On Fri, 01 Apr 2005 20:43:26 GMT, "Gary" wrote:


"P.Fritz" wrote:

And the strongest evidence that her husband could have given was
announcing her desire immediately, not years later when he was
impregnating someone else.


Her husband does not have to do things on YOUR time-table. As I understand
it he tried for years to do everything he could to find a way for her to
recover. It also seems very possible that for a few years after that he just
didn't know what
do to. It's very easy to imagine that he was in conflict between wanting to
follow her expressed desires to not be kept alive by machines one the one
hand -- and not wanting to make that horrible decision to let her die on the
other. Then
there was a while of legal battles. The fact that this took 13 years does
not in any way mean that he did the wrong thing or that his motives are
suspect.




"P.Fritz" wrote:

The courts should have appointed a 3rd party guardian for her, but from
what I understand, the parents were outlawyerd and once the judgment was
entered, the high courts could only rule on the validity of the lower
court ruling.....not retry the facts of the case.

The husband was the legal guardian. Unless he was shown to be incompetent
(which is not the same thing as just disagreeing with You) why should his
rights be taken away? If a person signs a health proxy giving decision
making
rights to their spouse, then were in an accident, and then their parents
contested the spouses rights -- but with no indication that the spouse was
incompetent -- by what right & reason should a judge step in and assign
rights to a 3rd party?


I don't know if you are one of those "damned activist judges!" crowd, but to
me, a judge that takes rights from someone for no reason would be *way* in
the wrong. And just because the husband is not making the decision that you
would want or just because you *think* his motives are suspect is not a good
reason to take away his rights.

PS: Someone mentioned here that a 3rd party guardian had been appointed
as some point(s). Anyone know more about that?


This seems like a fairly unbiased account of what happened:

http://www.miami.edu/ethics2/schiavo/timeline.htm


--
John H

"All decisions are the result of binary thinking."