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Yesterday, as I was checking the
links in my article, Terri's
Law: A Scientology Sham, I discovered that the link
to the text of Terri's Law led me to a page with this message:
"The document was not found." The
website that removed the Terri's Law document is
myfloridahouse.gov. I did find the Terri's Bill document (House
Bill No. 35-E) elsewhere and saved it here.
The fact that
myfloridahouse.gov removed the Terri's Law document and did not
direct the visitor to a new location to view the document caused
me to wonder. I decided to reread Terri's Law. As I reread this
document, I noticed that not once is the phrase "feeding
tube" mentioned. Similar terms such as "artificially
administered feeding" or "medically assisted feeding
and nutrition" are also not found in this document. In
fact, there is no mention of anything having to do with
medically administered nutrition and hydration written into the
law that was supposedly written for the purpose of preventing
the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding/hydration tube!
Terri's Law was not about
preventing the withholding of medically administered
nutrition and hydration (feeding tubes). Terri's Law was about
preventing the withholding of nutrition and hydration
in
general. And it was overturned.
Before you say that there is no
need to define the terms, "nutrition and hydration"
please understand that legal documents are precisely
written. If the Florida Legislature intended to limit the
definition of nutrition and hydration to medically assisted
feeding, they would have done so.
The National
Right to Life attorneys made a point of limiting the meaning of
the word "nutrition" in their Model Starvation and
Dehydration of Persons With Disabilities Prevention Act. In this
proposed legislation, the word "nutrition" is narrowly
defined as follows:
D. “Nutrition”
means sustenance administered by way of the gastrointestinal
tract.
(Quote source: National
Right to Life)
Nutrition and hydration means
food and water in general. Terri's Law, which was touted as the
means by which Florida Governor Jeb
Bush was given the
"authority"
(which expired after 15 days) to issue a one-time stay to
prevent the withholding of nutrition and hydration from Terri
Schiavo (and any others who met the specific criteria outlined
in Terri's Law) was ruled
unconstitutional by the Florida Supreme Court!
Note:
Florida Governor Jeb Bush has failed to reprimand "Judge
Greer" who has violated Florida
statutes and judicial canons and denied Terri the rights
of a person determined incapacitated. Gov Bush did not issue an executive order to prevent what
Pat Anderson stated in her August 4, 2003 brief is "the
first case of euthanasia in Florida's reported case law." Instead,
he opted for
the Terri's
Law Sham which (after it was predictably overturned) paved
the way for judges to withhold regular food and water as well as
the gastric tube. [update: Judge Greer did exactly that in his
illegal Feb.25,2005
court order which resulted in the dehydration death of Terri
Schiavo.]
The precedent set by the
overturning of Terri's Law: In the event that a judge orders the
removal of nutrition and hydration (this includes regular
food
and water) from a person the court has found to be in a
persistent vegetative state and deemed
not able to recover to the level of cognition the court requires
the highest official in the state
may not intervene. Since euthanasia is illegal in all fifty
states, the overturning of Terri's Law is an ominous euthanasia
inroad indeed.
The wording of Terri's Law
combined with the overturning of this legislation produced the highly sought after "withholding of
regular food and
water" precedent the euthanasia movement has been waiting
for. [update]
Return to:
Scientology
Vs Terri Schiavo
1/23/05
modified 5/04/05
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