Talk:Terri Schiavo case/Archive 47

Americans don't want to live "with no hope of improvement,"
Isn't this a scary sentence? What it says is "Once you have passed your peak ......" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MartinGugino (talk • contribs) 08:03, 23 January 2007 (UTC).

re: "Perhaps the greatest effect"
Quote taken from the last paragraph.

Sorry, but that's a little too happy a conclusion for me. I left it alone however.

I know that many people were shocked, appalled, stunned that this could happen. Er, like, in "America". I think a lot of people were not ready for this. To me, for example, it seems an insane result. What a fiasco.


 * I'm upset at the outcome too, per the last half of chapter 25 of the Gospel according to Matthew, where Jesus says that he doesn't like anyone denying the least of these, his brethren, including his sisters, of course, a cup of water. The feeding tube issue is moot: So what if the feeding tube was denied? Does that mean Jesus is happy with the denial of the food and water too? No! Reference: Matthew 25:21-46, Holy Bible.


 * OK, this is not a religious article, and we can't use the Bible as a standard, no matter how right it is: We must use the laws as standards, but even there, I think the laws were violated. Just do a google search on my name and Terri Schiavo's name, and you'll quickly find out what I thought of these Kangaroo "Kourts."--GordonWatts 09:35, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

More help needed to resolve ongoing Schiavo disputes
At this diff, we again find Calton causing trouble. He revered my edit, removing every single link that I put in, supposedly because of angst with one particular link that is a blog.

I don't think he is right to oppose that, but at least he makes a half-way argument about not being notable. (I say this to contrast the arguments Proto made about blogs not being acceptable; Of course, he is wrong: Many blog links had been in the article after his edit.)

I will be fine with any consensus by the community on the links in question -if for not other reason than to make Calton stop arguing, a worthwhile motive, but not the best motive, I admit. (We should have as motives simply to make an Encyclopaedia article with sufficient details -and references to back them up.)

So, in short, Terri Schiavo's article seems OK, but help is needed at the Public_opinion_and_activism_in_the_Terri_Schiavo_case article -specifically, the links section.

'''PS: Any user can look at my recent contributions to see that I am a responsible editor, just in case anyone wants to know. Plus, I was the one who created the pretty Template:TOCcenter template you see at the top of the Wikipedia_talk:Village_pump page and seen in the page history here, which, for some reason, is needed: The Table of Contents doesn't automatically show on the Village Pump's talk page, like it used to -and like it does on this page. Anyone can help here??'''

In closing, if I am not around to vote, then my "vote" for each and every link enumerated is "add this link," but in the end, if some links are voted down, I would hope that at least some of them could stay -to strengthen the references section.--GordonWatts 09:39, 23 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and made an edit revision and reverted to a prior stable version, but although I did not include the North County Gazette link, I want to clarify: My "vote" for each link is to "add" -including the Gazette link. I just wanted to clarify that I'm voting "for" its inclusion, and the only reason I don't myself add it is because I'm a peace-living person who does not want to be responsible for World War Three on this wiki.--GordonWatts 09:57, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

The opening sentence
The open sentence is rather vague. It is certainly possible to tell the read about the main two factual aspects of Terrir Schivo without all that vagueness. How about:


 * ''Theresa Marie "Terri" Schiavo (December 3, 1963 – March 31, 2005), of St. Petersburg, Florida, was a diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) after experienced respiratory and cardiac arrest. While Terri was in a coma for 15 years, her husband and parents eventually legally struggled over whether to continue life support. The husband, Michael, wanted to terminate life support.  While the parents escalated their resistence to the State and Federal level, eventually leading to the Congress of the United States to passing legislation in order to prevent termination of Terri's life support, Michael eventually prevailed and life support was terminated. During this time and in the days leading up to Terri's death, this story dominated the national news and, to a lesser degree, the international news.

