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By WES ALLISON, Times Staff WriterFor opponents of abortion and euthanasia, the Terri Schiavo case has become a stunning - and long-awaited - victory.
ST. PETERSBURG - Until this week, it seemed like no one heard Pat McEwen's warnings about the evils of euthanasia. She prayed about it, preached about it, sent out press releases, visited churches. And as many European countries became more willing to hasten death for the terminally ill or profoundly disabled, McEwen worried America would follow.
"You have no idea how frustrating how it is when you try to make it so very, very clear, and no one seems to understand, or they just don't care because it's not in their backyard," said McEwen, 61, of Melbourne, ministry coordinator of Life Coalition International. "They finally listened."
This week's stunning turnaround in the case of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman whose feeding tube was removed last week, then re-inserted six days later by order of Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, can be traced to the sudden involvement of a controversial antiabortion activist, as well as pressure from other right-to-life and Christian advocates.
Legal experts say "Terri's Law," passed Tuesday by the state Legislature, almost certainly will be found unconstitutional.
But Schiavo's case has given right-to-life groups a rare victory in their struggle to win the public's sympathy over end-of-life issues, at a time when more Americans than ever before accept euthanasia and the notion that quality of life can be as important as life itself.
"We've been trying for a decade to get people to wake up to this. We're ecstatic and shocked that there's been this outpouring," said Lori Kehoe, senior congressional liaison for medical ethics at the National Right to Life Committee.
A state court has found that Mrs. Schiavo, 39, has been in a "persistent vegetative state" since a 1990 heart attack and must be fed through a tube to live. Her husband, Michael, says his wife wouldn't want to live like that, and the courts have upheld his right to have the tube removed. It was removed last week.
Terri's Law allowed Bush to have the feeding tube reinserted. In interviews, opponents of abortion and euthanasia ranked the decision even above congressional approval on the same day of a ban on a type of abortion in which a fetus is partially delivered before being killed.
Groups from the Family Research Council to Operation Rescue to Lifenews.com are touting the victory on their Web sites, while trying to figure out how to harness the momentum.
The National Right to Life Committee, the nation's largest single-issue right-to-life organization, took the opportunity Thursday to publish a model "Starvation and Dehydration of Persons with Disabilities Prevention Act," then called on states to adopt it.
Dr. James L. Guth, a professor of political science at Furman University in Greenville, S.C., said Mrs. Schiavo has proven a exceptional example for right-to-life advocates to make their case.
That's been tough in the past, because polls consistently show most Americans want the option of refusing medical care if they are dying or lose brain function.
But they tend to picture people in severe pain or comatose, not apparently awake, like Mrs. Schiavo.
"Here you have something to work with," said Guth, who has written widely on religious political activists. "It's the one clear case that the right-to-life movement has had that they can really portray, graphically, some of the possibilities from the other side."
Key to that was the release last week of a videotape showing Mrs. Schiavo appearing to react to her mother as she tried to make her more comfortable in bed. Earlier videos also showed Schiavo appearing to react to doctors' commands. Some experts said her movements were involuntary or reflexive.
Other elements helped right-to-life activists make their case as well:
Mrs. Schiavo left no living will. Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, have raised doubts about her husband's motives, suggesting he wants her dead so he can remarry. Mr. Schiavo is engaged, and the couple has a child together.
Mr. Schiavo also didn't seek the removal of his wife's feeding tube until five years ago, eight years after she fell ill.
Meanwhile, Terri's Law was made possible by a chance political convergence: The Legislature was already in Tallahassee to consider appropriating more than $300-million for a Scripps Research Institute branch in Palm Beach County.
Two key lawmakers, House Speaker Johnnie Byrd and Sen. Daniel Webster, are courting conservative Republicans as they seek the party nomination for U.S. Senate. Webster sponsored Terri's Law in the Senate. Byrd ensured it passed the House.
End-of-Life Choices, formerly the Hemlock Society, the nation's largest right-to-die group, hasn't taken a position on Schiavo's fate, but said Terri's Law "will have a chilling effect . . . for the individual since virtually everything regarding end-of-life care could be subject to the approval . . . of the government."
Mrs. Schiavo's advocates trace the shift in her case to Oct. 11, just before her feeding tube was removed, when conservative activist Randall Terry contacted the Schindlers through mutual friends and asked if he could help.
The next evening, Terry was at the Schindlers' St. Petersburg home, plotting strategy: Start an around-the-clock vigil at Hospice of the Florida Suncoast in Pinellas Park, where Mrs. Schiavo was being kept. Call on Gov. Jeb Bush to intervene. And, finally, release another video clip showing Mrs. Schiavo moaning at her mother, though the filming violated an earlier court order against the Schindlers for interfering.
As founder of Operation Rescue in 1987, Terry became nationally known for advocating sometimes illegal measures against abortion clinics.
"We had to add a new feel, we had to add new details. One of the things the family had was the tape, filmed in contempt of court," said Terry, who lives in St. Augustine. "I told them, you have got to release the tape."
At a press conference on Oct. 14, they gave copies to TV stations and asked for Bush's help. The next day, Terry and the Schindlers met with Bush in Hillsborough County, where he was attending a groundbreaking.
Bush promised to do what he could, Terry said.
Meanwhile, Terry did interviews with radio stations and called his allies in the antiabortion movement, urging them to contact state leaders. A friend who runs a Web site called www.conservativepetitions.com posted an online petition that people could sign and e-mail to Bush. Thousands did.
Antiabortion and disability-rights activists descended upon Pinellas Park to pray and picket.
"Efforts in court had failed," Terry said. "We wanted to bring this to the court of public opinion."