Pinellas Park police officers on Saturday arrest David Vogel, in back of vehicle, James "Bo " Gritz, center, and Leon Richie for trying to bring Terri Schiavo holy communion. (Photo: AP)
Posted on 03/20/2005 6:06:29 PM PST by Former Military Chick
He's been vilified on Web sites and talk shows. He's been called a wife-abuser, an adulterer, a money-grubbing murderer.
Death threats have been left in his mailbox.
Throngs of protesters have waved signs and chanted outside his house in Clearwater, Fla., and they have gathered again.
Sometimes, even Michael Schiavo's friends have wondered why, in the face of all that, he didn't just walk away.
It would have been easier for him to relinquish guardianship of his severely incapacitated wife, Terri, to her parents.
So why not give it up, leave Terri's feeding tube in, let her parents care for her? After all, he is living with another woman now and they have two children.
"Because he's sticking by what he promised," Scott Schiavo, Michael's brother, said in a recent interview. "He wants to honor the last thing he can give to her."
Physicians have testified that Terri Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state and will never improve. Michael Schiavo has said his wife told him she would not want to live like this.
Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, formerly of Huntingdon Valley, say she is responsive and can be helped. They say that, as a Catholic, she would choose life at all costs.
On Friday, Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, which has been in place for all but two brief stretches of time since she collapsed in 1990, was removed. It could be brief this time as well. The House is expected today to consider a Senate bill that would allow Schiavo's parents to take their case to federal court.
Throughout the protracted legal battle, the Schindlers have made their religious views, their personal anguish, and their mistrust of Michael Schiavo a public cause.
Intensely private, according to his family and friends, Michael Schiavo has rarely spoken publicly about the matter, out of respect for his wife's privacy. Through his brother, he declined to be interviewed for this story.
However, in recent days he has gone on national TV to reiterate that Terri would not have wanted to live like this and criticize politicians for getting involved in a deeply personal matter.
His brother and friends also have decided that it's time to speak up. The mudslinging, they said, has become too ugly, too nasty.
"I have a friend who I think has been maligned," said Russ Hyden of Gainesville, Fla.
"We're tired of it. We're done. It's time people know who he is," said Scott Schiavo, who lives in Levittown near where the brothers were raised.
The thing is, even if Michael Schiavo wins the final court battle, and Terri Schiavo's feeding tube is removed, he really hasn't won at all, Scott said.
"He's already lost," he said. "He's already lost Terri."
Social with friends, but reclusive
His brother and friends describe Michael Schiavo as social within his circle of friends, but otherwise almost reclusive. Except for the No Trespassing sign on his front lawn and the armed guards he's occasionally hired to protect his home, he's tried to grasp whatever shreds of normalcy he can.
His friends don't see the demon that protesters who have hurled insults at him do.
Wilma Mackay, a 65-year-old retiree from Palm Harbor, Fla., who watched her husband and brother die of cancer, sees a man who is "the epitome of loyalty."
Bonnie Rowley of Largo, Fla., a friend for about a decade, sees someone who "stands strong on what he believes in, and that is Terri Schiavo. If I needed a health-care advocate, he'd be my first choice. I know he'd be there till the end, and he'd give it one hell of a fight."
Michael Schiavo, 41, was the youngest of five boys. Six-foot-seven, athletic and model-handsome, he met Terri Schindler at Bucks County Community College in 1982.
She had graduated from Archbishop Wood High School in Warminster, he from Woodrow Wilson High School in Bristol Township.
Married two years later, they moved to Florida, where, early on the morning of Feb. 25, 1990, Michael Schiavo has testified, he awoke to the sound of a thud and found Terri on the floor in the hallway, unconscious.
They had been married a little over five years.
He has spent three times as long - the last 15 years - first trying to bring her back, then trying to let her go, his friends and brother say.
In the beginning, they say, Schiavo was relentless in his search for his wife's cure. She underwent various therapies.
He rented a house large enough for him and Terri's parents, who had moved to the area.
He made sure she was dressed every day. He applied her makeup and dabbed on perfume, Rowley said.
He went to school to become a nurse, "because he wanted to take care of Terri," Scott said. "He swore that he could get Terri better... . One doctor said: 'Mike, you know what? There's nothing else we can do. The next time Terri gets sick, why don't you just let nature take its course?' And Mike wouldn't do it."
Death and defining moments
Many of the defining moments of Michael Schiavo's life have revolved around death.
In 1988, his grandmother was hospitalized with a serious illness. She had signed a "do not resuscitate" order, Scott Schiavo said, but when she worsened in the middle of the night, no one looked at her records.
"It took them I don't know how long to get her breathing again. They stuck a ventilator down her throat." To little avail. "She was brain-dead," Scott Schiavo recalled.
All the family could do was wait until medications that kept her heart beating wore off. It took a day and a half, he said.
After the funeral, the family went to the Buck Hotel in Feasterville. Scott and Terri were sitting next to each other at a large table, where the conversation turned to how upset their grandmother would have been at her final hours.
