Florida Senate rejects 21-18 bill to save Terri Schiavo

Webster tells colleagues: ‘I’m pleading for mercy’ for Terri

Mar 24, 2005
JAMES A. SMITH SR.
Executive Editor

TALLAHASSEE (FBW) – For the second time in a week, the Florida Senate has rejected a bill that intended to help Terri Schiavo offered by Sen. Daniel Webster, R-Winter Garden.

The March 23 vote – 21-18 against the measure – failed to reduce the number of senators in opposition from the previous week in which the Senate voted 21-16 against the similar bill offered by Webster.

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The Senate rejected Webster’s appeal – “I’m pleading for mercy. Have mercy on Theresa Maria Schiavo” – in the closing comments of the emotional debate in which some senators claimed that their opposition to the bill was based in part on threatening e-mail, letters, phone calls and even in person protests from supporters of Terri Schiavo, the 41-year-old severely brain-damaged woman who had been without nutrition and hydration for five days at the time of the Senate’s action.

According to Florida Baptists’ legislative consultant, Bill Bunkley, and several news organizations, Sen. Larcenia Bullard, D-Miami, had suggested that she was considering the possibility of supporting the measure. During the debate, however, Bullard made it clear the threatening protests had turned her away from supporting the bill.

Although she has received calls and email from people from across the nation, Bullard said, “I have never received a call from a minister” in her district, and “there’s a church on every other block.”

Bullard told senators, “Let us let Terri Schiavo die with dignity” and asserted, “the Judge will decide” – noting that judge is God, not men. “I ask you not to judge me based on my vote today” to oppose Webster’s bill.

Sen. Walter Campbell, D-Fort Lauderdale, told senators over the weekend he worked with Webster to craft a bill to attempt to help Schiavo, but came to the conclusion the draft bill would not be constitutional, which he said was also true of Webster’s latest bill.

“For the last two weeks this has been one of the most heart-wrenching things in my life,” Campbell told his colleagues as he appeared to choke back tears.

Rejecting those who claimed the vote was easy, Campbell urged his colleagues to each vote according to their consciences.

Looking at Bobby Schindler who observed the debate from the gallery above the Senate floor, Campbell said, “In my religion, we have a prayer that says, ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.’ I pray, Mr. Schindler, that you will forgive us if we’re doing the wrong thing. God bless you, and God bless your family.”

During a brief break from observing the debate, Schindler told Florida Baptist Witness that it was difficult to watch the debate while “my sister is being starved to death.”

He added, “It’s hard to describe how I’m feeling right now. It’s a gamut of emotions I’m going through right now. I’m worried sick about my sister and I’m worried sick about my mom and my dad and my other sister. … I can’t make sense of [the desire to starve Terri]. And it’s just tearing me up.”

Asked if he was satisfied that the governor is doing everything he can to help his sister, Schindler replied, “Well, I want my sister safe. … I think the governor’s a good man, I think he wants to do the right thing.”

Nine Republican senators who voted against the first bill offered by Webster last week – dubbed the “Republican Nine” by their leader, former Senate President Jim King, R-Jacksonville – all voted again against the measure.

Admitting “this isn’t a perfect bill,” the measure was a committee substitute to SB 804 and was a compromise measure offered by Webster in order to move the process forward. As in typical in the give-and-take of the legislative process, Webster asked his colleagues to allow the bill to pass, recognizing that it would go over the House, which passed a different bill March 16, and senators would have another opportunity to improve the bill after consideration in the House.

Webster, a member of First Baptist Church of Central Florida, told senators that just in the case of when DNA evidence reveals the innocence of a convicted criminal on death row, legislation can undue wrongful decisions by the courts.

“All I’ve said is, let’s be sure” about the true intentions of Terri Schiavo before she is starved to death, Webster told his colleagues. “All I’ve asked you do, if you don’t know [Terri’s desires], is to err on the side of life.”

Webster told senators about Kate Adamson, a woman who suffered a double brain-stem stroke and had her feeding tube removed for eight days while she was unresponsive, but was aware of what was happening around her. She was present to offer support for legislation to help Terri. Adamson observed the debate from the Senate gallery.

Webster also told senators about a March 23 affidavit offered by neurologist William P. Cheshire Jr., who serves at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, which argues that Terri Schiavo is not in a persistent vegetative state, but a “minimally conscious state” – a distinction that makes unethical the decision to withhold food and water from Terri.

Cheshire offered his medical evaluation of Schiavo after being asked by the Department of Children and Families to visit Terri and review her records. (For more on the affidavit, see, “Neurologist argues Schiavo is not ‘PVS,’ withdrawing food and water wrong,” online.)

Randy Armstrong, a physician from Tampa in Tallahassee to testify before a House committee concerning an unrelated bill, observed the Senate debate and expressed disappointment at the outcome.

A member of Idlewild Baptist Church, Armstrong told the Witness, “I personally never felt it would get this point” – of Terri’s starvation.

Bunkley, legislative consultant for the Florida Baptist Convention who became personally involved in helping the Schindler family nearly two years ago, told the Witness he was “very disappointed on behalf of Terri and her family.”

Bunkley said, “My wife’s and my heart really goes out to the family. As we’ve seen a lot of options dwindle we’re praying for Terri and for her family.”

He commended Webster’s courage in moving legislation even though it was unlikely to succeed.

“Webster is a man of character and principle,” Bunkley said. “He has stood for life on an issue that is greatly misunderstood.”

Bunkley added, “I think that his close” of the Senate debate “was the finest speech” Webster has ever given.

He said that the tenor of some of the protests by supporters of Terri in the Capitol in recent days was “unfortunate” and that it does appear to have negatively affected at least one vote – Sen. Bullard – who he said had a private meeting with the Schindler family last week and was “coming our way” until protests caused her to decide to vote against the bill.

Bunkley said that it’s important that citizens offer their opinions on important issues in a responsible manner.

“Terri Schiavo is going to be a marker in this country’s journey in dealing with euthanasia,” Bunkley said. “Make no doubt about it: whether she lives or she passes on, she will have a great deal to do with how we consider legislation in the future.”

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