Since Christmas we’ve been talking about the story of Betsie Gallardo, a woman who is dying of cancer in a Florida prison.
When we last met, she was being starved to death, literally, at the direction of the Florida Department of Corrections (DOC), who had decided not only to withhold further treatment for her inoperable cancer, but to withdraw nutritional support as well.
Her adopted mother is fighting to have her discharged from prison so that she can die at home-and the DOC have recommended that she be released.
On December 9th, Florida’s Board of Executive Clemency (“the Board”) chose to ignore the DOC advice.
Since then, thanks to a whole bunch of outside pressure, things have changed, for the better, which we’ll be talking about today.
On January 5th, the Board meets again-and if we do this right, we can bring some closure to this story.