Taking Action in Terri Schiavo's Case

I am working with our legislative team in Washington, D.C. today to put together a plan that will deploy several of our top legislative experts on the ground in Florida -- perphaps within the next week -- to assist and work with the Florida Governor's office and the state legislature to take action to save the life of Terri Schiavo.  I am in touch with legislators in Florida and I want to make sure they have the assistance they need from us to get involved in this case.  It's important that we have people in Florida working on Terri's behalf.  I'll let you know more about those plans next week.

I want to thank the more than 4,000 people who responded to our request yesterday.  We are petitioning the Governor's office and the state legislature to take whatever action possible to stop Terri's death sentence.  If you haven't done so, I want to encourage you to sign the petition.  The Florida court system has cleared the way for her feeding tube to be removed on March 18th.  I have been on the phone with David Gibbs, the Florida attorney representing Terri's parents in these matters.  And, while we are doing everything possible to assist in the legal arena, I want to put as much pressure as possible on the Governor's office and state lawmakers to take life-saving action in Terri's case.

There's also been an important new development in Terri's case.  A Florida agency that has asked the Florida courts to intervene on behalf of Terri has released a report that includes some 30 allegations of abuse and neglect in the case of Terri Schiavo.  The report does not say who is responsible for those allegations of abuse but does want to investigate these very serious charges.  We have a news report posted on our site about this important development. A Florida judge has scheduled a hearing for next Wednesday to determine whether the state agency will be permitted to intervene in the case.

The case involving Terri Schiavo points very clearly to the need to protect human life at all stages.  Just days ago, the Supreme Court of the United States agreed to hear a case out of Oregon concerning assisted suicide.  In this case, the Department of Justice is appealing a lower court decision that prohibited the federal government from taking action against physicians who use federally-prescribed drugs in assisting patients to commit suicide.  We will be filing briefs at the high court in support of the Attorney General Gonzales and the Department of Justice.  There simply is no legitimate medical purpose for doctors to use life-ending medication on patients who want to commit suicide.  I think this is a very important case and I met with our senior team about it yesterday in Washington to begin the groundwork for our briefs.