Original subtitles

- When I would go see her,

I used to stand by her door.

And if she was looking the other way, I would stand there.

I'd say, "Terri, it's mommy."

She would turn right around and look at me.

Okay, right at me.

And nobody believed me.

Well, that's their problem.

She was there.

She was, she could hear me.

She knew I loved her.

She wanted me to be there.

Hi, sweetie!

Hi!

It didn't matter what was wrong,

if she just laid there for the rest of her life.

All I wanted to do was love her and take care of her.

Hi, babe.

But then, everything changed.

- You got a letter in the mail.

Do you remember what the letter said?

- Just that they want to kill my daughter.

- The battle over Terri Schiavo

has come to involve state judges, federal judges,

the Supreme Court, the Congress,

and even the President of the United States.

- You have to understand

what the fear of death is.

What are you so afraid of?

Why do we feel so negative and so helpless?

We are afraid of the unknown.

- God determines when life begins

and when it ends, not anybody else.

She's not a vegetable, and she needs to be loved!

Why do you want to kill her?

- Let Terri live! Let Terri live!

- Terri Schiavo,

a woman that most Americans had never heard of,

now at the center of another cultural debate in America.

- This is the rise of Christian fascism!

Let her die in peace!

- I covered the Terri Schiavo case

for the "Tampa Bay Times",

and it really, really resonated with everybody.

- It seems to me like this case is starting another debate:

When does life end?

- We now define life

with squiggles of electrical phenomena on pieces of paper.

And this case shows us our own feelings about our mortality.

We are afraid to let her go

because we are afraid of our own mortality.

- You know, who is to decide

what is a good life and what's not?

And I think that everybody has their own view on that.

- I would never pull the plug on anybody,

because there's always the chance

that they might be alive again.

Even if somebody, even if a doctor tells you

that they won't be.

- I think there is eventually a better life for people,

and they need to move on to that better life.

So I believe very much in pulling the plug.

- And so when I was writing,

I struggled a little with whether it was a right-to-die case

or a right-to-life case.

Totally different, but

it was both of those things.

I first heard about Terri Schiavo back in 2000,

when I got an anonymous tip

that I should go to a certain courtroom

to see a trial that was about to start.

It was in probate court,

which is generally people, you know, dealing with wills,

and you know people, what happens after they die.

So I didn't know at all what it could be.

And so I just kind of wanted to sit down

and just listen for a little while.

And I had never seen anything like it.

- Terri's very difficult to take care of.

She needs a lot of care.

- It was this family that was divided,

bitterly divided over this woman, Terri.

After her accident, she couldn't talk.

And so they were trying to basically piece together

what she would've wanted.

You know, it was this whole trial

about someone who wasn't in the courtroom.

- Have you noticed any improvement

in Theresa Schiavo's medical condition?

- No.

- Ever? - No.

- And everybody wanted to know what Terri was like.

- I believe she understands.

I believe that she knows that I'm there.

- The Schindlers were positive that she was conscious,

that she was thinking and feeling.

- She started tracking me with her eyes.

- But Michael Schiavo was confident that she was gone.

- You ready to roll, Fred?

You ready yet?

- I am.

- Okay, let's begin again.

- You know, when one gets into this story,

sometimes you lose the perspective of time.

This has been going on for a very long time.

- 10 years.

- Is there any way to express

what these 10 years have been like for you?

- Somebody that I loved,

somebody that I adored,

was taken away.

Ripped out of my life.

And to see her in this condition,

it's awful.

- After it happened,

I remember going to visit her

and how emotionally upset I would get

when I would see her like that.

I guess when you see the movies, you see someone in a coma,

and then the next day they wake up

and everything, and they're fine.

You know, I didn't understand anything about brain injury.

So there's probably a part of me that thought that,

"Okay, one day I'm just gonna walk in and Terri's gonna be,

'Hey, Bobby, how you doing?'"

And when that wasn't happening,

yeah, I mean, it was tough.

'Cause I knew Terri before that

as being this fun-loving, wonderful sister.

Growing up, we were very close.

We were just 13 months apart.

Some referred to that as being Irish twins.

So Terri and I were kind of joined at the hip.

- He followed her everywhere.

He just followed her around all over the place.

We had three children.

Terri was the oldest,

my shy one.

She had a couple friends, but not a lot.

And she gained weight all the way through high school.

- I remember Terri

kind of struggling with her weight.

She kinda stayed in more,

she liked to draw.

She had a passion for animals.

She would talk about wanting to work at a zoo,

eventually becoming a veterinarian.

After she graduated high school,

she started to lose weight

and she just became more extroverted,

really a different person.

And then she was getting attention from men.

And that's ultimately how she met Michael.

She was 19 when they were engaged

and 20 when they got married.

When Michael asked to marry her, she was just overjoyed.

- I, Theresa, take you, Michael, to be my husband.

I promise to be true to you

in good times and in bad,

in sickness and in health.

- It was in Our Lady of Good Counsel, our parish.

Michael wasn't Catholic.

He had to get a special dispensation

to marry Terri in the Catholic Church.

And then there was a lot of dancing.

You know, just a typical wedding.

* Celebrate good times, come on *

* We're gonna have a good time tonight *

* Let's celebrate

- I'd like to thank my mom and dad

and Michael's mom and dad.

We had a really good time.

I hope everybody else had a good time.

And what else, babe?

- We love you both, very much.

- Yeah.

- Thank you.

- Terri and Mike, they were just lovely people.

I remember they'd come in

and they'd just like laugh and giggle and have a great time.

We'd all have a great time with each other.

You know, I could tell they were in love.

To me, they were like Ken and Barbie.

They decided to tie the knot and moved here

to sunny Florida.

They were just happy newlyweds

that we're looking forward to a wonderful life.

- When Terri and Michael moved down to Florida,

that really precipitated all of us moving,

'cause they went first,

and now we gotta go, because she's down there.

Back then, we were all so close.

And Michael was part of the family.

Terri was very happy.

She kind of came into herself in Florida.

- I did Terri's hair the day before she collapsed.

And when it happened, I was just, I was devastated.

Everybody was just heartbroken.

She was ready to start her life.

- So, that was their apartment right there.

I lived just, maybe,

I don't even think it's a quarter mile from here.

So when I got the call, I was here within minutes.

I just grabbed my keys and just threw a pair of shorts on

and was here pretty fast.

It was such a traumatic event.

That is something you just don't forget.

- Tell me about that night, that early morning in 1990.

- I was asleep,

and I heard a thud.

So I ran out to the hall,

jumped out of bed, ran out to the hall,

and found Terri laying on the floor.

I picked her up in my arms

and I was holding her and I was shaking her.

I was like, "Terri, talk to me!

You're scaring me! Terri, talk to me!"

And she wouldn't respond.

Her neck and her arms and everything were just limp.

So I laid her backed down on the floor.

I ran over and I called 911.

- When I got to the hospital,

the mood was very grim

because nobody seemed to know what happened,

other than she went into cardiac arrest.

And she had been without oxygen for a very long time.

It's called anoxia.

And I remember them telling us

that she was gonna have a significant brain injury.

- She couldn't talk and she couldn't walk.

But what happened to her?

Somebody just doesn't fall down and collapse

without a reason.

- They were trying to understand

why her heart would just arbitrarily stop like that.

