It took me a
week to get through the first 30 pages or so of
Fighting for
Dear Life by David Gibbs III,
because it was that moving. Besides being a moral
conservative activist, I’m also a cop and supposed
to be tough yet many times I had tears in my eyes.
During the year or so that Terri was in the news,
I was never quite sure if the media was telling us
the whole truth and apparently not only were they
not presenting the whole truth, they were actively
engaged in hiding it, and in many cases, telling
us outright lies.
How could we
have fallen so far in America that despite the
pleas of Congress, the Governor of the state that
Terri lived and died in, the President of the
United States and the overwhelming majority of the
American people, that we as a nation forced an
innocent young lady to be starved and in effect,
tortured to death? David
Gibbs’ book does not have all the answers, but Mr.
Gibbs lays out the whole story for you to
consider. But keep in mind that once you read this
book, you will never be the
same.
The book opens
with a quote by Thomas Jefferson:
“The first duty
of Government is the protection of life, not its
destruction. The chief
purpose of government is to protect
life. Abandon
that and you have abandoned
all.”
As an eyewitness
to the last year of Terri’s life, and as lead
counsel for the Schiavo family, Mr. Gibbs had a
unique view into all that was happening, legally,
medically, and emotionally. And unfortunately now,
historically, as Terri has passed into eternity
and legacy. He points out that once we cross this
boundary, where will it end? Will we kill the
handicapped, the elderly or the very sick? You
might say “It can’t happen here!” but it happened
in Nazi Germany and it’s beginning to happen in
the more liberal European countries. With the
death of Terri Schiavo, it has begun
to happen here. Will we stop it or will we allow
more of the helpless to be put to death? Fighting for
Dear Life offers some suggestions
and also some practical advice on living wills as
well.
One of the more
probing points throughout the book is the question
of whether or not Terri was in a “persistent
vegetative state” (PVS) or what doctors call
“minimally conscious”. Mr. Gibbs describes how
Terri would react differently when various people
would come into her room at the hospice, and how
she’d display a “lemon face” whenever her dad,
with his scratchy beard, would kiss her. He
describes how Terri would squeal with delight
whenever her mother
would enter the room. As David Gibbs talked to
Terri and walked around the room, Terri’s eyes
would follow him. There are many, many more such
examples in the book, but does that sound like a
young lady who deserved to be starved into a
prolonged and torturous death?
Mr. Gibbs goes
on to describe how they would ask Terri to
pronounce certain words and she did it. So, here
we have a young lady who the media tells us is
beyond recovery and yet Mr. Gibbs watched her obey
verbal instructions. When Terri’s mother would
leave, tears would begin to flow down her face.
When I read that, tears were flowing down my face.
Big tough cop, right? But
the truth has the ability to pierce the heart, and
thank God that David Gibbs has found the
appropriate vehicle to tell us the truth with his
book.
Mr. Gibbs quotes
Dr. Laura Schlessinger who
says:
“The measure
of a civilization is how we treat the weak, the
dependant, the helpless, and the
ill.”
Fighting
for Dear Life presents the
testimony of many doctors, including one who says:
“…she has
demonstrated behaviors that are context-specific,
sustained, and indicative of cerebral cortical
processing that, upon careful neurological
consideration, would not be expected in a
persistent vegetative state… As I
looked at Terri, and she gazed directly back at
me, I asked myself whether, if I were her
attending physician, I could in good conscience
withdraw her feeding and hydration. No, I could
not… I could not withhold life-sustaining
nutrition and hydration from this beautiful lady
whose face brightens in the presence of
others.”
Almost all of
the doctors who actually visited Terri came to
similar conclusions, including those who felt that
she could have benefited from rehabilitation.
It is stunning
and practically beyond belief that the very judge,
Judge Greer, who repeatedly ordered her feeding
tube to be removed never went to see Terri for
himself. I find that utterly remarkable. Even
condemned criminals get hearing after hearing in
the presence of those to whom their fate is
entrusted. Mr. Gibbs makes the point that
criminals sentenced to death get more due process
than Terri did, and are more humanely put to
death. In essence, Judge Greer sentenced an
innocent young lady, one that medical science said
could be treated, to execution by starvation and
dehydration.
The book also makes the point that
medical science, and specifically neurology, make
such great advances year after year, that who
knows if Terri could not have been rehabilitated
to a great degree in the near future? Keep in mind
that a few short years ago AIDS was a death
sentence. Nevertheless, she did not deserve to be
killed. She had a right to life, and that was
taken away from her most
unfairly.
The difference
between the motives of the Schiavo family and
David Gibbs and the lawyer for Michael Schiavo,
George Felos and Judge Greer, is like night and
day. One side believed that Terri, like all
humans, have a fundamental right to life, and the
other side believed that the State has a
fundamental right to take it away despite the
overwhelming evidence and testimony showing that
Terri was minimally conscious and could improve
with the care and love of her family.
Fighting for Dear Life points out
that Terri’s parents would have given anything to
save their daughter’s life. They offered
everything to Michael Schiavo if he would just
allow them to take care of their daughter, yet he
refused time and again, even though he was living
with another woman. It exposes the real motives
for Michael wanting Terri to die.
All was not as
it seemed
The media told
us that Terri told Michael she would want to die
and would want her sustenance removed rather than
unnecessarily prolong her life if she were ever on
life support. Yet there was nothing on paper to
that effect and Michael apparently only remembered
that after a decade or so.
The book also
lays bare the lie that the end would be peaceful –
it was far from that. I believe we were lied to by
Michael Schiavo, his attorney and most of the
media. Terri died a horrible, painful and
protracted death over the course of two agonizing
weeks. Try going without water for a few days and
see how you feel. Certainly Terri felt that way
too, and worse as time went on. Remember, this is
the same woman who made the “lemon face” when her
father’s scratchy beard brushed against her
cheeks.
Something is just not right with the story
you were told, is it?
The efforts of
Terri Schiavo’s legal team were noble and heroic
in that everything that could be done was done. In
contrast, everything was done that could be done
except for Judge Greer going to see Terri for
himself; except for Michael Schiavo’s insistence
that she die; except for his lawyer (in my
opinion) putting pocketbook over principle; and
except that we as a nation have allowed our
country to slip into such moral and spiritual
decline that we would ever have even arrived at
such a place.
Where do we go
from here?
The book
addresses that too. Fighting for
Dear Life paints such a vivid
picture that at the end you will ask “What’s wrong
with the picture the media showed me?” It
accurately tell the story of a helpless, yet
deeply loved, young woman unjustly deprived of her
life and the possibility that she could have been
helped by therapy and advances in medical science.
She was not defenseless, however, for her legal
team provided by the Gibbs Law Firm, did all that
could be legally done to save her. For reasons
known but to God and possibly to Michael Schiavo,
George Felos and Judge Greer, Terri has left this
earth. But her story lives
on.
Every day’s a
gift, and in this book David Gibbs has given us
the gift of truth. Terri Schiavo gave her family
gift after gift, even when she was beyond the
ability to do so physically. She has also left us
with a gift – it is the gift of example. It is the
gift of persistence. It is the gift of
questioning, because after reading this book, you
will question all that transpired and furthermore,
you will question yourself.
For more info
and to purchase David's book, click
here
Guy
Adams
www.GuyRandallAdams.com
You can
see videos of Terri at http://www.ejumpcut.org/currentissue/SchaivoPreston/index.html and http://www.TerrisFight.org/