Local News
Florida Bishops Urge That Terri Schiavo’s Care Continue
Published: September 25, 2003
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (CNS) — The bishops of Florida have urged that Terri Schiavo continue to receive artificial nutrition and hydration “while all parties pursue a more clear understanding of her actual physical condition.”
Schiavo, 39, who is Catholic, has been on a feeding tube since a collapse in 1990 during which her brain was deprived of oxygen for several minutes. She has been the subject of a bitter 10-year battle between her husband, who says further treatment is useless and seeks to have nutrition and hydration ended, and her parents and other relatives, who are fighting to keep her alive.
Last year Circuit Court Judge George W. Greer of Clearwater ruled that the feeding tube should be removed, but he stayed his ruling pending the resolution of appeals. The appellate court rejected several appeals and Greer recently issued a ruling that sets Oct. 15 as the court-ordered date on which her feeding tube will be removed.
But the expectation is that there will be additional activities in the court between now and then, according to Michael Sheedy, associate for health in the Florida Catholic Conference. An attorney for the parents is expected to file an appeal in the federal court system, Sheedy said Sept. 22.
On Aug. 26 Greer rejected husband Michael Schiavo’s petition to halt medical treatment of an infection Terri Schiavo had developed. Terri Schiavo’s parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, contend that her condition could be improved if she were to receive medical therapies her husband has refused to provide.
In their statement Aug. 27 the Florida bishops said, “If additional medical treatment can be shown to be helpful to her condition, we urge that all parties involved take the safer course and allow it to be used.”
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush intervened Aug. 26 with a letter to Greer asking him to appoint a guardian to assess her medical condition independently. The judge said he did not think he had that option within the mandate from the court of appeals under which he is working.
The bishops’ two-page statement backed an Aug. 12 statement by Bishop Robert N. Lynch of St. Petersburg addressing the complex issues in the case in more detail.
“His statement followed careful consultation with his brother bishops and we fully support it,” they said. “Because of so much uncertainty and dispute, we reiterate his plea that her treatment be continued while all parties pursue a more clear understanding of her actual physical condition.”
“Bishop Lynch’s statement clarifies the teaching of the church that nourishment or hydration may be withheld or withdrawn where that treatment itself is causing harm to the patient or is useless because the patient’s death is imminent,” they said. “Church teaching is clear that there should be a presumption in favor of providing medically assisted nutrition and hydration to all patients as long as it is of sufficient benefit to outweigh the burdens involved to the patient.”
Bishop Lynch quoted a 1989 statement by the Florida bishops on the limited circumstances under which it is permissible to stop giving a patient food and water: “Nourishment or hydration may be withheld or withdrawn where that treatment itself is causing harm to the patient or is useless because the patient’s death is imminent, as long as the patient is made comfortable.”
That statement went on to say that the phrase “death is imminent” implies “that a physician can predict that the patient will die of the fatal pathology within a few days or weeks, regardless of what life-prolonging methods are used.” Bishop Lynch said Terri Schiavo’s case “is especially difficult because her actual medical situation is in dispute” including opposing opinions within the family and among physicians who have examined her.
He urged that all parties “pursue a clearer understanding of her actual physical condition” and that her family “be allowed to attempt a medical protocol which they feel would improve her condition.”
“If Terri’s feeding tube is removed,” he wrote, “it will undoubtedly be followed by her death. If it were to be removed because the nutrition that she receives from it is of no use to her, or because it is unreasonably burdensome for her and her family or her caregivers, it could be seen as permissible. But if it were to be removed simply because she is not dying quickly enough and some believe she would be better off because of her low quality of life, this would be wrong.”
Supporters of Terri Schiavo have taken their case to the Internet with a Web site—www.terrisfight.org—that includes videos showing her moving and opening her eyes in response to a request to do so, along with other materials contesting her husband’s claims that she is in a persistent vegetative state and unresponsive to visitors.
