Ever notice how the Kill Terri apologists keep saying every doctor agrees Terri Schiavo is PVS, until you mention by name any of the ones who don’t, and then it’s “Well that guy’s a quack, his opinion doesn’t count.” So what if Hammesfahr thinks she can be rehabilitated? He’s a kook! Cheshire? So what if he’s at Mayo Clinic and Judge Greer couldn’t get into med school anywhere. It doesn’t matter. Greer was clearly convinced, and therefore, the rest of us are obligated to accept his conclusions without question. So what if others are unsatisified with an inconclusive CT scan, preferring a more precise MRI or PET scan instead? That’s just hocus-pocus stuff for those Christian fundamentalist whackjobs who expect Terri to die today and return with Jesus on EasterGarden Sunday.

The Kill Terris seem to be equally smug about their of image of Michael Schiavo as the devoted, unconflicted husband whose motives are 100% pure. One of them, Rhianna Schoon who, despite being highly opinionated on the subject, was so poorly informed about this case that when I answered her pseudo-constitutional objections to the compromise bill with an observation that the Constitution contains no ” ‘when is that bitch going to die” Amendment,” she interpreted that as an accusation that she had called Terri Schiavo a bitch, and not a reference to Carla Iyer’s well-reported testimony. Oh, they say, but that’s just one nurse with an axe to grind. What does she know? Heidi Law? Well, she’s just one, too. As is Carolyn Johnson. Or Trudy Capone, a nurse who maintains that not only did Michael Schiavo not say his wife had expressed a desire to die if incapacitated, but specifically said he repeatedly told her they had not discussed what to do in such a situation. Or the nursing assistant who dated Michael in the early 1990s and maintains that he stalked her for over a year after their breakup.

Listening to these guys talk, you would almost think that they’ve made up their minds early on that there is not supposed any credible evidence that Terri Schiavo either (1) is not in a PVS or (2) expressed anything short of an unequivocal desire to be taken off life support if incapacitated. Therefore, any evidence that may surface which is consistent with either of these possibilities is automatically written off as not credible, by definition. They seem to be as stubborn as Schiavo himsef is, according to his brother:

Michael Schiavo was taught early on not to back down.

[deleted for space]

“We were raised to never give up,” says Schiavo’s older brother, Scott. “To stick to your guns, and if you believe in something, you just do it.”

In other words, he was raised to be a stubborn jerk, of the variety that some mistake for being principled. Basically, ” I want what I want, everyone else be damned. ” But I must confess one thing: I lied when I said the intervening paragraph was deleted “for space.” In fact, it was deleted for irony. Here it is:

His father, William, often reminded his boys that when he was diagnosed with polio at age 12, doctors said he would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Six years later, he signed a minor-league contract with the old Philadelphia Athletics of the American League.