The family of Terri Schiavo is remembering a daughter and a sister today whose life was taken before she had a chance to live most of it. They are celebrating her as she would have turned 47 tomorrow.
“December 3 is Terri’s Birthday! Terri would have been 47 years of age and there is not a day that goes by that we don’t think of our beloved sister and daughter,” the Schindler family said in a statement.
Terri’s life was taken by her former husband Michael Schiavo after he sought and won a court order allowing him to remove the feeding tube that provided Terri with food and water.
After a gut-wrenching 13-day ordeal that saw massive international media attention, a Congressional intervention, and pro-life activists and liberal politician Jesse Jackson joining together to seek support for sparing her life, Terri lost her life.
Although they have become one of the most criticized families in America over the years by the mainstream media and political activists for daring to try to protect the life of their family member, the Schindler family carried on.
Proving their cause and concern was protecting the life of their beloved Terri rather than making a political statement or seeking media attention, the Schindler family turned the foundation set up to provide for medical care and rehabilitative treatment for Terri into a new foundation in her honor to help other disabled and medically ill people obtain the treatment they deserve.
“It is because of Terri’s unnecessary and inhumane death we established Terri’s Network to protect others like her,” the Schindlers said today. “And just as we have been doing since her untimely death, we will remain devoted to helping protect all those that are in jeopardy of being put to death the same way Terri was.”
Bobby Schindler, Terri’s brother, recently wrote an editorial in which he talks about the ways patients like Terri and others continue facing the same battles she did.
