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Prosecutors can’t use secret videotapes of a Watertown minister having sex with his comatose wife while she was in a nursing home, the 4th District Court of Appeals ruled Thursday. Advertisement The man faces eight felonies — four counts of second-degree sexual assault of an unconscious person and four counts of third-degree sexual assault — as well as a misdemeanor. The case raises a number of issues, including a nursing home’s obligation to protect the health and safety of a patient, an individual’s right to privacy and questions of marital sexual abuse. According to the appellate decision and other court...

PENNS CREEK — The lawyer who battled for two years to keep Terri Schiavo alive plans to speak at a Snyder County church on Friday. David Gibbs III will discuss why Schiavo’s 2005 death is still relevant during a scheduled appearance in Penns Creek at the G.I. Straub Memorial Tabernacle, according to Jeremy Fuller, Duncannon God’s Missionary Church pastor and event co-organizer. At the request of Schiavo’s parents, Gibbs took the fight to keep the brain-damaged woman’s feeding tube in all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Schiavo had been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years before...

This segment was originally broadcast on Nov. 25, 2007. It was updated on Aug. 28, 2008. Three years ago, Terri Schiavo sparked a nationwide debate when she was removed from a feeding tube. Schiavo was in a permanent vegetative state with no chance of recovery. But there are as many as 300,000 other Americans who have survived brain injuries, only to be trapped in what's called a "minimally conscious state." They can't talk, walk, or eat, but they retain more mental awareness than vegetative patients. For decades now, minimally conscious people have been all but written off by the medical...

LifeNews.com Note: Michael Egnor, M.D. is professor of neurosurgery and pediatrics at State University of New York, Stony Brook and an award-winning brain surgeon who has been named one of New York's best doctors by New York Magazine. This editorial may not necessarily represent the views of LifeNews.com. Yale neurologist Dr. Steven Novella and I have been involved in a vigorous discussion (example here) of the mind-brain problem in science and philosophy. There are real-world implications of our understanding of the mind, and nowhere are these implications more important than in the medical management of people with severe brain damage....

In 1990, Theresa Schiavo, an American citizen, had a cardiac arrest that caused irreversible brain damage which led to a persistent vegetative state diagnosis. A few years later, this diagnosis became a source of conflict over the interruption of artificial nutrition. The "Schiavo Case" was widely discussed from a medical, ethical and social standpoint in the United States and elsewhere. . . . [A]n article to be published in the September 23 issue of Neurology, . . . examines the media coverage featuring this famous case. The study reviewed American daily newspapers that were most prolific about this story: the...

St. Petersburg, FL (LifeNews.com) -- After her husband won the legal right to subject her to a painful euthanasia death via starvation and dehydration, the mainstream media coverage of Terri Schiavo ended abruptly. Proving they were more interested in protecting people than the lure of the cameras, Terri's family hasn't stopped fighting for the disabled. Following Terri's death, the Schindler family converted the foundation they established to provide her with medical care to helping other disabled patients.The foundation now serves as a legal, medical and information clearinghouse for patients and their families.LifeNews.com recently profiled the case of Janet Rivera, a...

Michael is the widower of Theresa Marie Schindler “Terri” Schiavo, who died on March 31, 2005, after being judicially executed—as her husband wanted. She had collapsed on February 25, 1990, having experienced a heart attack that caused respiratory and cardiac arrest, which resulted in extensive brain damage. She was diagnosed by several doctors to be in PVS—persistent vegetative state. She was placed in—and brought out of—several hospitals for 15 years. In 1998, Michael, her husband and guardian, petitioned a Florida Court to remove her feeding tube. Robert and Mary Schindler, her parents, opposed the petition. They claimed that she was...

Rome, Italy (LifeNews.com) -- The family of Terri Schiavo is concerned about an Italian woman whose father has won the right form a court to subject her to a painful euthanasia death. They fear Eluana Englaro will be dehydrated and starved to death in the same way Terri's husband forced her to endure.Englaro has been in what doctors term a vegetative state for 16 years and has received food and water through a feeding tube.Beppino Englaro, Eluana's father, has been seeking the right to remove the feeding tube and starve and dehydrate Eluana to death in the same way...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Americans will have an opportunity to review the life and death of Terri Schiavo tonight and next week as the television program a disabled woman produces will focus on how Terri was subjected to a painful euthanasia death. Joni Eareckson Tada, whose ministry produces "Joni and Friends," is behind the show. Like Schiavo, Tada is a disabled woman herself -- having become paralyzed at a younger age in a diving accident. Tada has put together two 30 minutes programs airing tonight and July 19 that will explore the debate surrounding Terri and be broadcast globally via...