So I think they were looking at

her imbalances in her system.

- Because her potassium level was so low,

they thought that could have been an indication

that there was some type of eating issue.

I never suspected it.

I was out with Terri a lot.

But at the time, it sounded plausible.

- I didn't think she had an eating disorder,

but,

I think they,

maybe she did?

You know, over the years,

she lost a significant amount of weight.

- When you're with a client, you're not six feet away.

You're right up in people's face, I mean right next to 'em.

And you're touchin' them, and it's very intimate.

She didn't look healthy to me.

She seemed a little bit dark around the eyes.

I believed there was a problem there.

But she definitely kept her secret from me.

And I think she kept it secret from Mike too.

- It's chocolate, Terri.

Is she much of a chocolate lover?

- She was more into fruity flavors.

- What do you think about this, Theresa?

Can you hear that?

- They said that she was

in a persistent vegetative state, PVS.

The definition of PVS

is no interaction, response,

unable to communicate in any way.

- It's all right, relax, it'll go away.

It'll go away.

- During that time, I just remember

all the focus was on trying to get Terri help,

and getting her rehab and try to improve her condition.

- It'll go away, relax.

- It'll go away.

- It was stressful.

You know, Michael was going through a lot.

But he was doing just what he needed to do

to try and help Terri get better.

- She is young, beautiful, and trapped in a coma.

Her only hope: experimental treatment.

- No doctor can tell me that there's no hope.

'Cause I know she's in there.

She's just having problems coming out.

- We heard about a doctor in California

that did these brain inserts.

- Doctors in California

plant electrodes at the base of the brain of coma victims

to stimulate damaged brain cells.

- He brought her home.

They had a thing that you had to turn.

- This is the button, you push, just...

- And it was very complicated,

but he learned all that.

- Now, Terri, you're supposed to sit up.

- And walk out of here.

- He was very dedicated.

Michael was very dedicated to her.

- Theresa,

Theresa,

Theresa.

- Michael and I, we got along very well,

and we needed each other.

Both of us were taking care of her.

Michael, he would spend half the day with her.

- I'll tell you what, see the big ducks sitting out?

Isn't it nice out today?

Huh?

- Stretch up.

Hopefully those pathways to the brain will be reestablished.

- It was gonna be expensive to care for Terri,

to cover what she was gonna need to help her.

Rehab, therapy, doctors.

- Therese? Theresa?

Can't see any

scanning.

- And once the insurance runs out,

you're only provided a certain amount of days of rehab.

Once that's exhausted, you either do it yourself,

find a way to pay for it,

or they gotta be put in a nursing home

and basically get warehoused.

So Michael filed a malpractice lawsuit

against Terri's previous doctors,

her family doctor and her gynecologist,

because it was felt

that they could have prevented her collapse.

- Terri had been seeing her doctor

with regards to trying to get pregnant.

And the doctor should have caught her eating disorder.

Because they should have seen her chemical imbalances

and therefore may have been able to address that

before anything happened.

- They awarded $700,000

that was put into a trust fund for Terri.

That was supposed to be used

for her care, therapy, rehabilitation.

- But the relationship with Michael

abruptly changed after the settlement came in.

Michael felt differently about Terri's care,

and decided that he wasn't gonna spend any more money

on Terri's rehabilitation.

- Sit up.

There you go.

Sit up in the chair.

Sit up in the chair.

- He said that he came to the realization

that Terri was no longer gonna improve.

He said that he was Terri's caregiver,

he'll be making decisions,

and he basically informed my parents at that time

that they were no longer gonna be part of the,

her care moving forward.

- What happened?

What changed your mind?

- For four years, I thought she was in there.

I believed she knew me.

And then she needed to get an EEG done.

So I took her to another neurologist.

He did the EEG on Terri.

And after the EEG was done, he pulled me into his office,

and he sat me down and he looked me right in the face.

And he told me,

"She died four years ago."

I exhausted everything I could do for Terri.

Doctor after doctor after doctor, and all of the rehab.

The brain stimulator did not work.

I had a meeting with all the doctors,

and they said that this is Terri.

There's nothing more they can do for her.

Then it was starting to sink in.

Terri will never be Terri, ever again.

- What?

- What, baby?

What?

- You know, we didn't know

what Michael was doing or not doing for Terri.

We just knew that

we weren't gonna be part of his life anymore.

And then everything changed.

In 1997, when my parents received the letter.

- We knew that Michael didn't believe

Terri could get any better.

But we were totally blindsided by that letter.

It was from Michael's attorney.

The gist of it was

Michael wanted to remove Terri's feeding tube.

- This portion of the tube

is actually in the patient's body, going into the stomach.

And then this end is attached to the feed, like this.

- Terri, she wasn't able to swallow food.

So the feeding tube was keeping her alive.

And Michael was trying to actively end Terri's life,

to kill her.

- That's when we knew it was gonna go to court.

That was it.

We never spoke to him again.

And I still haven't spoke to him, to this day.

- In our society, there's such an underlying fear of death,

fear of extinguishment.

It's so deeply rooted in our culture.

It triggers

such strong reactions

among

so many.

And I think this case helped bring those fears to light.

- The Bible says, "Dust thou art,

and unto dust shalt thou return."

The basic fact of life is that it ends.

- Right to die is a moniker

for the legal right

to refuse medical treatment

that you no longer want.

- There was nothing else we could do.

We did what we had to do.

- It started in the '70s,

and the initial cases were ventilator cases.

There's a machine that is providing respiration.

And the courts agreed, "Yeah, that's a medical treatment,

and can be withdrawn."

It's literally, pull the plug.

The electricity stops.

No more breathing.

And then, you had the feeding tube cases in the '80s.

- Take out Satan's kingdom today, Lord.

- In the name of Jesus!

- Oh, Jesus, by Thy mighty power-

- People were more uncomfortable

with the feeding tube cases.

There's no machine, there's no plug;

just a tube, hanging on a pole.

I handled Florida's seminal right-to-die case.

Until that case,

it was virtually impossible to remove a feeding tube

in the state of Florida.

So I got to be known as the right-to-die expert,

if you like.

That's why Michael came to me

and he explained the family dispute.

So sure, I knew it would be a tough case,

but I had no idea whatsoever

it would turn into the case that it did.

- Okay, listen up, this is a tough question.

Could you decide if a loved one lives or dies?

A bay area family is having to do just that.

- It's now up to a Pinellas circuit judge

to decide the woman's fate.

- Terri Schiavo had no advanced directives.

So she had no living will, she had no healthcare surrogate.

There was nothing in writing to tell anybody

what she wanted done if something like this occurred.

She was 26 when she went into cardiac arrest.

And the basic question was: What would she want?

- Michael had the legal authority

to remove the feeding tube under Florida law,

but only if there's clear and convincing evidence

of the patient's intent.

- So Michael, he had to somehow formulate

some type of evidence and present to the court

that Terri had said

that if she was ever in a condition like this,

that she would want to die.

- In October of '85, we flew down here.

- So this was from Michael's testimony.

I'm reading it.

She said, "If I ever have to be a burden to anybody,

I don't want to live like that."

Well, (chuckles) Michael was making this up.

He lied.

It's that simple.

- A judge will soon decide

if a Clearwater woman should live or die.

Her husband is fighting to get her feeding tube removed,

but the woman's parents- - When you make a ruling,

you need to get a sense about

whether or not a person is believable.

