EmeraldPrincessOnline
Easter is here and it will be most memorable for a tragic scar on our nation's psyche that is unfolding in Pinellas Park, Florida. Even the Pope in his own frail health has rung in on the side of life for Terri Schindler-Schaivo. I am praying for an Easter miracle, but to say "Happy Easter" has a hollowness to it much as those hollow milk chocolate eggs. They look deceptively good on the outside, but a keen disappointment awaits on the inside.
As the grievous hours of the Auschwitz-like torture of Terri drag on, I continue to think of one of the books written by Judge Judy Sheindlin. Don't Pee on My Leg and Tell Me It's Raining: America's Toughest Family Court Judge Speaks Out In the cases heard in Judge Judy's court, she instantly reprimands litigants whenever they attempt to enter a hearsay comment into the record.
How is that of all of the judges who have reviewed Terri's case over the years have continually given standing to Michael Schaivo when he says that Terri would not have wanted to be kept alive in her circumstances? She left no written record of such a wish. She cannot speak for herself at this time. And why, oh why, do the courts allow Michael Schaivo's self-serving hearsay to be not only be allowed, but be allowed to result in the taking of her life?
Terri's parents have spoken about the wasting and other physical changes they are seeing in Terri as her life is ebbing away.
Meanwhile, the attorney for Michael Schaivo spoke to reporters after seeing Terri on Saturday and reported in essence that she has never looked better.
The incongruity is astounding.
How can that same individual insist on forcing the death of Terri when she has never looked better?
Deliberately lock a dog in a room without food or water for a week and you'd be going to jail. Deny a death-row inmate food and water? That would simply not happen. But deny fluids and feedings to a disabled woman to force her death in a drawn-out, merciless, heartless, inhumane fashion? What crime has Terri Schindler-Schaivo committed? She has committed no crime other than being an inconvenience for her husband and his efforts to move on with his "new life" and a would-be "new wife". Why should Terri have to die just to allow him to the convenience of marrying the woman with whom he has been shacking up and has now made two babies with while Terri has been lying there all these years? And he pretends to care?!?
As Judge Judy says, "Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining."
