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 Arthur Caplan is one of Michael Schiavo's biggest fans.
He was one of the most outspoken advocates to kill Terri Schindler Schiavo.
Still is.
He and Judge George Greer actually believe Schiavo's contrived story that Terri Schiavo clearly stated back in the mid-80's that she wouldn't want to be kept alive by assisted feeding. Of course, back then a feeding tube wasn't considered life support and Terri was a young, healthy woman.
Even guardian ad litem Richard Pearse wasn't gullible enough to believe that one, advising Greer not to allow Michael Schiavo to remove his wife's feeding tube because of conflicting and self-serving interests.
Now Michael Schiavo, George Greer and virtually the entire cast of the Death to Schiavo drama will appear together at the University of Pennsylvania where Caplan is the director of Center for Bioethics.
"So, it is clear that the time has come to let Terri die", Caplan said last March 18, the day that loving Michael began the tortuous death of his wife by removing her feeding tube on order of Greer while she screamed for her life, Greer being an accessory to the murder of an innocent, disabled woman.
Terri Schiavo died because Michael Schiavo said it was to be, not because she wanted to die. Caplan, an outspoken right to die proponent and advocate for Terri's death, said she had to die, "not because everyone who is brain damaged should be allowed to die. Not because her quality of life is too poor for anyone to think it meaningful to go on. Not even because she costs a lot of money to continue to care for. Simply because her husband who loves her and has stuck by her (while co-habiting with his paramour and fathering two illegitimate children and while he thought he was going to inherit Terri's trust) for more than 15 years says she would not want to live the way she is living".
Arthur Caplan did his best to taint the media, appearing on MSNBC, advocating her death, appearing before the House Judiciary Committee to testify against a federal review, testifying against House Bill 1151 "The Incapacitated Persons Legal Protection Act" which would have allowed federal intervention in cases like Schiavo's where state courts have ruled in favor of terminating life support.
Caplan was frequently quoted by the St. Petersburg Times, a newspaper which has long engaged in slanting public opinion towards Michael Schiavo and away from Terri's right to live and her parents' decade-long battle to simply take her home and care for her. The Times has stroked George Greer, trying to improve his image; preened George Felos and pampered Michael Schiavo. The Times wasn't engaged in reporting the news impartially, they were Michael Schiavo's unpaid public relations agency with Schiavo's biggest fan Caplan being his spokesman. The Times brags about doing investigative work. Where was their unbiased investigation of the Schiavo case and why didn't they pressure Pinellas state attorney Bernie McCabe to act, or gubernatorial wannabeCharlie Crist in his role as attorney general.
Arthur Caplan was one of the perpetrators and advancers of the mainstream media bias in the Schaivo case, spewing forth erroneous information and tainting public opinion against Terri--her right to live, her will to live.
When Pope John Paul II said that even people in a vegetative state have a right to food and water and it is morally wrong to deny them a feeding tube, the St. Petersburg Times immediately ran to Caplan for his comments. Over and over the St. Petersburg Times drilled into the public that Terri was in a persistent vegetative state and Caplan did his best to downplay the Pope's comments lest somehow they might sway public opinion to favor Terri's right to live.
Catholic leaders, especially Bishop Robert Lynch of the St. Petersburg Diocese, didn't have much to say about the Pope's words, saying that more study was needed but Caplan had a lot to say and the St. Petersburg Times ran to him. Caplan did his best in his St. Petersburg Times interviews to pooh-pooh the Pope's statements and continue to advance his right-to-die position.
But then there's the rest of the story. What the St. Petersburg Times and Caplan didn't disclose is that Caplan is a member of the advisory board of the Poynter Institute of St. Petersburg, owner of the St. Petersburg Times.
Perhaps that's why the Times coverage of the Schiavo case was so one sided---Caplan sided.
Ethics? Mr. Caplan wants to talk about ethics? How about journalistic ethics? The St. Petersburg Times never disclosed that one of their most quoted "experts" in the Schiavo was in fact a member of their own board and an advocate for Michael Schiavo.
Caplan is a member of Poynter's National Advisory Board. According to Poynter, "members of the board help guide the work of the Institute by reviewing and giving reaction to its programs and plans, and through analysis of important developments and issues in journalism…." Yeah, like swaying public opinion.
The Poynter Institute claims to "promote excellence and integrity in the practice of craft….it stands for a journalism that informs citizens and enlightens public discourse". In the Schiavo case, it shamelessly advocated the right to die movement, promoted and glorified euthanasia and used one of its own to do it, fraudulently trying to pass Caplan off as just a source, never mentioning he was a board member. Independent journalism in the public interest? Hardly. Strongly biased, one-sided journalism in the Caplan, Felos, Schiavo interest of killing a disabled woman.
As Caplan was promoting Terri's death, Blogs for Terri were trying to place a paid ad in the St. Petersburg Times to dispel the numerous inaccuracies and misconceptions about the case that the St. Petersburg Times and other media had been promoting. But the newspaper refused to accept the ad, instead engaging in censorship and asking Blogs for Terri to edit the ad before they would agree to print it.
At the time the group was trying to place their ad, they mentioned a rumor that the Times was preparing to publish an anti-Terri editorial but the Times reportedly denied that there was any collusion between their advertising and news departments.
And the Times did publish an anti-Terri editorial, calling the Schiavo case a family tragedy that had turned into a public circus. The Times editorialized that Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Legislature should "stay out of it". With words that were strikingly similar to Caplan's commentary for MSNBC, the Times said that Bush and the Legislature "have no business acting as obstructionists again in a controversy that needs to come to a conclusion". While Caplan's commentary had been titled "The Time Has Come To Let Terri Schiavo Die', the Times' editorial was headlined "Let Schiavo case come to a close".
As one observer opined at the time, "the editorial assumes, of course, that the Times, with its power-of-the press, should have something to say about Terri's future". Of course the Times forgot to disclose its' connection with Caplan. "I believe Blogs for Terri was correct in publicizing the editorial bias of the St. Petersburg Times who seem so focused on people's right to die that they forgot we should have an equal right to live".
That's because Arthur Caplan and the death culture is apparently controlling the editorial policy of the St. Petersburg Times.
June Maxam 2-16-06
© 2005 North
Country Gazette
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