Michael had a conflict.

- If Terri does die,

her husband would stand to inherit $700,000

from a medical malpractice settlement.

- So I was reluctant to base a decision

solely on what Michael had to say.

- Terri had made the mention that, you know,

she would never want to be kept alive like that.

But at the trial,

Michael's brother testified,

and he backed up what Michael said.

- Why prolong that person's agony?

- I think most people don't want to be kept alive

until the second coming.

"If there's no hope of recovery, let me go."

The story was credible.

And I was persuaded

beyond any real doubt

that that was her wish.

- When Judge Greer ruled in Michael's favor,

we were just,

I think we were all just kind of in shock at first.

We were all just kind of like, "What just happened?"

- Do you believe Terri did make these comments

about not wanting to live that way, to go on that way?

- I don't think she ever said those comments.

I knew my sister a lot longer than her husband,

and I just don't believe she ever made

those type of statements, no way.

- What is your hope and your wish

right now, Bobby?

- Right now I'm just...

- Last week, Terri Schiavo was moved

from a nursing home in Largo

to a hospice in Pinellas Park.

- A feeding tube will be disconnected

from Terri Schiavo at the end of the month.

- At hospice, our purpose

is to help families and friends of someone who is dying

to have a peaceful, comfortable,

exquisite but painful experience

to be with their loved one when they pass over.

You know, hospice is a movement

that really started in the late '70s and early '80s.

- It's a very different kind of dying

than being in an intensive care unit,

hooked up on tubes and respirators

and monitors and machines.

We have become experts at keeping people alive,

because our approach to life is so completely not realistic.

- Our relationship to death in this country

has been skewed.

People don't think about dying.

They think there's always gonna be some technology

to keep them alive.

But in hospice, in addition to medical support,

spirituality is an intentional part of the care model.

- It worries me.

- Counseling and listening

is part of the care model.

- What does dying mean to you?

- Michael was a young man at that time,

and I can't imagine the burden this was for him.

And I said, "Well, you're a good person

to be doing what you're doing.

You know, if it was me, I'd want the same thing."

- In hospice,

the goal is to help their passage

be as peaceful as possible,

and to help the family accept what's happening.

- In Florida, a feeding tube was removed

from Terri Schiavo, a woman who's been in a coma

for more than 11 years.

Doctors expect her to die within two weeks.

- We went to visit Terri.

The feeding tube had been removed,

and I think it was that day we left

when my dad got a call from a Bay News 9 reporter.

So we stopped.

- We're now talking with Bob Schindler,

father of Terri Schiavo.

First of all, Bob, you were at Terri's bedside.

- And I remember I was standing there,

watching the interview,

and the reporter asked my dad how he felt

about everything that's going on with Terri.

- Tell us how you're feeling right now.

- As a family, our concern now is Terri,

and we're focusing on Terri.

And she has a tough couple weeks ahead of her.

- How was your visit today with her?

Any different?

- Same, really the same thing.

But naturally, we felt a lot different.

- What will it be like

for you and your family the next-

- Now my dad, he's a strong guy.

But you know, he was a father,

and he wants nothing but to protect his daughter from harm.

And he's being told, "You can't.

You can't do a damn thing.

And not only can't you do anything,

you're gonna sit back and watch her die."

- So it's a horrible thing, it really is.

And you never expect your child to die before you do,

let alone the way that they're gonna kill her.

So that part of it is, it's tough.

And I say it again and I'll say it again,

please pray for her.

And say one from Michael Schiavo, too.

I'm sure he deserves our prayers.

- Can you understand how

her parents see their child,

and want nothing else but a miracle?

Can you understand that feeling?

- I certainly can.

I am not a parent,

and I'm sure it's horrible for a parent to lose a child.

But Mr. and Mr. Schindler, they've had 10 years to grieve.

They talk miracles.

God wanted to create a miracle,

he would've done it a long time ago.

- They had taken the feeding tube out

and it seemed like the end

of this really long, drawn-out saga.

- ...ends a long legal battle

between Schiavo's husband, Michael, and her parents.

- And she was gonna die.

But we had no idea what was about to happen.

- Right now at Tampa, 68,

St. Pete/Clearwater at 69,

and on your radio, it's always 100.7 FM.

Phone lines are already busy tonight,

so if you're headed home from work

and you have any comments wanna give us...

- So a woman called into this radio show.

- I'm sort of personal with this case,

because I was the first girl that Michael Schiavo dated

after his wife had this heart attack.

It was about three years after she had-

- Cindi Brashers was an ex-girlfriend of Michael Schiavo.

And she was saying, you know,

not very nice things about him and how he dealt with Terri.

- And he used to go to the nursing home

and he said she would recognize his voice.

- Right.

- And she would start crying

when he got ready to leave.

And he was like, "She is ruining years of my life.

She has taken all this time and this is all her fault."

- And it kind of just snowballed.

The Schindlers had a private investigator talk to her,

and she had told the investigator that Michael Schiavo said,

"We were young, we didn't know, you know,

how could we have planned for end-of-life?"

That he didn't know what Terri would've wanted.

- Since day one, this whole case has been misrepresented.

The evidence that was given to Judge Greer

is not what it appears to be.

- We are hearing today

from Terri's husband, Michael.

Michael has rarely spoken in public,

but today he is speaking out.

- Bottom line here

is I'm trying to carry out Terri's wishes.

- How do you know for sure

what Terri's wishes were?

- She made comments to me.

- Now, what do you make of the comments

by a woman that you dated after Terri,

who said you told her that you two never talked about it?

You were too young to be talking about things like that,

that, that-

- I never made that comment to Cindi.

- Okay, let's see what Linda in Tampa has to say.

Go ahead.

- Hi, I'm sure that you love her,

but the mother and the father, they raised her.

Now, why don't you divorce her

and let the Schindlers come to peace with this?

Let these people have peace!

- In other words, let them have her to care for her.

- Yes.

- Okay.

- They won't carry out Terri's wishes.

This is about Terri.

This is about her wishes,

and that's why I'm trying to carry these out for her.

I love Terri tremendously.

And you know, everybody looks at the Schindlers,

the poor Schindlers.

What about me, what do you think I'm losing?

I'm losing my wife.

And nobody sees that.

- Let's take a break.

Back in a moment.

- There is a bitter legal fight

that's underway right now

over the right to end the life of a woman who-

- Terri's parents filed the lawsuit,

alleging Michael committed perjury.

- The Schindlers took what Cindi Brashers said to court,

but they didn't take it back to Judge Greer.

They took it to a different judge,

which was actually strategy.

- Well, I'm going to find

that there is a likelihood of fraud,

given the representations of Cindi Brashers.

- And he ordered the feeding tube back in.

- A Florida appeals court has reversed a decision

to remove a longtime coma patient from life support.

- And we were like, "What?"

We don't, we didn't even understand what was going on.

- The effect of the decision is to feed her artificially,

to give her medical treatment against her will.

- Michael Schiavo's attorney says an appeal

is already in the works.

- I guess, we got another first down,

if you use the analogy of a football game.

And so we're, you know, we're still in the game.

- To this day, it's still even a little bit confusing.

The tube was put back in,

but there was nothing permanent about it.

You know, what Cindi Brashers said to the radio show

or to the investigator wasn't enough.

