Terri Schiavo’s Parents Ask Court to Prevent Removing Feeding Tube
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
January 6, 2005
Clearwater, FL (LifeNews.com) — With a recent Florida appeals court ruling, Terri Schiavo has just days left to live before her estranged husband Michael is allowed again to remove her feeding tube. Terri’s parents are waging another 11th-hour battle to prevent Terri from being painfully starved to death.
Attorneys for Bob and Mary Schindler filed a motion Thursday asking Circuit Court Judge George Greer to void his 2000 order allowing Michael to remove the feeding tube.
After having exhausted other methods of saving her life, including contenting the starvation would violate her religious liberties, Schindlers’ attorneys say Terri was improperly deprived of her due process rights because she never had her own attorney.
"In reviewing the many boxes of court filings," said attorney David Gibbs, who represents the Schindlers, "we cannot find a single instance where Terri was afforded the right of every American to have a lawyer who would represent her own interests."
"Her parents have an attorney. Her husband has an attorney," Gibbs explained, "but Terri has never had an attorney who could attempt to communicate with her and could represent her interests while her parents and husband battle over whether she should live or die."
Terri’s legal rights are controlled by Michael who remains her legal guardian despite years of failing to file proper paperwork with the government.
The motion filed by Gibbs also contends that courts have used the wrong law over the years to evaluate statements Terri allegedly made in the mid-1980s that she would not want to live on life support.
Even if Terri made the comment, Gibbs argues that "in the 1980s under Florida law, assisted feeding was not considered to be life support."
The motion argues that Terri could not have meant that she would want to have food and water discontinued and to be starved to death.
Terri’s parents say she would never have made such a statement.
Meanwhile, a close friend recalls watching a movie featuring someone in a condition similar to Terri’s. During the conversation, Terri decried efforts by attorneys and doctors to kill the patient and said, "Where there’s life, there’s hope."
Related web sites:
Copy of latest legal motion –
https://www.terrisfight.org/documents/VoidnessMotion10605.pdf
Terri’s parents – https://www.terrisfight.org
