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Schindlers pitch book, relaunch foundation

The family of Terri Schiavo, a lone lawmaker at their side, hope to educate the public about end-of-life decisions.

By WES ALLISON
Published March 31, 2006

WASHINGTON - A year ago at the U.S. Capitol, when the golden daffodils that cover the greening grounds last trumpeted the advent of spring, the renewal of life, you couldn't have pried the members of Congress from Bobby Schindler's side with a crowbar.

Young, good-looking and good on TV, Schindler made for a sympathetic visual for the extraordinary issue du jour that enchanted Congress: saving Terri Schiavo.

On Thursday, a day shy of a year since his sister died in a Pinellas Park hospice, Bobby and his parents were back. They gathered on a perfect morning outside the Capitol to pitch their new book, A Life That Matters: The Legacy of Terri Schiavo - A Lesson For Us All, and relaunch a nonprofit foundation aimed at educating the public about end-of-life decisions and lobbying Congress for laws to combat "a culture of death."

As her mother, Mary Schindler, put it, their goal is to help those who are "at the mercy of the death cult that has permeated our nation's medical profession (and) subject to a runaway justice system where judges legislate from the bench in favor of death."

This time, however, they were largely alone. Indeed, the conservative grass roots groups that had worked Congress and cable TV on the Schindlers' behalf, groups like the Family Research Council and the National Right to Life Committee, stood by them once again Thursday. But the lawmakers who eagerly rushed to their cause a year ago did not, blown by political winds to more fragrant flowers.

Not Sen. Mel Martinez or Rep. Dave Weldon, Florida Republicans who filed the bills giving the federal courts the authority to intervene in the years-long feud between the Schindlers and Schiavo's husband, Michael, over whether to remove her feeding tube.

Not Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, the fallen majority leader, who rammed the bill through the House while trading insults with Michael Schiavo through the miracle of satellite TV.

Not Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who as Senate majority leader convened a rare weekend session during Easter recess to pass what was known as Terri's Law, and who as a doctor declared she didn't look brain dead to him.

The only one who accepted the Schindlers' invitation Thursday was Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., a stalwart for prolife causes, who said that he wants to hold congressional hearings on assisted suicide and other end-of-life matters and that he was "pleased the Schindler family will continue this effort."

"There's an urgent need, an urgent need, for an organization to provoke discussion," he said.

As he walked back to the Capitol, Brownback argued against being too hard on his colleagues who didn't make it and declined to blame their absence on political fickleness. "We've got an immigration debate boiling," he said. "A lot of people say (euthanasia) is an issue that's coming, but right now I've got these alligators in the swamp to wrestle."

But what about all those proposals that erupted around the Schiavo debate about end-of-life care, the calls for hearings and investigations and bills to insert the federal courts into other such cases? The whole thing collapsed pretty quickly after polls showed Americans had little stomach for congressional intervention.

Terri Schiavo collapsed in her St. Petersburg apartment in 1990 and never regained any detectable brain function. After years of failed treatments, her husband, Michael, sought a court's permission to remove her feeding tube.

Bobby Schindler said the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation will push first to outlaw the "dangerous and subjective" diagnosis of persistent vegetative state, Terri's diagnosis, and to make providing nutrition legally a basic care, not extraordinary care. Last year's congressional action "was the perfect case, we believe, of Congress wanting to help - the recognition that someone on death row had more protection than she did, and they wanted to help her," he said.

The federal courts, however, did nothing with their new authority to act. Schiavo died March 31.

Today, the anniversary of her death, the Christian Defense Coalition plans to lay 300 roses in Schiavo's memory at the U.S. Supreme Court.

[Last modified March 31, 2006, 08:25:53]