ABSTRACT
Two years before all these legal developments, the heartbreaking case of Terri Schiavo dominated the headlines (Campo-Flores 2005). As a young woman in Florida, Schiavo suffered a severe eating disorder that eventually led to a heart attack in 1990, when Schiavo was only 26. She survived the heart attack but went into a persistent vegetative state. For years her husband, Michael, had wanted to end her life, but her parents just as stubbornly wanted to keep her alive, and they battled her life out in the courts. In March 2005, the Congress and White House enacted legislation to allow the case to be heard in the federal courts. Federal judges refused to order Schiavo’s death, and she finally died days later (Goodnough 2005). In the wake of her death and the national debate it created, a newspaper columnist marveled that “amid all the anger and anguish, one crucial fact was never in doubt. Terri Schiavo’s fate would be determined lawfully. The courts would determine whether her feeding tube should be reconnected, and their decision, whatever it finally was, would be obeyed” (Jacoby 2005:D11).
