AJC.com > Breaking News > Archives > 2005 > March > 31
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Pope’s previous illnesses, ailments
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A list of the current known ailments afflicting Pope John Paul II (Medical experts say the fact he is elderly and debilitated from various illnesses put him at high risk of infection):
Breathing problems that forced him to undergo surgery Feb. 24 to insert a tube in his throat to aid respiration.
High fever from a urinary tract infection that also reportedly caused his blood pressure to fall.
Feeding tube to provide him with additional nutrition because of problems swallowing.
Parkinson’s disease, affecting speech, mobility and posture, for at least a decade.
Knee and hip ailments that make it impossible to stand.
PAST AILMENTS:
2002: Arthritis of the knee forced several appearances to be canceled.
1996: Inflamed appendix removed.
1994: Breaks leg in a fall, undergoes hip replacement surgery.
1993: Dislocates right shoulder in fall at the Vatican.
1992: Operation for benign tumor on colon.
1981: Shot in abdomen and hand by Turkish gunman in St. Peter’s Square, later hospitalized again for infection linked to the wounds.
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Tears, sadness outside Schiavo’s hospice
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
PINELLAS PARK — Harvest Bashta sat on the grass, her 15-year old legs stretched out in front of her, an open Bible on her lap, tears streaming down her face as she tried to cope with the news — Terri Schiavo had died.
Just yards from the hospice where Schiavo took her last breath, Harvest wondered if it could be true. But as the tears kept falling she felt that her prayers for the 41-year old woman she never met had been futile.
“I was hoping for a miracle,” said the high school sophomore from Chicago. “This is a very sad day.”
A man played hymns on a trumpet. A woman wailed, “Jesus kill us.”
Children looked confused and saddened. Another woman blew a ram’s horn.After 15 years in what doctors said was a persistent vegetative state, the last five of which have wrapped up in bitter, public court struggle, Terri Schiavo has become a religious symbol for hundreds of people who gathered in front of the hospice where her feeding tube was removed on March 18.
When Franciscan Brother Paul O’Donnell announced her passing about an hour after she died at 9:05 a.m., the prayers became more fervent.
Rosary prayers, readings from the Bible, hymn-singing, and sobbing broke out among those who have spent nearly two weeks protesting and agonizing over the removal of the feeding tube.
A group sang How Great Thou Art, and 50 yards away people expressed their grief by kneeling round a makeshift altar, with pictures of the Virgin Mary, Jesus and Terri Schiavo behind the altar. Red roses and a statue of Jesus sat before the pictures, along with lit white candles and a bottle of PF 45 sunblock to protect them from the sun that had left most protesters beet red.
One boy about 5 years old reacted with a single word: “Cruel.”
“Life is precious. Euthanasia is murder,” said Dawn Kozsey, a resident in Ocala National Forest who spent the night outside the hospice.
Patrick Bautch, 39, of Milwaukee, said, “I’m deeply upset about it. I feel that our president has let us down. I believe he could have done something about it.”
Someone made a shrine by spreading a green blanket on the grassy swale outside the hospice. On the blanket was an oversize, wooden set of rosary beads surrounding a Bible. Yellow nylon rope help in place by PVC pipe bordered the shrine. There were fake flowers and a small American flag.
A few feet away, Monsignor Thaddeus Malanowski gave Holy Communion. “They may have won her body but we’ve won her soul. God’s won her soul,” said Malanowski, one of several advisers to Schiavo’s parents, Bob and Mary Schindler.
Mary Ann McGuire, 51, of Scranton, Pa., who had been outside the hospice for several days over the past week, stood weeping by the side of the road outside the hospice. She compared Schiavo’s death to Jesus’.
“God allowed people to do this to his son,” she said. “The legal system executed her and she was innocent, just like Jesus was. I was thankful for Terri to be at peace now. She’s in heaven with a new body that suffers no pain.”
But she looked around at the crowd of protesters that had thinned considerably since last week and wished more had stayed.
“If everyone who loved Jesus was here, they couldn’t have done this.”
Patrick Bautch of Milwaukee said he was angry with President Bush for not intervening. He dropped his sign which read, “President Bush Please Help Terri.”
“Where is he?” Bautch asked. “He could have done something.”
