Remembering Terri Schiavo

Theresa Marie Schindler Schiavo
December 3, 1963 - March 31, 2005


Today marks the third anniversary of Terri Schiavo's death.

She died after her family lost a prolonged, contentious battle for her right to live. Terri's parents, Mary and Bob Schindler, and her siblings, Suzanne and Bobby, lost a beloved daughter and sister.

What haunts me about Terri's death is that she was not terminally ill. She was not dying. Michael Schiavo successfully fought in court to have his wife starved and dehydrated to death. She was sentenced to die.

On Nightline, March 15, 2005, while Michael Schiavo was on his media blitz to win over public opinion, he said:

"Terri will not be starved to death. Her nutrition and hydration will be taken away."

Unbelievable.

For me, that statement sums up the twisted lies of the Culture of Death proponents and the brutality of Terri's court-sanctioned murder.

There was so much disinformation disseminated about Terri's condition, before and after her death.

The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation, a group dedicated to "Helping Families Fight for Those Who Cannot Fight for Themselves," provides straightforward answers to frequently asked questions about Terri, her life and death.

These facts are important in understanding the wider social ramifications of Terri's death:

Was Terri dying?

No. Terri suffered from no terminal disease or condition and her cognitive disability did not jeopardize her life in any way. She was simply a physically healthy woman with a brain injury.

Was Terri brain dead or in a coma?

No. Brain death is not a catch phrase used to describe a persons condition but rather an authentic medical diagnosis determined when respiration and other reflexes are absent. Coma is a profound or deep state of unconsciousness. An individual in a state of coma is alive but unable to move or respond to his or her environment. Terri was neither brain dead, nor was she in a coma.

Were there any machines keeping Terri alive?

Absolutely not. Contrary to media reports, Terri did not require life sustaining equipment such as a ventilator. The only thing keeping Terri alive was the same thing that keeps every one of us alive – food and water.

Was this an “end-of-life” issue?

No. Terri’s case should not be confused with legitimate end-of-life cases in which patients are terminally ill and imminently dying. As already stated, Terri was neither ill nor dying.

Was Terri in a Persistent Vegetative State?

No. Despite Judge Greer’s ruling, and in keeping with the 40 medical affidavits submitted to the court, all evidence proves that Terri was not in a PVS. Terri’s behavior and ability to interact with her surroundings did not meet the medical or statutory definition of persistent vegetative state.

Did the autopsy prove that Terri was in a Persistent Vegetative State?

No. The autopsy was unable to determine whether or not Terri was actually in a persistent vegetative state. In fact, on three separate occasions, the report stated that an autopsy is unable to determine if a person is in a persistent vegetative state because the person must be alive in order to make such a diagnosis. The autopsy did prove that that, prior to Terri's death, she was physically healthy and would have lived a long life had she not been dehydrated over a period of two weeks.

Were Terri’s parents able to make any decisions regarding her medical care or well being?

No. From 1993 until her death, Terri’s parents were not allowed to participate in her care. As guardian, Michael Schiavo had 100% control over Terri. He refused to allow her parents to help their daughter in any way. In fact, during the final weeks of her life, Terri’s parents were informed that if they so much as tried to give her a drop of water, or provide comfort care in any way, they would be arrested by the armed police officers who guarded her room 24 hours a day.

Was Terri receiving any rehabilitation in the years prior to her death?

No. Terri was essentially warehoused and abandoned from 1992, when Michael Schiavo ordered all rehabilitation and therapy stopped, until her dehydration death in March of 2005. This was in spite of the fact that countless doctors said Terri’s condition could have improved with continued rehabilitation and therapy – and that her condition had been improving while she was receiving therapy.

Why did the court allow Terri to be killed?

Permission to starve and dehydrate Terri to death was granted based on hearsay evidence that surfaced almost eight years after her collapse, alleging that she wanted to die.

Did Terri have an advance directive?

No. Terri had no written advance directive that indicated her wishes. The court allowed her to be killed based only upon hearsay evidence provided by Michael Schiavo, his brother and his sister-in-law – ignoring testimony by Terri’s biological family and lifelong friends to the contrary.

Was there money involved?

Yes. A trust fund of nearly $800,000 was established and earmarked for Terri’s rehabilitation and therapy, with Michael as the inheritor in the case of Terri’s death. Tragically, the bulk of this money was instead used to pay Michael Schiavo’s attorney fees in his quest to end her life.

Did the court recognize the money Michael Schiavo stood to inherit as a conflict of interest?

No. In fact the court failed to acknowledge that not only was Schiavo’s monetary interest a conflict, but that he had moved on with his life, was engaged to be married to another woman, and already had children with the other woman. In short, his role as guardian was rife with conflicts of interest.

Did Terri have her own attorney?

No, she did not. In fact, the judge in this case defaulted as her guardian/attorney.

