19 Years After They Starved My Sister to Death, We Must Never Forget Terri Schiavo

March 31, 2024, marks the 19th anniversary of the death of my sister, Terri Schiavo, after her feeding tube was involuntarily removed despite the repeated objections of my family and loved ones.

It took almost two agonizing weeks before Terri finally died from severe dehydration. Terri’s unjust death was not some quick, peaceful passing. It was a brutal, slow march toward death at the request of her estranged and unfaithful husband, Michael Schiavo, who petitioned the court (with perjured testimony) for permission to kill his wife.

Michael made this decision after a medical malpractice lawsuit, which awarded a medical trust fund worth nearly a million dollars that was specifically meant for Terri’s lifelong care and rehabilitation.

Almost immediately after the trust was established, Michael broke his promise and marital vows to continue caring for Terri and began his pursuit to end her life. Michael knew that, as Terri’s guardian, he would receive a life-changing payday if he were successful in killing her before the trust was used to fulfill its original purpose.

In 2000, after two failed attempts to end Terri’s life by withholding prescribed antibiotics to treat her urinary tract infections, Michael petitioned the Florida court and asked a judge to do what he could not achieve through deliberate and underhanded neglect.

Eventually, and sadly, Sixth Circuit Court Judge George W. Greer, who presided over the case, ruled in his favor, ultimately ignoring Michael’s malicious and clear underlying intent.

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As ungodly and wicked Michael’s motivations were, they were nothing more than a symptom of the same poison that has infiltrated today’s public institutions, including the U.S. healthcare system. Just as the lust for money fueled Michael’s decision to end Terri’s life, our healthcare system functions with the same purpose.

Compared to other wealthy countries, the U.S. ranks the highest in the money it spends per person—four times more than the average—and yet, has the worst healthcare system overall, according to research by the Commonwealth Fund. Administrative inefficiencies and waste are mostly responsible for these exorbitant healthcare costs.

The solution, at least in the minds of the ruling class that runs the system? Rather than trying to reduce waste, they choose to simply reduce costs by denying or rationing expensive care for our medically vulnerable, like those with disabilities or brain injuries, imposing de facto death sentences that are carried out before medical bills can accrue.

Only a detached, immoral administrator with no accountability to any real oversight entity would think about implementing such a cost-control system. However, because of the culture that now permeates society, this is precisely where we have landed.

Consider the complicated quality-adjusted life year (QALY) measure. As bioethicist Wesley J. Smith explains, “QALY distinguishes between actual life expectancy and quality-adjusted life years.” Smith uses the example of an able-bodied man who is expected to live 10 years and who would have more QALYs than a disabled man, impacting his cost-benefit analysis. For over 30 years, QALY has been used by private and federal health insurers to ration care in the U.S. and worldwide.

While QALY is openly acknowledged, there have been clandestine decade-long efforts to enshrine its principles in federal and state regulation. Take just two examples of what hospitals have at their disposal: medical futility policies and the redefining of feeding tubes from basic care to “medical treatment,” making it legal to either remove or deny them to patients in all 50 states.

All work harmoniously to serve the hospital’s (financial) interest rather than the patient’s. Indeed, if what we witnessed during the pandemic didn’t open your eyes to a tyrannical government in charge of the medical community, I’m not sure what will.

People with cognitive disabilities are the primary target of this anti-life, cost-containment mindset that has subverted the U.S. healthcare system because they are frankly the easiest prey. Consider that, according to the CDC, the total annual healthcare cost of nonfatal brain injuries is over $40 billion.

This expense, combined with the widespread anti-life ideology, leads those in charge to believe that if a patient’s long-term prognosis is expensive and killing is cheap, ending a patient’s treatment becomes justifiable.

However, there is an abundance of money available for the care of these vulnerable individuals, and one does not have to look very deep to find it. For instance, the Government Accountability Office reported that incorrect payments made by our federal government cost U.S. taxpayers $247 billion in 2022 and nearly $2.4 trillion were squandered in simple payment errors over the last two decades.

If the $247 billion of mistaken payments were applied only to the long-term requirements for our brain-injured at $40 billion annually, over 200,000 patients could be treated, saving them from an arbitrary and unjust death sentence. Especially, if patients are granted access to recent groundbreaking discoveries regarding brain recovery that can change a hopeless prognosis.

The impact of helping these persons rather than bureaucrats working to alleviate their gross incompetence by denying needed care would be transformative. Permitting the killing of our fellow humans merely as a cheap way to cut costs must end. Doing so would transform our culture from one that chooses death to a culture of life and afford families the blessing of caring for their most vulnerable members, who they love unconditionally.

This is what motivated my family to establish the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network in response to my sister’s death. Our mission is to advocate for families who want to care for their loved ones. There is not a week that goes by when we don’t get calls from families in crisis after strangers have stripped them of all decision-making power.

Nineteen years ago, Terri suffered a death that I’m unable to properly describe using words. The effects of her dehydration caused blood to pool in her eyes, and her body was so ravaged that it reached the point that she became disfigured and unrecognizable. If my sister’s death were an isolated case, it would be heartbreaking enough, but that such instances occur every day in our country—with no effort to stop them—is inconceivable.

But this happens when a society forsakes Jesus Christ and no longer fears the consequences of denying that we bear His image and that all human life is sacred. Until we proclaim Jesus as our Lord and Savior, the insanity of willfully leaving the least of His brothers and sisters to die will continue.

LifeNews Note: Bobby Schindler and his family established the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network in honor of his sister, Terri. Protect yourself and your loved ones today by identifying a healthcare agent to speak for you if you cannot. Click here to learn more.

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