The Terri Schiavo Autopsy

Carrie Kirkland reported on the Metro Source news wire on 6/16/2005:

Schiavo Autopsy Leaves Many Questions Unanswered

(Largo, Florida) - Here's what we now know: Medical science backs Michael Schiavo's claim that Terri Schiavo had no chance of recovering. The autopsy report released by the Pinellas County Medical Examiner says Terri's brain was only half the size of a normal human brain, and she was blind when she died. What's not been proven is what caused a perfectly healthy 26 year old woman to pass out all those years ago. The medical examiner says Terri didn't collapse from a heart attack, and there's nothing to support claims that she suffered from bullemia or any other eating disorder. In fact, Dr. Jon Thogmartin says Terri was in good health prior to her collapse. So what was it that caused Terri to suddenly hit the floor in the kitchen of her home back in 1990? That remains a mystery, and Terri's parents want answers. David Gibbs, the lawyer for Bob and Mary Schinlder, says Michael Schiavo was the only person home when Terri collapsed at 4:30 AM, and it's troubling that he waited until 5:40 to call for help. Gibbs says in an emergency situation, every moment counts. Governor Bush is reviewing the autopsy report to decide whether further action should be taken.

Carrie Kirkland, Largo Florida

From K. J. Lopez at The Corner:

Her parents and younger siblings were happy to care for her. They had the resources. There was no written indication of what she wanted. She was alive...Nothing that came out today changes that, so far as I can tell...The medical examiner said today that the video interaction everyone saw of Terri Schiavo and her parents wasn't impossible. It seems what we learned today is that she was clearly in a very bad way and that, in fact, she was not going to get better—something there were questions about. So many of us have had to live through the horrendous pain of watching a loved one die, as their organs fail one by one, for instance. That's the natural death (no machines, just basic nourishment) her family would have opted for, as the autopsy seems to indicate would have eventually happened (vs. the rehab they were holding onto hope for). But that she died of court-ordered dehydration is a sad thing, in my humble opinion, and all the more reason people should think about these things now.

Ms. Lopez posts an email from a reader that she received:

Keep spinnin', dearie. Your wild-eyed histeria was amusing two months ago, and you should provide an equal amount of entertainment over the next few days, as well...

to which K-Lo responds:

They remind me of Peggy Noonan's "In Love with Death" column. Like Peggy, I don't get it. Entertainment? Agree or disagree, this was a tough, terrible case. I do not understand the glee, the certainty leading to leaning toward death...; as Peggy put it "They seem to have fallen half in love with death." (This is not true of everyone who wanted her feeding tube pulled, of course, but it's out there, and often.)

Michelle Malkin read the 39 page autopsy report:

You do not need a medical examiner's license to see that the report raises many more questions than it answers, though from the (once again) misleading media coverage, we are led to believe that the matters of Terri's life and murder are resolved. They are not...But on page 4 of the M.E.'s summary, what the report actually says with regard to possible strangulation is this: "Autopsy examination of her neck structures 15 years after her initial collapse did not detect any signs of remote trauma, but, with such a delay, the exam was unlikely to show any residual neck findings." ...Schiavo won $1 million in damages on the grounds that Schiavo's obstetrician had failed to diagnose bulimia...Unquestioning journalists ran dozens of stories echoing the claim: "Eating disorder is real issue in Schiavo case," "Terri's life a lesson in dangers of bulimia," "The lost lesson of Schiavo case: the dangers of eating disorders," etc...The autopsy report spends three-and-a-half pages debunking Schiavo's claim, as well as the related claim that she had a heart attack (or, more medically precise, myocardial infarction). But if mentioned at all, the news reports I have seen have downplayed and buried these astonishing revelations (revelations which bear directly on Schiavo's credibility regarding his claim that Terri would have wanted to die)...In Michael Schiavo's favor, the autopsy report also casts doubt on the Schindler family's long-held view that a 1991 bone scan indicated traumatic injury. The report notes that Terri had severe osteoporosis and that the bone scan findings might have also reflected "the aftermath of remote intense CPR, infection, bone turnover, artifact or intense physical therapy...However, the report notes this caveat: "Without the orginal bone scan and radiographs from that period, no other conclusions can [be] reasonably made."...For God's sake. Terri Schiavo, a profoundly disabled woman who was not terminally ill and who had an army of family members ready to care for her for the rest of her natural life, succumbed to forced dehydration at the hands of her spouse-in-name-only. This is something to gloat about?

And from Andrew McCarthy at National Review:

There were two questions of critical import: Was Terri Schiavo in a persistent vegetative state (PVS), and had she really evinced a desire not to live if she were ever in such a state? These questions were fundamental because the Supreme Court has recognized PVS as a point at which sustenance may permissibly be denied, and said that this decision may permissibly be communicated, but not made, by a surrogate. This is crucial because a person in a PVS is not dead. If she is to die, she must be killed. I know that is a terribly impolite way of putting it...matters. But that’s what has to happen: We have to kill her, or her life may go on for years...During the debate over Terri Schiavo, while she was being starved and dehydrated for two weeks, those supporting federal intervention made two contentions. First, that the proof that she was actually in a PVS was not strong enough and was suspect because basic tests that could easily have settled doubts were being resisted. Second, that the evidence that Terri had actually expressed a considered preference on the momentous decision of whether to end her life was appallingly thin...All that mattered was that Terri Schiavo’s life was not one that they thought worth living. Whether or not it had technically been reduced to a PVS was beside the point. Whether or not Terri had even thought about, much less made a knowing and intelligent judgment about, the choice between life and death was beside the point.

From Captain Ed:

Still unknown is what caused Schiavo, 41, to lose consciousness on a winter morning in 1990. Her heart beat ineffectively for nearly an hour, depriving her brain of blood flow and oxygen. A study of her organs, fluids, bones and cells, as well as voluminous medical records, failed to support strangulation, beatings, a drug overdose, complications of an eating disorder or a rare molecular heart defect. All had been offered as theories over the past 15 years. Thogmartin said the cause will probably never be known...The most hysterical charges involving Terri's husband were proven false, including the notion that he had injected Terri with insulin at some point to kill her...The most hysterical charges involving Terri's husband were proven false,including the notion that he had injected Terri with insulin at some point to kill her...An autopsy cannot determine the existence of PVS, as the coroner went out of his way to remind everyone. Dr. Thogmartin's careful analysis could find no evidence that Terri had been abused, relying on contemporaneous medical records as well as his autopsy, but could determine no cause for her collapse. That's unfortunate, as the lack of finality on that point will mean that speculation will endure forever...And most of all, as the coroner affirmed yesterday, Terri was not dying.

I agree with Captain Ed as to the essential problem with this case:

Despite all of this, Florida decided that it would deliberately kill Terri on the basis of her husband's wishes, without any living will or formal indication of her state of mind. As Rick Santorum said yesterday, such a ruling should have been allowed to receive a de novo hearing in federal court for a review, just as any death-penalty case would get. Without that, essentially Terri's fate rested on two men, Michael Schiavo and Judge George Greer, who refused to release the case to another court at any point in order to get a new hearing on the merits in front of another judge. And when the state decides to kill someone who isn't dying on their own -- as opposed to stopping artificial breathing/cardiac support for those who lack any ability to survive without it -- it should have more substantial oversight before doing so, and it should have more to rely on than an estranged husband's belated recollection of a superficial, general conversation as its basis.

Previous posts related to Terri Schiavo are here.

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