Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network
Thank you for visiting the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network! If you or a loved one is facing a crisis, we are committed to doing everything possible to help you achieve a life-affirming outcome.
Since its founding in 2005, the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network has advocated for and assisted thousands of medically vulnerable patients and families. Terri’s family, supported by hundreds of thousands who stood for Terri’s God-given right to life in the years before her court-ordered death, established the Life & Hope Network and its 24/7 National Crisis Lifeline.
Our purpose is simple: to ensure every person is cherished, protected, and supported with love, compassion, and the dignity that every human life deserves.
Our Mission
The Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network upholds dignity through service to those who are medically vulnerable.
We express this mission through public advocacy of essential qualities of human dignity, which include the right to food and water, the presumption of the will to live, due process against denial of care, protection from euthanasia as a form of medicine, and access to rehabilitative care. The 24/7 Crisis Lifeline extends this mission by providing critical support to at-risk patients and their families.
About the Life & Hope Network
Terri Schiavo - her name is etched into the nation’s conscience, not only as a symbol of the right-to-life movement but as a lasting voice for the dignity of those living with disabilities.
At the age of 26, Terri experienced a still unexplained accident while at home alone with Michael Schiavo, who subsequently became her guardian. After a short period, Michael lost interest in caring for his brain-injured but otherwise healthy, young wife. Terri was not dying and did not suffer from any life-threatening disease. She was neither on machines nor was she "brain dead".
On the contrary, she was alert and interacted with friends and family — before her husband subsequently abandoned his wedding vows, warehoused her in nursing homes, and eventually petitioned the courts for permission to deliberately starve and dehydrate her to death. Michael finally testified - after many years of legal maneuverings against the Schindler family - that his wife had told him, prior to her accident, that she would not have wanted to live in a brain-injured condition.
This hearsay evidence led to Terri’s right to life instead of being portrayed as a "right to die" or "end of life" issue. On the order of Judge George W. Greer, Terri was deprived of water and food, and after 13 days, she died on March 31, 2005, of dehydration.
Following Terri’s death, her family started the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network to protect and lovingly support those who are medically defenseless.
Our Impact: Changing Lives
Since 2005, the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network has advocated for and assisted thousands of medically vulnerable patients and families. And every day, this work continues - standing with families and patients when they need it most.
Terri Schiavo's Story
Click Here to Learn the Truth About Terri Schiavo: Her Injury, Her Fight, Her Legacy.