Orlando, FL (LifeNews.com) -- Terri Schiavo died from a painful starvation and dehydration euthanasia death at the hands of her former husband over three years ago. Yet, Terri's family is still having problems getting the mainstream media to report the story of her life and death accurately. In the most recent case, the Orlando Sentinel newspaper is under fire for a news article that wrongly referenced Terri Schiavo as "brain dead."On Saturday, May 24, 2008, Aaron Deslatte, a reporter from the newspaper, published the story with the erroneous claim.Terri's brother Bobby Schindler called and left repeated messages for Deslatte to...

The controversial and colorful advocate for the disabled, Harriet McBryde Johnson, died earlier this week at her Charleston home. Johnson first came to national prominence when she publicly challenged Princeton’s Peter Singer on the ethics of euthanizing profoundly disabled infants, and dedicated her life to improving the quality of life for those in institutions she called the “gulag”:Harriet McBryde Johnson, a feisty champion of the rights of the disabled who came to prominence after she challenged a Princeton professor’s contention that severely disabled newborns could ethically be euthanized, died on Wednesday at her home in Charleston, S.C. She was 50....

A Florida woman put on a feeding tube after she had a stroke is at the center of a court case that is eerily similar to the lengthy legal dispute over whether Terri Schiavo should be kept alive.

FORT WORTH, TEXAS, May 22, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Peruvian man whose American doctors reportedly sought to starve and dehydrate him to death was spared Wednesday after the family alerted the Peruvian media and a pro-life Texas attorney intervened in the case. According to Peruvian media reports, Jesus Sanchez, 56, had been in a coma for over five months in John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, after suffering a heart attack after a soccer game.  After the hospital's board of ethics reviewed his case, his condition was pronounced "irreversible".  The hospital announced that it would deprive Sanchez of food and...

Pro-life advocates are launching an e-mail campaign in an attempt to save the life of a young woman injured by a drug overdose who now is facing the possibility of a court-ordered death by dehydration and starvation.WND previously has reported on the case involve Randy Richardson, who is fighting his ex-wife, the medical establishment and the court system for the life of his 23-year-old daughter, Lauren Marie Richardson."She's committed no crime and doesn't deserve to have this death imposed on her," he told the Wilmington, Del., News Journal earlier, citing the case that carries striking parallels to the 2005...

On April 7 an article appeared on the Opinion page, "Terri Schiavo's lifesaving legacy" by Nat Hentoff. When Terri's story first appeared in the paper and on the news, I considered responding to the decisions that were made regarding her care and her future. I feel that God gave us life and only he has the right to take it away and we are charged with caring for one another until that time. In 1984 I was told to put my son in a nursing home because "he will never get better." Had we followed that advice we may have...

Princeton, NJ (LifeNews.com) -- Terri Schiavo's brother Bobby Schindler has been on a speaking tour this week that's taking him to colleges and universities across the country. Schindler was at Princeton University on Tuesday and he told students there that misconceptions still exist about his sister's euthanasia death. Terri died in March 2005 after her former husband won a court order to take her life despite requests from the Schindler family to provide her with medical and rehabilitative care.Though more than three years have passed since the Schindler family's lost their years-long legal battle to save her life, Schindler says...

Recently, and for the second time in less than a year, presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama stated that his greatest regret as a Senator was not objecting to a vote that was intended to help save my sister from being dehydrated to death. Senator Obama went so far as to say that this type of “inaction” (failure to speak out against the Senate’s unanimous consent to allow Terri the same due process allowed the most vicious of criminals) can sometimes prove to be just as costly as taking action. One has to wonder what could possibly have been “more costly”...

St. Petersburg, FL (LifeNews.com) -- Terri Schiavo's family and a leading pro-life group are calling on people to honor the disabled woman whose husband took her life in a painful euthanasia death. Together with Priests for Life, the Schindler family has established the observance of “Terri’s Day” each March 31. That's the day Terri succumbed to a 13-day starvation and dehydration death at the hand of Michael Schiavo, her former husband who won a court order to take her life.“This third anniversary should be an occasion for all of us to both remember the injustice done to Terri, and reach...