From time to time during the 13 days Schiavo was without food and water, a handful of supporters of her husband would join the protesters.
They argued that Michael Schiavo knew what was best for his wife and loved her enough to see to it that her wish not to live in a vegetative state would be granted.
Rick Carner of Texas, who spent the last week outside the hospice, said, “I can’t believe this is the way we treat a human life. We will not forget her.”
As for Michael, Carner said, “As a Christian I should forgive. But it’s hard right now. I think he has a hard heart and he will answer to God.”
When the word of Terri Schiavo’s death went out Thursday, none of Michael Schiavo’s supporters were outside the hospice.
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Autopsy will answer two principal questions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The lawyer for Terri Schiavo’s husband, Michael, has said the chief medical examiner for Pinellas County, Fla., where she died has agreed to perform an autopsy. It could take several weeks to complete, the medical examiner said, and will include a thorough examination by a board-certified neuropathologist, as well as routine forensic procedures and X-rays. That could shed light on two questions that have been publicly raised:
— Was Terri Schiavo’s diagnosis of ”persistent vegetative state” correct? Her husband hopes it will offer definitive proof of that diagnosis.
Such a finding is mostly made by observing someone’s behavior. However, experts say a brain autopsy could help support such a diagnosis by showing patterns of brain damage consistent with a persistent vegetative state.
”If there’s very extensive brain injury, it would be hard to accept another diagnosis as being conceivable,” said Dr. Roger Albin, a neurology professor and director of the brain bank at the University of Michigan Medical School.
— Was she physically abused, as her family suggested and her husband has repeatedly denied?
An autopsy can detect whether bones have broken and healed, even many years ago. It can’t determine when the injury occurred. But comparisons with X-rays from previous dates could help get a fix on that.
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DeLay: Legal system failed
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said ”the men responsible for this” death will be called to account.
Terri Schiavo, who suffered severe brain damage after a heart attack 15 years ago, died Thursday in Florida. The feeding tube that had been keeping her alive was removed with a judge’s approval on March 18.
DeLay appeared to condemn judges who at both the state and federal level declined to order that Schiavo be kept alive artificially.
”This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change,” the Texas Republican said. ”The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today. Today we grieve, we pray, and we hope to God this fate never befalls another.”
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Terri Schiavo’s hometown divided on issue
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terri Schiavo’s relatives and acquaintances in her native Pennsylvania marked her passing Thursday, and continued to disagree about whether more should have been done to keep her alive.
Her brother in-law, Scott Schiavo, said in interviews with television reporters at his Levittown home that he felt relief that her ordeal is finally over. ”Terri’s at rest now, that’s the most important thing to all of us, my family, that Terri is at peace, that she’s in a better place,” he said.
”She’s got all of her dignity back,” he said. ”She’s now in heaven, she’s now with God and she’s walking with grace.”
Schiavo, brother of Terri’s husband, Michael, said he had received several threatening phone calls from around the country in the hours after the death.
At her alma mater, Archbishop Wood High School in Warminster, workers changed a sign that read ”Terri Schiavo, Class of 1981, We pray that you may live” to ”We pray that you rest in peace.”
”It’s sad. Why not let the lady live?” said John Rogers, one of the workers who changed the sign. ”Feed the lady, let her live. This is America.”
U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., issued a written statement expressing condolences to Schiavo’s family, and lashing out at the court system.
”Terri Schiavo was given a death sentence, and passed away without the right to due process,” Santorum said.
He called Terri an ”innocent person” who was ”penalized by a court system that grants convicted murderers fair treatment under the law, but not a woman whose only crime was not filing a living will.”
‘She’s got all of her dignity back’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Michael Schiavo’s attorney, George Felos, announced the death but had no immediate comment beyond that. Michael Schiavo’s whereabouts were not immediately known.
“She’s got all of her dignity back. She’s now in heaven, she’s now with God, and she’s walking with grace,” Michael Schiavo’s brother, Scott Schiavo, said at his Levittown, Pa., home.
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Michael Schiavo was determined, brother says
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
His opponents included his wife’s parents — and the president of the United States. And in the end, Michael Schiavo prevailed. His wife, Terri, died this morning — nearly two weeks after her feeding tube was pulled.