The case went right back to Judge Greer.

- That judge had no business doing that.

But the Schindlers were granted a temporary injunction.

The tube was reinserted.

That's when the case got legs, I think.

Even though it was just temporary,

I think the Schindlers saw

that they could get what they wanted

through manipulating the judicial system.

- This is the camera.

I bought this in 1986

at a place called Montgomery Ward's.

Everybody wanted one of these,

and now you can't give 'em away.

It served me well.

I'm Michael Vitadamo.

I was married to Suzanne Schindler.

And Suzanne asked me if I could videotape Terri.

The idea was to humanize Terri,

to make her be, "This is an actual person.

This isn't just some vegetable lying in a bed."

But there was no video cameras allowed in there.

So we had to sneak the camera in.

Suzanne went in and she opened the window,

and I had to hoist it up through the window

and then walk around

so the nurses at front desk wouldn't see anything.

Found a place to plug in the camera.

And then,

we just had Mary just come up to Terri's bed

like she did every other time.

- It's mommy!

Hi!

What's the matter?

- Ha, ha!

- And then somehow it got out to the media.

- In this home video, you can see Terri Schiavo

laughing and moaning with her mother.

- It kind of just exploded.

Today you would call it viral.

- Look no further than this home video

to see Terri is conscious

and even reacts to certain family members.

- And the family got their message out

that this girl is alive.

- What do you see when you look at this?

- There's somebody home.

When you look at her, she is looking at her mother.

This woman is not vegetative.

- In the middle of a clouded legal battle,

a Clearwater neurosurgeon, Dr. William Hammesfahr,

may have the answers Terri's parents have been looking for.

- In order to remove Terri's food and hydration,

her feeding tube, you had to prove

that she was in a persistent vegetative state.

And now, because of Dr. Hammesfahr,

this was coming into question.

And the appellate court ordered medical examinations.

- The appellate court said,

"Take another look at it," basically.

"Don't retry the case.

It's over; you've been affirmed.

Here's this new thing.

Review it and rule on it."

- How are you doing?

I'm Dr. Hammesfahr.

I'm just gonna check you out a little bit, okay?

Push against this hand.

- So if Terri was in a PVS...

- Good.

- ...she should be unable to communicate,

unable to respond to commands.

That's essentially the PVS diagnosis.

But in his examination,

Dr. Hammesfahr asked Terri to open her eyes.

- Open your eyes up, open your eyes.

- And Terri hesitates for a few seconds.

And then it's undoubtable

that she clearly opens her eyes on command.

Terri, open your eyes.

There you go, good.

Good!

Good job!

Good job, young lady, good job!

- But we were so encouraged and hopeful.

If Judge Greer concluded that Terri's in a PVS,

then they can move forward with removing the feeding tube.

If he found that she wasn't,

then it could have stopped everything

from moving forward, and saved Terri's life.

- Okay, you're all set.

- Dr. Hammesfahr shot about two hours of video

during his examination of Terri Schiavo.

- Can you close your eyes for me?

How much are you able to frame that?

- So I counted the number of times he gave her a direction.

- Terri, can you close your eyes for me?

- I counted the number of times

he asked Mary Schindler to give her direction.

- Mary, I want you to ask her

to close her eyes.

- Terri, can you close your eyes for mommy?

Close your eyes for mommy.

Can you close your eyes?

Close your eyes tightly.

Close your eyes for mommy.

Close your eyes very tightly.

Can you close them?

Can you open your eyes up, real high?

Close your eyes real tightly.

Keep your eyes wide open for me.

Try and look for the red light.

Open your eyes.

And there were over 150 directions.

Terri, look at me.

Close 'em real tightly.

Way over at me.

Can you raise your eyebrow?

- Then I counted the number of times

that he said she complied.

Open 'em real wide for me.

Real wide, open up real wide.

Yeah, I saw that, good job.

- So it's almost 200 commands and maybe 5 compliances.

It just didn't jive to me.

- She collapsed in her apartment and she was diagnosed

as being in a persistent vegetative state

by a number of neurologists.

Classic persistent vegetative state.

My name is Jay Wolfson.

I'm a professor of public health, medicine, and pharmacy

at the University of South Florida.

I'm also a professor of health law.

The extent to which we can ascertain

somebody else's quality and quantity of consciousness

by inference, that's what it's all about.

But there's a lot of ambiguity.

PVS is determined mostly with observational tests.

So there's no measurable thing that you put in a beaker

and say, "Ah, two milligrams of this and five of this,"

and you every time get the same thing.

It's a bit more subjective.

...pages of legal and clinical documents.

This is what I was asked to do, I had to...

I was asked by the court

to provide an opinion about her diagnosis.

Was there something that was missed

by all the doctors and attorneys?

...papers, radiograms, CT scans...

To make sure that there was no stone unturned going forward.

So that the most important thing I could do

was to get to know Ms. Schiavo.

Terri would make noises

during both her wake stages and her sleeping stages.

Hi!

Her head would move.

That is part of what someone in a vegetative state does.

They're not intentional.

They are just residual things that they do,

which makes it very confusing.

As I felt more comfortable with her,

I would hold her hand,

touch her head,

and I would ask her, could she squeeze my hand?

Could she blink her eyes?

Could she follow some instructions?

None of that resulted in a response,

even though I did it over and over and over again.

Didn't happen.

This is Ms. Schiavo's, the CT scan.

What do you see?

What's happening there?

- Your ventricles aren't supposed to be filled

that much with fluid.

- What's all this stuff?

- A lot of dead brain tissue.

- A lot of dead brain tissue.

Yeah.

The scan of Ms. Schiavo's brain showed

that all of the brain itself had become liquified,

including the parts of the brain

that are expressly responsible for cognition,

for hearing, for seeing, for responding to things.

All of those capacities were gone.

I mean, that was not gonna change.

It was not gonna grow back.

The evidence supported not only the diagnosis,

but the removal of the feeding nutrition tube.

- Do you remember that?

We used to laugh at that.

You'd take your eye and let it roll to the side.

- You remember?

- You know, you wanna label her in PVS.

We didn't care.

The way we looked at my sister was she had a disability.

She had a severe brain injury.

- In Florida, you have the right,

the legal right, to die with dignity.

- Death is a part of life,

the dying with dignity.

- They say, "You have to give her a death with dignity,"

implying that living in a condition with a disability,

somehow she no longer possesses dignity.

I mean, there's no truth to that.

The PVS diagnosis shouldn't mean

that we should end her life.

- We had several doctors testified

that that in fact was the condition she was in,

and in fact, it was irreversible.

I felt very comfortable that this was the correct decision.

- Doctors in Florida

have removed the feeding tube

from a severely brain-damaged woman today,

ending a nearly decade-long fight

that pitted her husband against her parents.

- Our legal avenues had been exhausted.

So Terri's death clock was ticking

and we had to do something, you know,

before the alarm went off.

All right, thanks.

Thanks.

And someone suggested that Randall Terry could help us.

But I never heard of Randall Terry.

Nobody did in our family.

We had no idea who he was.

- You're gonna get a sound bite from me

and then weave it into the story.

- I'm gonna get a sound bite,

and then if they want to use it on "The Today Show"

tomorrow morning, they will.

- If they don't use it on "The Today Show",

I will set myself on fire.

- Oh, my God!

