The Schindler family says America got a wake-up call in 2005.

Terri Schiavo wasn’t in a coma. She was responsive to visits by family and friends. But because she had been brain-damaged in an accident years ago, the courts ordered that she be killed by starvation and dehydration. Her feeding tube was removed March 18, around the time Pope John Paul II received a feeding tube in his last days. Her Easter Week death, shortly before the Pope’s death, seared itself into Catholics’ memories.

Schiavo’s mother and sister, Mary Schindler and Suzanne (Schindler) Vitadamo, were in Boston Nov. 4 where Suzanne spoke at Massachusetts Citizens for Life’s annual dinner.

Register correspondent Gail Besse talked to them there.

Now that more than nine months have passed, how are you moving forward?

Vitadamo: Every day we hear from families who need help. Our country took a step backward because Terri’s case set a precedent that will make it easier to kill disabled people.

People don’t realize that what used to be considered basic care — providing food and water — is called an artificial means of sustaining life in some states now. I was not even allowed to give my sister an ice chip to ease her thirst.

The pro-death movement was working under the radar for a long time, but we’re on to it now; we know their protocol.

Schindler: Our goal is to get the truth out so no one else has to go through the same hell. It’s taken us a while to realize that God used Terri to wake up this nation. Her death was a turning point to show that this can happen in America.

How can we protect ourselves?

Vitadamo: We suggest you appoint a health care surrogate or sign a “will to live.” We need to change laws. Terri’s death was slow, disgusting, and barbaric. My sister looked like an Auschwitz victim. It was a horrific image that I’ll have with me until the day I die.

So we shouldn’t speak of this as a quality-of-life issue when it’s really sanctity-of-life. Either we accept the disabled with their limitations or we don’t. If we say, ‘You don’t deserve to be here,’ that’s a very dangerous attitude.

How can people get involved?

Vitadamo:  They can contact the Schindler-Schiavo Foundation (www.terrrisfight.org). We have a small office in St. Petersburg, Fla., although we’re just getting started. We want to be an advocacy center for the disabled and elderly, and to build a referral network.

We need to educate ourselves on end-of-life issues. Some Catholic leaders still aren’t fully informed on Church teaching, even though the Pope made it clear.  

(Pope John Paul II in 2004 spelled out the moral obligation to provide food and water in his statement “Life-sustaining Treatments and the Vegetative State.” He also noted that this condition is often misdiagnosed and that the term “persistent vegetative state” undermines personal dignity.)

 

What do you mean by the “protocol” of euthanasia?

Vitadamo: Parents are put in jail for not feeding their children, but because a judge stamped his approval on it, my sister’s death was called dying and not killing. The pro-death movement targeted her.

States have different laws about what might happen if you become disabled but don’t already have in place an advance directive about your care. In Florida, the law says that a feeding tube can be removed if there is “no ‘reasonable medical probability’ of recovering capacity and an end-stage condition or a diagnosis of PVS — persistent vegetative state — or a terminal condition.” But PVS is a subjective label because there isn’t any one set of tests used all the time, so it becomes a doctor’s opinion.

How do you cope with the pain over the injustice?

Vitadamo: Eventually you have to give it up. I try to put it in perspective; we’re not the only ones; there’s a lot of tragedy out there.

Schindler: I pray a lot. I go to Mass. And I look at the similarities to the way Jesus died.

Terri carried her cross for the two weeks she was being starved. People who didn’t even know Jesus came to be near him; people from all over the country came to pray with Terri. And just as the guards surrounded Jesus during his Passion, the police surrounded her.  We had to pass through three security checkpoints and weren’t allowed to be alone with her. There were canine units outside the hospice and police snipers on the roof.

She was called a “vegetable,” but she’s touched people all over the world.

And Jesus was condemned to death based on the testimony of others. You’ve mentioned several major distortions that led to Terri’s death. What other ones would you like cleared up?

Vitadamo: She wasn’t dying and she wasn’t suffering, just disabled.

If a hospice will admit patients only if they have six months to live, why was Terri housed in one for five years?

When her husband, Michael (Schiavo), was awarded a medical malpractice settlement in 1993, it was based on an insurance estimate that she would live 50 more years. This wasn’t mentioned when Michael later claimed Terri had told him she wouldn’t want to be kept alive using artificial means.

All rehabilitation was blocked after the money came in. She needed five teeth pulled because of lack of dental care.

Were you active in the pro-life movement before?

Vitadamo: No, and I regret not having done more. Now I’ve spoken to youth groups like those from Indiana and Tennessee Right-to-Life, and I love their enthusiasm. They’re our biggest hope for the future.

What did you learn from this ordeal?

Vitadamo: Often it isn’t until tragedy hits home that you notice those around you who are disabled. It wasn’t a coincidence that the [week] Terri died, Pope John Paul II had a feeding tube inserted.  You still love a person if he becomes disabled; we’re all God’s children.

I am so proud to be Terri’s sister. Her incredible will fueled our fight. She taught me to appreciate every day, to love and never be afraid, to fight for what you believe in, and that where there’s life, there’s hope. She taught me to see the value in every person and to realize that we’re all here for a reason.

Gail Besse is based in

Hull, Massachusetts.

Information

Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation

5562 Central Ave. — Suite 2

St. Petersburg, FL 33707