They Killed My Sister Terri Schiavo, We Can’t Let That Happen to Other People Like Her

This article was originally published at LifeNews.com.

March 31 marked the 20th anniversary of my sister Terri Schiavo’s death - a tragic moment reflecting the dangerous direction of our healthcare system and culture. Terri’s death was not natural; it was imposed. She simply needed food and water. That was it.

In response to my sister’s death, my family established the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network and a 24/7 National Crisis Lifeline to assist families in crisis who are fighting for the lives of their loved ones. Our mission is simple: upholding human dignity through service to the medically vulnerable.

Since its founding in 2005, the Life & Hope Network has advocated for and supported thousands of vulnerable patients and their families through its resources and trusted allies. The fight to protect the voiceless is critical. We must recognize that the U.S. healthcare system differs from the romanticized version portrayed on TV. Far too many families have faced struggles similar to ours since Terri’s passing and continue to be subjected to the same treatment.

Imagine that your son has been in a terrible car accident. You rush to the hospital, only to learn that he is in the ICU with a profound brain injury. Within days - or even hours - doctors begin discussing “brain death” and insist that there’s no hope for meaningful recovery. Then comes the most shocking part; they’ve set a deadline to withdraw life support - just one week.

This scenario isn’t made up; this was the experience of a real family that the Life & Hope Network recently helped. Sadly, this situation was not an isolated incident. We regularly receive calls from families blindsided by rapid decisions to terminate treatment, often just days after brain injuries occur.

Even when families plead for more time, hoping that their loved ones will show signs of improvement, hospitals can - and often do - override their wishes. Dr. Neil Wenger, a UCLA professor and director of the university’s ethics center, once explained: “If there is no resolution, then we have a policy where you can override a family.”

Furthermore, according to a 2005 report by the Robert Powell Center for Medical Ethics, “the laws of all but ten states may allow doctors and hospitals to disregard advance directives when they call for treatment, food, or fluids.”

That’s when we help. We advocate for families in crisis who are given no due process, no time, and no options. We fight to ensure that decisions prioritize the patient’s well-being and are grounded in compassion, dignity, and the possibility of hope.

To truly understand this issue, we must acknowledge the deeply rooted devaluation of life among the medically vulnerable. History offers chilling precedents. Under Nazi Germany’s Aktion T4 euthanasia program, more than 200,000 disabled individuals were killed based on their perceived lack of worth.

This wasn’t solely a German idea. The American eugenics movement, taught at hundreds of U.S. universities and supported by elites, preceded it by decades. Justice Clarence Thomas noted in Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, Inc. (2019) how American eugenics targeted not only certain races but also the disabled—those labeled “feeble-minded,” “deformed,” or “crippled.”

With the legalization of abortion in 1973, this worldview quietly persisted under the narrative of “choice.” Today, more than 50% of unborn children diagnosed with disabilities such as Down syndrome are aborted. The rationale? They don’t meet arbitrary standards of personhood.

The “personhood theory” - championed by bioethicists such as Joseph Fletcher and Peter Singer - claims that being human isn’t enough to warrant rights or dignity; one must possess cognitive traits such as self-awareness and rational thought to qualify as a “person.” Infants, the severely disabled, and those with Alzheimer’s or brain injuries often fall outside this definition.

Such ideas have dangerously shaped modern medicine. Bioethicist Wesley J. Smith warned in 2002 that bioethics has become a tool for deciding who deserves to live and informs policies that prioritize cost-saving over care.

Insurance companies, hospital administrators, and policymakers increasingly make decisions based on cost, not care. Patients are seen as budget lines instead of human beings. Hospitals impose DNR orders without consent, deny treatment under “medical futility” policies, and override families through ethics committee rulings.

Feeding tubes, once considered part of basic care, have been reclassified as “medical treatment,” creating a path to prematurely ending the lives of patients by ceasing “treatment.” Withdrawing feeding tubes against family wishes is currently legal in all 50 states. In my view, this quiet change in the classification of feeding tubes is the Roe v. Wade of the euthanasia movement. It enabled Terri’s death and continues to threaten countless other lives.

In a 2008 New York Times article titled “Terminal Options for the Irreversibly Ill,” Judith Schwarz, a Registered Nurse, cited more than one million deaths tied to decisions to withdraw life-sustaining care in U.S. hospitals annually.

Perhaps it’s sheer indifference, but most Americans seem to be completely unaware of what is happening behind the scenes in hospitals, nursing homes, and hospices nationwide, despite the growing number of warning signs.

As a patient advocate, I’ve seen how families are pressured into ending care prematurely. Justifications rest on vague prognoses of “low chance of meaningful recovery,” but new research challenges these assumptions.

A groundbreaking Journal of Neurotrauma (2024) study tracked nearly 1,400 TBI patients. Forty percent of those who received extended care recovered with some level of independence.

Similar findings in JAMA Neurology (2021) and the American Academy of Neurology (2022) urge decision-makers to delay end-of-life decisions by at least 30 days post-injury. Countless cases show that recovery is possible with care and time. Yet the system turns a blind eye to this evidence.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed how medical authority can be misused. Governors such as Andrew Cuomo ordered COVID-positive patients into nursing homes, leading to thousands of deaths. Media coverage was minimal. Group homes for the disabled suffered similar neglect. These tragedies underscore how expendable the vulnerable are perceived to be.

My family experienced this firsthand. When Terri’s feeding tube was removed, law enforcement stood at her bedside to prevent us from giving her even a sip of water or lip balm. Officials banned cameras under the guise of privacy— but we know the truth: they didn’t want the public to see what death by dehydration really looks like.

Dehydration affects everyone, regardless of whether they have a brain injury. As Claire Maldarelli explains in her article “This Is What Happens to Your Body as You Die of Dehydration” (Popular Science, 2017), the body responds to water loss by triggering survival mechanisms: reducing urine output and sweating, increasing heart rate, and eventually shutting down non-essential organs. Without rehydration, this process leads to organ failure and, ultimately, death—regardless of a person's medical condition or history.

Hydration is essential for survival, no matter an individual’s mental capacity. And as my family witnessed in my sister’s case, the suffering is excruciating.

Twenty years later, the question remains; how did we reach the point where an innocent, disabled woman could be legally starved and dehydrated to death?

Terri’s death was not just a tragedy; it was a warning. We are told to trust the healthcare system. Popular media depicts doctors doing everything they can to save lives. But in reality, a culture of death has infiltrated the very institutions meant to protect us. Life is no longer valued for its own sake; its value is weighed against cost, convenience, or ideology.

This isn’t just about Terri. It’s about all of us. It’s about the path we’re on. We must reject the personhood theory, fight policies that treat starvation as care, and build a culture that respects every life—regardless of ability, prognosis, or perceived worth.

The lessons from Terri’s death remain urgent. Her story must never be forgotten.