The following is a reprise of a Web posting to the "Jerry Gaffney Ministry". They claim to have the largest "prayer board" in the world and they have a post office box in Centralia, Washington:
Jerry invited me to vote in this poll. I have to comment at how sad I am that it is a rigged poll to the tune of "have you stopped beating your wife yet?"
In other words, the premise is false. No one is starving Terri Schiavo to death. She, as a person with a mind and feelings and emotions, was dead after her brain was starved for oxygen due to a heart attack brought on by a chemical imbalance; and that was likely brought on by an eating disorder.
This is a matter of record, and there would be no settlement money to fight over (there is none anyway) if the original medical malpractice suit had not come to these conclusions.
Terri's body is finally being allowed to expire. Not her mind. She has no feelings and will not feel pain from the withdrawal of gastronomical feeding.
That the so-called "right to life" factions continually mis-represent the facts in this matter is a cause for great concern as it undermines all of the "values" that most of these folks often claim to hold.
The fact is, when a brain is starved for oxygen for a period of four to six minutes, the cerebral cortex is destroyed. It takes fifteen to twenty minutes of oxygen deprivation or anoxia to destroy the brain stem.
Varying estimates of the time that Terri Schiavo's brain was deprived of oxygen are between ten and fourteen minutes.
These facts may be why the right to life faction is finding it hard to get traction with Americans on this issue and why the Schindlers have not ever prevailed on these same questions that have already been heard so many times before.
These facts, combined with clinical evaluations have designated Terri Schiavo as PVS.
According to neurological guidelines promulgated by the American Academy of Neurology, "a vegetative state can be judged to be permanent rather than persistent after 12 months if it results from traumatic injury or after three months if it results from heart attack, stroke, or other illness."
Terri has been in this state for fifteen years and almost a month at this writing.
Lay persons may begin to note after studying the facts, rather than ridiculous rhetoric about "murder" and "starvation", that an uneasiness sets in.
Questions may arise about how they have been misled by not only extremist Christian factions that seek to impose their extreme code of "values" onto others, but these same factions have now managed to try and change the bedrock principles of American Federalism and separation of powers between the legislative and judicial branches of government in the United States.
They might even say to themselves, "my goodness, what on Earth have I been duped into supporting?"
And they would have valid fears because indeed, some extremist Christians are willing to break the very Ten Commandments they also want installed in every public building just to get the outcome they want to see.
And to the devil with all of the legal decisions and consideration that has come before.
It is very hard for this writer to stomach the hucksters and shysters who have used this case to further political ends, and activist ends, and raised false hope in the parents of Terri Schiavo. Leading them to believe that there may be some hope of their daughter ever coming back to life is an extremely obscene act of political pandering to the emotions of people who would be moved to help any person in a desperate plight and certainly to the parents.
And those who would profit from such an egregious act against people who find themselves in such a tragic situation should be shunned for their dishonesty and lack of integrity.
One more observation about this case and the notable lack of protestors in Florida. Pinellas County has an extremely large population of retired people. If there was a person being starved against their will in a Pinellas County Hospice I can assure you, instead of Randall Terry's impotent call for "two million" protestors; there would be thousands of local people demanding justice in the streets. There would be no need for outside activists.