Terri Schiavo, 41, Dies Quietly In Florida

By Linda Orlando

Family representatives in Pinellas Park, FL, announced Thursday that Terri Schiavo had died peacefully, cradled in the arms of her husband. Her death brings to a close the epic legal and medical battle that has stirred intense emotions for nearly 15 years and in recent weeks has divided the nation. Schiavo was taken off a feeding tube on March 18 in response to a court order, and she was administered last rites the same day. She also received communion more than a week later, on Easter Sunday, when a priest put a single drop of wine on her tongue.

In a statement outside the Florida hospice, an adviser to Schiavo’s parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, said that they were inside praying by their daughter’s bedside. Some media reports claimed that the Schindlers had been kept out of their daughter's room by Michael Schiavo during her final moments, but according to George Felos, Schiavo's lawyer, Terris' parents visited with her for almost two hours before leaving the hospice about 15 minutes before she died.

Their spiritual adviser describes the Schindlers as "quiet, introverted people." They have been staying across the street from the hospice where Terri Schiavo lived in Pinellas Park, to make it easier to visit her and to speak to reporters. The Schindlers and Schiavo’s husband, Michael Schiavo, have fought a protracted and bitter battle over ending her life. Her husband said that she would not want to be kept alive artificially, and her parents insisted that she could recover with proper therapy, and that she was not in a persistent vegetative state as court-appointed doctors claimed.

In 1992, Michael Schiavo won a malpractice lawsuit against doctors accused of misdiagnosing the condition that caused his wife’s collapse in 1990, when a potassium imbalance caused her heart to stop. A jury awarded the Schiavos over $1 million dollars, with more than $700,000 being allocated for Terri’s care and an additional $300,000 awarded to Michael Schiavo for the profound impact on his marriage. The following year, although Michael and the Schiavos were still living together, they had a falling out over how the money ought to be spent. That argument set into motion a nonstop battle they would fight for years in the Florida courts and Legislature, eventually taking their dispute to the federal courts and even the U. S. Congress.

Michael Schiavo’s position that his wife never wanted to be kept alive by artificial means was consistently upheld in every court where the Schindlers challenged it. The Schindlers also unsuccessfully challenged Michael’s standing as his wife’s legal guardian, and they hired doctors to challenge the court-appointed doctors, yet all their challenges were repeatedly defeated. Even the death of Terri Schiavo will not end the feuding, because the two sides are arguing over what should happen to her body. The Schindlers asked a court to allow their daughter to be buried in Florida with her body intact, but the judge refused to interfere with her husband’s plans to have his wife’s body cremated and returned to Pennsylvania to be interred there. George Felos, the attorney for Michael Schiavo, announced this week that an autopsy will be performed because Michael Schiavo wants definitive proof showing the extent of his wife’s brain damage, to put to rest the critics who have claimed that she was not in a persistent vegetative state and that she could have improved.

Congress, the White House, and even the Vatican have voiced opinions in the Schiavo case. The Vatican said that her death would be like capital punishment for an innocent woman. Congress and President George Bush collaborated on a last-ditch effort to force the reinsertion of her feeding tube, but their efforts were refused in a series of state and federal court rulings. Protestors have streamed into Pinellas Park over the past few weeks when the story of Terri Schiavo began to become a national controversy. The numbers of protestors grew steadily as her ordeal lengthened and the battle waged by her family grew to epic proportions. Upon hearing that Terri had died, protestors gathered outside the hospice began praying, singing hymns, and hugging each other. One woman said, "Words cannot express the rage I feel. Is my heart broken for this? Yes."

Legislators in Florida's State House of Representatives observed a moment of silence upon hearing of Schiavo's death. Before asking the assembly to bow their heads, Dennis Bexley spoke to the group and said, "Terri Schiavo is now a martyr, and her death is not in vain. We do have a cultural crisis, and our public policy debate balancing our value of the right to die with dignity and our value for every human life, no matter their disability, is not resolved."

Florida’s Governor, Jeb Bush, offered condolences immediately upon hearing the news. "After an extraordinarily difficult and tragic journey, Terri Schiavo is at rest. Columba and I offer our condolences to Mr. and Mrs. Schindler, Bobby Schindler, Suzanne Vitadamo (Terri’s’ sister) and to all those who offered their prayers and support to Terri's family over these past weeks, months, and years," he said. "These prayers were not in vain." His statement pointedly omitted offering condolences to Terri’s husband, Michael, coldly making it clear that he disagreed with the court’s decision to allow Terri to die naturally, with dignity. "Many across our state and around the world are deeply grieved by the way Terri died," Bush said. "I feel that grief very sharply as well. I remain convinced, however, that Terri's death is a window through which we can see the many issues left unresolved in our families and in our society."

His brother, President George W. Bush, was much more diplomatic and universal in his response to the news. The elder Bush said "millions of Americans are saddened" by Schiavo's death. Bush said he's urging those who honor Schiavo to "continue to build a culture of life" where all Americans are protected--"especially those who live at the mercy of others." He said in cases where there is serious doubt, "the presumption should be in favor of life."

Although the life of Terri Schiavo is now over, and her family can try to put their lives back together, the debate over the questions raised by her death will surely continue.