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Editorial: Terri's legacy

Terri Schiavo died Thursday the victim of an ugly family dispute that robbed her of her right to privacy and to die with dignity.

By Times Staff Writer
Published March 31, 2005

Terri Schiavo became an international cause not for what she accomplished in her brief life but for the prolonged and difficult manner in which her life ended.

She was, after all, only 26 when a potassium imbalance seized her heart, which in turn robbed her brain of oxygen for five minutes. Back in 1990, her husband and parents reacted as many families would, refusing to accept the dire assessments of neurologists and insisting on a medical miracle. Michael Schiavo even took his wife to California, where doctors implanted an electrode that was supposed to stimulate her brain activity. Nothing worked.

Ms. Schiavo existed in what doctors call a "persistent vegetative state," unable to experience life as we know it and unable to recover. Her surgically implanted feeding tube was all that stood between her and death. She would have departed in relative anonymity if not for the rancorous struggle that ensued after her husband and parents had a dispute over money, and after the courts determined Ms. Schiavo had made it clear she would not want to live that way.

Given the political upheaval that attended to Ms. Schiavo's hospice bedside over the past 17 months, there certainly will be calls to respond to her death with a law that claims to bring clarity when end-of-life wishes are not documented in writing. But Florida law already is clear and humane: It lets families carry out those wishes when incapacitated patients had verbally made their intentions clear, and that arrangement usually works just fine.

Lawmakers in Washington and Tallahassee should remember the many families who took offense at the way politicians meddled in a moment of personal tragedy. The fact that so many people rushed to sign their own living wills as this case dragged through the courts, the Florida Legislature and Congress speaks to a palpable fear. People now worry that they may some day be denied the right to refuse life-prolonging medical care.

Yet even in the hours following Ms. Schiavo's death, too many politicians who disagreed with the medical experts and the courts continued to press their own narrow views and pander to social conservatives. President Bush urged "all those who honor Terri Schiavo to continue to work to build a culture of life where all Americans are welcomed and valued and protected, especially those who live at the mercy of others." What all Americans need protection from is a federal government with so little disregard for the courts and the privacy rights of individuals. No one was more offensive than House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who on a day of mourning and reflection directed his venom at the judges who so courageously protected Ms. Schiavo's constitutional rights.

Ms. Schiavo's broader legacy may well be that she caused all of us to talk about, even argue about, something that often seems too remote or too painful to contemplate. But the advance of medical technology means some of us will be there one day, barely existing, oblivious to the anguish of the loved ones who surround us. Recent polls show most of us would want our family to be brave and let us go.

Terri Schiavo died Thursday at age 41, some 15 years after she was stricken and 13 days after her feeding tube was removed. Reasonable people can disagree about what should have happened and about how they wish to be treated in their final days on this earth. But Ms. Schiavo is not a martyr, as one Florida state legislator claimed after her death. She was simply the tragic victim of an ugly family dispute that robbed her of her privacy and brought out the worst impulses of government to meddle in the most private of moments. She had the right to determine her own fate and to die with dignity, as do we all. May she rest in peace.

[Last modified March 31, 2005, 18:42:02]