I thought that this column sums up perfectly the Terri Schiavo circus. What surprised me more than anything was this was written by Mike Thomas a columnist for the Orlando Sentinel. Mike is a good columnist, who normally writes about the good Christian Republicans doing marvelous deeds. He takes a snipe at Sean Hannity here and it surprised me.
Here is the article:
Dr. William Cheshire, a Mayo Clinic neurologist, observed Terri Schiavo shortly before she died. He wrote:
"As I looked at Terri and she looked back at me, I asked myself whether I could in good conscience withdraw her feeding and hydration."
Cheshire was a Christian ethicist sent by Gov. Jeb Bush to help block the removal of Terri's feeding tube.
Her autopsy reveals a problem with this observation. Terri was blind.
Cheshire also noted that Terri "seems at some level to be aware of some things around her."
Her autopsy showed her brain was so shriveled that it was even smaller than the brain of Karen Ann Quinlan -- a young woman who was in a vegetative state for 10 years and became the nation's first major right-to-die case.
When Cheshire watched Terri, he did not see what was really there. He saw what he wanted to see. That pretty much sums up the sight of more extreme social conservatives in this case. They have seen what they want to see, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Their first hallucination involved Terri. It was important to their cause that she not be diagnosed as being in a vegetative state, and so they argued she was only disabled and capable of improvement. We heard about her interactions with family. We were shown videotape of her grunting at a balloon and moaning at her mother. We listened to neurologist William Hammesfahr, a laughable charlatan who proclaimed himself a Nobel Prize nominee, declare that Terri could be rehabilitated and taught to eat and drink and talk.
You cannot rehabilitate a brain that no longer exists. Terri could not recognize anyone. She could not swallow anything. Hammesfahr's claims were a cruel hoax.
The second hallucination of the social conservatives involves Terri's husband, Michael. They told us he abused her. He caused the collapse that resulted in the brain damage. He withheld therapy from her after the collapse. He locked her up and neglected her. He denied her medical care. He wanted her dead so he could get an insurance settlement.
Terri's temporary guardian, a man trusted by all sides, said Michael tenderly cared for his wife and vigorously tried to rehabilitate her -- including an experimental surgery in California -- but that did not matter.
The state Department of Children & Families investigated and found that Michael cared for his wife's physical and medical needs and didn't control her money -- but that did not matter. The fact that Terri never suffered from one bedsore did not matter.
This did not jive with the hallucination. It was unacceptable that Michael simply was following his wife's earlier wishes not to be left alive in this condition. It was unacceptable that he was trying to do the right thing.
So we witnessed a frightening smear campaign. It spread from the Internet to talk radio to TV hucksters such as Sean Hannity. It was fantasy born of opportunism and ideology.
However, the autopsy report does leave them a tiny shred. The doctors can't say why Terri collapsed 15 years ago, and so the attorney for Terri's parents made a statement, almost clinging to the possibility that Michael killed her. It is so pathetic. The fact that there is no evidence of this in the autopsy report, or Terri's earlier medical reports, does not matter.
Mike Thomas can be reached at 407-420-5525 or mthomas@orlandosentinel.com.