Subscribe
to TIC!

Terri Schiavo's Brother Speaks
     at Local 'Right to Life' Annual Dinner

By Kimberly Keith Feliciano

On November 18th, The Informed Constituent attended the New York State Right-To-Life’s annual dinner where Terri Schiavo’s brother, Bobby Schindler, spoke about his family’s “struggle” to protect the life of his “perfectly healthy sister”, and America’s ‘culture of death’ that allowed it to happen.

Lori Kehoe, the NY Right-To-Life Sr. Congressional Liaison talks with Bobby Schindler, the brother of Terri Schiavo.

Fifteen years ago in 1990, Terri collapsed in her home, purportedly when her heart temporarily stopped, cutting off oxygen to her brain and leaving her severely brain damaged. She was 26 years old. She died on March 31, 2005 “from the effects of dehydration” Schindler said. “My sister was not terminally ill, not dying, and not succumbing to any killer disease. She was disabled. Basically, the courts found in January of 2000 after a week long trial, that my sister wanted to die. This was based on the fact of heresy evidence by Terri’s husband, Michael Schiavo, his brother and sister-in-law.” Schindler said there was conflict of interest—One being that Michael had been living and cohabitating with another woman for five years. The other is that he stood to collect close to a million dollars in insurance upon Terri’s death.

Furthermore, according to the Associated Press, it was after the settlement that Michael first claimed that Terri had previously stated that she didn’t want to be kept alive by artificial means—something he never mentioned during the malpractice trial.

In 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Terri’s case based on that of Nancy Cruzan, whose medical circumstances were strikingly similar to those of Terri, and whose parents wished her feeding tube withdrawn. In the Nancy Cruzan case, the Supreme Court held that competent individuals (those capable of making decisions) have the right, under the due-process clause of the 14th Amendment, to refuse medical treatment. This was “clear and convincing evidence” according to the judge in Terri’s case to withdraw her feeding tube.

According to Schindler, “Florida has two criteria to be met to allow a feeding tube removed. One is a person’s intent, either be written or verbal. The other criterion is to be diagnosed in a ‘persistent vegetative state’ (PVS).”

The legal definition of “PVS” found in Florida State Law 765.101(12) is “a permanent and irreversible condition of unconsciousness in which there is: (a) The absence of voluntary action or cognitive behavior of any kind; and (b) An inability to communicate or interact purposefully with the environment.”

The emcee for the evening was NYS Assemblyman James Tedisco

Terri’s brother Bobby believes PVS is a completely subjective diagnosis. “What people don’t know is that according to British medical research, PVS diagnosis was misdiagnosed almost fifty percent of the time,” he said.

“If you watch it unfold in front of the media, the PVS diagnosis really became the battle cry in the media. ‘If Terri is in PVS, kill her. If she’s not, then let her live.’ You could have diagnosed my sister with any condition you wanted to in order to make it easier to kill. My family’s intention was to bring Terri home and care for her as a loved one, and we should have been able to do this.”

“My belief is that we have shifted from what once was a ‘sanctity of life’ mentality to now what is a ‘quality of life’ mentality, whereas a nation we are deciding based on a person’s quality of life when it’s okay and not okay to kill someone, based on the disability.”

Schindler quoted Wesley Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, an attorney and consultant for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide and a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture, “‘Imagine a health care system in which the profit incentives favor killing as the best treatment for cancer… Imagine the potential for abuse and coercion in a health care system in which killing is seen as a way to broaden accessibility to health care for others in society. The result could lead to a profound deterioration of our culture and our moral values.’ ”

Schindler believes the main reason our nation accepts this type of attitude is “due to the media today”. He referred to a book by William Brennan, Dehumanizing the Vulnerable: When Word Games Take Lives. “Brennan writes, ‘The successful waging of semantic warfare does not rely solely on the sheer number of epithets conjured up, but the frequency on the extent of their usage… This is in line with the psychology of the big lie, so tenaciously advanced by Adolph Hitler’s ‘Mein Comf’. If the lies are repeated often enough they will be embraced. Those who control language control thought, and eventually, semantic corruption leads to the alteration of thought itself.’ ”

“I believe that is what’s happening in our media today,” said Schindler. “Something I never realized before my sister’s case, is how powerful the media really is. We had a president, a congress, a governor, and the Vatican all speaking out about what was happening to my sister. I listened to proponents for the so-called Right to Die coax news audiences into the belief that my sister endured a gentle, peaceful, and euphoric demise.”

Schindler said many facts were omitted. “This was not a right to die case. Terri was not dying. Her life ended because we removed her feeding tube. Terri was not brain dead.” Schindler said the media rarely if ever reported the over two dozen national disability organizations supporting the life of his sister “because they did not want to recognize Terri as a person with disabilities.”

Schindler also brought up the polls as another example of how his sister’s case “was distorted in the media”. He said, “They made it appear that Americans had formed a consensus in favor of ending my sister’s life. However, there was a Zogby poll that was hardly if ever reported in the media. The Zogby poll asked the questions more specific on what was actually happening. 79% said that the person should not have food and water taken away, while just 9% said yes.”

Schindler explained how the autopsy report was another issue the media did not properly cover. “What we thought was the most shocking… was that the medical examiner proved that my sister did not have an eating disorder that was constantly perpetuated in the media, and also that she did not have a heart attack that might have caused her collapse. So, the two things that were really suspect in causing my sister’s collapse in the first place were eliminated by the medical examiner.”

Schindler believes our society is paralleling what happened prior to the Holocaust. “This is the same fight ladies and gentlemen. Euthanasia is the same fight as abortion. They describe the baby as ‘fetus’ because they want to dehumanize it, take away its personhood. They described my sister as ‘vegetative’ to take away her personhood—to say that she was not a person with disabilities, she was a ‘vegetable’. Would you be able to watch an abortion take place on prime time TV? Of course not. Why do you think they tried so hard to keep videos and pictures of my sister being dehydrated and starved to death? Why was it described as peaceful and painless? It’s the big lie. They have to lie, because if they told the truth, people would be absolutely horrified with we’re doing.”

Schindler said that it was nice to see the Vatican speaking out on this issue and supporting what the Pope said in March 2004, “but until we get our local leaders in the Catholic Church speaking out about what’s happening, I hate to say that what’s happening in our country is only going to get worse.”

Schindler closed by stressing how critical it is to work with the disabled community. “The only way we are going to change what’s happening to my sister is if we change the laws. It’s as simple as that. How are we going to change the laws? We have to change people’s hearts, first of all.”

Schindler thanked Lori Kehoe of NYS Right to Life, who spent time with the Schindler family in in Washington D.C. to get the ‘Terri Schiavo Bill passed. “She was relentless in speaking with senators and congress men and women.”

The 2005 Right-To-Life dinner was held at The Desmond hotel.

What is the FBA?  |  FBA Website Prototype  |  Cost Estimates  |  The Team

Publishers of The Informed Constituent.

Contact the FBA