This way, you stop trying to characterize Terri and you simply say "what happened", mentioning only the most important aspects of the story and keeping the narrative following the timeline. -- 64.9.234.5 21:47, 25 January 2007 (UTC)


 * At first glance, your version seems to have perfect grammar, spelling (except Terri's 1st & last name & the word "resistance"), punctuation, and also make sense -and is a bit shorter. Being shorter can be an advantage -and a disadvantage: You version, in my honest opnion, leaves out a little bit of relevant introductory material; furthermore, I don't see how the opening section here mischaracterizes Terri at all.--GordonWatts 13:04, 26 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It is not a matter of mischaracterization. It is a matter of clarity, brevity and directness. For instance, in the current opening sentence, most readers do not need to be informed that Terri Schiavo was "a woman". How many other biographies start with the correct statement that the subject is "a man" or "a woman" or "a person"? The problem is that the opening sentences use passive constructs. Ideally, the sentences should be "subject-past_tense_verb-object" and read in a clear, direct and fair narrative of factual events of "what happened", not characterizations.  If Terri was an important artist, then maybe we would want to try to "characterize" her artisitc work, but that is not the case here.  Ideally, each sentence should also be something that the reader readily recognizes as an essential event of the story that also asserts the story's importance or enhances clarity. -- 199.33.32.40 19:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I am returning the page to its prior state, but I do note that you reverted and erased your initial comment above to buy time to rethink your argument; It is wise and logical to think a bit before you talk, as Spock might say. I wanted to apoligise for my own typo in the edit summary of the article page, regarding (ironically) reverting (apparently) another editor, where I said: "but the prior version of 911 was less ambiguous than the 9-1-1 version, which had a disambiguation page)," clearly I got the 911 and 9-1-1 mixed up, and I meant to say that the 9-1-1, not the other, was less ambiguous. Anyhow, I shall read your comment before I think to reply.--GordonWatts 20:31, 26 January 2007 (UTC)


 * OK, I took your advice and made the section more clear - see the history page end edit summary -The use of the passive voice ("she was so-and-so" --- "HE was president of ...") is quite common and stays -as you recommended. Word and character length is about the same, but it is clearer.--GordonWatts 20:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)


 * After looking at other biographies, here is a suggestion:

Theresa Marie "Terri" Schiavo (December 3, 1963 – March 31, 2005), of St. Petersburg, Florida, was a hospital patient diagnosed as...
 * and then the same as above. During the time of her notability, that is what she was: a hospital patient. I note that GordonWatts got reverted, but maybe we can still make progress. -- 68.127.150.225 04:12, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I note that you use the conjunction, "but," implying support for my edit, so I put back in mention of the fact Terri was well-known for the feeding tube. Heck, that was the thing for which she was MOST well-known, even though, in my honest opinion, food and water were more important than feeding tubes. AGAIN, I ask you (68.aa.bb.cc) and 70.xx.yy.zz (and the other anon, User:199.aa.bb.cc) to all REGISTER, already, OK? That was, people won't accuse us of all being the same person, OK?--GordonWatts 17:23, 27 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I decided to go for "long-term hospital patient". There is no loss of dignity in that. Plus, it introduces the reader to the subject at the time she becomes notable, which was around 2003. It provides the background and setting and then gets the reader through the rest of the story in one paragraph, emphasizing the fact that she died because her husband prevailed in the drawn-out struggle. -- 68.127.150.225 04:31, 27 January 2007 (UTC)


 * OK, now we are getting somewhere. I will state this again: you want to introduce the reader in, say, 2002, as if the reader were a fellow physician. The most important things are: the initial event that landed our patient in the hospital and what her current diagnosis is. Then, briefly(!), the family feud. Then all the legal intervention stuff.  Then he wins, she croaks and it's a wrap. -- 64.9.237.81 16:14, 27 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I corrected 3 minor typos in your post, something I almost never do now days out of courtesy, but I suspect you won't mind; Also, I ask you to register because some may suspect I am using an anonymous screen name: I note that your writing style (use of the word "note" and also style of editing) is so similar to mine that some may accuse me of being you, so I think you should register to disambiguate and reduce confusion on who is who; Also, I shall shortly comment on your edit, but I am not finished analyzing it yet.--GordonWatts 16:37, 27 January 2007 (UTC) (THX 4 signing for me 70.xx.yy.zz that was fast! --GordonWatts 16:46, 27 January 2007 (UTC))

GW: A bit of advice: dwelling on the feeding tube is asking for people to misread your intentions. This is because the perception of "loss of dignity" for the patient is central to much of the conflict about this article. I admit that "long-term hospital patient" is a little vague, but since the patient was not quite "comotose", I leave that adjective out (it would have been handy, because comatose implies feeding tube). Too many readers (and W editors) will interpret any terse mention of "feeding tube" as a loss of dignity for the patient. It ultimately falls in the realm of diplomacy and anticipating a re-fight over this fought-over ground. I am not going to revert your latest change, but I expect that somebody else will. Hoepfully they will not revert deeply, but I am taking a wait-and-see approach. -- 70.231.140.181 17:29, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