Was it appropriate for Congress to step in to assist in Terri’s case?

Absolutely. Congress has every right to pass laws that prevent the deaths of innocent persons.

Was this a private family matter?

No. Michael Schiavo chose to take the matter out of the realm of privacy by introducing it to the courts in 1998. It was Terri’s family who reached out to Congress for help in saving her life. Michael had essentially already started a new family with his fiancé and children.

What did the law passed by Congress actually do?

It gave Terri the right to a federal review – for a federal judge to make sure that her due process rights had not been denied. This is the same right given to all prisoners on death row.

After Terri died of dehydration on March 31, 2005, President George W. Bush remarked:

I urge all those who honor Terri Schiavo to continue to work to build a culture of life, where all Americans are welcomed and valued and protected, especially those who live at the mercy of others. The essence of civilization is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak. In cases where there are serious doubts and questions, the presumption should be in the favor of life.

In Terri's case, there were serious doubts and questions. Nonetheless, she was sentenced to death, an agonizingly slow-motion execution.

Just recently, on February 26, 2008 in Cleveland during a Democrat primary debate between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Obama invoked Terri Schiavo.

Nat Hentoff wrote a piece about that for Jewish World Review.

Today, the same piece, with slight alterations, appears in the Washington Times, "Playing games with innocent life."

Hentoff writes:

While Barack Obama is disengaging himself from some of the sulfurously disuniting remarks of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, he has shown in a February debate with Hillary Clinton — his own disturbing ignorance of why disability-rights communities across the nation so vigorously protested the official starvation and dehydration of disabled Terri Schiavo. I described this as "the longest public execution in American History."

When moderator Tim Russert asked Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama if "there are any words or votes that you'd like to take back... in your careers in public service," Mr. Obama answered that in his first year in the Senate, he joined an agreement "that allowed Congress to interject itself (in the Schiavo case) into the decision-making process of the families." Mr. Obama added: "I think that was a mistake, and I think the American people understood that was a mistake. And as a constitutional law professor, I knew better." When he was a professor of constitutional law, Mr. Obama probably instructed his students to research and know all the facts of a case.

The reason Congress asked the federal courts to review the Schiavo case was that the 41-year-old woman about to be dehydrated and starved to death was breathing normally on her own and was not terminal. There was medical evidence that she was responsive, not in a persistent vegetative state.

One of the leading congressional advocates of judicial review was staunchly liberal Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa Democrat, because he is deeply informed about disability rights. By contrast, in all of this inflamed controversy, the mainstream media performed miserably, copying each other's errors instead of doing their own investigations of what Terri's wishes actually were. Consequently, most Americans did not know that 29 major national disability-rights organizations filed legal briefs and lobbied Congress to understand that this was not a right-to-die case, but one about the right to continue living.

Among them were: The National Spinal Cord Injury Association; the National Down Syndrome Congress; the World Association of Persons with Disabilities; Not Dead Yet; and the largest American assembly of disability-rights activists, the American Association of People with Disabilities. AAPD's head, Andrew J. Imparato, has testified before the Senate that: "When we start devaluing the lives of people with disabilities, we don't know where that's going to stop. You also need to take into account the financial implications of all of this. We have an economy that is not doing as well as it once was and... one way to save money is to make it easier for people with disabilities to die."

I recommend to Mr. Obama if he wants to make amends that he consult the disability-rights experts at Not Dead Yet for the facts of the Terri Schiavo case and its acute relevance to many Americans in similar situations. Not Dead Yet is about 12 miles from Chicago at 7521 Madison St., Forest Park, Ill.

If this presidential contender and former law professor had bothered to do his own research, he would have discovered as I did in four years of covering this story and interviewing participants, including neurologists, on both sides, that the husband of the brain-damaged Terri Schiavo, Michael Schiavo, had stopped testing and rehabilitation for her in 1993, 12 years before her death. Moreover, for years he had been living with another woman, with whom he had two children and has since married. Michael Schiavo has continually insisted that he succeeded in having Terri's feeding tube removed because he was respecting Terri's wishes, which she could no longer communicate, that she did not want to be kept alive by artificial means.

But at a January 2000 trial, as reported by Notre Dame Law School Professor O. Carter Snead in "Constitutional Quarterly" (published by the University of Minnesota Law School in its winter 2005 issue) five witnesses testified on whether Terri would have refused artificial nutrition, including water, in the condition she was in. Her mother and a close friend of Terri testified that she had said clearly she would want these essential life needs. The other three witnesses said Terri would have approved the removal of her feeding tube.

These last three were in alliance on what became a death penalty: Michael Schiavo, his brother and his sister-in-law. It was on the basis of that 3-to-2 vote that Florida state Judge George Greer ruled that "clear and convincing evidence" allowed him to remove her from life, and then 19 judges in six courts, including federal courts agreed. Like the press, those judges did no independent investigations of their own. And those careless judges are now joined by the equally irresponsible robot-like judgment of Sen. Barack Obama. He should be proud of the Senate vote he now recants and learn a lot more about the disabled.

