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The Schiavo beat goes on in the letters to the editor of the NY Times today.

Carl d'Angio, M.D., of Mount Vernon, N.Y says:

Her family loved what was left of her and asked only to be permitted to care for her at their own expense.

Ah, no. He parents didn't "ask only" that. That's the way they phrased what they were asking, but it wasn't what they were asking. They were asking to be named Terri Schiavo's legal guardians in place of her husband--with all that entailed.

We refer Poor Readers to the 2000 decision of presiding Judge Greer:

"During the period of time following the incident of February 25, 1990 the parties worked together in an attempt to provide the best care possible for Terri Schiavo. On February 14, 1993, this amicable relationship between the parties was severed. While the testimony differs on what may or may not have been promised to whom and by whom, it is clear to this court that such severance was predicated upon money and the fact that Mr. Schiavo was unwilling to equally divide his loss of consortium award with Mr. and Mrs. Schindler. They have literally not spoken since that date. Regrettably, money overshadows this entire case and creates potential of conflict of interest for both sides."

Note that it was not Terri Schiavo's medical judgment money that the Schindler's wanted at this point, but Michael Schiavo's loss of consortium award.

"The record before this court discloses that should Mr. and Mrs, Schindler prevail, their stated hope is that Mr. Schiavo would divorce their daughter, get on with his life, they would become appointed guardians of Terri Schiavo and become her heirs at law. They have even encouraged him to "get on with his life". Therefor neither side is exempt from finger pointing as to possible conflicts of interest in this case."

Lest there be any confusion as to what Judge Greer thought of some of the "witnesses", he wrote:

The court also had the opportunity to observe the witnesses when they testified, to note body language, pauses, inflections and other non-verbal factors utilized in determining credibility which would not appear in a transcript of these proceedings.

Read the entire decision and you'll see Judge Greer wasn't referring to Michael Schiavo here.

Moving on we find this curiously idiotic letter from the vice chairman of the department of neurological surgery at SUNY, Michael Egnor, M.D.

To the Editor:

Terri Schiavo's autopsy report claimed that she was probably blind. Supporters of the decision to starve her to death have hailed this finding as bolstering their argument that withdrawal of her feeding tube was ethical.

Their reasoning is hard to follow.

If Ms. Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state, blindness is a meaningless diagnosis. Only sentient people can see, and only sentient people can be blind. And if she were blind, then she was sentient, and the diagnosis of persistent vegetative state was a genuinely fatal mistake.

The lapses in logic aside, it's chilling to assert that it's more ethical to starve a handicapped person if that person is blind. This is what passes for ethics among advocates for euthanasia.

Michael Egnor, M.D.
Stony Brook, N.Y., June 18, 2005

Um...wow.

The autopsy report said that the portion of Terri's Schiavo's brain responsible for vision was dead. "Blind" was just a word that was tossed around as short-hand to make clear to lay people that she couldn't have tracked a balloon, as some people--including some doctors--suggested she could.

The medical examiners explicitly avoided making any clinical judgment on whether Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state, as that is a clinical and not a pathological matter. They said only that their findings were consistent with that.

What was revealed was that Terri Schiavo couldn't have tracked a balloon because the vision centers in her brain were dead. That people use the word "blind" may offend Dr. Egnor's sense of semantics, but it certainly doesn't create a conflict over Schiavo's condition. There was never any credible conflict over that, as the autopsy has confirmed.

But clearly there is more than an overdeveloped sense of semantics going on with Dr. Egnor. No one with any credibility called Terri Schiavo "handicapped", let along suggested that the handicap of blindness was reason for "euthanasia".

Does anyone recall an argument for euthanizing the blind? Neither do we.

What was argued was that Terri Schiavo--whose severely atrophied brain had "zero electrical activity"--was in a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery and wouldn't have wanted to live that way. The diagnosis has been confirmed by autopsy, and her wishes were determined as best as possible by a court of law.

Dr. Egnor can dislike the court decision, but he is not entitled to simply reformulate the historical, medical or philosophical facts at issue to suit himself.

Note to self: don't send son to SUNY.