The debate between quality of life versus sanctity of life has not died out, although the Terri Schiavo case was decided a little over a year ago.  The battle over what was lawful and right still remains.  

Michael Schiavo recently stepped into politics as an advocate for privacy rights through the creation of TerriPAC, a federal political action committee aimed at bringing quality of life and governmental intrusion issues to the forefront.  He has become a spokesperson for many candidates, including Democratic Florida gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis.  Schiavo feels compelled to exercise his right to free speech to speak openly about this case.  Schiavo stated in a New York Times article: “I had to remind people that what the government did to me, they can do to you.” 

Terri’s surviving family, the Schindlers, have also stepped into the public arena through the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation Center for Health Care Ethics.  This foundation states on their website that they are “dedicated to ensuring the rights of disabled, elderly and vulnerable citizens against care rationing, euthanasia and medical killing.”  They believe that the government did not overstep their boundaries but that the judicial system failed them.

In his recently released book, FIGHTING FOR DEAR LIFE: The Untold Story of Terri Schiavo and What It Means for All of Us (Bethany House Publishers, 2006), David Gibbs, attorney for the Schindlers, presents new facts that help shine a light on how the family views the government as trying to intervene against what they see as the injustices of the courts.  A few of the facts that were not reported in the media are:

• Terri was never on a ventilator.  Her only “life support” was assistance with food and water at mealtimes—something she might have overcome with therapy.
• Terri could recognize her parents and respond to them, attempting to speak.
• The autopsy did not prove Terri had been in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) because it could not do so; that condition could only be proven in a living patient.  The media chose to ignore this and reported that the results were consistent with PVS, although they were just as consistent with a non-PVS state, since they were totally inconclusive.

The courts may have decided to remove Terri’s feeding tube, but they cannot remove the ramifications of that decision—ramifications that continue to grow in importance as people on both sides of the issue speak up and citizens are given the voice they never had in Terri’s case to let the world know what they feel was right.

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© Copyright 2011 by David C. Gibbs III. Reprinted with permission by Bethany House Publishers. All rights reserved.

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