- Embracing you.

- No, embracing you!

- Randall Terry is the founder of Operation Rescue,

and he is sort of famous for these

protests outside abortion clinics,

these really, really vocal protests.

- The Democratic Party has hid

behind their godless, lying rhetoric for too long.

- Operation Rescue, a more militant approach.

- 20,000 anti-abortion demonstrators

have been arrested in 28 cities.

- The abortion clinic is closed!

- Legalized child-killing's days are numbered.

We will win.

Music is a fun passion for me.

When I was a young man,

I wanted to go to Juilliard to play the piano,

but God had other plans for my life,

which I'm happy to have fulfilled.

"New York Times", "Washington Times",

front page of the Style section

of "The Washington Post".

There is when I had the privilege of meeting John Paul II.

I invited him to come to get arrested with us.

He didn't come, but he laughed.

The Bible says that Satan is the great dragon.

My dragon is child-killing.

I've spent my entire adult life

fighting to end the killing of babies.

That's the mission.

The pro-life movement is of peace.

We focus on babies that are in the womb.

But the commandment says, "Thou shalt not murder."

Whether it's active euthanasia

or starving someone to death

or dehydrating someone to death, murder is murder.

- Let Terri live! Let Terri live!

- They are going to starve this woman to death.

And it is an act of cruelty

and ultimately, it's murder itself.

So please, in the name of truth...

- If they wanted to work towards saving Terri's life

and they're against abortion, I'm not gonna say no.

Frankly at this point, my family didn't care about that.

If he was gonna try and save Terri, okay, let's do it.

That's how we felt.

- So I told the Schindlers we'll rent an RV,

and it'll show to the media, "Look, we're here.

We're not going anywhere."

- Okay, super.

- Terri's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler,

have set up camp in this RV,

just across the street from where their daughter is housed.

- We'll have a 24-hour vigil.

- Deliver us from evil...

- and we'll get national television.

- The feeding tube was removed yesterday

and doctors say within the next 10 days,

the 39 year-old woman will die.

- I told the family, we have to get all this press coverage

so we can put political pressure on people who need it.

- Wow!

- Jeb Bush was a popular governor.

He had won reelection, he was Republican,

and he was from this political family

that we had all heard of, of course.

- A thousand points of light.

- The United States and our allies have prevailed.

- Just ahead on your right, there they are.

The presidential gates leading to the former naval base.

- But Jeb Bush, he wanted to just kind of chart his own way.

And when you look back at his legacy over his eight years,

I mean, the Schiavo case will always be with him.

- Let Terri live!

- I want to take this moment again

to publicly beg Governor Bush.

- Randall said, "Jeb could save Terri's life,

but you've gotta get in front of him.

You guys have to meet with him personally,

humanize yourself.

Let him talk to Mary, let him see the family,

'cause it's gonna be harder for him to say no to your face."

I was driving.

It was like, "Okay, let's get there, now."

- Jeb Bush was doing some kind of groundbreaking,

so I felt like we were hijacking his event

in order to get in front of him.

- There was a mariachi band

and all these festivities going on.

And then Jeb Bush walked in, no security or anything.

I was surprised that this somehow happened,

that this meeting actually happened.

That this family is now meeting

with the governor of Florida.

- You know, he comes in and like shakes everybody's hand.

And I think he looked out of sorts, because I mean,

he's not expecting to meet my family that day.

- Before we actually met Jeb Bush,

Randall, he said, "Here's how this is gonna happen.

He's gonna meet us.

He'll sit and listen to you intently.

When it comes to the end of the conversation,

he's gonna slide to the end of his chair.

He's gonna slap the top of his knees and get up and say,

'I wish there was more that I could do.'"

And

that's exactly what happened.

Exactly.

And I just remember looking at Randall like, "Damn!"

- In the meeting, Jeb said, "I'm not a king.

I can't just do anything I want."

- Are you looking with the attorney general,

or what are you guys looking at now?

- I am not aware of any alternative,

but I'm not a legal scholar, either, so.

- But I said,

"If we get legal opinions

that say you could intervene on her behalf, as the governor,

would you consider doing it?"

He said, "Yes, send them on to me."

- Legal advisors to the governor

are continuing to look into this

to see if there is anything that the governor can do.

Meanwhile...

- In 2003, I was a member of the Florida Senate

when the Terri Schiavo case

really sort of burst into the public scene.

We heard rumblings that Governor Bush

was actually pushing a law

that would allow him to reinsert her feeding tube.

- This is an incredible convergence of timing.

Legislature's in special session,

which it almost never is this time of year.

- I think we need to give those parents that opportunity

to see if they can save their daughter's life.

- It was mostly on party lines.

- If this body does nothing, a very bad thing will happen.

- It's inappropriate for us to be reversing their decision.

My first thought was, "I'm not a lawyer, but I am very clear

that the governor does not have the ability

to override court decisions

in any constitutional construction."

- Typically, it takes months to pass a law,

but Terri's Law was crafted in less than a day.

- But this really boiled down

to you can't just target the law to affect one person.

And that's what they decided to do with Terri's Law.

- It applies only to cases

where a patient has no living will,

is in a persistent vegetative state,

had food and hydration tubes removed,

and has a family member challenging the removal.

If all members voted,

the clerk will announce the vote.

- 73 yeas, 24 nays, Mr. Speaker.

- The bill passes.

- I will sign it into law immediately.

The law will give me that authority,

and I will issue the stay.

- Do you feel at all like you're playing God here

and interfering with perhaps His will or-

- No, I'm not playing God at all.

- This evening an ambulance picked up Terri Schiavo

and took her to a nearby hospital to begin the procedure

of hydrating and feeding her once again.

- Finally, huh?

Looks like we might see

the light at the end of the tunnel here.

So she came back to the hospice

with her feeding tube reinserted.

- She's very capable of making a recovery.

- You know, I think back,

and just the way

our family, in particular, my mom and dad,

they were just parents that loved their child

and wanted to care for her.

- It's a miracle, an absolute miracle.

- And just to see their joy

when the feeding tube was reinserted.

- She looks great.

She's tired,

but she just looks wonderful,

and we're very happy about it.

- Yeah, it was,

it was, you know, one of the good moments.

And yeah, I thought we,

I, you know, I guess I was being naive.

I thought we won.

I thought it was over.

You know, I didn't kind of process that wasn't, it wasn't,

'cause Felos just went into high gear after that.

He was not happy,

not happy.

- No one, whether it's a governor, a senator, a potentate

should have the right

to override somebody's medical treatment wishes.

It was disturbing

to see the raw exercise

of political power in this case.

It wasn't about end-of-life issues anymore.

Now the case became a battle

between the governor and the court system.

- The Florida Supreme Court heard arguments today

in one of the nation's longest right-to-die disputes.

- The essential issue here is

who is entitled to make a decision

on a matter so personal and private.

It would be a dangerous precedent

to have the courts override it retroactively,

because then there is no rule of law.

Then the courts become subservient...

- This is gonna have to be done-

- ...to the executive branch.

And that's a country that I don't want to live in.

- Florida's Supreme Court

struck down as unconstitutional

a law passed to keep Terri Schiavo alive.

- It's not clear tonight

how soon that feeding tube may now be removed.

- You know, we encourage people in tough situations,

remember prayer, and, you know, belief in prayer.