One more change: "most well-known for" is always asking for trouble. Let's me try to take a physician's approach to the description (I am not a physician, but I am trying to take the POV os a good doc and see if that elevates the level of the conversation and the prose). -- 70.231.140.181 17:36, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, I did another re-word to avoid phrases like "well-known". How does it look to you now? -- 70.231.140.181 17:44, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Fairly well, except where I have made changes - apparently, if I changed something, I thought it needed tweaking. Overall, all you anonymous editors have been doing very well, thank you!--GordonWatts 07:47, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

A real pediatrician I met recently took a quick look and suggested that the parent's legal argument be added. I did my best to do so but to also keep it brief. -- 70.231.140.181 18:04, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

And to emphasize once again: the media coverage and "fame" is the least-important aspect of this story because it is the most ephemeral and derivative of the relevant facts. Let's strive to keep it as the last item in the paragraph. -- 70.231.140.181 18:59, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I am happy with this new, brief first sentence. Nobody else gets to interfere. The prose just takes the reader to Terri in her quiet but lonely hospital bed. It says only what needs to be said about her role, but still, it cannot help but to invoke thought and compassion from within the reader for this human being:
 * Theresa Marie "Terri" Schiavo (December 3, 1963 – March 31, 2005), from St. Petersburg, Florida was a long-term hospital patient who was dependent on a gastric feeding tube.

A wise person once pointed out to me that on your deathbed, you can be surrounded by family and friends, but death is an individual and private experience: you die alone. If I may:
 * For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 1 Corinthians 15:22

--69.236.33.219 05:45, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Now, let's use the failed FA feedback
OK, now that the opening paragraph is crisp (not brilliant prose yet, but crisp), let's see what we can do to move in the direction of FA quality. Sure, this one article is not going to get us to WP:100K, but it could be progress towards, say, 2K FA's at W. It seems like the sections called "Initial medical crisis" and maybe the whole "Five years of family conflict" is where things really start to bog down for the reader. In everything else, something happens and the story moves along, but these two sections have several qualities:
 * They do not delegate any of their content
 * They are lengthy and high in medical detail
 * From the reader's piont of view, they are poorly movitivated. There is an ongoing suspicion that the husband directly contributed to the his wife's collapse. It is kind of like those bumper stickers that say "O.J. did it." (BTW: Neither will ever be criminally prosecuted, so let's not get into that) If we fail to explain right up front that this is why we are dwelling on tiny details of the "initial medical crisis", the reader misses the point and gets bored. Either we explain WHY we are dwelling on the details or we condense the thing. I am open to other ways to get to brilliant prose on this. Any other suggestions?
 * There are right-to-life/right-to-die factions that created this thing as if by committee and the prose suffers for it. This story is OVER. Most Americans do not even remember it. Let's care about Wikipedia for a while and get this thing to FA. We have to be sensitive about the subject and maintain her dignity (and little missteps still provoke reverts) but let's finish this thing. Terri deserves FA. Wikipedia deserves FA. OK? Heck, I am in a good mood this morning, even Jimmy Wales deserves this thing to be FA. After all, it all happened within miles of where he lives. But now it is old news and it deserves NPOV and quality and FA. Let's do it.  Read the failed FA feedback and let's do it. -- 70.231.140.181 17:03, 27 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Hey, 70.aaa.bbb.ccc, you didn't see? There was an edit change in the lead paragraph three (3) minutes after you initially posted: WATTS_Word_97-2003 found numerous errors -and corrected them all! I'm Gordon Watts and I approve this message. Also, I note that at least I made edit summaries that justified my each and every edit change, even when I made multiple changes per edit. That is something that I note that Rosemary did not do, but she is a vegan like myself, so she's not all bad. One more thing, 70.xx..., I'd ask that you register so people don't accuse you of being me or vice verca, OK? Thx!!--GordonWatts 17:16, 27 January 2007 (UTC)


