Las Vegans join debate over Schiavo’s fate

Monday, March 28, 2005 | 11:07 a.m.

Churchgoer Nancy Whistler, standing in the back of St. Viator's Catholic Church on Flamingo Road and Eastern Avenue because there were no more seats, couldn't understand why Terri Schiavo's husband, Michael Schiavo, wouldn't let her go.

"Why can't he let the parents have her?" Whistler said.

For Christine Springer, with a doctorate in public administration who teaches organizational ethics at UNLV, living wills have a definite role to play, especially in light of the Schiavo case.

"You have to operate in the legal realm as well as the emotional realm of ethics," she said.

Nevada has an advanced directive available by law, said Craig Klugman, a medical ethics expert at the Nevada Center for Ethics and Health Policy in Reno. The directive covers directions to a physician and the medical power of attorney for the person executing it.

"It's a simple sheet that spells out the extent of treatment," Klugman said. "People should consider it before they become incapacitated."

Sister Rosemary Lynch, a Franciscan nun who has lived in Las Vegas for two decades, said the interference by the president and Congress into the Schiavo conflict was appalling.

"How can President George W. Bush say, 'You always have to stand on the side of life,' when we've killed thousands in Iraq," Lynch, 88, said. "That's major hypocrisy."

Lynch said she felt the tragedy of Terri Schiavo's parents and husband, but outsiders had no business interfering with the family's decision.

While Bush and Congress created a special law in an effort to save Schiavo, they "forget all other people who are hungry," Lynch said.