Terri turned to him, Scott Schiavo said, "and she said, 'Not me, no way, I don't want that.' She says, 'If I'm ever like that, oh, don't let me. Pull that tube out of me.' " Scott Schiavo said he testified about the incident in 2000.
Several years after Terri collapsed, Michael Schiavo's mother was diagnosed with cancer.
Eventually, medical complications required the removal of her feeding tube, Scott said. "It's not like we said: 'Turn it off.' "
She was kept "peaceful and out of pain" until she died, Scott said.
Then their father died.
Eventually, Scott said, his brother realized he would have to let Terri go, too.
The Schindlers - who did not respond to a request for an interview made through their lawyer - have been distrustful of his motives partly because, they have said, no one mentioned Terri's wishes until years after her collapse.
But, Scott said, "it's not something you think about while Mike's trying to save her life... . It's something that people do when there's nothing left to do."
This particular fight has not come without a price.
"I give Mike all the credit in the world, because I would have snapped already. I know how bad it hurts me when I hear people talking about him and downing him," Scott Schiavo said.
Most of all, Scott said, "the thing that tears him up is he worries at nighttime, if he's working. He's afraid for the kids and Jodi."
Love and moral dilemmas
Michael Schiavo met his girlfriend, identified in court records as Jodi Centonze, about a decade ago.
Initially, Rowley, who was Centonze's friend, didn't know what to think. The court battles had not yet heated up, but she knew the situation with Terri.
When Rowley met Michael Schiavo, what she noticed first was his "great smile, a gentle smile."
Gradually, her respect grew. "He could have stepped off and divorced Terri five years ago, when this really hit the court. And got married and started his family that way," Rowley said.
The couple has two toddlers - a daughter and a son. Michael Schiavo works in the medical unit of the Pinellas County Jail.
Both Centonze and Michael Schiavo had to face "their own moral dilemmas as far as having children out of wedlock," Rowley said. "But the two of them weren't getting any younger... So does that make him a bad person because he did that? Did he fluff his responsibility to Terri at any point? No."
It is Centonze, Scott Schiavo said, who now does all Terri's laundry. "She's been unbelievable. She supported Mike in everything he did... . She's gone with Mike to visit Terri. She's helped Mike clean Terri up."
Centonze has been a flashpoint for Michael Schiavo's critics who think it is a reason to disqualify him to be Terri's guardian. His living with Centonze "abrogates the covenant of marriage," said Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy Council, who was among the demonstrators outside the hospice on Friday.
Looking back on it now, Scott thinks his brother "just wanted somebody to love him." He equates it with a widower who remarries, "but it doesn't mean that that person stopped loving their spouse that passed on. Mike was very lonely. I mean, he was a 26-year-old kid" when Terri collapsed.
"It's hard to imagine the circumstances he lived under," friend Russ Hyden said. "There was no closure, yet there was no companionship either. That's the worst possible scenario."
Hyden had met Schiavo in 1991. Hyden's pregnant wife had been diagnosed with cancer. A mutual friend thought they "might have something in common. And we did."
But it was more than that they were both going through "life-changing ordeals," Hyden said. "We both liked to play a little golf. We enjoyed each other's company."
Hyden scoffs at the accusations about Schiavo taking the malpractice money awarded to Terri. "If there was so much money, where was that money when I first met Mike? Why wasn't he driving a big car and living in a big home? He was driving a Jeep and living in an apartment."
Hyden's wife lived for almost three more years. He and Schiavo spoke or saw each other several times a week.
"He was always great with my kids," Hyden said. Hyden's daughter was 2, his son 7, and Michael brought them gifts.
"He spent a great deal of time helping me put my family back together," Hyden said. "Perhaps it was because his had fallen so tragically apart."
Sympathy for Terri's parents
In a way, Michael Schiavo has said he can sympathize with Terri's parents. "I have children, and, you know, I couldn't even fathom what it would be like to lose a child," he said in an interview on Nightline last week.
But, he continued, "they know the condition Terri is in. They were there in the beginning. They heard the doctors. They know that Terri's in a persistent vegetative state. They testified to that at the original trial. Fifteen years - you've got to come to grips with it sometime."
He said Terri would "always be a part of my life.
"And to sit here and be called a murderer and an adulterer by people that don't know me, and a governor stepping into my personal, private life, who doesn't know me either? And using his personal gain to win votes, just like the legislators are doing right now, pandering to the religious right, to the people up there, the antiabortion people, standing outside of Tallahassee?
"What kind of government is this? This is a human being. This is not right."
In a way, Michael Schiavo's world still revolves around Terri. He calls every day and visits several times a week, Scott Schiavo said. He can still talk to her, even if she doesn't talk back.
Michael Schiavo yesterday told CNN that he had a "sense of relief" now that the feeding tube had been removed and he promised to "stay by her side" till the end.
"This is her time...," he said. "I will love her and I will hold her hand."
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Contact staff writer Sandy Bauers at 610-701-7635 or sbauers@phillynews.com.
