Today is the tenth anniversary of the grotesque death by starvation and dehydration of Terri Schindler Schiavo. We are running four posts in remembrance of Terri.
The first comes from bioethicist Wesley J. Smith, the second from New York State Right to Life, the third is about a ridiculously inaccurate New York Times article, and the following.
I would like to use this somber occasion again to update comments I’ve made about Terri and her brave parents and siblings. As you will see whenever I looked at Terri, I could never, ever get another death by starvation out of my heart and mind.
When your life revolves around trying to stem the anti-life tide that has swept away over 57 million unborn lives, you might think that the power of individuals cases—instances where the fate of one human life hangs in the balance—would be diminished.
You would be wrong.
I had been at National Right to Life only few months when the case of an Indiana baby—“Baby Doe”—became a topic of intense debate. As the letter to the Movement that we reprint from President Reagan explained, when this little boy was born in 1982, he needed only routine surgery to unblock his esophagus which would allow him to eat. Except Baby Doe had Down syndrome.
“[A] doctor testified, and a judge concurred, that even with the physical problem corrected, Baby Doe would have a ‘non-existent’ possibility for a ‘minimally adequate life,’” the President wrote back in 1984. “The judge let Baby Doe starve and die, and the Indiana Supreme Court sanctioned his decision.”
As I wrote at the time,
“Up until the time that tiny newborn baby died of starvation I took my pro-life commitment very seriously but impersonally. Baby Doe’s unnecessary death forever changed that for me, and I’m sure for many others as well.”
I did not learn of Baby Doe’s plight until near the very end of his very brief life. But it was the exact opposite with Terri Schindler Schiavo’s ghastly ordeal.
When Terri died on March 31, 2005, having been denied nourishment for 13 agonizing day, the 41-year-old’s starvation death brought to an end—in one sense, at least—a tumultuous, eleven-year battle between the Schindler family and Terri’s estranged husband.
The Schindler family waged their courageous fight in multiple courts, in the Florida legislature, in the halls of Congress, until January 24, 2005, when the United States Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Florida’s then Governor Jeb Bush to reinstate “Terri’s Law.” The law had been passed by the Florida legislature in an emergency session in October of 2003, signed into law by Gov. Bush, and protected Terri Schindler-Schiavo from a hideously painful death by starvation and dehydration.
It is enough to say that, as the saying goes, if truth is “the first casualty in war,” then long before the campaign to starve and dehydrate Terri to death succeeded, all the important details had been thoroughly distorted.
Virtually nothing—her true medical condition (Terri was falsely described as being a “persistent vegetative state” and/or “brain dead”), what she alleged would have “wanted” (to die this horrible death), her condition after 11 days (described by her estranged husband’s attorney as “peaceful,” “beautiful,” and/or “free of pain”)—was within hailing distance of the truth.
Terri’s memory lives on in the work of the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network.
Maybe the best way to end these remarks is to quote from pro-life President George W. Bush who worked hard on behalf of the Schindler family:
“The essence of civilization,” he said, “is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak.”
Chelsea Garcia is a political writer with a special interest in international relations and social issues. Events surrounding the war in Ukraine and the war in Israel are a major focus for political journalists. But as a former local reporter, she is also interested in national politics.
Chelsea Garcia studied media, communication and political science in Texas, USA, and learned the journalistic trade during an internship at a daily newspaper. In addition to her political writing, she is pursuing a master's degree in multimedia and writing at Texas.
