By DONNA DE LA CRUZ
Friday, April 01, 2005
WASHINGTON - New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, a friend and advocate of Terri Schiavo's family, called for a full inquiry into her case yesterday after the severely brain-damaged woman who spent 15 years connected to a feeding tube died.
Smith has said Schiavo was not in a persistent, vegetative state, but was a disabled woman who was unjustly killed by deliberate dehydration and starvation.
He was among the Republicans who lobbied Congress successfully for the passage of a bill earlier this month that allowed Schiavo's parents the right to sue in federal court over the withdrawal of nourishment and medical treatment needed to sustain their daughter.
Smith said Congress must identify legislative reforms that will better protect the rights of those who are not near death, are not suffering from a terminal illness, and whose "so-called wishes `to die' have been credibly contested by family and friends."
Smith characterized Schiavo as a "healthy but disabled woman" whose death "exposes an extremely cruel, merciless and dysfunctional element" within the judicial system.
"The fundamental human rights of disabled people have suffered a tremendous blow as Terri Schiavo was sentenced to die and then denied her own representation and a new and full review by federal courts," said Smith in a statement issued from Geneva, Switzerland, where he is attending a United Nations Human Rights Conference.
Schiavo suffered severe brain damage in 1990 after her heart stopped because of a chemical imbalance that was believed to have been brought on by an eating disorder. Court-appointed doctors ruled she was in a persistent vegetative state, with no real consciousness or chance of recovery.
She left no written instructions, but her husband argued that his wife told him long ago she would not want to be kept alive artificially. His in-laws disputed that, saying that would have gone against her Roman Catholic faith, and they contended she could get better with treatment. They said she laughed, cried, responded to them and tried to talk.
Last week, Smith told The Associated Press of his own family's difficult decision on whether to remove his father, stricken with cancer, from life support in 1996.
After doctors told Smith's family there was nothing they could do for his father, the congressman and his siblings agreed to have him taken off a respirator. His father died minutes later.
In West Windsor, N.J., Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Forrester called for a "Terri's Law" in New Jersey that would allow severely debilitated patients to remain alive if there is no living will and "no clear and convincing evidence of the person's desires."
"This law in New Jersey would provide extra protection for severely disabled people who have nothing in writing and whose family members are divided on their proper care," Forrester said.
Copyright 2005 NJ.com
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