It is time to again remember Terri Schiavo, who was a bit of a last straw for me and "faith" in political leaders (particularly Republican ones). I remember back in 1984 when Ronald Reagan spoke out about the state of Nebraska and its restrictions on Christian schools and home schools. Court injunctions were affecting church pastors, parents and in one case a church was even padlocked. Fathers of some students were jailed on contempt of court. A group of pastors were dragged out of a church by police. Reagan spoke of the distrubing pictures of the pastors being dragged out....

In a recent interview in the Sunday "NYTimes" magazine, Eleanor Clift, says, re: Terri Schiavo, that her parents and supporters "did not want to accept that she could not be rehabilitated. They found enough people to fool them into thinking she could." This, of course, is completely wrong! Forget "rehabilitation." What Terri's parents and her supporters tried to stop was the MURDER of Terri Schiavo. Alas, they failed -- with no help from people like Eleanor Clift.

Tampa, FL (LifeNews.com) -- The foundation that Terri Schiavo's family created after her death is continuing its efforts to help the elderly and disabled obtain appropriate medical care. The foundation is launching a new radio program on a Tampa station that will be simulcast on the Internet and later expanded to other Florida stations. The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation will start the new America's Lifeline program this weekend life from the Tampa studios of Talk Radio 860 WGUL, a Christian station.Prominent radio health care advocate Cary Hall will co-sponsor the program along with Terri's brother Bobby Schinder and her sister...

The rumors about Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and the Green Iguana just wouldn't go away. The story goes that the Florida governor frequented the Green Iguana, a bar in Tampa, back in the early 1990s when he was just starting his political career. He was less careful back then, people say, and during his partying at the Green Iguana, he was openly gay. When I got Rick Calderoni, the bar's well-known owner, on the phone, I expected him to stonewall me about it. He didn't. Calderoni, who is gay, confirmed that Crist came into his bar quite often and that...

Contact: Suzanne Vitadamo, Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation, 727-490-7603, infor@terrisfight.org ST. PETERSBURG, Florida, Feb. 27 /Christian Newswire/ -- In a presidential debate last night, Sen. Barack Obama, (D-Ill), said, for the second time this year, that he regretted supporting federal legislation aimed at saving the life of Terri Schiavo. He even suggested the legal efforts to stop Terri's death by dehydration and starvation constituted a "costly" action. "We welcome the opportunity that Senator Obama has given us to once again strive for clarity regarding the death of our beloved Terri," her father Robert Schindler said. "However, we are very saddened by...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Terri Schiavo's family and a leading pro-life group blasted pro-abortion presidential candidate Barack Obama on Wednesday. They took issue with his comments during Tuesday night's debate where he said his "biggest mistake" of his political career was voting for a bill to help save Terri Schiavo's life.Obama said, for the second time, that he regretted supporting federal legislation allowing Terri's family to have a chance to take their lawsuit to prevent Terri's euthanasia death to federal court.The Schindler family ultimately lost the lawsuit and Terri was subjected to a painful 14-day starvation and dehydration death."We...

by Steven Ertelt LifeNews.com Editor February 26, 2008 Cleveland, OH (LifeNews.com) -- Senator Barack Obama debated his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on Tuesday night and said his biggest mistake was voting to help save Terri Schiavo. Terri is the disabled Florida woman whose husband won the legal right to starve her to death.

“Death has replaced sex as the taboo subject of our times,” said one of the world’s richest men and leading philanthropists, George Soros, when he launched the Project Death in America fund at Columbia University’s College of Physicians & Surgeons in 1994. It promotes euthanasia or assisted suicide, and has been succeeded by the Open Society Institute’s International Palliative Care Initiative . Soros’s mother committed suicide, as a member of the Hemlock Society . His father died a lingering death from cancer, and Soros was “disappointed” at the way the old man clung miserably to life.