 * So let's talk about the family feud. They fought over guardianship and there were lots of appeals. The current version of the story dwells on the details of the patient and the court cases, rather than the diagnoses and decisions by the licensed professionals. Why is that? Do we doubt that the licensed professionals were competant? Put yourselves in the mind of the judge: is he going to second-guess the professionals and dwell on all the details? No: he is going to rely on the fact that the Florida professional boards will discipline the doctors, nurses and lawyers if they do anything against their rules of ethics. The pathway to condensation is to stop dwelling on the details and start focusing just on the professional opinions of the on-the-scene professionals. That is what happens in real life and in the courts. In a sense, we ask the doctors and lawyers, just like we ask to courts, to hold the balance and ask which way the scales fall. Just like the opinions of juries, we ultimately have to accept the opinions of the professionals who were on-the-scene.  They had fair access to the complete set of detailed evidence and put their reputations and their licenses on the line. If they were wrong and, in effect, "O.J. did do it", then we will never know because, even with hindsight our access to the evidence is vastly inferior because of our own lack of training and experience and also: confidentiality rules that continue to obscure our view to the full set of evidence. I think that both the medical and legal details belong on some kind of delegated data sheet or timeline. The readers are sick of slogging through a lot of true factual details (too often still uncited) that do not give conclusive progress to the storyline. -- 70.231.147.149 20:22, 27 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Can we just remove the Wolfson report or make a one-sentence reference to it? It changes nothing about the story at all. I mean, I do NOT want to read that "there was no evidence this..." and "there was not evidence that...". I want to read that there WAS evidence about something but not every iota of that evidence.  Just that that WAS evidence about SOMETHING that actually really happened. Please! -- 64.9.239.102 06:08, 28 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The Wolfson report details and the Nurse Iyer details are back, but the citations are better, so we are making progress on other FA objections. OK. Where else is there excess and inconclusive detail (or stuff that was suspected but, AFAIK, never is known to have happened) to be trimmed in this story? -- 199.33.32.40 22:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Ethics investigation
It seems that Judge Greer campaigned in 2004 for re-election in Florida and some of the police officers (the Sheriff and two deputies) did a commercial for him and only now is some kind of ethics investigation is resulting. Is this part of Terri's story? Does it fit into some medical/legal ethics thing? -- 71.141.252.50 20:23, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

As I read the cited story, it involves improper use of government assets and employees, for a non-governmental purpose: a re-election campaign ad. Not relevent to Terri. There may be other ethical questions about Greer; such as being an ex-board member of the Hospice, and that Terri was not dying and so should not have been there. MartinGugino 06:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Wolfson report
The Wolfson report has its own section. Is ths appropriate? I ask because it is my impression that Wikipedia should speak in its own voice. It should report, in its own authentic voice Also, while blue-ribbon investigative commissions occasionally get a section, such as the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster and even the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, the report itself is treated as a document to be used in references. If people want to criticize our sources, then they should be able to go to the "Notes" section and get the whole picture. Personally, I feel that we should just "digest" the Wolfson report, extract the new facts and refer to the report only in the refs.
 * fact
 * both sides and the judgement handed down of final court cases
 * if room allows, the spectrum of possiblities, including brief allowanes for plausible speculation if the reader will benefit from such speculation

To be honest, I think that the same should be done for many of the other documents generated by the court cases. The cases themselves are not notable: only the truths revealed in those procedings that are relevant to the article's subject matter. Our subject sits in her lonely hospital bed, waiting. All of the fighting is about her, but only what it tells us about HER really matters. The facts (or claims) should be sorted out chronologically as to when they happened, not when they were claimed or later discovered.

The Barbaro story suffered from this same problem early on, with every sportwriter dramatically piping in about the creature's prospects, until somebody just went in last summer and "objectified" the aritlce, focusing on the horse's foot and how it broke and the medical procedures actually performed. Some editors claimed that the new version bled the story of its spirit, but that new, objective version stood the test of time, and that story is ongoing, with new events even in the past few days. That article was transformed to speak in its own authentic voice, much to its unification and increase in its readability. This article should be also. There is no loss of dignity to Terri in this comparison because this argument is about the brilliant prose. Brilliant prose should be intricate, poetic, and very conscious about the perspective imposed upon the reader. When we learn something new from the court battles, we should be always re-sort the facts by chronological order and then take the reader back to Terri's lonely bedside, and THEN continue the discussion and the footnoting.