Calling out to God for help in times of crisis

is a very common American theme.

The Schindler's case looked sorta over,

but they were saying,

"Can you help us save our daughter?"

As a person of faith, as a Christian,

the answer's pretty simple,

that people like Terri matter to God.

At this point, we are deeply grateful.

And again, the family has tremendous faith.

They have said, "We are prayerful to God."

- Once David Gibbs got involved in the litigation,

the Schiavo case took a serious turn.

Political and religious forces saw an opportunity

to promote an agenda

that went

way past this family tragedy.

The Gibbs Law Firm was part of a larger effort

by an intricate web of religious organizations.

- I think the choice has to go to protecting her life.

You gotta err on the side of caution.

I think they're gonna be-

- Who are trying to change the course of American law

toward religious dogma.

- Our

goal

must

be

to build this country into a Christian nation.

- Amen!

- Firmly built on the 10 Commandments.

- They want what they call biblical law

as the law of the land.

- We want to make all our decisions

in light of the eternity to come.

- They are Christian nationalists.

That's their agenda,

theocracy.

There's no other way of putting it.

That's why I got involved in the Schiavo case

as an appellate lawyer helping George Felos.

I respect people's religious values,

but I just don't want it forced on me.

- Everyone understands that when the Pope speaks,

you now have the official word of the Church.

- This statement by Pope John Paul II

says withholding food and water is equal to euthanasia.

- I mean, I couldn't believe it

that he even knew about her, okay?

And yet, and here he comes out

with this, you know, this proclamation.

That was amazing.

That was, he was my favorite pope anyway.

- You're really saying

that if Terri had seen what the Pope said,

that that would've changed everything for her

with regard to how she'd want her situation to be right now?

- Absolutely.

- Gibbs filed motion after motion.

- They want you to believe that Terri is a vegetable.

Our response back, number one,

is that Terri's not a vegetable.

- Making some really outlandish claims.

- And then I took her by the arms like this

and I said, "Terri."

- For example, one of his associates was at Terri's bedside

and kept asking her, "Do you want to live?

Do you want to live?"

- And Terri said, "Ahhhhh."

And then she screamed, "Waaaa!"

- Gibbs filed a brief.

- Yes, sir.

- Saying she has now spoken.

She has said,

"AHHHHH

WAAAAAAA,"

which meant, "I want to live."

Almost laughable.

But

this guy would do anything.

- One-time stay, until the hearing could be held

on behalf of Bob and Mary Schindler, the parents.

- Now where's the logic in that?

- Those are kind of the last efforts

of grieving parents, if you will,

who had a good lawyer.

- Ask the guardian to keep his word.

- Trying to stop

what was about to happen.

- Blessed art thou among women

and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

- Holy Mary, mother of God, pray...

- This is a major decision by Judge George Greer

that Terri Schiavo's feeding tube can indeed be removed

by her guardian and husband, Michael Schiavo,

on March 18th, Friday, at 1 p.m.

- It would be Hitler-esque.

It would be unbelievable for us to starve to death a woman.

- The problem is that we live under the reign

of judicial tyrants.

They're gods that walk among us.

It's a clear violation of the separation of powers.

That's our contention.

These judges ignore the law.

Judges like Greer give us pornography, no prayer in schools,

no Bible in schools, no 10 Commandment in schools.

"Here's condoms for kids.

Here's dead babies by abortion.

Here's homosexual marriage.

All your state laws be damned!"

Right now, what we have

is a little tin-pot dictator judge, Greer,

telling everyone what to do,

and we don't have anyone with the guts and the backbone

and the wisdom to stop him.

- There it is.

I looked like Michelin Man when I had it on.

You just hoped people are shooting you

where the bulletproof vest is, instead of some other place.

We had a lot of threats.

So whenever I was out of my condo,

whether I was walking the dog or going to the grocery store,

I wore it.

They arrested somebody in North Carolina for threatening.

There was a bounty on me and Michael Schiavo.

Somebody was arrested in San Francisco.

I don't know if they're religious,

I don't know if they're anti-abortionists.

I don't know if they're just wackos.

- According to law enforcement officials,

there have been many threats against the judge in this case.

- Then, in early March,

I got kicked out of my church

because my pastor did not agree with my ruling.

* You saved me * You saved me

* You saved me * You saved me

* You saved me * You saved me

* You saved me * Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh

* Oh, Jesus

- I'm a good Christian and I'm pro-life.

- Praise the Lord!

- But do I go to the Good Book to decide cases?

The answer is no,

because that's not what I'm supposed to do.

My job is to apply the law to the facts.

That's it.

- And God says, "This is your day!

Nobody will stop it!"

- Good afternoon, everyone.

Mrs. Schiavo's feeding tube was removed

at approximately 1:45 p.m. today,

pursuant to the order of Judge Greer.

- Let's go over here.

- We're all here. - Let's do it.

I have been told, I haven't yet seen,

but the tube has been removed.

And we are now up against a very tight clock,

because Terri is in the process of being starved to death.

And so at this point, we are moving...

We were kind of, you know,

out of options in the state courts.

But it is looking more and more like Washington DC

is gonna have to step forward and save Terri's life.

We wanted a federal court

to review the fundamental constitutional fairness

of what had occurred in all the courts prior.

But to do that, we needed an act of Congress.

- It wasn't like Congress just decided

they were gonna get involved in the situation.

I flew to DC to get in front of whoever it was,

Democrat, Republican, Congressperson, Senator.

My sister should at least, at the very least,

have a federal review.

I was pleading with them to do something

to stop this madness from happening.

- Terri Schiavo is alive.

She's not just barely alive.

She's not being kept alive.

She is alive as you and I.

- I couldn't believe it.

It was so stunning, I could hardly breathe.

Like, how could we be doing this again?

I had just been elected to the House of Representatives,

and now the Republicans drafted legislation.

- If the federal court decides to remove this case

from that judge in Florida, they can do so.

- And that was their crafty way

of attempting to

get the courts to bend to their will,

to reinsert her feeding tube.

- Governor, do we have you on the phone?

Can you hear me, Governor Bush?

- It felt like Groundhog's Day.

- We're continuing to work

on several fronts.

- Governor Bush, not a person who likes to lose.

And so, you know, what he was gonna do

was just call up his brother and use his power.

- In extraordinary circumstances like this-

- To force the issue.

- It is wise to always err on the side of life.

- But this really wasn't about Terri Schiavo's life

or feeling for her parents.

- This case...

- It was about scoring political points.

- ...breaks my heart,

and I think it breaks the heart of millions of Americans.

- Because this bill was being pushed

on behalf of right-wing, religious, conservative groups.

- I promise you, if she dies,

there is going to be hell to pay.

- Randall Terry, you know,

the Family Research Council.

- And then there were,

there are conflicts about her diagnosis.

- All of those really right-wing, anti-choice,

get-all-up-in-a-woman's-business groups.

- You just can't start killing people!

- And when they have a demand,

the Republican Party was going to meet that demand.

- Bill Frist, he was a Republican Senator

and he was a doctor.

- Based on a review of the video footage,

which I spent an hour or so looking at last night.

- He got up on the floor of the Senate and he said,

"I've seen those video tapes."

- That footage, to me, depicts something very different

than persistent vegetative state.

- This is a doctor watching edited videotapes,

making the diagnosis from the floor of the Senate.