So if Obama had the opportunity to take back a vote he cast in his years in public service, it would be the one he cast to offer a disabled woman the right to a federal review – for a federal judge to make sure that her due process rights had not been denied, the same right given to all prisoners on death row.

Obama said, "I think that was a mistake, and I think the American people understood that was a mistake. And as a constitutional law professor, I knew better."

Clearly, Obama is on the wrong side when it comes to promoting a Culture of Life and safeguarding the civil liberties of the weak.

Obama actually regrets voting to grant Terri the right to a federal review before being sentenced to death. He regrets having voted to support Terri's right to due process. I find that extremely troubling.

On WorldNetDaily, Diana Lynne reviews Terri's case and asks, "Did Terri die for the greater good?"

Lynne writes:

The Catholic Church teaches that evil and suffering in the world come about because of man's iniquities toward man. When God allows this evil and suffering to exist, He does so to accomplish a greater good.

What greater good does Terri's death serve? Schindler attorney David Gibbs believes it sent a "clarion call" to America to "adopt the heart of God toward the 'least of these,'" a reference to the biblical passage in the gospel of Matthew.

Put simply, Terri's death is a call to arms for the God-fearing to fend off the death grip secular humanists have on the weakest and most vulnerable among us.

The Schindler family has dedicated itself to this cause, establishing the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation to help people with disabilities and the incapacitated avoid tragedies that reflect what Terri endured.

Terri's dramatic experience deeply touched so many people, even though nearly all of us were witnesses from afar. For me, her story helped clarify the value of life and what I consider to be our moral obligation to protect the weak and disabled. Her devoted family's desire to care for her and their efforts to save her life were truly inspiring.

Terri's story is a lesson in love.

The struggle for life to prevail, when engulfed in a Culture of Death, is a challenging but morally imperative endeavor.

Although today is a sad day, we can honor Terri's memory by continuing to work to build a lasting Culture of Life; keeping in mind the words of Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, that "an attack against life is an attack against God."

On this third anniversary of Terri's death, I pray that her parents, her siblings, her other family members and her friends find comfort and peace knowing that while they can no longer hug Terri, she is embraced in God's arms.
____________________

Priests for Life invite you to join in saying the following novena prayer from March 31 to April 8 in honor of Terri:

Prayer in Remembrance of Terri Schiavo

Lord God, I thank you today for the gift of my life,
And for the lives of all my brothers and sisters.

I know that life is always a good,
and that it never loses its value
when it is beset by weakness or injury.

Lord, thank you for the life of Terri Schindler-Schiavo.
Even in her suffering and death
She revealed Your glory
and truth that life is always sacred.

As I remember Terri, I also commit myself
to be active in the pro-life movement,
And never to stop defending life
Until all my brothers and sisters are protected,

And our nation once again becomes
A nation with liberty and justice
Not just for some, but for all,
Through Christ our Lord. Amen!

___________________

Read "Terri Schiavo: My Sister's Regret," by Bobby Schindler.

Recently, and for the second time in less than a year, presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama stated that his greatest regret as a Senator was not objecting to a vote that was intended to help save my sister from being dehydrated to death.

Senator Obama went so far as to say that this type of “inaction” (failure to speak out against the Senate’s unanimous consent to allow Terri the same due process allowed the most vicious of criminals) can sometimes prove to be just as costly as taking action. One has to wonder what could possibly have been “more costly” than the loss of innocent human life.

At a Democratic rally in Florida in February 2006, Senator Hillary Clinton scolded the Republicans in an effort to single them out for intervening in Terri’s situation, even though the effort to save her passed the Senate with bi-partisan support.

In an August 2006 interview with Esquire Magazine, Senator John McCain said the following: “I understand the frustrations a lot of Republicans feel. We’re not representing their hopes and dreams and aspirations. We worry about Ms. Schiavo before we worry about balancing the budget.”

One of these candidates will be our next President, and the fact that they can make such statements with little to no fanfare from our secular media, or any noticeable outrage from the general public, is a chilling reminder of how far we have drifted as a nation.

...March 31st will mark the third anniversary of my sister’s brutal death. Sadly, it is a day that reminds me of what our nation has become, bringing back horrible images of a hideously inhumane death and how the judge who sentenced Terri to die also, in essence, sentenced my parents to death with her.

Senator Obama said that his biggest regret was allowing Congress to try to help my sister. I wish I could ask Terri about her biggest regret, because as things turned out I’m certain that hers would have been that she was born in an America where life is no longer viewed as precious and worthy of protection.

As I think about the future of our nation I can’t help but remember the words of one of our founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson: “The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government.”