Posted on 06/26/2007 4:15:27 PM PDT by wagglebee
Springfield, FL (LifeNews.com) -- The family of Terri Schiavo could have called it a day after Terri was starved and dehydrated to death by her former husband over a two week period. They endured constant international news coverage and waged a discouraging battle in the courts that left their daughter and sister with no hope.
Instead, Terri's parents Bob and Mary, brother Bobby and sister Suzanne pressed on.
Not wanting the same fate to befall other disabled patients, they reworked the foundation they created to help Terri and organized it to assist other incapacitated or minimally conscious patients.
Since they they've come to the aid of dozens of families and patients across the country to help them fight legal battles and get medical care.
Recognizing those efforts, the National Right to Life Committee plans to award the Schindler family with its highest honor at its Proudly Pro-Life Dinner in October in the nation's capital.
The award has been given to other pro-life luminaries from Mother Teresa and Father Frank Pavone to Ben Stein, Patty Heaten and Wellington Mara.
Bobby Schindler spoke to LifeNews.com about the award and how the Schindler family wants to do more to help the disabled.
"Our family never thought that our efforts to get Terri help was anything exceptional," he said, adding that he and his family are "humbled to be receiving such a prestigious award from the National Right to Life Committee."
"To be included in the company of such extraordinary people that have dedicated their lives defending the sacredness of all life is truly an honor," Schindler added.
An awards night is a special gala and celebration that is much deserved, but the Schindler family is worried about what lies ahead in its work at the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation.
The foundation has seen the greatest need in Texas, where families of patients, under a futile care law there, have just 10 days to find another medical facility to care for their loved ones if the hospital decides to stop providing lifesaving treatment.
Schindler says the foundation has seen a desperate need for pro-life doctors and attorneys to help patients and their families, and he's hoping the grassroots pro-life community will help him identify more professionals willing to help.
The foundation wants to "build a national network of attorneys and doctors dedicated to protecting the rights of vulnerable, disabled and elderly persons."
"If you are an attorney or medical professional and would like to join this network, please contact us," Schindler told LifeNews.com. "If you know of such medical or legal professionals, please ... urge them to contact us if they are willing to help."
Interested parties can contact the foundation at their web site below and sending an email with more information.
The fight in Texas against the futile care law had the Schindler family, NRLC officials and pro-life advocates searching the country for medical facilities to care for patients in need. Despite the network of Catholic and other religious hospitals, they often found no medical center willing to take these desperate patients.
Ultimately, Schindler told LifeNews.com the foundation wants to open a medical center to provide care for those patients like Terri who can't find it anywhere else.
The center will lead to a network that will help the elderly and disabled in the same way crisis pregnancy centers assist pregnant women in need.
"Terri’s Foundation anticipates establishing a nationwide network of Terri Schindler Schiavo Neurological centers to provide care for brain injury victims and support for their families," he said.
Schindler's hope is that the network of centers will help ensure that no more Terri's face a future without the proper medical treatment they deserve.
What an honor for this wonderful family who used Terri’s tragedy to help others.
I'm just saying that there may be a difference between letting someone trapped in a unrecoverable coma slip away, and promoting abortion for mere lifestyle issues.
Post #1 started out with a slam against those who disagreed with you concerning Terri, I fail to see the wisdom in your post.
I didn’t expect you to see the wisdom in the pro-life view point. If you don’t share that view, it seems illogical. Irrational even, to promote the idea that useless eaters shouldn’t be disposed of. I don’t expect you to understand. That’s okay.
How nice to hear from you mr schiavo.
Of course that's true. I was responding to the specifics of his post.
You don’t “help” people die. They’ve been doing it on their own since the beginning of mankind.
What a wonderful thing for this family to do.
What do you mean by "adjusted her medicine"? What did the nurse give her?
God bless them and their endeavor.
I don't know, these nurses knew her because she was getting a blood transfusion every couple of weeks for the last 3 years. Her "bag" filled up with maybe an ounce of fluid in her last 24 hours. This means her systems had shut down.
Or she was dehydrated.
You dont get it. Her systems had shut down. She was gasping for air like a fish out of water.
No, she was full of fluids, she just could not process them. Her bone marrow stopped working several years earlier. She was a real fighter right up until the end.
She was an amazing woman, she was raised in an orphanage in Yugoslavia, during WWII, she was questioned by the NAZI's in a railroad station, and answered them in perfect German. After the war she was headed back home and an American solder asked her where she was going, he told her she was better off in America and gave her some money. She loved this country.
You don't know, and you don't know that you don't know. Compassion for an elderly person at the end of a terminal illness, is a good thing. When your liver and kidneys stop working, there is nothing that can be done. She held on to the very end, what more do you expect?
I get it BUT this is not anywhere close to Terri's circumstances. Her vital organs began failure only when fluids and feeding tube were removed. The shot you likely saw was Morphine. It or a similar drug is often given in the final hours of life of terminal patients and due to a tolerance build up of pain meds can end the life by over dosage.
I've worked around patients in so called PVC and saw enough who could respond to have doubts about that label. I've also been around patients so bad off suffering the workers went home from work and prayed they died.
Terri was done wrong by our court system and by her husband as well. If her husband wanted his new life which he obviously had began then custody should have went to her parents. He ended his marriage when he took another woman.
Had he left her I would have had a lot more respect for him and even some understanding and sympathy for his circumstances. I am against helping patients die who are not terminal. I do believe a terminal patient though has the right to refuse treatment. In cases where a patient is dying they should be made as comfortable as possible while the disease takes it's course. Taking ones nutrition and hydration away is by no means making one as comfortable as possible.
I'm trying hard to be polite here.
Is it your point that anyone who has a slightly different point of view is of the culture of death?
Is it possible that there are some murky situations that occasionally come around that no one has the absolutely correct answer?
Are you saying that the nurse sped up the process of death? Is that what the nurse hinted at doing?
Oh, I get it alright. You don’t. We should neither unnecessarily prolong life, nor hasten death.
Yes, that seems to be what he is saying.
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