Monday has marked 20 years since the death of Terra Schiavo, whose historical affair has become the symbol of the Movement “Right to die”generated political controversy and sparked a public outcry while her husband and family members were fighting in his fate in court.
Schiavo died on March 31, 2005, after a trained legal and political battle that drew the attention of President George W. Bush and his brother, then governor Jeb Bush from Florida.
Discussions on the case push on End of life care In public conscience, a subject that continues to provoke increased emotions among Americans.
“It has become the most examined and most examined end of life in history,” said Arthur Caplan, who heads the Grossman School of Medicine Medical Ethics Division at New York University.
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The legal battle would release the political and social forces which have repercussions today.
“The Schiavo affair has established a new precedent on the way in which personal medical decisions can be politicized and armed for wider ideological battles and victories in cultural wars,” wrote Caplan in a recent article co-written for Hastings Center, a garrison, a research institute based in New York focused on social and ethical issues in health, science and technology. “Evidence and science are now taking a background for politics, emotional calls and rotation.”
Who was Terre Schiavo?
Schiavo was 26 years old when she collapsed after a cardiac arrest in her house in Saint Petersburg, Florida in February 1990, falling into a coma when her brain was exhausted with oxygen for several minutes.
When Schiavo emerged on a coma several months later, it was seriously damaged in the brain and in an unconscious vegetative state, requiring a food tube connected to its stomach to provide a subsistence.
However, as the Grossman School of Medicine of New York University noted in a summary From the case, Schiavo was able to breathe and maintain a heart rate by itself; Her eyes were open and functional and she could move her members.
With the help of the parents of Schiavo and her husband, Michael, the doctors tried without success for years to help her regain consciousness. Without improving his condition, Michael Schiavo, his legal tutor, said that it would have been his wife’s wish to die and pushed support for life.
Schiavo’s parents challenged this action plan before the court, ultimately seeking the support of Jeb Bush and state legislators. Florida’s legislature adopted the “Terra law” in 2003, allowing the governor to mandate the reintegration of a food tube after the courts ordered it to withdraw.
When state courts continued to line up on the side of Michael Schiavo, President Bush weighed, signing a law allowing the Schiavo affair to be heard before the Federal Court. However, this court also fell on the side of Michael Schiavo, and the US Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
Terri Schiavo’s food tube was removed on March 18, 2005.
Ten years later, Michael Schiavo would accuse Florida Governor for the use of the case for “his own personal political gain” while Bush has prepared to launch his 2016 presidential campaign.
Why did the Schiavo affair cause such controversy?
The end -of -life debate involving a young woman and how to keep her alive triggered the intrigue and prompted a debate both public and among health professionals – especially nurses who supervised the supply of food and water to these patients.
“People started to pay attention because it was a sort of a royal battle, a drama that attracted media coverage because you had a husband competing against the parents and brothers and sisters of his wife,” said Caplan.
Because the situation was not only a question of closing a fan but cutting food and water, “you had in nutrition and hydration, and that struck a very deep emotional agreement,” said Caplan. “It’s one thing to close breathing, and another to eliminate a tube that gives subsistence.”
At the time, the question of knowing what to do when the final phase had no advanced guidelines but could not communicate their wishes in cases of the country, but Caplan said that the legislators had rarely established standards.
“It was controversial and political, much like in vitro fertilization is today,” said Caplan. “To say things in another way, politicians have run for hills on these kinds of questions.”
Even today, less than a dozen American states have laws allowing end -of -life assistance.
The movement is gaining ground worldwide: as CNN reportedThe British Parliament in November approved a controversial bill that would legalize assisted death, allowing sick people in the terminal phase of less than half a living and capable of deciding for themselves to take a life medication.
The impact of the Terry Schiavo affair
The Terri Schiavo affair was “the last stand,” said Caplan, for those who argued that individuals supported with food and water were different from those who are kept alive on respiratory machines. In its consequences, he said, some people have chosen to stop feeding tubes for family members in the same way in nursing homes across the country.
The Schiavo affair also said that spouses generally have more power than families in such situations.
But the debate also had another broader and lasting effect, argued Caplan, galvanizing the forces of “right to life” which, despite the result of the case, became a sustainable political force, feeding resistance to morning pills and undergoing the Supreme Court of the United States.
“If abortion was the lightning rod at the start of life, it was the lightning rod in the end of life,” he said. “The forces that gathered to keep Schiavo alive, defending themselves with the parents, were not just a part.”