Terri Schiavo

In 1990, at 26, Terri Schiavo suffered a heart attack, and her brain was temporarily deprived of oxygen. She survived her medical crisis only to run into an equally threatening legal crisis. Her husband and guardian, Michael Schiavo, has placed her in a hospice among the dying. He is trying to have her feeding tube removed, and he sees his struggle in the context of not needlessly prolonging his wife's suffering. But her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, to whom she still responds with radiant smiles, consider her severely handicapped rather than dying, saying that she wants to live but has not yet had the opportunity for rehabilitation.

JUST WHEN we thought a clear majority of Americans couldn't agree on anything anymore, the Terri Schiavo case provoked a rare consensus: Most Americans (more than 80 percent in some polls) would not want to be kept alive in a persistent vegetative state, which all credible medical evidence showed Terri Schiavo to be - and which an autopsy now will prove. Most Americans (also 80 percent) think Congress and the president should have kept their hands out of the Florida state court's decisions.

Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida legislature may not know it, but they acted in the spirit of Sir Philip Sidney when they tried to save the life of Terri Schiavo. When Sidney, a young warrior and poet in the court of Queen Elizabeth I, was mortally wounded in battle, legend has it that he passed up a drink of water in deference to a common soldier who lay nearby in the throes of death. "Thy need is greater than mine," Sidney told the dying man. After his own lingering death, Sidney's body was brought back to England, where he was given a state funeral and held up by his countrymen as a model of virtue to be emulated by all. Today, Terri's husband, Michael Schiavo, is trying to take an action that would reverse Sidney's.

Terri Schiavo, so private in life and so public while dying, is now firmly lodged in the nation's consciousness. Her case has roiled our deepest emotions about health, God, medicine, mortality, morality, family, privacy, politics, the fragility of life, and the rule of law. Thanks to the faux intimacy of cable TV and cyberspace, she became "Terri," a member of the American family. Yet somehow the bond felt real, her plight universal. Long after the prayer vigils and cable-TV talkfests and political maneuverings have faded from memory, the most fundamental truths of the Schiavo case will remain: Every American knows that he or she will die, that scientific breakthroughs might alleviate, or intrude, on that process, and that it might be wise to plan in advance for that possibility.

Court documents unsealed yesterday show that Florida's Department of Children and Families asked to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case because the agency wanted to investigate 30 allegations of abuse, neglect and exploitation. In a petition filed Feb. 23, the department had asked a judge to delay the removal of the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube, saying the agency needed no more than 60 days to investigate the allegations against Michael Schiavo, her husband. Pinellas Circuit Court Judge George Greer will hold a hearing on the petition at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.

As they have followed the Terri Schiavo story over the last few days, many people have taken the dilemma of the Huntingdon Valley native to heart. In interviews conducted throughout the area, there was strong difference of opinion about whether Terri Schiavo should be allowed to die, or should again be hooked up to her feeding tube and kept alive. But most agreed it was time for them and their families to formally declare their own wishes. "My husband just told me last night that, if he was in that position, he would want me to let him go," said Jaime Castle, 26, of Marlton, as she loaded her minivan at a shopping plaza in Cherry Hill yesterday.

Terri Schiavo is dying now as many aged and sick people have for eons. Though some people see letting her die of dehydration as inhumane, doctors say it is a surprisingly gentle process. "Nature has given us a wonderfully peaceful way to exit this life," said Ira Byock, director of palliative medicine at the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire. "The dominant way that mammals die is that, at some point, they lose interest or the ability to eat or drink. The physiology and experience of people who are unable or refuse to eat or drink after progressive or advanced illness is one that is very gentle and very comfortable.

The remains of Theresa "Terri" Maria Schiavo, who died March 31 in a Florida hospice after a protracted court battle and a nationwide debate over her fate, were interred yesterday in a shady, historic memorial park in Clearwater, Fla. Her husband, Michael Schiavo, "certain of his brothers," and a priest were present at the interment, according to a statement released late afternoon by his law firm, Felos and Felos. Just as they could not agree over her life, Michael Schiavo and her parents could not agree on the logistics of burial for Terri Schiavo, who was 41 when she died.

The parents of Terri Schiavo secured a new 48-hour stay to keep their daughter's feeding tube in place yesterday, as a Florida state agency attempted to intervene in the case. The ruling by Circuit Court Judge George W. Greer gives him until Friday to consider Schiavo's parents' request to run medical tests on their daughter and remove Terri Schiavo's husband, Michael, as her guardian. Meanwhile, a last-minute court filing by the Florida Department of Children and Families - which investigates allegations of abuse or neglect - caught the judge and lawyers as they entered court to rule on earlier motions in the case of the severely brain-damaged woman.