Campaign to save life ends in inevitable failure

THE extraordinary race to save Terri Schiavo’s life reached a tragic but inevitable end yesterday when she died after 13 days without food or water.

The bitter family feud over the brain-damaged woman’s right to life evolved into an unprecedented political battle in the United States. The 41-year-old died as police monitored protests from the Florida hospice roof, patrol cars blocked every entrance and uniformed officers patrolled the grounds.

Her Catholic parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, had passionately insisted she was not in a vegetative state, that she responded to them, had the potential to improve with treatment and therefore the right to be kept alive.

Mrs Schiavo’s husband, Michael, fought them in the courts for seven years. He claimed she lacked all mental capacity and had told him she never wanted to be kept alive artificially.

When her brain was starved of oxygen in 1990, her parents and husband pulled together, sharing a house and the burden of Terri’s care. Mr Schiavo even studied nursing so he could help look after her.

But when he successfully sued a doctor for failing to detect Terri’s condition, the picture changed dramatically. The family’s fallout over how the $1 million dollar award should be spent signalled the beginning of a dispute which became an international spectacle. After a bitter battle in 1993, when the Schindlers tried in vain to remove Mr Schiavo as their daughters legal guardian, the two sides broke off all contact.

Mrs Schiavo’s feeding tube was removed but reinserted twice as her family repeatedly clashed in the courts. But when Florida Judge George Greer ruled for the third time, on March 18, that the tube be removed, he triggered an astonishing outcry.

The moral and political wrangling was prolific and aggressive and took several sinister twists, Democrats alleging that Mrs Schiavo was used as a political pawn to win support from the religious right.

President George Bush dashed back from his Texas ranch to sign emergency legislation in an attempt to prolong her life.

His caution that it was “always right to err on the side of life” delighted evangelicals but his interventions cost valuable support.

However, nationwide opinion polls indicated that the public favoured Mr Schiavo’s position and did not think Congress should have intervened.