Michael Schiavo’s older brother has said they were ”raised to never give up.” Scott Schiavo says his brother kept that in mind as he battled for years to allow his brain-damaged wife die, as he thought she would want.
Michael Schiavo said his wife told him she would never want to be kept alive artificially. Bob and Mary Schindler insisted she could get better.
His stance brought Schiavo criticism. On talk shows, the Internet and in protests in front of his own home, he was accused of greed, adultery and murder.
After his wife’s death, a Catholic priest advising the parents accused the husband of ”heartless cruelty” because Bob and Mary Schindler weren’t with their daughter when she died.
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Cardinal cites ‘attack against God’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Vatican cardinal denounced the death Thursday of Terri Schiavo, saying that removing the feeding tube that kept her alive was ”an attack against God.”
Portuguese Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, head of the Vatican’s office for sainthood, said that ”an attack against life is an attack against God, who is the author of life.”
Pope John Paul, 84, has been put on a feeding tube of his own as Parkinson’s disease and other ailments have left him increasingly frail.
The cardinal’s comments reflected other recent remarks by Vatican prelates since Schiavo’s feeding tube was disconnected with a judge’s approval March 18. She suffered severe brain damage after a heart attack 15 years ago.
”The prolonged interruption in her feeding … is shaping up as an unjust death sentence to an innocent, in one of the most inhumane and cruel forms — that of death from hunger and thirst,” Renato Martino, who heads the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, told Vatican Radio earlier in the day, before her death was announced.
”The dutiful and unavoidable respect for a human being should impose that … what would practically and without euphemism be murder — to which it is impossible to stand by inert without becoming an accomplice — be avoided,” he said.
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President says millions are saddened
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
President Bush today said “millions of Americans are saddened” by Terri Schiavo’s death at a Florida hospice.
Bush says he’s urging those who honor Schiavo to ”continue to build a culture of life” where all Americans are protected — ”especially those who live at the mercy of others.” He says in cases where there is serious doubt, ”the presumption should be in favor of life.”
Bush offered words of comfort and praise for Schiavo’s parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, for their “display of grace and dignity.”
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Schindlers not in room at moment of death
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The feud between Terri Schiavo’s parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, and their son-in-law continued even after her death: The Schindlers’ spiritual advisers said the couple had been at their daughter’s besides minutes before the end came, but were not there at the moment of her death because Michael Schiavo did not want them in the room.
”And so his heartless cruelty continues until this very last moment,” said the Rev. Frank Pavone. He added: ”This is not only a death, with all the sadness that brings, but this is a killing, and for that we not only grieve that Terri has passed but we grieve that our nation has allowed such an atrocity as this and we pray that it will never happen again.”
David Gibbs III, a lawyer for the Schindlers, said: ”This is indeed a sad day for the nation, for the family. … God loves Terri more than they do. She is at peace.”
Michael Schiavo’s attorney, George Felos, announced the death but had no immediate comment beyond that.
Schiavo, 41, died quietly at 9:05 a.m. in a Pinellas Park. Fla., hospice 13 days after her feeding tube was removed despite extraordinary intervention by Florida lawmakers, Congress and President Bush � efforts that were rebuffed at every turn by the courts.
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Despair and anger outside hospice
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terri Schiavo’s death was met with sadness, anger, despair and frustration Thursday by supporters of her parents, who had battled the severely brain-damaged woman’s husband over the removal of her feeding tube. Some protesters called her death a murder.
Since March 18, a cadre of fervent demonstrators gathered outside Woodside Hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla., to voice their opposition against Michael Schiavo’s decision to have the woman’s feeding tube pulled. Many supporters slept overnight in tents or sleeping bags, while others held signs and sang songs in their 13-day vigil.
Thursday morning, people burst into tears and threw down the signs they had been carrying as news surfaced that Terri Schiavo had passed away.
”You saw a murder happening,” said Dominique Hanks, who had ridden her motorized wheelchair around the hospice every day since Schiavo’s feeding tube was removed March 18.
”Everybody who denied her right to live are accomplices to murder, and God knows,” Hanks said.
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Gov. Jeb Bush laments death
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Jeb Bush, whose repeated attempts to get Terro Schiavo’s feeding tube reinserted, said that millions of people around the state and world will be ”deeply grieved” by her death but that the debate over her fate could help others grapple with end-of-life issues.
