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care he won in the court trial. He has spent 400,000$ of the money won for Terri's support on his laywer.
WHAT LITTLE Terri Schiavo has left in this life, is being cruelly stripped away. Not only has a judge ordered her to die slowly by dehydration via having her tube-supplied food and water removed, but now, her (estranged) husband and legal guardian Michael Schiavo has completely isolated her from her family. Ever since mysterious "puncture wounds" were supposedly detected on Terri's arm, he has refused to allow Bob and Mary Schindler, Terri's parents, to visit her.
For those who may not recall the controversy, Terri is the profoundly cognitively disabled woman who is the subject of a bitter right-to-live case in Clearwater, Florida. Michael remains in dictatorial charge of her care, even though he long ago abandoned his marriage by living with another woman and siring two children by her. He wants Terri dead (he says that is what she would want), while her parents only want to care for her properly for the rest of their lives.
Michael's behavior toward Terri has been utterly despicable for the last decade. After she collapsed in 1990, he sued for medical malpractice on her behalf. During the trial, he presented himself to the jury as a dedicated and loving husband--even though he had been romancing other women since shortly after the time of Terri's collapse and brain injury. He told the jury he would care for Terri for the rest of her life, which an expert testified would be a normal life span, and that as part of this loving devotion, he would provide her with regular medical tests and appropriate rehabilitation with the money the jury awarded.
Terri received about $750,000 in early 1993, and Michael about $300,000 for loss of her companionship. As soon as Terri's money was safely in the bank, Michael put her two cats to sleep. He then melted down her wedding and engagement rings to make a ring for himself. Medical records indicate that Terri went for years without having her teeth cleaned, as an apparent consequence of which, she recently had five teeth extracted.
And, he wanted his wife dead. Within a year of the verdict, he refused to allow doctors to treat her with antibiotics to treat a serious infection, claiming that Terri would not want to live in her disabled condition--a point he somehow forgot to mention to the malpractice jury. Not coincidentally, had she died, he would have inherited her $700,000. Terri's parents sued to mandate care, and their relationship with Michael was forever poisoned.
Thereafter, medical records indicate, Terri had none of the medical testing Michael told the malpractice jury he would provide her, and apparently she received no rehabilitation. Indeed, nurses who cared for her in the mid-1990s filed sworn affidavits claiming that Michael repeatedly refused doctor recommendations that Terri be provided therapy.
As bad as Michael has been, in many ways, the performance of Judge George W. Greer of the Sixth Judicial Circuit, the jurist who oversees Terri's case, has been even worse. Over the years Greer has repeatedly allowed Michael to shirk his legal mandate as guardian to file annual prospective "guardianship plans," specifying his proposal for providing for Terri's medical and social needs for the coming year.
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