Political Football: Schiavo, Finn, and Gilmore Revisited

The following guest post was written by the Honorable Clifton A. "Chip" Woodrum of Roanoke, who served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1990 until his retirement in 2004.  Former Delegate Woodrum contacted DFV in response to our recent piece mentioning the Washington Post article about the similarities between the current Terri Schiavo controversy and Hugh Finn case here in Virginia. 

Woodrum was Chairman of the House of Delegates Claims Committee in 1999, which considered a bill to compensate Michele Finn and others in the Finn family for legal fees neccessitated by former Governor Gilmore's intervention in the matter.  The bill passed the Virginia Senate (in substitute form, which also called for a health care decision education program) but was passed by indefinitely in a close 8-7 vote by the Claims committee in the House.

Former Governor Jim Gilmore was quoted in the Washington Post on March 23^rd as saying he would have followed the same course today in the matter of Hugh Finn.  He described his actions as “trying to take a timeout. He added “…that became lost, because it became a political football."

Really? And who made it a “political football?"

The tragic case of Terri Schiavo does bring to mind the equally tragic situation surrounding the death of Hugh Finn and the egregious acts of former governor Jim Gilmore. Hugh Finn, a TV news reporter, was catastrophically injured in an automobile accident in March 1995 which ruptured his aorta and deprived his brain of oxygen. As a result, he was unable to eat or care for himself, he was diagnosed by numerous doctors as being in a persistent vegetative state with no hope of improvement and no chance of recovery.

After reporting on a similar case in Kentucky, Hugh Finn had told his wife, Michele Finn, and a friend that he would never wish to live in such a condition.

Despite this Michele sought to prolong Hugh’s life for over three years. A feeding tube was inserted and he was maintained in a nursing home in Manassas, Virginia.

Finally, in June 1998, she decided to remove the feeding tube that was the only thing preserving his life. Under Virginia law, food and water may be withheld from persons who are in a persistent vegetative state. When she informed Hugh’s family of this a split occurred and Hugh’s brother, John Finn went to court to prevent the removal of the feeding tube.

Public attention focused on the family’s agonizing decisions. Various state officials volunteered their opinions on the proper course of action for the family.  Articles were written and vigils were held.

An independent examination of Hugh Finn was undertaken by a neurologist retained by the state which confirmed the previous findings of Hugh’s persistent vegetative state.

After hearing the evidence and the argument, Judge Frank Hoss of the Circuit Court of Prince William County ruled that Michele Finn would remain as her husband’s guardian and that she had the right to have the tube removed. The judge gave John Finn until September 30, 1998 to appeal to the Supreme Court of Virginia.

On September 28^th the Finn family announced that it had dropped it opposition to the removal of the feeding tube. There would be no appeal. It appeared that a tragic situation was coming to a calm and peaceful end.

However, those who had hope for a peaceful end had not reckoned on the boundless opportunism of Governor Jim Gilmore. Sensing an opportunity for publicity and to ingratiate himself with certain elements, Gilmore entered the situation with legal guns blazing. The governor filed a petition with the court minutes before the deadline. After a midnight hearing, Judge Hoss rejected the governor’s arguments and the family had the feeding tube removed a few minutes later.

Having lost his case in court, Governor Gilmore sought to win by press conference, and announced that he would appeal to the Supreme Court of Virginia to have the feeding tube reinserted. The appeal was filed on October 2^nd and three hours later the Supreme Court unanimously rejected the appeal, holding that withholding food did not amount to “mercy killing.”

Hugh Finn died eight days after the feeding tube was removed. The matter did not rest there, however. In a subsequent hearing, Judge Hoss held that the state should reimburse Michele Finn for legal costs because Gilmore’s efforts to intervene violated the state’s prohibition on frivolous lawsuits. Judge Hoss held that Gilmore’s “position was not well grounded or warranted by existing law." The judge also noted that no new evidence to support the governor’s position was presented adding the law did not “require the court to listen to the same evidence again…”

At a time that a family should have been permitted to grieve privately and to reach closure, they were victimized by overreaching and intrusive government action.