One user characterize the Barbaro linear narrative as "lifeless" and longed for the lively day-to-day commentaries during that creature's July 2006 crises. That style was very easy, but Wikipedia is not a newspaper, nor it is a daily version of Sports Illustrated. Wikipedia should present a timeless account of the enternal Truth within that Truth's chronological context, as it pertains specifically to the subject. Even in the past year, there is ongoing sequella with Nurse Iyer, who was ultimately exonerated and her nursing license restored (but this does not change the relevance of her affidavit), and the county Sheriff and some of his buddies, who are the subject of some kind of politically-realted ethics investigation. While that is interesting, it does not belong in this article because those are sideshows of the non-notables. We already have a "Related articles & documents" template for those notables who ended up involved in the story and their details are on their pages. Now, it is time to focus on our subject in her hospital bed. It strikes me that the "legacy" section could be expanded because the reality is that the precedents set by the legal and politcal events are what still matter today and perhaps for decades to come. How should we deal with the long list of legal procedings of the 1998-2003 period? In my humble opinion, they are just a bunch of line items of decisions handed down (and a rather monotonous list at that). The rest of the revealed facts should be incorporated back into the storyline. I am not in a rush: I just want people to think about this and respond.


 * Why do the nations so furiously rage together? 1. Why do the heathen rage, and why do the people imagine a vain thing? Psalm 2:1

-- 71.141.246.35 16:32, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

As if my reference was some sort of kiss of death, that horse was euthanized in the past few hours. -- 71.141.246.35 18:14, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Schiavo memo
Can we just move the Schiavo memo to the Palm Sunday Compromise? I am still probing for what else can be trimmed out w/o somebody taking offense. The other two targets, in my mind, are still the Wolfson report and the 2003 petition. Any dialog at all would be appreciated. --199.33.32.40 01:07, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Response: One of the constant ideas of the Schiavo case is that the elected politicians, executive and legislative, are spineless panderers who would do anything for political advantage. The Shiavo memo is the only hard evidence that supports this opinion, and upon which to base disdain for the positions those august bodies seemed to be driven to.

I do think that the memo is a tangential, and minor, issue. MartinGugino 07:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: trimmed out I am trying to think what needs to be kept. What the organizing principle should be - and then all the detail pushed away, available as support. Aspects that somehow should be included in what is left
 * why the story was divisive. Characterize the differing positions fairly - at the highest level of abstraction. say ("respect for life") vs ("privacy") vs ("futile treatment") vs ("what Terri wanted")
 * factual narrative: a) medical: where she was, what she got b)legal: request, evidence, argument, decision. Could be summarized, probably a lot.
 * cast of characters? possibly - for motives.


 * look at of Florida legislature/executive role and of presidential and congressional role

With only three members present
What does this mean? How can the senate pass a bill with only 3 votes? I generally don't like parentheses. Could this be rewritten without the parentheses? MartinGugino 05:50, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Changed it to unanimous consent - the bill was passed under unanimous consent rules. Any senator could have vetoed it. The comment about only three senators present is true but misleading. There was more to that than that. Martin | talk • contribs 12:32, 8 February 2007 (UTC)  Martin |  talk • contribs 21:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC) Article updated. Paragraph closed. Martin | talk • contribs 21:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

The first paragraph says

 * "In 1998, her husband and guardian Michael Schiavo petitioned the courts to remove her feeding tube; her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, opposed this and they took legal action. The parents' argument was that Schiavo's brain damage was not as extensive as the PVS diagnosis suggested."

I feel better about something like this:
 * "In 1998, Michael Sciavo, Terri's husband and guardian, petitioned the courts to remove her feeding tube. Her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, opposed this, claiming that Terri recognized them, and that Michael had conflicts of interest.

This allows
 * Michael to be called "husband", factually true, while it flags the problem with that designation, which the guardian ad litem also noted. It does not even say "In 1998, as soon as it became legal to do so, Michael" which is also true.
 * It removes the possible misunderstanding that Robert and Mary first involved the courts (took legal action) when for the most part they were excluded from knowledge of the legal proceedings Michael took, and responded, probably too late, only after problematic factual determinations had been made.
 * It also reflects their view that Terri was 'still in there', something that others (Weller, Pavone) also felt and reported.

MartinGugino 06:41, 1 February 2007 (UTC) (could you all use names instead of IPs?)


 * The focus should be on "what happened". In the lead section, adding more and more circumstances around any action tends to suggest the primary motivation for the action without necessarily presenting all of the circumstances fairly. If the reader wants to know what somebody was (or might have been) thinking before they took an action or made a decision, then they can read the body of the article. Who, what, when and where are fine in the lead section. "Why" is always the problem and should be dealth with in the body.-- 71.141.242.194 19:25, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. Ok, then:
 * "In 1998, Michael Sciavo, Terri's husband and guardian, petitioned the courts to remove her feeding tube. Her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, opposed this., claiming that Terri recognized them, and that Michael had conflicts of interest.

