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Terri Schiavo dies, but debate lives on
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-04-01 07:48
PINELLAS PARK, Fla. - With her husband and parents feuding to the bitter end
and beyond, Terri Schiavo died Thursday, 13 days after her feeding tube was
removed in a wrenching right-to-die dispute that engulfed the courts, Capitol
Hill and the White House and divided the country.
Terri Schiavo,
right, gets a kiss from her mother, Mary Schindler, in this Aug. 11, 2001,
file image taken a from videotape and released by the Schindler family
Oct. 14, 2003, in Pinellas Park, Fla. Terri Schiavo, the severely
brain-damaged woman whose 15 years connected to a feeding tube sparked an
epic legal battle that went all the way to the White House and Congress,
died Thursday, 13 days after the tube was removed, her husband's attorney
said. She was 41. [AP] | Cradled by her husband,
Schiavo, 41, died a "calm, peaceful and gentle death" at about 9 a.m., a stuffed
animal under her arm, flowers arranged around her hospice room, said George
Felos, Michael Schiavo's attorney.
No one from her side of the family was with her at the moment of her death.
Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, were not at the hospice, Felos said. And
her brother had been barred from the room at Michael Schiavo's request moments
before the end came.
The death of the severely brain-damaged woman brought to a close what was
easily the longest, most bitter — and most heavily litigated — right-to-die
dispute in U.S. history.
"Mr. Schiavo's overriding concern here was to provide for Terri a peaceful
death with dignity," said Felos, who was also present at the death.
But the Rev. Frank Pavone, one of the Schindlers' spiritual advisers, called
her death "a killing," adding: "And for that we not only grieve that Terri has
passed but we grieve that our nation has allowed such an atrocity as this and we
pray that it will never happen again."
Schiavo suffered brain damage in 1990 and fell into what court-appointed
doctors called a persistent vegetative state, with no real consciousness or
chance of recovery, after a chemical imbalance caused her heart to stop. She had
left no written instructions in the event she became disabled.
Her husband argued that she told him long ago that she would not want to be
kept alive artificially. Her parents disputed that, and held out hope for a
miracle recovery for a daughter they said still laughed with them and struggled
to talk.
Rosie Kimball, 10,
of Tampa, Fla., prays during a prayer service for Terri Schiavo, who
passed away earlier in the day, Thursday, March 31, 2005,in Pinellas Park,
Fla, in front of Woodisde Hospice where she was cared for.
[AP] | Pinellas County Circuit Judge George W.
Greer sided with her husband and authorized the removal of the feeding tube
keeping her alive. It was disconnected March 18.
During the seven-year legal battle, federal and state courts repeatedly
rejected extraordinary attempts at intervention by Florida lawmakers, Gov. Jeb
Bush, Congress and President Bush on behalf of her parents.
Supporters of her parents, many of them anti-abortion activists and political
conservatives, harshly criticized the courts. Many religious groups, including
the Roman Catholic Church, said the removal of sustenance violated fundamental
religious tenets.
About 40 judges in six courts were involved in the case at one point or
another. Six times, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene. As Schiavo's
life ebbed away, Congress rushed through a bill to allow the federal courts to
take up the case, and President Bush signed it March 21. But the federal courts
refused to step in.
The case prompted many people to ponder what they would want if they, too,
were in such a desperate medical situation, and many rushed to draw up living
wills. The case also led to a furious debate over the proper role of government
in life-and-death decisions, and whether the Republicans in Congress violated
their party's principles of limited government and deference to the states by
getting involved.
In Washington on Thursday, the president was careful to extend condolences to
Schiavo's "families" — meaning both Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers — even
though he backed efforts to reconnect her feeding tube.
"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 president said.
House Republican Leader Tom DeLay condemned the state and federal judges who
refused to prolong her life, and he warned that lawmakers "will look at an
arrogant and out-of-control judiciary that thumbs its nose at Congress and the
president."
"I never thought I'd see the day when a U.S. judge stopped feeding a living
American so that they took 14 days to die," he said.
Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother, said that Schiavo's death "is a
window through which we can see the many issues left unresolved in our families
and in our society. For that, we can be thankful for all that the life of Terri
Schiavo has taught us."
Outside the hospice — where over the past few weeks more than 50 protesters
were arrested, many for trying to symbolically bring Schiavo food and water —
demonstrators wept, prayed and sang religious hymns. Some threw their protest
signs down in disgust.
"You saw a murder happening," said one demonstrator, Dominique Hanks.
Schiavo's body was taken in an unmarked white van with police motorcycle
escort to the Pinellas County medical examiner's office, where an autopsy was
planned that both sides hoped would shed light on the extent of her brain damage
and whether she was abused by her husband, as the Schindlers have argued.
In what was the source of yet another dispute between the husband and his
in-laws, Michael Schiavo will get custody of his wife's body and plans to have
her cremated.
Michael Schiavo's brother, Scott Schiavo, said the ashes will be buried in an
undisclosed location near Philadelphia so that her immediate family does not
attend and turn the moment into a media spectacle. A funeral Mass, sought by the
Schindlers, was tentatively scheduled for Tuesday or Wednesday.
The ill will between the husband and his in-laws became plain in other ways:
The Schindlers' advisers complained that Schiavo's brother and sister had been
at her bedside a few minutes before the end came, but were not there at the
moment of her death because Michael Schiavo would not let them in the room.
"And so his heartless cruelty continues until this very last moment," said
Pavone, a Roman Catholic priest.
Felos disputed the Schindler family's account. He said that Terri Schiavo's
siblings had been asked to leave the room so that the hospice staff could
examine her, and the brother, Bobby Schindler, started arguing with a law
enforcement official.
Michael Schiavo feared a "potentially explosive" situation, and would not
allow the brother in the room, Felos said. "Mrs. Schiavo had a right to have her
last and final moments on this earth be experienced by a spirit of love and not
of acrimony," the lawyer said.
Before she was stricken, Terri Schiavo had recurring battles with weight, and
her collapse at age 26 was believed to have been caused by an eating disorder.
her parents, who visited her nearly every day, reported their daughter responded
to their voices, and video showed her appearing to interact with her family. But
the court-appointed doctor said the noises and facial expressions were reflexes.
Both sides accused each other of being motivated by greed over a $1 million
medical malpractice award from doctors who failed to diagnose the chemical
imbalance.
Schiavo's feeding tube was briefly removed in 2001. It was reinserted after
two days when a court intervened. In October 2003, the tube was removed again,
but Gov. Bush rushed Terri's Law through the Legislature and had the tube
reinserted after six days. The Florida Supreme Court later struck down the law
as unconstitutional interference in the judicial system.
Schiavo lived in her brain-damaged state longer than two other young women
whose cases brought right-to-die issues to the forefront.
Karen Quinlan lived for more than a decade in a vegetative state, brought on
by alcohol and drugs in 1975 when she was 21. New Jersey courts let her parents
take her off a respirator a year after her injury. Nancy Cruzan, who was 25 when
a 1983 car crash put her in a vegetative state, lived nearly eight years before
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that her feeding tube could be withdrawn.
In both cases, however, the families agreed that lifesaving measures should
be ended.
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