Judicial Lawlessness - and a Death Warrant on an Innocent

The Men in Black have had quite a run-up in the last couple of weeks. First, the Supremes discover, in the mores of some European nations, a protection from the traditional punishment for cold-blooded murder, if the cold-blooded murderers were under an arbitrary, American-instituted age for adulthood. Next, the Imperial Court, California division, uncovered Constitutional protections for deviant marriage, of a sort never seen before in the storied history of h.sapiens.

And now, comes before a lawless Florida probate judge, a man with a comatose wife and - some have accused - a life insurance policy on her wife. The patient should be "allowed" to die, says the Pinellas Probate judge, George Greer - in accedence to her husband's understanding of his wife's wishes. To this end, an order is being issued to end the "heroic measures" which are keeping her alive...essentially a feeding tube.

The facts, such as they are, are not pretty. Michael Schiavo came home to find his wife in collapse, so say police reports. The injuries are in line with oxygen deprivation - which could have been caused by respiratory arrest...or, as some have alleged, by an attempted strangulation. The incident left Terri unresponsive but in an awake, altered state. Medical experts disagree as to whether Terri is in fact comatose.

And the husband wants to let her die.

This isn't an uncommon response. Not everyone is cut out for sainthood; not every spouse is going to grieve at the foot of the bed for decades. Michael Schiavo has indeed gotten on with his life, finding another mate and fathering children by her.

The logical next step would be to seek dissolution of the marriage. Michael Schiavo has done the opposite.

As the legal guardian, Schiavo has blocked, to the extent he has been able, Terri's parents' access to their daughter. And in the meantime, he has been waging a fifteen-year legal battle - to remove the feeding tube and starve his incapacitated wife to death.

The parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, have asked Michael to divorce his wife. They've tried to institute divorce proceedings in Terri's name. They've offered to take on all legal and physical responsibilities for Terri's care.

This is not good enough for the stalwart husband. There is one, and only one, outcome that Michael Schiavo desires: The death of his wife.

On that basis, this is a grotesque story replete with villianous motives and inhuman demands. The case has long ago moved from the presumed issue of a "right" to "death with dignity" into a ghoulish quest to expedite, even cause, her death by dehydration.

A valid case can be made - has been, many times in the past thirty years - about "death with dignity" as opposed to prolonging life, and suffering, with heroic measures and life-support devices. The legal tool in such cases has come to be called the "living will" - expressing the patient's desires, written before any tragic event.

But this case has gone far beyond that, beyond the law. Terri Schindler Schiavo had left no living will behind; nor could she reasonably be expected to. At the time or her collapse, she was a young woman in her twenties.

Nor is this about "heroic measures." Nutrition and fluids via a stomach tube is a commonplace method of sustaining patients who cannot swallow. It's a relatively non-intrusive sustenance tool.

This is about a man who brings to Probate Court an unconscionable request; who will accept no compromises. This is about a judge who has placed himself above the law and who has made it his mission to see his order instituted

And for that reason, this obscenity is about the breakdown of law and order in America - of a "justice" system rife with rogue judges who ignore law while using the power of the judiciary to implement arbitrary rule by judicial fiat.

In the Schiavo case, Judge Greer has ignored any number of alternate resolutions, in keeping with Terri's right to an existence aided by her willing parents. He has denied their request to assume legal guardianship.

He has ignored their request to have Terri's marriage dissolved.

He has refused to compromise in any way, shape or form.

In a ruling archived on the Web - http://www.terrisfight.org/documents/030805orderdenyfood.pdf - he has ordered that food and fluid be deprived to Terri by natural means, as well as by feeding tube.

Is that shocking enough? Should it come out that Terri turn out to be aware enough to swallow water...the hospital is under Court Orders to deny sustenence to the patient!

Pinellas Probate Judge George Greer, insignificant legal flunky in a county in Florida, has ordered a defenseless woman to a horrifying, painful, inhuman DEATH!

This is the liberal subculture, hidden like grubs under flagstones, finally percolating to the surface.

"Enlightened," "sophisticated" liberals have always scoffed at conservatives' "camel's nose" theory: That once a tenet, a belief, an approach, such as control of property in the name of the environment or aborting a fetus "in extreme cases," comes into acceptance, it will be pushed further and further - until it is finally stopped and repelled.

There is no clearer display of liberal insanity. Convicted murderers a few months shy of their eighteenth birthday AT THE TIME OF THE CRIME - are shielded from the consequences. Sodomite marriage, a preposterous concept for all of human history - is suddenly a Constitutional right.

And this woman, who has done nothing beyond marry unwisely - is being sentenced to death by dehydration.

The culture in America is going insane, and, my fervent hope is that its citizens may begin to take notice.

As I write this, it's 5:00am on a Sunday morning, Eastern Time. And a tortured, handicapped woman in Florida lies dying a tortuous death by dehydration.

May God have mercy on Terri Schiavo. And may God avenge her killers.

http://www.terrisfight.org/

Indianapolis, Indiana

March 20, 2005

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JustPassinThru is a pseudonym for a blue-collar middle-class Everyman, who lives and works in the Midwest

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