At Humanize, Wesley J. Smith offers a podcast with Bobby Schindler on the 20th anniversary of the death of his sister Terri Schiavo:

For those who may not remember, Terri Schiavo was a profoundly cognitively disabled woman who became the subject of a legal and cultural battle that made international headlines. The case became a bitter and protracted conflict between Michael Schiavo, Terri’s husband who wanted to pull her feeding tube, and the Schindler family that fought to save their child and sister’s life. In the end, the courts granted Schiavo permission to do as he wanted. It took two weeks for Terri to die.

As Smith tells us, Bobby Schindler is president of the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network that advocates for the medically vulnerable, including 4,000 patients and families at risk of euthanasia, assisted suicide, and denial-of-care situations from physicians, hospitals, insurance companies, etc. That’s a problem that is sure to grow, due to the aging population.

Smith wrote about this sombre anniversary at National Review yesterday:

Before Schiavo’s death, most people were shocked that feeding tubes could be removed from disabled people who can metabolize food and water. After the case, polling majorities supported doing so. With that, people with severe brain injuries became a disposable caste.

The case also elevated the culture of death into a conflagration. It boosted the passage of assisted suicide laws. Euthanasia groups and bioethicists now teach people who can eat and drink how to commit suicide by self-starvation and dehydration (VSED). It has gotten to the point that the usual euthanasia suspects even campaign for legalizing advance directives that force care givers to withhold orally received food and water from dementia patients even if the patient eats and drinks willingly.

“Bioethicists Get Legacy of Terri Schiavo Death Wrong”

Note: Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor has written about this case as well: “And, of course, these findings raise very disturbing questions regarding the induced death by starvation of Terry Schiavo, who was diagnosed as “mindless” and in a permanent coma. There is growing evidence that many of these patients are quite aware of what is going on around them.”