Media Outlets Seek Access to DCF Filing Regarding Teri Schiavo

Media Outlets Seek Access to DCF Filing Regarding Teri Schiavo
(New Hearing Wednesday)

March 1, 2005CLEARWATER, Fla.-

A judge has set a hearing for Wednesday to determine whether to make public a court document in which the Department of Children & Families is seeking last-minute intervention in the case of brain-damaged Terri Schiavo.

Circuit Judge George Greer set the hearing after the company that owns the Tampa Tribune and WFLA-TV sued to get access to the DCF petition. Lawyers say the state social service agency wants to investigate possible abuse of the severely brain-damaged woman by her husband who is seeking to remove the feeding tube keeping her alive.

The Tribune and television station argued that usual privacy concerns don't apply because of the extensive litigation and media coverage of the plight of the woman's parents to keep her alive. They also say the public has a right to scrutinize the DCF's actions in the Schiavo case.

"The extraordinary public interest in this proceeding is heightened by the executive branch's continuing efforts to inject itself into this controversy," the filing said.

Gov. Jeb Bush has said he would do anything he could legally to help save Terri Schiavo's life. In 2003 he pushed a law through the Legislature authorizing him to restore her feedings six days after the court ordered them stopped. The law subsequently was ruled unconstitutional.

Greer ordered last week that the feeding tube will be removed again March 18, triggering another flurry of legal filings by attorneys for her parents who are trying to block it.

Terri Schiavo's husband, Michael, contends she would not want to be kept alive artificially and won court permission to remove her feeding tube. Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, doubt she had any such wishes and say she could improve with therapy.

The Schindlers also dispute their daughter is in a persistent vegetative state as court-appointed doctors have determined.

Fight4Terri @aol.com
www.fight4terri.blogspot.com
Visit Terri's site: www.terrisfight.org
Cheryl Ford, RN (Fight4Terri@aol.com) is not affiliated with any other group
and works as an independent volunteer promoting the protection of Florida's disabled community.