This month the sad case of Lauren Richardson made headlines. The similarities between her situation and my sister Terri Schiavo's are striking and deeply disturbing. Lauren suffered a profound brain injury in 2006, leaving her dependent on others for her care. Like Terri, she is not hooked up to machines, is not comatose and is unquestionably very much alive.http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080218/EDITORIAL/864194763

St. Petersburg, FL (LifeNews.com) -- The family of Terri Schiavo and a leading Catholic pro-life group have released details about their plans for the first-ever Terri's Day. Observed on March 31, the day Terri succumbed from the painful 13-day starvation and dehydration death her former husband subjected her to, the day is one to honor her life and help others. As LifeNews.com reported in December, Priests for Life and the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation announced the establishment of the "International Day of Prayer and Remembrance for Terri Schindler Schiavo, and All of Our Vulnerable Brothers and Sisters."The purpose of...

This is another Terri Schiavo case!

Hello, I've been mulling over writing this thread for months, but feel that the time is right. My mother passed away in October, after a long battle with lung cancer. She was a lovely woman, a good mother and a wonderful friend to all. My life changed forever on the night that she died. She died surrounded by her loved ones. And only God can understand how much I miss her. First, I would like to say that my mother was an avid lurker. She kept up on the political news with the assistance of Freerepublic. She was addicted to...

Many families are faced with decisions about what to do when their loved ones suffer serious brain injury. When individuals are unlikely to come out of so-called "vegetative states," should we discontinue nourishing them by tube feeding? Is there anything wrong with causing patients in compromised states to die from starvation and dehydration under these circumstances? We all lived through such a decision when Terri Schiavo died in 2005 in Florida. Her death raised disturbing ethical questions that continue to reverberate in society today.

Terri Schiavo's brother to speak Bobby Schindler will give a keynote speech Jan. 31 at Chautauqua Assembly

NEW YORK, December 10, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation and Priests for Life have jointly announced the establishment of the "International Day of Prayer and Remembrance for Terri Schindler Schiavo, and All of Our Vulnerable Brothers and Sisters" ("Terri's Day"), to be observed each year on March 31, the date of Terri's death. The purpose of the day, the groups explained, is to foster education, prayer, and activism regarding discrimination against the disabled, and advocacy for people in situations similar to what Terri and her family faced. Fr. Frank Pavone said, "Those of us who were...

The family of Terri Schiavo and a leading national pro-life organization have announced a special day of remembrance to honor the memory of the disabled woman whose former husband killed her. March 31, the date of Terri's death, will become the "International Day of Prayer and Remembrance for Terri Schindler Schiavo."

Value Terri Schiavo's right to life and others like her.

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Awakenings: Return To Life Some Minimally Conscious People Are Actually Re-Awakening Thanks To Drug Therapies

Tampa, FL (LifeNews.com) -- Terri Schiavo's family is upset with the media for again erroneously depicting the disabled woman as "brain dead" when she was able to interact with them before her former husband took her life. This time, the Schindler family says ABC News and the New York Times wrongly reported on her condition. Yesterday on ABC's "This Week" program, George Stephanopoulos, in an interview with Senator Fred Thompson, commented that Terri Schiavo's autopsy proved she was "brain dead." The New York Times reported on the television interview, and repeated the erroneous claim.Terri's brother Bobby Schindler told LifeNews.com...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Fred Thompson set forth a more clear picture of his views on assisted suicide and euthanasia in a Sunday interview on ABC News. He said he would have supported Terri Schiavo's parents in their efforts to prevent their daughter's euthanasia death and he said courts should err on the side of life. Thompson said the motives behind the actions Terri's former husband took to subject her to a 13-day starvation and dehydration death were "suspect" and he said he would have backed the Schindlers' efforts to save her life. "From what I know about the facts,...

Fred Thompson will pick up the support of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) tomorrow, according to two Republicans familar with the decision. For a candidate who came up empty-handed last week when three prominent Christian conservatives endorsed GOP hopefuls and is falling in both national and early state polls, the move comes at a critical time. NRLC is the most prominent anti-abortion group in the country, with affiliates in all 50 states and over 3,000 local chapters. A spokesperson for the organization declined to comment on their endorsement decision, but Thompson was likely rewarded for his strong pro-life...

