I’ve written a new petition directed towards the Florida Legislature and Governor. It pushes for the passage of HB 701 with the addition that rehabilitation can also not be denied unless made in writing. I’ll be sending it around to the usual suspects for a petition drive on their lists (i.e. AFA, Conservative Petitions, etc).
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Dear Governor Bush and members of the Florida House and Senate-
Once again we call upon you to intervene to save the life of Terri Schiavo. Judge Greer has mandated that Terri be starved to death beginning March 18th at 1pm. Don’t let this judge sentence this women to death in a civil proceeding.
We ask you to bring the legislature into special session and enact into law HB 701, the Florida Starvation and Dehydration of Persons with Disabilities Prevention Act. We also ask you to add in the following to that bill. “That persons that are presumed incompetent shall not be denied rehabilitative care unless the patients has expressly and in writing specified that they would not wish to have such care.”
The law should always err on the side of life. While your leadership was instrumental in getting “Terri’s Law” passed, this law will not have the same constitutional considerations. It is perfectly within the purview of the Legislature to determine what constitutes appropriate proof that a patient would wish to be denied food or medical care. In this case, two parties who are very close to the patient disagree with what the patient’s wishes are. It is difficult for an indifferent third party to determine who is right. A legal analysis if this is available at : http://decision.csl.uiuc.edu/~bambenek/NRTL-hb701.pdf
This would not take away the patient’s ability to determine how they would want to be cared for in these circumstances, but it would say they have to document those wishes authoritatively to prevent misunderstands or for parties to infuse their own self-interest into the decision-making process.
Once again we call upon you all to see that justice is done for Terri Schiavo and we trust that you will do all in your power to save the innocent people that you are charged to represent and protect. Please pass HB 701 with the addition above immediately.
Signed:
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