It's just outrageous.

- The Schiavo bill passed in the Senate

by unanimous consent.

That means not one Democrat, not one Democratic senator

was willing to go to the leadership

and force a floor vote on this.

They just let this thing go.

* No other fount I know

* Nothing but the blood of Jesus *

- The family is elated to find out

that President Bush is cutting his vacation time short

to get back to DC to get ready to sign this legislation,

should it pass both houses.

I honestly couldn't believe that he left his vacation

and came home early to sign the bill.

I was dumbfounded by,

at the way the whole thing was propelling.

It's like, this is bad Hollywood writing.

You can't make this up.

But it was really happening!

I was thrilled.

- The members are here, the hour has come.

Mr. Speaker, call the vote.

- Those in favor, say, "Aye." - Aye.

- Those opposed, "No."

- You know, the Republicans are in the majority,

it's their bill, it was gonna pass.

So our job was to really try to shine a light on this debate

and engage with the American people

on how inappropriate this was.

I was still very new.

And when you are a freshman in the minority,

nobody cares what you think and nobody really knows you.

We're getting a little bit bogged down in the...

So, you know, I had to really be kind of brazen.

Where will we stop if we allow this to go forward?

You will end up throwing

end-of-life decisions

into utter chaos

and inserting ourselves in the middle of families

all across America.

And we can't do that.

- Could you explain,

should there be a distinction

between providing food as opposed to medical sustenance?

- We are members of Congress.

That's the bottom line.

I can't get into those kinds of questions.

We don't know.

We're not God.

And we're not Terri Schiavo's husband,

sister, brother, uncle, or cousin.

We're members of Congress.

We make laws, and we uphold the law,

and we swore to protect the Constitution.

And we are thumbing our nose at the Constitution

if this goes forward.

- And then they woke up President Bush

shortly after one o'clock to get him to sign it.

And now, what we've been calling the Terri Schiavo Bill

is now the Terri Schiavo Law.

- This was our last shot.

Hey, everybody!

- Do you have the lawsuit with you?

- We have the lawsuit with us and we are on our way to file.

The legislation passed hours ago.

We're told the court is gonna be ready to go.

And so what we did

is we went to the federal judge and said,

"Well, the only way for the federal review to occur

is for Terri to

be kept alive.

And so we have to reinsert the feeding tube."

And put everything on the line.

There was no room for compromise.

One of the most important issues

under our United States Constitution is the right to life.

Our Founding Fathers-

- I think the intent of Congress

was to simply replace their judgment

for that of Terri Schiavo.

- Terri's husband, Michael Schiavo,

is angry that lawmakers got involved.

- You know, I should be with her right now.

But I'm so outraged at what happened with Congress,

I need to speak out.

- Passed a bill that's substantially impaired.

- Do you feel frustrated

that you're up against the government?

- I don't think frustrated is a good word; I'm angry.

They're stepping into a personal, private matter

for votes.

They're making the decisions for us.

Big Brother is gonna do that.

I'm telling everybody, you better call your congressmen,

because they're gonna run your life.

- In court, there was a lot of questioning

about the constitutionality and other things.

And I began to realize,

"Okay, this judge is not liking this law."

- The federal judge basically said to them,

"You have no business being in this case.

Motion to intervene denied.

Motion to stay denied.

Thank you."

That was it.

It was over.

- Terri Schiavo's parents

have received their final legal blow.

- For three days,

Terri Schiavo's been without her feeding tube.

How long can she last without food or water?

- Well, it generally takes, in an otherwise healthy person,

about seven days to two weeks for the organs to shut down.

- Let Terri live!

- So Terri was dying,

and at that point it transcended politics

and became really the number one news story in the world.

- Some have come here from as far away as Los Angeles.

- There was a frenetic energy, a controlled chaos, really.

- Rescue Terri now! Rescue Terri now!

- We got a lot of traffic, just wait, you'll see.

When you turn, all you're gonna have is cars.

- Let Terri live!

We're not dead yet!

- Terri's case really pulled

across the political spectrum.

- We are left-wing radicals!

We are not religious people.

And we are a separate disability rights group.

- You know, the disability rights world

was inflamed and very concerned.

People of faith were concerned.

- The thing, there's something about her struggle,

it lifts us above the lines that divide.

- You know, moms across America were concerned.

I mean, this case just touched at everybody's humanity,

and it also asked some very deep questions,

as the whole world watched

to see what's gonna happen with Terri Schiavo.

- Everyonen is really concerned

in Sweden and Norway.

- They should be.

- Yeah? - Yeah.

Yeah, we're opening the door

to euthanasia here in America.

Excuse me.

* I give my life to You

- Sometimes I view myself like God's blunt object.

What I've been able to bring to the table over the years

is a willingness to say and to do things

that other people don't want to say and don't want to do.

So I set out to create a shitstorm.

- Isn't it possible that we have two different sides here?

A family and a husband both love this,

Terri Schiavo- - I don't believe he does.

I don't believe that he loves her.

He is very volatile.

There have been women who testified under oath

that he stalked them,

that he tried to run one of his ex-girlfriends off the road.

Something is amiss.

- The first casualty

of a culture war

is truth.

- She had a neck injury and she also had fractured ribs,

and she had, I think, a broken pelvis.

So she was pretty well beat up.

- During the Schiavo case,

the Schindlers created a campaign of misinformation,

- Amount of evidence that indicates

that there might have been a violent episode.

- About Michael Schiavo.

- Do you think he harmed your daughter?

- Quite likely, yes.

- In today's parlance, you might call it alternative facts.

There were a lot of alternative facts.

- It was, I believe, a combination of two things,

money and foul play.

- Accusations that Michael was a killer.

- Neck injury.

- He was evil incarnate.

- He's afraid that she'll wake up,

and actually, you know, say what happened that night.

I don't regret anything I said about Michael.

I feel like everything I say about Michael,

or I've said about Michael is kind of true.

She had multiple broken bones.

I mean, I don't know that we said

anything horrible about him,

just that we think he was responsible for her collapse.

- We never found any proof that Michael abused his wife.

All these things were examined in the end,

and there was no evidence for any of these allegations.

And you know, when I first started covering this case

back in 2000, when they had the first trial,

neither side disputed

that the other side loved Terri Schiavo.

Nobody was talking about abuse then.

Those are things that changed over time.

- These are crimes against God and crimes against humanity!

- Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,

and to the Holy Spirit.

- We're not dead yet! We're not dead yet!

- Receiving nutrition and hydration

are what are called proximate and necessary cooperators-

- When we would drive into work,

we had to drive through the gauntlet of protestors.

- I never had so many people send me to hell.

- Jesus Christ hates you.

You better make sure you're right with Jesus Christ.

- Lord, in the name of Jesus, I curse this place.

- Let Terri live!

- We called it the siege.

- Let Terri live!

- Why don't you guys get right with God

and stop supporting the homosexuals and the lesbians

and the abortionists?

- This place,

that was designed to be an oasis...

- Yeah there has been a lot of angry shouting.

The police have moved in.

- ...became a battleground.

- Give Terri water!

- And trying to set that aside

so we could be present

as we cared for

the patients and the families,

the contrast was just mind-boggling.

- A threat was called in

to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office

of there was a bomb in this area near the hospice,

and that it would go off if Terri died.