Congress tries again to stop Schiavo death
Timeline of the Terri Schiavo Case
Recent court rulings and other materials related to the Terri Schiavo case:
5 Wishes a Site that helps one prepare if one is unable to speak for themselves.
Yeah it is "Thou shalt not murder". Most people aren't really aware of the difference so I gave the familiar version. This case easily fits the definition of murder.
The House votes!
I have had endless discussion using reason and logic like you employ here but to no avail.
Everyone here seems to know that all the parties involved are part of one giant conspiracy to off her because they either stand to get some money or this furthers the culture of death agenda.
Howlin, do not apply logic you will only get called names.
She's not being kept alive artifically, she needs only food and water to live, just like the rest of us.
That's really dumb. I'd say the fault is in the callers but obviously you hate this guy so the burden is on him to change his number.Amazing
Hear, hear, you hit the nail on the head. Giving more powers to the federal government makes a bad situation worse.
I'd have him charged with the crimes he's committed for sure, but I wouldn't advocate his murder any more than I would assent to his wife's murder.
Easily? When there is at least some evidence that that is what she wanted? And when it is traditionally left up to the spouse to make such decisions? I wouldn't call that easy.
THAT'S offensive and *scary*.
Thanks for the ping
That brings up a question I have not seen adressed before.
Many people say he should just divorce her but the question is can he?
Do both parties need to agree to a divorce or can it be done under some abandonment clause?
Right after he got the settlement of the malpractice suit. She hasn't had therapy for IIRC atleast seven years and possibly more. I remember when that came out in some of the newspapers. But time flies. I didn't mean to ignore or sound snotty when I wrote you, its just so frustrating to see how people react.
There is no evidence that she would want to be euthanized. The word of her husband - seven years after the fact - is not credible, especially given his contradictory statements during the insurance trial, and the clear ulterior motives he has - even assuming he is not responsible for her condition - to do away with her. The fact of his adultery alone is more than sufficient to remove his guardianship over her. If his oath before God and man - his wedding vow - is so clearly broken, what reason is there to believe his testimony on her wishes?
If you or anyone else for that matter has proof of such crimes than I emplore you to bring those to the authorities or you are an accomplice to said crimes.
Or is this another case where Micheal the doctors the lawyers and judges are all in cahoots to keep this proof from seeing the light of day?
Under the Bible, unless a woman cheated, every man who divorces is guilty of adultery if he remarries, are you willing to go that far? And as far as his motives, do you really think he fears she'll recover? At this point, what other motive could he possibly have other than to carry out what he thinks she wanted? He could slip away into the fog very easily.
Yet this article, which is FAR from evenhanded (just as many of the other articles on the other view have been far from evenhanded) brings up several thoughts:
Interesting, isn't it, how the family's Catholicism is brought up. Being a Catholic is useful to journalists when they want to prevent someone from becoming a judge, or to use as a wedge, as in this piece. Catholics are portrayed as these alien creatures whose strange voodoo-like rights are objects of ridicule such as here, where her parents are portrayed as wackos who are against "normal" mercy killing.
The issue of a legal document deliniating these "strong" beliefs--if they are that strong, then put them in writing, don't just tell one person about them. Let's be honest, this doesn't seem, from all available evidence, like something Terri felt so strongly about that she told lots of people about it. Don't YOUR friends know your strongest-held beliefs about life and death?
The people who think not having it in writing is somehow a silly little issue--I guess you must feel that way about entering the country illegally, too, right? I mean, it's just about having a piece of paper? Same with getting permission from an underage girl's parents for an abortion--just a piece of paper. Or voting for President--I MEANT to vote on election day, but you can count my vote now, right? It's JUST a piece of paper. And which is more important, a vote on election day or having me starved to death?
The compromise on this issue is already available: Get it in writing. She didn't. So her life should be preserved.
That's how things work in a nation of laws--methods are agreed upon, and when followed, the expected result should be enforced by law. If not, then sorry, but we don't rule by "Well, it's YOU, so we'll do it YOUR way because, well, you feel like it."
No. Sorry. The law says you CAN be allowed to starve to death, but there is ONE tiny, not very complicated thing you must do first: Get it in writing so there is no way someone can mess with your wishes.
She didn't fulfill the accepted procedure for having herself starved to death. So in order to err on the side of NOT KILLING SOMEONE, we should keep her alive.
It's really that simple: If you can't put these incredibly intense wishes of yours in writing, then how incredibly intensely could you have felt about them?
You know, this precisely was the argument used by those who opposed medical innovation and vaccinations (like in Catholic Quebec at the beginning of the 20th century).
The fact remains Terri wouldn't have survived were it not for ARTIFICAL care (like a feeding tube directly into her stomach).
Sometimes, we have to face facts that the right thing to do, no matter how painful, is "pull the plug." Otherwise, where does one stop? If life extension instead of quality of life is the primary priority of medical ethicists; why don't we just hook everyone up to machines and keep everyone alive artificially?
Sadly, Terri's gone. All that's left is the shell of her body.
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