Blind Man's Love – The lesson of Terri Schiavo's autopsy

[kskiska]

By William Saletan

(snip)

Again, the bigger story is what you can't see. In this case, it's the four-plus hours of video from which Schiavo's parents and their supporters selected clips like these. Reporters who have watched the whole video series say it's largely a wasteland. "For nearly an hour, her parents and the doctor tell her to open her eyes, close her eyes, look this way, look that way—with little apparent response," says the St. Petersburg Times. The Times posts a sample clip in which Schiavo's mom, leaning in from the right, asks her daughter, "Can you turn over here and see me? Can you turn over here and see me? Okay. Hey, Sweetheart. Ter." A doctor tells the mother, "Ask her to look at you, would you, Mary?" Schiavo's mom obliges: "Terri? Can you look at Mommy? Can you look at Mommy? Over here. Ter." Nothing happens.

Same thing with the balloon clip. The judge in the Schiavo case notes that elsewhere on the hours of videotape her father "tried several more times to have her eyes follow the Mickey Mouse balloon but without success." The Times reports that at one point

her father gets gruff while trying unsuccessfully to get her to follow balloon. "Come here, Terri, no more fooling around. No more fooling around with your dad." He pokes her in the forehead to make sure she's awake. "No more fooling around with your dad. Listen to me. You see the balloon? You see Mickey?" Later, he apologizes, telling her others have admonished him for his tone.

This is what happens when you deny reality. First you lose your senses, then your mind, then your soul. It isn't Terri Schiavo who's refusing to see what's happening in that awful scene. It's her dad. And it isn't her defect, or her husband's sin, that's revealed in the autopsy report. It's ours. We were blind. We could not see.

more…
http://slate.msn.com/id/2121020/

[Patchuli]

1. Her father and mother are out of their minds

and so is Jeb Bush for trying to continue to beat this dead horse. I hope some of you DU'ers called his office like I did today to tell him to LET IT GO AND LEAVE MICHAEL ALONE!!!

Her father "poked her in the forehead" and told her "no more fooling around?" He's certifiably insane...how pathetic. Thank God Terri is free at last. I bet these people are what drove her to bulimia in the first place.

[Cha]

2. This is a very good description of

the bushreich, mainstreamwhoremedia, and the voters who buy into it.

"This is what happens when you deny reality. First you lose your senses, then your mind, then your soul."

[BrklynLiberal]

3. There is no doub tin my mind that it was her parents that drove her to

her eating disorder in the first place. Their need to have total control of her, and inability to let go of her were clearly demonstrated during the entire circus that they orchestrated in Florida.