About Terri Schiavo
The Terri Schiavo case was a series of court and legislative actions in the United States from 1998 to 2005, regarding the care of Theresa Marie Schiavo (; née Schindler; December 3, 1963 – March 31, 2005), a woman in an irreversible permanent vegetative state. Schiavo's husband and legal guardian argued that Schiavo would not have wanted prolonged artificial life support without the prospect of recovery, and, in 1998, he elected to remove her feeding tube. Schiavo's parents disputed her husband's assertions and challenged Schiavo's medical diagnosis, arguing in favor of continuing artificial nutrition and hydration. The highly publicized and prolonged series of legal challenges presented by her parents, which ultimately involved state and federal politicians up to the level of George W. Bush (the then U.S. president), caused a seven-year delay (until 2005) before Schiavo's feeding tube was ultimately removed. On February 25, 1990, at age 26, Schiavo went into cardiac arrest at her home in St. Petersburg, Florida. She was resuscitated, but had severe brain damage due to oxygen deprivation and was left comatose. After two and a half months without improvement, her diagnosis was changed to that of a persistent vegetative state. For the next two years, doctors attempted occupational therapy, speech therapy, physical therapy and other experimental therapy, hoping to return her to a state of awareness, without success. In 1998, Schiavo's husband Michael Schiavo petitioned the Sixth Circuit Court of Florida to remove her feeding tube pursuant to Florida law. He was opposed by Terri's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler. The court determined that Schiavo would not have wished to continue life-prolonging measures, and on April 24, 2001, her feeding tube was removed for the first time, only to be reinserted several days later. On February 25, 2005, a Pinellas County judge again ordered the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. Several appeals and federal government intervention followed, which included Bush returning to Washington, D.C., to sign legislation moving the case to the federal courts. After appeals through the federal court system that upheld the original decision to remove the feeding tube, staff at the Pinellas Park hospice facility disconnected the feeding tube on March 18, 2005, and Schiavo died on March 31, 2005. The Schiavo case involved 14 appeals and numerous legal motions, petitions, and hearings in the Florida courts; five suits in federal district court; extensive political intervention at the levels of the Florida state legislature, Governor Jeb Bush, the U.S. Congress, and President George W. Bush; and four denials of certiorari from the Supreme Court of the United States. The case also spurred highly visible activism from the United States pro-life movement, the right-to-die movement, and disability rights groups. Since Schiavo's death, both her husband and her family have written books on their sides of the case, and both have also been involved in activism over related issues.
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