But perhaps the most eloquent valedictory on this episode was made by Bishop Walter F. Sullivan. Writing in The Catholic Virginian of October 19, 1998, Bishop Sullivan noted that the debate jumped from “morality to politics when state officials became involved.” (So much for Gilmore’s “sincerity”).

But that was not all.

In discussing the medical and ethical situation confronted by the Finn family, Bishop Sullivan noted that “persistent vegetative state” was an acceptable diagnostic category and added:

"Withdrawing disproportionate medical procedures is not the same as assisted suicide. It is not an act of killing. It simply allows the illness to take its natural course.”

So numerous doctors, a circuit judge, seven justices of the Supreme Court of Virginia and the Catholic Bishop of the Archdiocese of Richmond concurred that Governor Gilmore’s position had no validity in medicine, fact, law, ethics or religion.

Bishop Sullivan also noted:

"If the matter had not been dragged into the political arena, perhaps the family could have had the peace and tranquility they needed to face the frailty and mortality of one whom they all dearly loved.”

Amen to that.

Comments

[Jennifer]

Thank you for the background information about Hugh Finn. I had not heard of this case. It's disgusting to use a family's most difficult moment for political gain.

[teacherken]

unfortunately, the postion Bishop Sullivan took is, as Ron Ziegler would have said, no longer operable for the Catholic Church, which now says that feeding tubes should not be removed.

I thank you for hour courage then, and for reminding us today of these details.

[Elaine Owens]

Thank you for giving us another example to explain that there are certain horrible, difficult decisions that families have to make where the state using its power to intervene is a complete misapplication of its authority - unfair, immoral, and unconstitutional.
I will never forget when my husband lay dying in our local hospital - where we only wanted relief from pain because there was no way to change the fact that his life was ending very soon. Two days before he died, I received a phone call from my husband saying that his doctor - who felt guilty because he had not diagnosed his condition early enough - had order blood transfusions. I rushed back to the hospital and helped my husband stop the transfusions.
I asked the doctor if the transfusions would make any difference in the outcome, and he said that it would just postpone death a few days. Since my husband was already refusing food and since his veins had shut down - making fluid replenishment impossible - we were able to keep his wishes paramount - to be allowed to die with dignity and grace and to maintain some control over the short time he had to live.
Was it hard to go along with his wishes? Of course it was. But, the pain I was going through would have been multiplied over and over if the state or some agent of the state had tried to intervene in the most personal tragedy I have ever faced.
There are things worse than death, and for a person of faith there is something beyond this world.
The stories of Terri Shiavo and of Hugh Finn are played out in some form in hundreds of families each day. Simple respect should keep politicians from making these sad events into political ploys.

[Chip Woodrum]

Ms. Owens:
Thank you for your comment and for sharing your very difficult personal situation. Your experience demostrates the very difficult nature of these situations and why the decisions should be made in the privacy of the family wherever possible and without the overreaching intrusion of unwarranted government or political interference.
Chip Woodrum

[Suzanne Russo]

25 years ago, my mother lay in the hospital dying of cancer, with around the clock visits from her 6 childfen and many other family members. DNR's were unheard of at this time, but we were so very close to the Karen Ann Quinlan case, being in NY, and Ms. Quinlan in NJ. After Ms. Quinlan's family's very public fight to let her go, my father made a decision that I cannot imagine was easy... when my mother passed, rather than having the hospital staff bring her back over and over, my father sat with his wife's dead body for over 10 minutes, to be sure she was beyond the point of resucitation. I give him an unbelievable amount of credit for making what is the most difficult decision of a lifetime; but a necessary one. I can't say that I know what my father and mother spoke about in the last month of her life, and what her decision was, but in my adulthood, I understand and agree with my father's actions, no matter how much I miss my mother.

God Bless the Shindler's, the Schiavo's, and God Bless Terri, may she go peacefully, and may her family one day heal the wounds these 15 years have created.

Thank you for sharing Mr. & Mrs. Finn's story, to help people who don't know that Mrs. Schiavo's plight is not a new one.

All the best.

Suzanne R.