[amdgmary]

Terri's Family Warns: "This Can Happen in America"

Terri's younger sister, Suzanne Vitadamo, and brother, Bobby, shared their thoughts on Terri's tragic death with the National Catholic Register (paper edition, Jan 1-7, 2006). Below are excerpts from the interview.

Register: "Now that more than nine months have passed, how are you moving forward?"

Suzanne: "Every day we [Terri's family] hear from families who need our help. Our country took a step backward because Terri's case set a precedent that will make it easier to kill disabled people.

"People don't realize that what used to be considered basic care - providing food and water - is called an artificial means of sustaining life in some states now [including Florida].

"...not even allowed to give my sister an ice chip to ease her thirst."

"The pro-death movement was working under the radar for a long time, but we're on to it now; we know their protocol."

Bobby Schindler: "Our goal [of the Terri Foundation] is to get the truth out so no one else has to go through the same hell. It's taken us a while to realize that God used Terri to wake up this nation. Her death was a turning point to show that this can happen in America."

Suzanne: "Terri's death was slow, disgusting, and barbaric. My sister looked like an Auschwitz victim. It was a horrific image that I'll have with me until the day I die."

Bobby: "We had to pass through three security checkpoints and weren't allowed to be alone with her. There were canine units outside the hospice and police snipers on the roof." [compliments of the Pinellas County Sheriff'f Office and the Pinellas Park Police Dept]

"She was called a 'vegetable' but she touched people all over the world."

Suzanne: "She wasn't dying and she wasn't suffering, just disabled. If a hospice [Woodside Hospice] will admit patients only if they have six months to live, why was Terri housed in one for five years?"

"I'm so proud to be Terri's sister. Her incredible will fueled our fight. She taught me to apreciate every day, to love and never be afreaid, to fight for what you belive in, and that where there's life, there's hope. She taught me to see the value in every person and to realize that we're all here for a reason."

[amdgmary]

Bobby Schindler, Terri's brother, is scheduled to speak at the 28th Annual Pro Life Prayer Breakfast on January 7 in Erie, PA.

"Since Terri's untimely death last March, Bobby and his family have been working full-time to continue to address the unjust treatment of the disabled in this country. Bobby left his high school teaching position and now teaches all over the world through speaking engagements, such as the one in Erie this January."

"In his presentation, Bobby describes his late sister and the facts and details of her case as only he can do, having been one of the closest people to her from childhood until the day she died. He also pulls the curtain for the audience and exposes the powerful groups in the country that were instrumental in ending Terri's life."

People for Life

Flyer in PDF

[cyn]

"I'm so proud to be Terri's sister. Her incredible will fueled our fight. She taught me to apreciate every day, to love and never be afreaid, to fight for what you belive in, and that where there's life, there's hope. She taught me to see the value in every person and to realize that we're all here for a reason."

Thanks for posting that.

[Dante3]

Terri's death was a horrible murder, made worse by the refusal of those who could have saved her to do nothing.

Nat Hentoff wrote: "I called this judicial murder, the longest public execution in our history."

We are sliding into a dictatorship of judges. It has been happening for a long time, judges ruling at their whim, breaking any laws they wish, making illegal rulings. One judge who refused to follow an illegal ruling who removed from office.

[IIntense]

I'll just comment on one of the many unforgivable actions that Terri Schiavo and her "real" family couldn't control. That she was put in a hospice (my understanding is that FL hospices take sick people who are diagnosed as not being able to live beyond six months).

Never did I read that any doctor gave Terri six or less months to live. I was appalled, angered, that, through subterfuge, Michael, along with Felos, deposited her in the Woodside Hospice. I BELIEVE they broke the law there, and Greer assisted them in breaking the law in other areas of this case.

[Ohioan from Florida]

God bless the Schindlers!