Terry's legacy - as I see it
The motives of Terry's 'husband' should be clear to even the most virulent 'right to death' advocate. It is/was, to put it simply, access to the funds from her malpractice law suit. He had his new life all setup, and no longer had the patience to wait for truly natural events to end her life. He could not allow her parents to take over her care or divorce her, since the funds were for her care and would have 'followed' her rather than remaining as his.At this point, it might be interesting but probably not useful to audit exactly how those funds were used during Terry's incarceration. However, once Terry's husband was no longer willing to wait, her end by some means became inevitable. His luck, was in finding a juidicial system and a judge that were personnaly horrified by Terry's condition and unwilling or ignorant of the presence/need for certain tests to obtain a definitive diagnosis rather than just an opinion (her husband had apparently blocked any PET or MRI tests that would have provided this information).
In this particular instance, a county judge's ruling trumped every legal and procedureal check and balance in the system to prevent just this type of occurance. One could resort to hyperbole and say that this Judge thus became a co-conspirator in Terry's murder. Added to the horror of this situation, is that there was no aritificial life support, no flipping a switch to 'allow her to die'. Regardless of what we may think or think we know of her neural condition, her body was quite capable of sustaining itself as long as it was provided nourishment and hydration.
Rather than euthanize her, as is required for our pets and animals in our care, she was starved and dehydrated, eventually dying of thirst. While there are more painful and agonizing ways to die, there are not many that are worse. Our laws require the arrest and prosecution of anyone who would treat an animal in this manner. Our laws specifically provide that execution of terrible criminals be free of suffering, be humane and pain free. Yet our judicial system ordered a most painful and horrific death for this helpless victim!!
I believe that this incident has exposed a deep and abiding fear and loathing of the disabled that exists in this Judge and, to be honest, in much of society. Death by any means, no matter how painful, is viewed as better than living on this condition. That is acceptable as a personal opinion and choice. However, as a decree by judicial fiat when the wishes of the victim cannot be known is murder.
To say this was Terry's constitutional right is reading something into the Constitution that was never there; our founding fathers would be rightfully horrified by what the judicial branch as become and has done in creating new law.
If Terry's death is to have an impact on us as a nation, then we as a people must make a choice and act on it. We must not just sit in homes, cluck our tongues at the injustice and proceed on with our lives as normal - that is what feeds this type of injustice.
"All that evil needs to prosper, is for good men to do nothing", or words to that effect is what describes the situation we find now. If you truly believe that what occured in Florida was wrong, and want to make a difference, then now is the time to start writing your state and federal legislators and executives. The goal is simple but difficult; bring the judiciary under the same checks an balances that it provides to the other two branches. The judiciary alone, has the ability under current interpretation, to create law by fiat. It can do this without vote, with review or acceptance of either of the other two branches of government.
This was acceptable, when the judiciary behaved as originally intended - the weakest branch. The Founding Fathers never imagined and activist judiciary system that could/would create new law from nothing. The judiciary they put in place, was strictly constructionist; for this reason it did not have the checks placed on it that the executive and legistative branches did.
This can be remedied by legislation, although it must be carefully crafted so to not swing to far in the other direction. It will take a grass roots surge to initiate this, since this is not a minor or trivial exercise. So write, call, or email and make your opinion known.
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