Terri Schiavo: Undying Memory
Today, March 31, 2026, marks the 21st anniversary of Terri Schiavo’s death. A child born on that day in 2005 is now not only an adult but legally able to drink. That child has been an adult for three long years and may be serving in the U.S. military.
Terri died in great pain, after a period of starvation and dehydration initiated by her husband Michael, who insisted in court for years on his plan of subjecting her to torture and termination. Along with other pro-lifers – and with her loving parents and brother – Life Legal opposed this outcome to the bitter end.
Perhaps, however, I don’t need to tell you all this. We remember Terri.
People who witness such an abominable crime as the excruciating starvation of Terri Schiavo are typically so horrified that they feel the need for some consolation….
- “At least her suffering is over now,”they might say. And, for what it’s worth, that’s true. Moreover, this perception gives the lie to advocates of what they mischaracterize as “euthanasia,” which means “good death.” Often, these propagandists claim they want to put sufferers “out of their misery.” But we pro-lifers remember different. We remember that Michael Schiavo put Terri into and through her misery, not out of it….
- “She had no quality of life,” they might say. But who gets to determine what constitutes a sufficient quality of any life? Terri responded to her family. She was loved and cared for. A society that measures human life by “quality” inevitably becomes a society that discards the weak, the disabled, and the inconvenient.
- “Terri’s case awakened the nation to the vicious pseudo-medical ethic that made her annihilation possible,”some might say. Or perhaps that’s only me. At any rate, it’s as true as the earlier consolations. Pro-life forces did not wither in the face of ridicule when hostile media outlets exalted Michael Schiavo’s despicable betrayal as some kind of “act of love.” Pro-lifers stood strong against the lies. And their strength had an effect.
Still, I think one of the most consoling things we can say about the atrocity committed in this case is simply this: that we remember Terri.
The object of Terri’s termination was, after all, to snuff her out completely. It’s not hard to see the parallels between this exercise in cruelty and the destruction of a child in the womb to conceal a pregnancy. The sex abuser who brings his victim to an abortion mill for timely erasure of the evidence would easily understand Michael Schiavo’s motivation for eliminating his wife. Flush the problem down the toilet and begin anew!
Indeed, Michael’s particular strategy in spouse elimination involved the obliteration of memory. Early in his custody of Terri after she became disabled, he professed in court a determination to devote his life to her continuing care. Later, after the settlement was exhausted, he conveniently forgot this commitment and remembered instead something he had never mentioned before: that Terri had told him she didn’t want to continue life in a disabled state.
This brand-new memory finally did the trick, though Life Legal and others didn’t make it easy for him.
Nevertheless, Michael Schiavo was not ultimately victorious. He didn’t snuff Terri out the way he planned to, secretly, as if she had never existed.
We remember Terri.
The enemies of our principled ethic in defense of human life want us to forget. If only we’d all forget, things would go a lot smoother for them.
But we will not forget. We will remember Terri in every case where someone is forced to suffer the removal of life-saving care—and every time we stand for a life others say is not worth living.