiavo
Fr. Rob Johansen is back and blogging to save Terri Schiavo's life from her creepy husband and some shady lawyers and judges in Florida. Here are some excerpts from his latest post, Update On Terri Schiavo, or, Being a Judge Means Never Having to Say, "I was Wrong"
In the latest proceeding, Governor Bush asked the most recent court-appointed guardian, Jay Wolfson, to investigate 10 issues related to Terri's case, including such things as the circumstances of the injuries which led to her brain damage. Governor Bush also asked Wolfson to make a determination as to whether Terri and Michael could be divorced. Mr. Wolfson had also, in his report to the court, advocated that swallowing tests be done on Terri, as well as other measures to determine whether there is any likelihood that therapy could improve her condition.

All of these questions, and the request for a swallowing test, are highly inconvenient to Michael Schiavo and his attorney, George Felos. If Michael and Terri can be divorced, then Michael is sunk, and Felos loses the pro-death test case he longs for. If a swallowing test is conducted by honest and independent doctors, then Michael will almost certainly be sunk as well, because such a test will reveal that Terri already is swallowing her own saliva (about 2 to 2.5 liters per day, like most normal adults) and can therefore swallow liquids. If she can swallow liquids, then she can probably re-learn to swallow solid food.

But these questions and the request for a test are also inconvenient to the Florida courts, because honest answers to them will reveal the bias and judicial incompetence, if not outright misconduct, of Judge Greer and, to a lesser extent, Judges Boyer and Baird.

And so, the response of the courts has been, once again, to discharge the guardian ad litem. Once again, there is no independent advocate representing Terri. The Schindlers have petitioned the court to re-instate Jay Wolfson so that he can complete the investigation into Terri's case. Predictably, George Felos opposes the re-instatement, saying that Wolfson had already completed the investigation. Felos has relied upon misinformation and outright deception to make his case, and can't afford to have any further inconvenient facts come to light.

Read the whole thing. It really makes you wonder about those people who are clamouring for Terri's "right" to die. There's a link here to more on the Schiavo case.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Rise Up In The Darkness

By
Image
The teenager who joked with me over physics and algebra homework tonight was 6 months old the morning of September 11, 2001. He spent that day like many other 6 month olds spend their days, exploring his world and being saved from his own curiosity by mom. That morning after I got tired of hauling him back from the edge of the bed he was intent on crawling over I took him downstairs to safer level terrain. I turned on the television to check the news like I did every morning back then. At first I was horrified by what I saw. One smoldering tower. Not long after, while all the reporters and newscasters were struggling to make sense of what they were seeing, one plane, another tower, and I was pissed. At that point I understood what was happening. Why did people think, and still think, that kind of wretchedness served their cause? I didn't care what the cause was. These were arrogant fools. But the news kept coming about just how wretched humanity had been to itself that day. The
Read more

Treating autism as traumatic brain injury

By
I've been doing research into autism, dyspraxia, how the normal brain works, and how an autistic/dyspraxic brain works (or doesn't work). Traumatic injury to different parts of the brain can cause the same problems suffered by autistic and dyspraxic children. Compare this list of the functions of different parts of the brain and the problems caused by injuries to those areas with these descriptions of dyspraxia and autism. What is Developmental Dyspraxia? Developmental dyspraxia is a disorder characterized by an impairment in the ability to plan and carry out sensory and motor tasks. Generally, individuals with the disorder appear "out of sync" with their environment. Symptoms vary and may include poor balance and coordination, clumsiness, vision problems, perception difficulties, emotional and behavioral problems, difficulty with reading, writing, and speaking, poor social skills, poor posture, and poor short-term memory. Although individuals with the disorder may b
Read more

Battlestar Galactica needs more colour?

By
Here are the letters I mentioned in the previous post. The one that started it (I'm guessing these letters were written after the show's first airing at the end of 2003): Galactica Needs More Diversity The problem I had with Battlestar Galactica was there were no major and very few minor African American characters. There were no Black men in the show at all or if they were, they had virtually no screentime. In the original series, Boomer and Tigh were both played by African American actors. In this rendition of Battlestar, those characters were played by Asian and White actors. In the Caprica city, there no African American extras. On the Galactica's bridge, there was only one African American actress. Another Black actress could be found playing a religious official that swore in the new President of the colonies. This was very troubling to me. Do you not want African Americans to watch your show? Do you want to project the idea that African Americans are not part of the
Read more