Yet more grandstanding.
Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a renowned heart surgeon before becoming Senate majority leader, went to the floor late Thursday night for the second time in 12 hours to argue that Florida doctors had erred in saying Terri Schiavo is in a "persistent vegetative state."
"I question it based on a review of the video footage which I spent an hour or so looking at last night in my office," he said in a lengthy speech in which he quoted medical texts and standards. "She certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli."
His comments raised eyebrows in medical and political circles alike. It is not every day that a high-profile physician relies on family videotapes to challenge the diagnosis of doctors who examined a severely brain-damaged patient in person. Democrats were quick to note that Frist was getting rave reviews from conservative activists who will play a major role in the 2008 presidential primaries he is weighing.
[link|http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110006442|Peggy Noonan]:
Here's both a political and a public-relations reality: The Republican Party controls the Senate, the House and the White House. The Republicans are in charge. They have the power. If they can't save this woman's life, they will face a reckoning from a sizable portion of their own base. And they will of course deserve it.
This should concentrate their minds.
So should this: America is watching. As the deadline for removal of Mrs. Schiavo's feeding tube approaches, the story has broken through as never before in the media.
What tripe. Oh, sorry - some people eat tripe. What excrement!
Noonan advocates Congress getting involved because it's popular with a vocal part of the Republican base. Frist seems to go along, giving a medical opinion which isn't really a medical opinion (because he hasn't examined her and if he did offer one he could be charged with malpractice according to the WP story). He's not a neurologist, and it seems as though neither of them has read and understood what has happened in nearly 7 years of Florida court battles.
The Florida Supreme Court ruling declaring Jeb's interference unconstitutional is [link|http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/schiavo/flsct92304opn.pdf|here] (30 page .pdf). It has a good summary of the events. In particular:
The severity of Theresa\ufffds medical condition was explained by the Second District as follows:The evidence is overwhelming that Theresa is in a permanent or persistent vegetative state. It is important to understand that a persistent vegetative state is not simply a coma. She is not asleep. She has cycles of apparent wakefulness and apparent sleep without any cognition or awareness. As she breathes, she often makes moaning sounds. Theresa has severe contractures of her hands, elbows, knees, and feet.
Over the span of this last decade, Theresa\ufffds brain has deteriorated because of the lack of oxygen it suffered at the time of the heart attack. By mid 1996, the CAT scans of her brain showed a severely abnormal structure. At this point, much of her cerebral cortex is simply gone and has been replaced by cerebral spinal fluid. Medicine cannot cure this condition. Unless an act of God, a true miracle, were to recreate her brain, Theresa will always remain in an unconscious, reflexive state, totally dependent upon others to feed her and care for her most private needs. She could remain in this state for many years.
Schiavo I, 780 So. 2d at 177. In affirming the trial court\ufffds order, the Second District concluded by stating:In the final analysis, the difficult question that faced the trial court was whether Theresa Marie Schindler Schiavo, not after a few weeks in a coma, but after ten years in a persistent vegetative state that has robbed her of most of her cerebrum and all but the most instinctive of neurological functions, with no hope of a medical cure but with sufficient money and strength of body to live indefinitely, would choose to continue the constant nursing care and the supporting tubes in hopes that a miracle would somehow recreate her missing brain tissue, or whether she would wish to permit a natural death process to take its course and for her family members and loved ones to be free to continue their lives. After due consideration, we conclude that the trial judge had clear and convincing evidence to answer this question as he did.
Schiavo I, 780 So. 2d at 180.
The rest of the legal documents are on [link|http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/lit/schiavo/index.html#docs|FindLaw].
If the Republicans in Congress continue with this travesty, I hope they suffer politically for it. I might even come to believe that Ross was right in his characterization of them.
Grrr.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.