- All right, yes or no,

are there snipers on the roofs, as rumors indicate?

- And we've taken every position

that we feel that could be threatened.

- I remember, I thought,

"Oh, I don't think I'd be able to forgive myself

if a family member or an employee was injured."

Michael Schiavo had a plan and we had a plan to support him.

His brother would drive him to the hospice

and he would lay down with a blanket over him,

so that none of the cameras could see him coming and going.

And he stayed away from windows as much as he could.

Because he told me, "You know, there's some people out there

that would be happy to kill me,

just because of what they think they know about who I am."

- I'm afraid I would've had to kill him

before it reached this stage.

- Kill who? - Kill Michael.

- I think somebody should speak for Mr. Schiavo.

This guy deserves a medal.

- Why?

- 'Cause he's stuck by her all these years,

and is still standing by her

and trying to do what she wanted.

- Sometimes the greater love is the love that can let go.

- He was her husband.

He had the right to make that decision.

Nobody else.

Him.

- To have a good death

is to be with people you want to be with, at your time.

That's the ideal hospice goal.

- We found out that most patients go through five stages

in coming to terms with the fact that they're dying,

and often their families go through the same stage

as the patient does.

He first reacts with shock and denial.

- Mr. Gibbs said that he felt that perhaps,

she was beyond help, even if food and water were restored.

- You know, I'm not a medical doctor.

She seems to be, you know, as I said,

fighting very hard to stay alive.

- Next, the patient gets angry.

He enters what we call the stage of bargaining.

- Michael.

Please,

please

give my child

back to me.

- Then they become depressed,

and then they reach the last stage, the stage of acceptance.

- The effects of her

starvation and hydration

are showing.

But I think the people who are anxious to see her die

are getting their wish.

It's happening.

- Things were starting to change.

I sat and held her hand the whole night.

And I sat right there by her side.

And I caressed her head, caressed her arms,

and told her it was okay.

I had a candle going,

and there were some flowers in the room,

and some soft music was playing.

About seven o'clock in the morning, we got a phone call

that her brother and sister wanted to come in and see her.

I left the room.

* Have mercy on us

* And on the whole world

- We knew Terri was close,

so we got to visit her one last time.

- Okay, out of the way.

- It was Suzanne and I.

- That was tough.

The deterioration happened.

I mean, it happens slowly, but then like the last few days,

it's like, wow, you know.

- We knew it was getting close,

and,

some hospice people came in and said,

"You have to leave."

And we're like, "No, we're not leaving.

We're not leaving my sister right now."

And,

they said, "Well, just for a minute,

we have to kind of assess what's going on,

and then we'll let you right back in."

Walked out.

It was right then, the police got in front of us.

- As I was walking past,

I could see Bobby standing out in the lobby,

arguing with the cop.

And an administrator's telling me, you know,

"Bobby just got in an argument, he wants to stay.

What do you want?"

And I'm thinking to myself,

"I don't want a police officer in that room.

I don't want,

I don't want any arguments.

I want to be with my wife when she dies."

So I said no.

Maybe, you know, people don't agree with that,

but that was my decision at the time.

- They threw us out.

They told us we had to leave the premises right away.

You know, it's a shame.

I think there were a lot of feelings

that were misinterpreted,

and I don't know that we ever sat down

and just had a heart-to-heart discussion

about what we were all feeling.

And maybe if Michael and I

would've been better at communicating with each other,

maybe it never would've

turned into what it turned into

back then,

if we would've sat down and really hashed things out.

- I'm sure Terri would've wanted us

to get along and be happy, but it didn't happen.

I got back to her room.

I went around to the side of the bed,

I knelt next to her.

I lifted her up in my arms,

just like that night it happened.

And I told her I loved her, and she died.

- Acceptance is that feeling of,

"I have finished my unfinished business.

I have done my best."

They are at peace, inside and outside,

and ready for the last journey.

- You know,

it was over.

- It's over.

And she'll never have to do that again.

- Could you give us some room, please?

Could you give us some room, please?

Could you give us a little room?

- Come on, guys!

- As you are aware, Terri is now with God,

and she's been released from all earthly burdens.

She is finally at peace for eternity.

He was like a soldier.

He got us through it all.

- I want to just thank everybody, okay?

Thank you.

- But once Terri died,

my dad's health deteriorated pretty quickly.

I think he felt like he failed.

He failed Terri, and I don't think he could live with that.

And I think it killed him.

- Our keynote speaker tonight is Bobby Schindler.

- This case was built on lies.

Just like the abortion industry is built on lies,

so is imposed death and euthanasia.

You can't in any way compromise

when it comes to something that is wicked or evil,

because it opens the door for others to die the same way.

It's good to come here and see everybody, see our friends,

and know we have to keep fighting and protecting life.

Hey, Randall!

- We are the pro-life generation!

- Say what you want about Terri's condition,

about her brain injury.

It doesn't matter, and it shouldn't matter.

It doesn't in any way justify something that was so wrong.

- God calls us to go forth from this place

and build a culture of life.

- After Terri Schiavo died, more than ever,

I think people on the religious right realized,

"We need to change the federal judiciary."

- Has Terri Schiavo become the new face

of the right-to-life movement in this country?

- Hey hey, ho ho!

- Federal judges do matter,

and it does make a difference who serves on the bench.

- You don't like the courts?

Change the membership.

- I, Samuel A. Alito Jr., do solemnly swear...

- Judge Alito's horrendous record on the right to privacy

and a woman's right to make her own choices

was something that really worried me.

Can America risk a Supreme Court Justice Alito

casting the deciding vote

to drag us through another tragic saga,

similar to the Terri Schiavo case?

- It wasn't just the US Supreme Court.

It was the courts of appeal across the country,

the district courts, the trial courts,

where litigation begins at the federal level.

- This is one of the greatest legacies

of President Trump and this Republican Senate.

- It was a deliberate process

to create a network of judges

who could build momentum

and were essentially willing to overturn Roe versus Wade.

- In this historic 6-to-3 decision

written by Samuel Alito,

the Supreme Court has now overturned Roe v. Wade.

- Reproductive choice and the right to die,

it's two sides of the same coin.

It's an assault on the right to personal autonomy.

If Schiavo had happened today,

I think, likely, it would have a very different outcome.

I stayed in touch with Michael, to this day.

He has a wife, he has children, he has a good job,

and he's back to being a private person.

He's just a regular guy

who got caught up in something really extraordinary.

- I didn't want to get involved in the media.

There were some points where I had to.

And when it was over, I wanted it to be over,

move on with my life.

- The spotlight was brutal for him.

He endured it, he survived it, and he moved on.

And he has every reason to avoid it now.

From his perspective, for him personally,

there's no reason to dredge all this awful stuff up.

And I respect that.

- Throughout this whole thing,

Terri Schiavo became the poster child for every cause.

And the causes were all so different, they were opposite!

Everybody saw what they wanted in her.

Republicans saw something.

- What do the lives of the innocent mean to you and I?

What are we willing to sacrifice?

- The Democrats saw something.

- How are we going to really prioritize women's healthcare?

I really want to highlight-

- The different interest groups saw something.

Every cause claimed her.

Both sides of her family claimed her.

But from what I know about her,

from what her family knows about her,

she would've hated all of it.

It's sad,

you know,

that all these people were sort of fighting over her,

but without really knowing her.