Economic Truth

Health Care Reform: Protecting the Disabled (Part 1)

July 20, 2009

[Editor's note--Below is an portion of an interview I conducted on July 19th with Bobby Schindler, the brother of the late Terri Schiavo, whose untimely and unnecessary death in 2005 drew nation-wide attention to the issue of how Americans believe we should care for the disabled in our country. Since that time, Bobby has spoken around the United States about the issues and misinformation surrounding his sister's condition and her painful death and the bigger issues of properly defining what kind of health care needs to be provided for the disabled and providing assistance and support to the families caring for these disabled children and adults.]

Question: What's going to be the focus of your message when you speak [at the Rose Garden in Wausau, Wisconsin] tomorrow night?

Answer: Probably two-fold. One is that I always like to go back . . . and go over some of the facts and kind of a timeline because so much of Terri's case was misreported and continues to be misreported by our secular media. So because of that, there's a real false perception of not only my sister's case but her condition in particular, and I try to clear some of those things up. Then I like to speak to the problem I believe we have as a country of how we have moved away from looking at everyone's life as having equal value to know where we're subjectively deciding who should live or die based on that quality [of life], and I think because of that, our country has become quite comfortable to kill people with disabilities. If we keep moving in the direction we're moving, nobody's going to be safe from decisons on whether people should live or die based on disability.

Question: If you can summarize it briefly, what were some of the major misconceptions that were the result of reporting by the traditonal media then or of course now? What are some of those areas where, that you didn't get the truth reported to the American people?

Answer: That Terri was brain dead. That Terri was in a coma. They're simply not true. They're false. Terri had a profound brain injury. Some like to diagnose her as being in this so-called "persistent vegetative state", or PVS, something that I dispute along with my family and forty doctors, many of them being neurologists, all [of whom] dispute it, whether they [examined] Terri personally or submitted affidavits to the court. So I think Terri's brain injury to this day is being mis-reported, as well as the fact that, because of the mainstream media, that Terri was dying. They described this as an end-of-life case, when in fact it really had nothing to do with an end-of-life case. Terri was never dying. She died because the same thing that keeps us alive was keeping her alive, which was food and hydration, was deliberately taken away from her. So, to frame this, and it's easy to do, and I don't know if there's any malice or if it's done deliberately by the press, but it's not an end-of-life situation in particular, because Terri was never dying and her brain injury was never going to kill her.

Tomorrow, more of my interview with Bobby Schindler as well as reaction to his appearance at the health forum held at the Rose Garden.

Until then, be blessed.

From the Editor's Desk Archives

And Liberty and Justice for All (July 13, 2009)