Michael Schiavo - Terri the Truth

TERRI

The Truth

Michael Schiavo
with Michal Hirsh

Introduction by Jay
Wolfson, DrPH, JD

Antenna Books
Brooklyn, NY

TERRI: THE TRUTH. Copyright 2006 by Mijolini, LLC. All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America.

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

Cover Design by Thomas Kaufman

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schiavo, Michael.

Terri/The Truth
c Mijolini, LLC

p. cm.

ISBN: 978-1-62306-039-8
1. Terri Schiavo, 1963-2005. 2. Brain deathUnited StatesMedical. I. Title

Originally published in hardcover by Dutton, March 2006
Antenna Books ebook edition, March 2015

www.antennabooks.com

For the two loves of my life

This book is dedicated to the memory of

TERRI

who will always be part of me

and to

JODI

my wife, my friend, my rock

The truth is incontrovertible; malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.

Sir Winston Churchill

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Contents

Preface

This is a story I never wanted to tell. I'm a very private person. I'd be happy if no one outside my immediate circle of friends and coworkers knew my name. I would have been much happier if I had nothing of interest to say to anyone but my wife and kids and friends. But we don't always get to choose the road we'll travel or, for that matter, the companions who will be with us for the length of the journey.

Over the last fifteen years I've learned that there are forces over which we have no control; forces that will influence our lives in the most unexpected ways. The story you're about to read begins in my twenty-first year and goes through my forty-second. It starts when I was still pretty much a kid, someone who was about to fall in love for the first time with one woman, and ends with my public, legal, and religious proclamation of love and fidelity to another woman, to the mother of our two children, Jodi Centonze.

For twelve of the last fifteen years, Jodi was by my side, quietly, sometimes almost invisibly, supporting my every effort to do the right thing for the first love of my life, Theresa Marie Schiavo. Jodi is the unsung hero of those troubled times.

This book has been written with the presumption that you know the headlines of the tragedy of Terri Schiavo, who lived for fifteen years in a persistent vegetative state. I initially thought that I could tell this story chapter by chapter, taking a literary approach, writing it as though I didn't know where it was going and how it was going to get there. I was wrong. It became impossible for me to detail critical events without telling you right then why they would prove to be significant years later. In these pages, then, you'll learn new things about what happened, and many more details about why.

By now you know that one of the most thorough autopsies ever performed in the state of Floridaperhaps in the countryput the lie to the constant din of the Schindler family and their faith-based, moralist supporters claiming that Terri had cognition; that she could speak, could see, could hear, and could interact with visitors to the extent that not long before her death she supposedly cried, "I want to live." The autopsy report, which was released on June 15, 2005, proved everything Iand her doctorsknew to be true about Terri's condition. She would have never gotten better; not even a little bit. She had no cognition. She could not hear. She could not see. She could not feel pain. There was no doubt whatsoever.

You also may know that an investigation by the local state attorney absolutely exonerated me of the preposterous charges made by my in-laws, radical priests, and ambitious politiciansboth indicted and notas well as a racist ex-detective now flacking for my in-laws, that I caused Terri's collapse, and therefore, I was a murderer.

You are also probably aware that although Terri had left no written advance directives about her end-of-life wisheshow many twenty-six-year-olds do?Pinellas County circuit court judge George Greer determined that there was clear and convincing evidence of her desires as required by the laws and judicial decisions of the state of Florida. Judge Greer reached that conclusion early in 2000, and it was on the basis of that original decision that we were able to remove Terri's feeding tube and allow her to go to her final rest on March 31, 2005.

The appendix of this book contains the three documents essential to knowing the legal truth about the Terri Schiavo case. You'll find critical excerpts from medical examiner Dr. Jon Thogmartin's autopsy report; State Attorney Bernie McCabe's report to Governor Jeb Bush, which answered with finality the governor's questions about my possible complicity in Terri's death; and Judge George Greer's original order that explained why he authorized removal of artificial life support. My detractors and accusers still deny the truths contained in these three documents.

This is an emotional book, and for that I make no apologies. After everything I went through, I could not write it any other way. I have no argument with those who may honestly disagree with me and the choices I made over the last fifteen years. But honest disagreement over principle is not what has characterized what became known worldwide as "The Schiavo Case," in my opinion.

Instead of honest disagreement there were repeated distortions of the facts by people high and low with both personal and political axes to grind. The facts have been twistedand continue to be twistedby Terri's parents, Robert Schindler, Sr., and Mary Schindler; by her brother, Bobby; and by her sister, Suzanne. The facts have been twisted by politicians, including the governor of Florida, the majority leaders of the United States House and Senate, by one of my own senators in Florida, and by the president of the United States. The facts have been twisted by medical practitioners who diagnosed by television and by attorneys who appear to have placed their religious beliefs above their sworn duty as officers of the court to uphold the Constitution of the United States. The facts have also been utterly disregarded by religious leaders who would prefer to see our country turned into a theocracy, but only so long as the divine guidance of our leaders comes from their God, interpreted their way. Strange, but isn't that precisely what we're fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the war on terrorism?

Even as I worked with my coauthor, Michael Hirsh, on this book, the facts about The Schiavo Case were still being distorted. Terri's parents, firmly in the clutches of the moral troglodytes of the religious right, are saying that my wife's death came as a result of the forces of euthanasia. They dishonor their own daughter's memory by allowing her to be used by those waging a culture war on America. You doubt that? Maybe you didn't know that on their Web site, Terri's parents sold the wretched videotape of her in the hospice for one hundred dollars a copy. Do you think they cared whether that's the way she'd like to be remembered?