On the matter of Terri Schiavo’s right to life, which occupied the attention of the media and Congress in 2005, Thompson called that a family decision, “in consultation with their doctor,” and “the federal government should not be involved.” Thompson added, “the less government the better.” ... In the case of Terri Schiavo, a severely disabled person, there was a family dispute. Her estranged husband wanted her to die and he eventually succeeded in starving her to death. Her parents had wanted her to live. ... There was no moral justification for killing Terri because she had an inherent right...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- With Fred Thompson becoming the latest Republican presidential candidate to say that the federal and state government shouldn't have been involved in trying to save Terri Schiavo's life, her brother says he wants to talk with the GOP hopefuls. He says they would be more likely to support the actions Congress and the Florida legislature took to try to help his family prevent her former husband from subjecting her to a painful euthanasia death if they knew more about her case."I want to personally talk with them about Terri's case," Bobby Schindler told the Boston Globe....

Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and an attorney for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. His latest book is Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World. I think Bobby Schindler is right.There have been a lot of stories of late about how supposedly vegetative patients could understand, or of "miraculous" awakenings by people who doctors were sure would never react consciously again. Bobby, Terri Schiavo's brother, has noticed that whatever the condition of the patient whose story is being told, the reports all have a common sub theme--the awakening, comprehension,...

Interesting article about the awareness of vegetative patients. We are not able to post the New Yorker's content, but check out the link. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/15/071015fa_fact_groopman?printable=true

Milan, Italy (LifeNews.com) -- An Italian court has denied a request by a disabled woman's father to remove her feeding tube and authorize her death by starvation and dehydration. Eluana Englaro has been a coma for 15 years after an automobile accident seriously injured her and, this year, her father asked a Milan court for permission to remove her feeding tube. This isn't the first time Englaro's case had been in court. In April 2005, the Italian Supreme Court confirmed a lower court ruling to keep her feeding tube in place. That case had also been brought by Englaro's father,...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 4, 2007 Gainesville, FL (LifeNews.com) -- Saying it is worried about security in light of concerns at other college campuses, the University of Florida has decided to postpone a controversial speech by euthanasia advocate Jack Kevorkian. The speech would be his first following his release from prison for killing a disabled man and showing the death on national television. Kevorkian was slated to speak to UF students on October 11 and receive $50,000 for the talk, as long as his parole officers approve the trip.Now the speech has been postponed until January 15 as UF officials...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- As pro-life advocates gathered in the nation's capital on Tuesday night to honor the family of Terri Schiavo for their diligence in protecting her life, a leading pro-life group says its worried that other disabled people may see their medical care and treatment revoked as well. Leaders in the pro-life community gathered last night at the historic Willard InterContinental Hotel in Washington to honor the Schindler family at the 14th annual Proudly Pro-Life Awards Dinner.Robert and Mary Schindler, Bobby Schindler, and Suzanne Schindler Vitadamo received the Proudly Pro-Life Award both for their struggle to save their...

PHILADELPHIA, PA, September 25, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - As is the custom in the United States, the first Sunday of October will be honored by US Catholics as Respect Life Sunday.  In honor of this, Cardinal Justin Rigali, the Chairman of the Committee for Pro-Life Activities of the United States' Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), has issued a statement to be made available at all parishes nationwide.  The statement calls for US Catholics to "again pray for - and renew their resolve to bring about - a culture of life and an end to the killing of innocent human beings, especially...

Coral Gables, FL(LifeNews.com) -- Terri Schiavo's ex-husband has made it official and filed legal papers on Friday with the Federal Election Commission confirming his intention to disband his political action committee. According to FEC papers LifeNews.com obtained, Michael Schiavo's brother Brian signed the report terminating the organization TerriPAC. As LifeNews.com reported last week, Michael decided to close down the political action committee he created to go after pro-life lawmakers who sided with Terri's family in their efforts to save her life.After ordering her painful two-week-long starvation and dehydration death in March 2005, Michael Schiavo created the PAC to target pro-life...

St. Petersburg, FL(LifeNews.com) -- The former husband of Terri Schiavo has decided to close down the political action committee he created to go after pro-life lawmakers who sided with Terri's family in their efforts to save her life. The decision comes after several run-ins with the Federal Election Commission for problematic reports. After ordering her painful two-week-long starvation and dehydration death in March 2005, Michael Schiavo created the PAC to target pro-life lawmakers who tried to stop him from killing her. Schiavo says on the group's web site that the PAC limited his ability to speak out about his viewpoint...