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Terri’s
Law: Incapacitated Person’s Legal Protection Act
Habeas Corpus To Be Extended To
Incapacitated Persons in Disputes.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 8, 2005
Emergency
federal legislation known as the “Incapacitated
Person's Legal Protection Act,” the "Federal
Terri’s Law,” (S 539) has been submitted by
Florida Senator Mel Martinez. Florida Rep. David
Weldon, MD will submit it in the House today.
This bill would extend Habeas Corpus to incapacitated
persons like Terri Schiavo and give Terri’s family
(and families like hers) access to a federal court to
argue for the life of their daughter. This will
benefit Terri if it is passed by March 18, 2005 when
Terri’s husband will be able to remove Terri’s
feeding tube under a Florida state court order or,
before she is killed by the dehydration and
starvation.
This
bill will “provide the protections of habeas corpus
for certain individuals whose life support may be
withdrawn pursuant to court order, and for other
purposes.” It says that “in circumstances in
which there is a contested judicial proceeding because
of dispute about the expressed previous wishes or best
interests of a person presently incapable of making
known a choice concerning treatment, food, and fluids
the denial of which will result in death, to provide
that the fundamental due process and equal protection
rights of incapacitated persons are protected by
ensuring the availability of collateral review through
habeas corpus proceedings.” It will not apply
when there is no dispute about these wishes.
Nevadans
for Life and Nevada LIFE support immediate passage of
Terri’s Law to provide another layer of certainty
that incapacitated persons with no written directives
will not be wrongfully put to death. We believe,
along with a growing number of Americans, that the
impending order to allow the painful process of
starvation and dehydration is a flagrant violation of
Terri Schiavo’s right to life. Terri is not in
a coma. She is not dying. She is not sick.
She is not on life support machines. She has not
requested death and her family will care for her the
rest of her life. Florida Judge George Greer has
refused evidence from leading medical authorities.
He has allowed Terri’s husband to refuse her any
therapy that disabled persons like her retain under
Florida law. Greer has allowed her husband to
spend over $400,000 of a malpractice award for
Terri’s rehabilitation on legal fees to end her
life. Greer has allowed him to restrict access
to Terri’s family and priests. Terri lives in
a dimly lit room while her husband has fathered two
children by his girlfriend he’s lived with for the
last ten years. Only the narrowest judicial
blinders could allow anyone to believe that Terri’s
husband is fit to act in her best interests.
Judge
Greer is weary of this case. He wants it to end
and will not hear any new motions to delay removal of
Terri’s feeding tube. Greer is treating Terri
with less regard and more contempt than John Wayne
Gacy and Ted Bundy who were granted years and years of
appeals in the Florida courts to make sure that they
were not wrongly put to death for their heinous
crimes. Congress must pass this bill immediately
to insure that incapacitated persons have the same
access to review by a federal court as do our worst
criminals. America must not become a nation that
discards handicapped human beings like trash or leaves
their fates to the whims of obstinate judges weary of
the work of justice.
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