The Case Of Theresa Marie Schiavo: A Violation Of

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1 Legal Case Paper The Case of Theresa Marie Schiavo: A Violation of Human Rights? 2 The Case of Theresa Marie Schiavo: A Violation of Human Rights? Evolution of the Case In the early morning hours of February 25th, 1990, Theresa (Terri) Marie Schiavo suffered cardiac arrest at her home in St. Petersburg, Florida. Her husband awoke to the sound of her collapsing in the hallway and quickly called 911. Terri was found in full cardiac arrest and taken to Humana Northside Hospital. Unfortunately, the then twenty-six year old Terri had suffered irreversible damage due to prolonged lack of oxygen to the brain. Terri is left in a persistent vegetative state and has a feeding tube and requires total care (Schindler v Schiavo, 2005). The next three years consist of her husband, Michael, and her parents Robert and Mary Schindler working together to take care of Terri. During this time Michael was appointed as Terri’s legal guardian without objection from her parents. In February of 1993 Michael Schiavo and the Schindler’s began to disagree about Terri’s care and the Schindler’s attempted to remove Michael as her legal guardian (Cerminara & Goodman, 2005). In May of 1998, Michael Schiavo made his first attempt to petition the court for the removal of Terri’s feeding tube. Michael believed that there was no hope for any sort of recovery or changes in Terri’s persistent vegetative state and had stated that his wife told him that she would not want to live like that (Quill, 2005). The next several years consist of a series of court cases and appeals based on Michael Schiavo’s push to have the feeding tube removed and Terri’s parent’s insistence to keep her alive. The tube is actually removed and reinserted twice during this time. On March 18th, 2005 the feeding tube is removed for the third time in accordance with the court order. This proved to be the

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