Health Care Reform: Protecting the Disabled (Part 5)
July 24, 2009
[Editor's note--Below is the fifth and final part of the 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: I want to ask this next question, Bobby, as sensitively as I can.
Answer: Sure.
Question: What was it like--I'm sorry to have to ask this [but] I think that the people who have not been through this need to understand that this was not just some peaceful, calm passing away . . .
Answer: No, it's the big lie. I mean, what do you think they are going to tell you? Are they going to tell you the truth of what a person goes through being dehydrated to death [over] fourteen days? I mean, we do this to a dog, we do this to any animal--in the state of Florida, it's a felony; you go to jail. It's probably that way throughout the U.S. We don't even do this to our most heinous criminals. It's cruel and unusual punishment. They're protected by law. But we're killing our most vulnerable persons by taking away their most basic care, food and water. It was grotesque. I can't even put it into word watching my sister die this way. No parent should ever have to witness their child dying in such a barbaric way. I mean, it was a nightmare having to watch this. The only way--I don't know that I could properly describe just what that was like. It was absolutely surreal seeing someone die this way. I think if the public would witness something like this, I think these killings would stop immediately. Quite honestly, it's like the abortion issue. If people would look at what an abortion looks like and see just how violent it is . . . I think the same holds true for what my sister went through. It was a violent death for her.
Question: Given the proposed changes to our health care system, are we likely to see more decsisions made from an economic standpoint, under perhaps the guise of a "quality of life' or some of these issues as they were mis-reported perhaps--certainly from what you shared earlier 40 doctors said it was misdiagnosed--so whether it was mis-reported or mis-diagnosed, or both, are we going to see more of this as we move into these health care changes that are being proposed right now?
Answer: Well, in my opinion, I definitely think so. We're seeing it now, with the foundation, occurring across our country. It seems to me it will only get worse if we try to ration care even more. I don't know what the health care bill looks like right now, and i'm not an expert obviously on helath care, [but] from what I'm reading, from some of the experts out there and the way they're describing govertment-run health care, I think people like my sister--it's bad and just going to get worse. They're looked upon as being a drain; they're not giving anything back to the society, and they're only taking, and I think they're the first ones who are going to, some of the first ones whose care is going to be rationed even more. We're going to find ways to justify--there's a movement out there to de-sensitize into accepting the quality of decisions and whether or not people should live or die--and I think that more and more people are being indoctrinated into thinking that it's "okay" to . . . think they're killing someone they call a non-person, then it's only going to get worse. i often say, 10 to 15 years ago, the thought of killing someone like my sister would have been thought of as being unthinkable. Today, it's something that is just ordinary, quite sad.
Question: With this unthinkable becoming more and more prevalent, what is the foundation
(terrisfight.org) you started doing to help people in this area?
Answer: It's all through compassion. Compassion[ate] is something we are called to be. We are geing called as human beings to care for people like Terri. They are--there's no one . . . any more vulnerable than someone like my sister, and I believe it's a reflection on us as a culture, how we're going to treat those, who all they need is love and compassion. I believe we're family. So the objective of our foundation is--our overall objective is to help families. We're the organization people can turn to that really [wasn't] there when[with what] we went through with my sister. We provide legal and physician help. With many families that call upon us to help, we've been quite succesful in saving lives the past few years. it seems we have been getting busier and busier, as a side note, from people calling us. We do what we can to educate and just kind of make people aware of this issue, and we're called upon, as I said, . . . to look at these people as not to eliminate the sufferer because they are suffering in our eyes, but to care for them and to love them. That's all Terri needed . . . love and compassion. I mean, thezse aren't easy choices to make, obviously for families. these are very difficult choices; your lives are going to change completely . . . but what other choice do we have? If we keep going down this path of simply rationalizing why it's okay to kill them . . it is a harder decision to do, that it to care for them, because simply all they need is our love.
Bobby and I continued to talk for another ten minutes about other aspects of his sister's case, but he has asked me to keep those points between us. Suffice it to say, this was not an easy interview for him to give, and I thank him for the time and tough answers he shared with me and now with you.
After receiving an e-mail message Wednesday asking for a copy of the PowerPoint presentation I shared during the panel discussion on July 20th, I made a few typographical and slide heading corrections and additions and posted it under the Downloads heading at the top of this page. if you have any problem downloading it, please send me an e-mail message
(click here), and I will gladly attach it to a return message.
Next week, I will be starting what will be at least a five part series on the economics of public education funding in Wisconsin. I will be examining the subject from the legislative school board, and administrative perspectives with information I have not seen anywhere else.
Until then, be blessed.
From the Editor's Desk ArchivesHealth Care Reform: Protecting the Disabled (Part 4) (July 23, 2009)
Health Care Reform: Protecting the Disabled (Part 3) (July 22, 2009)
Health Care Reform: Protecting the Disabled (Part 2) (July 21, 2009)
Health Care Reform: Protecting the Disabled (Part 1) (July 20, 2009)
And Liberty and Justice for All (July 13, 2009)
