The family of Terri Schiavo have been at this for 20 years, battling to save her life and now others through her legacy foundation. Her brother Bobby endlessly and exhaustively travels and talks and works to spread awareness of special needs people and the rights of the cognitively impaired.

He took the opportunity to explain all this and how the media intentionally get Terri’s story wrong to this day. But even this interview, perceived to help Bobby set the record straight, needs a bit of clarification.

“Terri Schiavo became the center of a crisis that played out on the national stage beginning in 2003, when a Florida judge, Judge George Greer, ordered her feeding tube removed — at the request of Michael Schiavo, Terri’s husband.”

Correct, and there’s quite a dramatic story behind that sentence alone.

“Despite a two-year long effort by Bobby’s parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, to save their profoundly disabled daughter, Terri Schiavo died of severe dehydration on March 31, 2005, almost 14 days after her feeding tube was finally removed.”

By judicial mandate, a most unusual court order. Greer didn’t just ‘allow’ Michael Schiavo to have the tube removed, he ruled that on March 18, 2005, the feeding tube “shall be removed”. It was an order to starve and dehydrate her to death. But I digress…

Bobby told CNS:

“Terri died because we took away her food and water – just like we would all die if our food and water was taken away. It took almost two weeks.”

And CNS states…

“Still, the media continue to report that his sister, who was left profoundly disabled after a heart attack cut off oxygen to her brain, was brain-dead, that she was on artificial life support, that she was unresponsive and that she was blind.”

Terri wasn’t left profoundly disabled after a heart attack. Oxygen was cut off to her brain for ‘unexplained’ reasons on the night of February 25, 1990…though detective Mark Furhman has some strong and substantial theories about how that might have happened.

This story was not only like an earthquake in the landscape of America when it happened, Terri’s story has grown into a worldwide landmark case and cause. In the spreading culture of death, this foundation is a force for life and hope.