Terri Schiavo died 10 years ago today not long after her feeding tube was removed by order

r of a Florida judge acting at

the request of Schiavo's husband that his wife be allowed to die.

She was 41 and had spent nearly half her life in a vegetative state after suffering a cardiac arrest in 1990, causing a
severe lack of oxygen and brain damage. The highly publicized legal case surrounding her husband's plea not to keep her
artificially alive roused debates across the world and at the U.S. Supreme Court.

What is Schiavo's legacy? What have we since learned about brain function, vegetative states, and how we should talk
about death long before we're gone?

Today, some families still battle at the bedside. The condition of Bobbi Kristina Brown, found facedown in a bathtub Jan.
31, had not changed as of March 20, and people within her famous family have engaged in a fight and public arguments.

Many of us still have not gained enough wisdom from the Schiavo episode. And the political and personal ripples of that
moment remain as well.

So let's recall what happened. At the heart of that case, Michael Schiavo, her husband, began requesting in 1995 that she
legally be allowed to die.

He believed she would never emerge from her comatose state as did every doctor who examined her. He did not want
her to live in a permanent vegetative state, unconscious, unresponsive and unable to interact with the world since he felt
that she would not want to be in that condition.

Terri's family bitterly disagreed. They still believe to this day that she would have wanted to live, that her husband did not
have her interests at heart and that they were unfairly pushed aside in their effort to save her life.

What began a private dispute moved from Florida circuit courts to district courts to state courts to federal courts, to
Congress, to the U.S. Supreme Court.

President George Bush almost created a constitutional crisis between the courts and the executive branch in trying to
override the Florida courts which had, time after time, backed Michael Schiavo's decision. Former Senator and surgeon
Bill Frist saw his Presidential dream disappear when he challenged Terri Schiavo's diagnosis without directly examining
her.

During his tenure as Florida governor, Jeb Bush decided to fight his own state courts in trying to override their decision to
let her die.

The Vatican wound up challenging U.S. law which, as the Schiavo case affirmed, allows the stopping of artificial food and
water under certain circumstances. The Vatican said food and water could not be stopped, thereby, leaving many Catholic
health care institutions and Catholics in this country and others uncertain as to how to manage requests to let a
patient die by removing a feeding tube.

The facts did not support those, including Terri Schiavo's parents, who held that she was not in a permanent coma. An
autopsy definitively settled that question. Her brain was severely atrophied, weighing less than half of what it should have.
No treatment then or now could have reversed the brain damage she suffered. She was not conscious for all those years
and never again would be.
What has changed in America?
Ten years later, too few of us fill out living wills, advance directives or select a surrogate decision maker in writing. In some
states, only married relatives have the standing to make treatment decisions, leaving those who are living together but not
married at risk of being ignored.

Some states have laws voiding written patient directions about what should be done if a woman in Schiavo's condition is
pregnant. Other states will only honor written directions by the patient not prior conversations or oral statements. And
three states have enacted laws since Schiavo's death that allow the terminally ill to end their lives laws for which Terri
would not have qualified since she herself was not competent or able to communicate in any way.
And we still find ourselves embroiled in fights about what diagnoses of coma and permanent vegetative state and brain
death really mean.

In addition to Bobbi Kristina Brown's plight, the body of teenager Jahi McMath is still being maintained by artificial means
in New Jersey more than a year after her parents refused to accept that she died at a hospital following elective surgery.

But Terri Schiavo taught us some very important lessons.

Spouses have the last word on medical-decision-making for the incompetent. If you don't have a spouse, you should write
down who you wish to decide for you and have that witnessed and notarized using one of the many forms available on
line.

It is important to know the beliefs of doctors, hospitals and nursing homes about stopping artificial life support such as a
feeding tube so that everyone is on the same page should such a decision need to be made.
And America, both young and old, still needs to try harder not to avoid talking about death and one's wishes about what
one would want if disability or illness makes communication impossible so that there will be fewer Terri Schiavos in the
future.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/bioethicist-tk-n333536

The Terri Schiavo case was a right-to-die legal case in the United States from 1990 to 2005, involving Theresa Marie
"Terri" Schiavo, a woman in an irreversible persistent 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 elected to remove
her feeding tube. Schiavo's parents argued in favor of continuing artificial nutrition and hydration and challenged Schiavo's
medical diagnosis.[1][2] 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 President George W. Bush, caused a seven-year delay
before Schiavo's feeding tube was ultimately removed.

Schiavo had a cardiac arrest in her St. Petersburg, Florida, home on February 25, 1990. She was resuscitated, but had
massive brain damage due to lack of oxygen to her brain 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 speech and physical therapy and other experimental therapy, hoping to return her to a state of awareness,
without success. In 1998, Schiavo's husband, Michael, petitioned the Sixth Circuit Court of Florida to remove her feeding
tube pursuant to Florida law.[3] He was opposed by Terri's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, who argued that she was
conscious. The court determined that Schiavo would not have wished to continue life-prolonging measures, [4] 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 U.S. President George W. Bush returning to Washington D.C. to sign
legislation designed to keep her alive.[citation needed] After appeals through the federal court system 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.

In all, the Schiavo case involved 14 appeals and numerous 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, then-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.[5]The case also spurred highly visible activism from the pro-life movement, the right-to-die movement,
and disability rights groups.[6] 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 its larger issues. [7][8][9]

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo_case