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Postcards offend some Schiavo neighbors

By Times staff writers
Published March 18, 2005

TERRI SCHIAVO: DECISION DAY Main story Support of life draws protesters to Schiavo Postcards offend some Schiavo neighbors Schiavo bill loses GOP backers What they're saying As emotions build, time ticks closer Related story: Hard decisions, out of the spotlight

What are your thoughts? Sign our guestbook Related 10 News video: Efforts to prevent the death of Terri Schiavo hit roadblock

[Times photo: Scott Keeler] A group of women hold a prayer vigil at Michael Schiavo's Clearwater home.

Some neighbors of Michael Schiavo's say they are offended by mailings accusing him of trying to kill his wife.

"Your neighbor Michael Schiavo is trying to murder his wife," reads one anonymous postcard, mailed in early March from Wichita, Kan. It had no return address.

"It's offensive, and it hasn't changed my mind," said Lucille Piazza, who lives near Michael Schiavo in Clearwater. "It just makes it all so ugly."

Schiavo's neighbors say they have received several mailings, some with pictures of Terri Schiavo, some on orange postcards.

Tina Queen said the mailings have raised questions for her two daughters, 9 and 12 years old, who ask about the postcards.

"I tossed it as soon as I got it, it's stupid - a waste of paper," Queen said Thursday.

Queen is worried protesters will overwhelm the neighborhood this weekend if Terri Schiavo's feeding tube is removed. On her yard she posted a red "No Trespassing" sign.

"Everyone portrays (Michael) to be such a bad person, but he's really not," she said.

- LAUREN BAYNE ANDERSON

Former Green Beret colonel James "Bo" Gritz, a well-known militia leader, says he is in Pinellas County to serve Michael Schiavo and Judge George Greer with "citizens arrest warrants."

In the 1980s, Gritz, now 66, staged several unsuccessful commando-style missions into Laos to rescue U.S. prisoners of war. In 1992 he persuaded survivalist Randy Weaver to abandon Ruby Ridge after a showdown with federal authorities.

According to a news release on the American Voice newspaper Web site, Gritz and his wife, who live in Nevada, arrived in Pinellas on Wednesday. The Web site says the "arrest warrant" provides another option to prevent the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. It was unclear if Gritz intends to try to physically arrest Greer or Michael Schiavo.

Mac McMullen, a spokesman with the Sheriff's Office, which is in charge of courthouse security, said "appropriate action" has been taken to protect Greer.

- CHRIS TISCH

Cross Bayou Elementary principal Marcia Stone knows the drill. When a judge ordered Terri Schiavo's feeding tube removed in October 2004, protesters and the media descended on 102nd Avenue, a dead-end street that leads to the school and Woodside Hospice where Schiavo is.

This week, Stone watched as the TV satellite trucks returned and people once again gathered at the school's periphery, brandishing signs and holding vigils.

School staff members have fielded dozens of phone calls from anxious parents this week. Students who stay home today will receive excused absences, Stone said.

"We've planned all the way to Plan Z," she said. "We're between Plan A and Plan B right now."

Students who walk or bike to school will be shuttled back and forth on buses from the top of 102nd Avenue. Police will help direct traffic and maintain crowd control. The campus will be closed to unauthorized persons, and parents must have a special decal on their cars to drop off or pick up children.

If necessary, children will eat lunch in their classrooms and PE classes will be held inside.

"My hope is that once the children are here, we're going to have a good last day before the spring break," Stone said.

- DONNA WINCHESTER

Three right-to-die cases have stirred the most controversy over the last 30 years: Karen Ann Quinlan, Nancy Cruzan and Terri Schiavo.

Is it a coincidence that all three are women who were under the age of 30 when they slipped into vegetative states?

One bioethicist doesn't think it is.

Though the families of many vegetative patients - male and female - have faced life-or-death decisions over the years, the plights of injured young women are more likely to engage the public and attract right-to-life advocates, says Steven Miles, a professor for the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota.

"People say, "She needs to be rescued, she needs to be cared for,"' Miles said in an interview with the St. Petersburg Times.

Miles said life-support measures on men are seen as an "assault" but with women, the technology becomes "a form of nurturing and care giving."

Men also are more commonly viewed as clear-thinking adults who made wise statements about their end-of-life wishes. With women, however, any previous statements they made about end-of-life wishes are more commonly blown off as "emotional utterances" that don't have weight, Miles said.

Cruzan, 25, was in an auto accident in 1983 that deprived her brain of oxygen. Her parents won a battle with the state of Michigan to have her feeding tube removed. She died Dec. 26, 1990. Quinlan was 21 when she slipped into a coma at a party in 1975. The New Jersey Supreme Court ordered Quinlan removed from a respirator in 1976. She lived for another nine years. Quinlan's parents never sought to remove her feeding tube.

- CHRIS TISCH

[Last modified March 18, 2005, 00:42:17]