”After an extraordinarily difficult and tragic journey, Terri Schiavo is at rest,” Bush said. ”I remain convinced, however, that Terri’s death is a window through which we can see the many issues left unresolved in our families and in our society. For that, we can be thankful for all that the life of Terri Schiavo has taught us.”
His brother, the president, was expected to speak on Schiavo’s death later Thursday.
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Priest for Schindlers calls Michael Schiavo ‘heartless’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A priest advising Terri Schiavo’s parents is denouncing the woman’s husband in the aftermath of her death. He says Michael Schiavo’s ”heartless cruelty,” as he describes it, continued to the end.
Father Frank Pavone says Michael Schiavo wouldn’t let Mary and Bob Schindler be with their daughter when she died.
Pavone says family members were with the brain-damaged woman until 10 to 15 minutes before her death, but were asked to leave. Pavone says the parents asked to be with her when she died, but the husband refused.
Pavone says Schiavo’s death is ”a killing” and an ”atrocity.”
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Moment of silence at Florida capitol
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In Tallahassee, Senate President Tom Lee, R-Brandon, stopped debate on a bill to announce Schiavo’s death.
”Regardless of your perspective on end of life issues, it is a very sad moment and it is a very reflective moment for a lot of us and I think it would appropriate to have a moment of silence in her honor,” Lee told the Senate.
Sen. Daniel Webster, who unsuccessfully sought support for a bill written to keep Schiavo alive, stood with his eyes closed. Behind him Sen. Gary Siplin, who voted against the bill, held his hands out palm up and also closed his eyes.
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Vatican cardinal condemns ‘accomplices’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Vatican cardinal said Thursday that leaving Terri Schiavo with no food and water amounts to murdering her, and said that one can’t stand by inert without becoming an accomplice.
The comments by Cardinal Renato Martino reflect other remarks by Vatican prelates in the past weeks over the case of Schiavo, a woman whose feeding tube was disconnected almost two weeks ago. The comments came hours before Schiavo’s death.
”The prolonged interruption in her feeding … is shaping up as an unjust death sentence to an innocent, in one of the most inhumane and cruel forms, that of death from hunger and thirst,” Martino told Vatican Radio. Martino said that respect for human life should impose that ”what would practically and without euphemism represent murder” be avoided. He said it’s ”impossible to stand by inert without becoming an accomplice.”
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Protesters hug, sing hymns
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Protesters who had been keeping vigil outside Terri Schiavo’s hospice began praying, singing and hugging each other upon hearing that she died today.
Protesters streamed into Pinellas Park, Fla., before her feeding tube was removed on March 18. Their numbers grew as her ordeal lengthened — and dozens were arrested at the site, including some who tried to bring her water.
One woman who was outside the hospice today said ”Words cannot express the rage I feel.” She added ”Is my heart broken for this? Yes.”
Other protesters could be heard singing hymns and praying with each other outside the hospice.
Terri Schiavo dies 13 days after tube removal
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Pinellas Park, Fla. — Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman whose 15 years connected to a feeding tube sparked an epic legal battle that went all the way to the White House and Congress, died Thursday, 13 days after the tube was removed. She was 41.
Schiavo died at the Pinellas Park hospice where she lay for years while her husband and her parents fought over her fate in the nation’s longest, most bitter right-to-die dispute.
Her death was confirmed to The Associated Press by Michael Schiavo’s attorney, George Felos, and announced to reporters outside her hospice by a family adviser.
Brother Paul O’Donnell, an adviser to Schiavo’s parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, said the parents and their two other children ”were denied access at the moment of her death. They’ve been requesting, as you know, for the last hour to try to be in there and they were denied access by Michael Schiavo. They are in there now, praying at her bedside.”
Schiavo suffered severe brain damage in 1990 after her heart stopped because of a chemical imbalance that was believed to have been brought on an eating disorder. Court-appointed doctors ruled she was in a persistent vegetative state, with no real consciousness or chance of recovery.
The feeding tube was removed with a judge’s approval March 18 after Michael Schiavo argued that his wife told him long ago she would not want to be kept alive artificially. His in-laws disputed that, and argued that she could get better with treatment.
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