MartinGugino 21:03, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Trimming the first section to just this
How about:
 * The "Terri Schiavo" case was a cause celebre that divided American opinion on the right-to-life vs ?government-meddling ?death-with-dignity issue.


 * Theresa Marie "Terri" Schiavo (December 3, 1963 – March 31, 2005), from St. Petersburg, Florida collapsed in her home on Feb. 25, 1990. Her heart and lungs stopped and she suffered severe brain damage, requiring that she be institutionalized for the next fifteen years. In 1998, Michael Sciavo, Terri's husband and guardian, petitioned the Pinellas County Circuit Court to order her feeding tube removed. The Court granted his petition, finding Terri to be in a  persistent vegetative state, and that she would not wish to be kept alive. For the next seven years, her case was considered by all branches of the Federal and state governments, and discussed widely in the media. The ruling of the county circuit court was upheld, and her feeding tube was removed on March 18th, 2005. She died two weeks later.

 End  MartinGugino 10:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
 * revised my paragraph above, incorporating some comments below Martin |  tk 02:40, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 *   Hold on a sec : Several proposals were made. For example, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Terri_Schiavo#The_opening__sentence as well as the current version. It will take a few minutes at least for me to analyse all 3 versions - then I will get back with you, OK?--GordonWatts 02:59, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * hey sure.. Glad that you are thinking about it.... Martin |  tk 03:10, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I just realised something: I am an inclusionist, and you might have given me ideas on how to add small elements, and this runs contrary to your idea to trim it, but I shall not hope to add much at all -in the interests of concise brevity.--GordonWatts 03:32, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 *  New reply : Based on your recomendations, Martin, I added as follows: "(minor grammar/clarification edits: add ... + date + wikilink of date + time span of institutionalization + clarify *which* court was petitioned by Michael + grammar of "upholding" lower court decision)" - however, I oppose removal of things, such as court details, the mention of politicians and advocacy groups, and the addition of the brain damage info. It is ovbious that she suffered some sort of brain damage, so that is not needed. This helps keep it trimmed. The "all branches of gov't" language you suggest is short and correct but lacking in details. See my edit to see what I did; I trust my edit finds favour with my fellow colleagues.--GordonWatts 03:48, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I am mildly underwhelmed  Martin |  tk 04:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I am sorry I didn't live up to your expectations, but I did the best I could/can. Most of my edits seem to be standing the test of time, a good sign.--GordonWatts 10:44, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


 * The two institutions are (were? whatever) both skilled nursing facilities and she needed 24-hour care. She was also home briefly but, since this was a 15 year period we are referring to, that should not clutter the first sentence. The characterization conveys her situation well enough: bed-ridden and dependent in a profound way and, for all practical purposes, not a "resident" of the facility but a "patient" who are regularly assessed by a physician. If you think about it, the only difference in the care she received after leaving a regular hospital (or towards the end of her hospital stay, if you are going to split hairs) was the amount of money that the bed cost. These biographies always start with a "characterizing" sentence. I think that this story is too complex to get into any events in the first sentence. Based on past differences among the editors, it seems best to mention the brain damage later (the extend of the damage is nominally what most of the legal fights was about) and to keep this first sentence conservative, dignified and terse.--71.141.242.194 18:24, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

My point was to cut the text in half. I do not understand the point that you are making.
 * ? Are you saying that it should mention that she was hospitalized (that is, convey the idea that she was not at home?)
 * ? Oh I think I see. You ARE saying she got "a lot" of care when you say: not a "resident" of the facility but a "patient" who are regularly assessed by a physician. You also say "and she needed 24-hour care". "24 hour care" might be a possible characterization for a patient in an intensive care unit, but wasn't Terri's care limited to feeding and hygene?

May I note that one of the points of conflict in the Shiavo case has been whether she received appropriate care. One goal should be to characterize her treatment with sensitivity to that issue. MartinGugino 20:52, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The first sentence could be changed, to accommodate the first comment, to
 * Theresa Marie "Terri" Schiavo (December 3, 1963 – March 31, 2005), from St. Petersburg, Florida collapsed in her home in 1990 and experienced respiratory and cardiac arrest leading to severe brain damage and institutionalization.

If you don't like the "brain damage" comment, that could be omitted, but there is little controversy about whether her brain was damaged, or whether that played a major part in the story.

Thanks for the feedback. I updated the paragraph, above, rather than modifying it and copying it here.
 * Do you think that this shorter version leaves out anything that is currently there, or adds anything that is too much?

MartinGugino 20:58, 1 February 2007 (UTC)