JOAN DIDION'S EXPERT

Early in March, at the request of the Florida Department of Children and Families, which was seeking custody of Theresa Schiavo, she was seen by a neurologist from the Mayo Clinic's Florida hospital, William P. Cheshire, the director of Mayo's Autonomic Reflex Laboratory. Some doctors and bioethicists with interests in the matter suggested that, as a conservative Christian, Dr. Cheshire brought a bias to the case, but his affidavit seemed to raise questions not before widely addressed....

On the basis of the ninety minutes Dr. Cheshire spent with Theresa Schiavo, he suggested that she could well be found to fit the more recent "minimally conscious" diagnosis. He observed that she held his gaze for about thirty seconds, smiled when she heard familiar voices or piano music, and seemed in the changing pitch of her vocalization to be communicating "emotional thought within her brain." Neurologists who had previously examined her described such responses as reflexive.

--Joan Didion, "The Case of Theresa Schiavo," New York Review of Books, June 9, 2005

"When I first walked into the room, she immediately turned her head toward me and looked directly at my face. There was a look of curiosity or expectation in her expression, and she maintained eye contact for about half a minute." Cheshire said she also appeared to attempt to speak to him....

"As I looked at Terri, and she gazed directly back at me, I asked myself whether, if I were her attending physician, I could in good conscience withdraw her feeding and hydration," he wrote. "No, I could not. I could not withdraw life support if I were asked. I could not withhold life-sustaining nutrition and hydration from this beautiful lady whose face brightens in the presence of others."

---Joseph Farah, "Florida Neurologist: Terri's No Vegetable," WorldNetDaily, March 24, 2005