PRO-LIFE advocates were descending on Florida last night as one of America’s longest-running, most harrowing and high-profile right-to-die cases approaches its climax.
Tomorrow, Michael Schiavo intends to exercise his legal right to withdraw the feeding tubes that have sustained his wife, Terri, since she suffered a heart attack in 1990 that left her severely brain-damaged.
Mrs Schiavo’s parents are mounting a final legal challenge in an attempt to keep their daughter alive. Bob and Mary Schindler will present a judge today with new medical research suggesting that people with brain damage similar to their daughter’s have greater cognitive abilities than had been thought previously.
They will also cite the case of a woman in Kansas who last month regained her memory and power of speech after 20 years in a twilight state.
Nevertheless, with their legal options virtually exhausted after more than 60 court challenges, the Schindlers have called on activists to rally at the courthouse in Clearwater, as well as at the hospice in St Petersburg where their daughter lives. They also plan to form picket lines outside Mr Schiavo’s home and office.
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Mr Schiavo, who lives with a girlfriend by whom he has two children, plans to withdraw the gastric tube through which his wife is fed when a temporary court order barring him expires tomorrow. He insists that his wife once told him that she would not want to be kept alive should she ever suffer brain damage, although he recalled the conversation three years after her collapse and only after winning $1 million in medical negligence damages relating to her early care.
The courts have determined that Mrs Schiavo, 41, is in a “persistent vegetative state” and that the sounds she makes, along with her smiles, laughter and tears, are merely reflexes.
The Schindlers contend that she is “awake and aware” and that her coos and growls are attempts at communication.