Fighting for Dear Life Read online

  ‘‘One of the most gut-wrenching stories in recent years was the deliberate, systematic, court-ordered starvation of Terri Schiavo. David Gibbs III, the Christian attorney who fought so valiantly to save her life, has now written a gripping account of the fight to save Terri. This book . . . is a wake-up call to a society that shrugs its collective shoulders as to how we treat the most vulnerable among us.’’

  —D. James Kennedy, PhD, Senior Minister, Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church

  ‘‘Attorney Gibbs makes the case for people like me to be allowed to live. I am so thankful that my husband didn’t let me die because of my ‘quality of life.’ This could be the most important book you ever read.’’

  —Kate Adamson, Author of Triumph Over Adversity

  ‘‘The tragedy of Terri Schiavo will long be remembered, mourned, and debated. David Gibbs’s vital book explains why Terri Schiavo died and why all Americans should care.’’

  —U.S. Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX), retired

  ‘‘Americans are indebted to David Gibbs for bringing to light a wealth of insider information never reported on the Terri Schiavo case. His expert legal and eyewitness account is unmatched. A must read.’’

  —Joseph Farah, WorldNetDaily.com

  ‘‘My heart was deeply moved by this touching and thought-provoking account! My husband and I prayed diligently for Terri and for the Schindlers, as he, as well as I, greatly value every precious life.

  ‘‘I thank God for the compassionate and valiant stand of David Gibbs. May this book be used greatly to promote the value of every single life.’’

  —Joyce Rogers, wife of the late Dr. Adrian Rogers

  THE UNTOLD STORY OF TERRY SCHIAVO

  AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR ALL OF US

  FIGHTING

  FOR

  DEAR LIFE

  BY THE ATTORNEY WHO TOUGHT FOR TERRI

  DAVID GIBBS

  WITH BOB DEMOSS

  Fighting for Dear Life

  Copyright © 2006

  David C. Gibbs III

  Cover design by Lookout Design, Inc.

  Cover photo by David Hanko

  Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Hardcover: ISBN 978-0-7642-0243-8

  Trade Paper: ISBN 978-0-7642-0534-7

  Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

  Gibbs, David (David C.)

  Fighting for dear life : the untold story of Terri Schiavo and what it means for all of us / David Gibbs with Bob DeMoss.

  p. cm.

  Summary: ‘‘Gibbs, lead attorney for Bob and Mary Schindler, Terri Schiavo’s parents, recounts the legal case to keep her alive and her last days. Discusses background information on the U.S. judiciary process and value of life issues’’— Provided by publisher.

  Includes bibliographical references.

  ISBN 0-7642-0243-X (hardcover : alk. paper)

  1. Schiavo, Terri, 1963–2005. 2. Right to die—Moral and ethical aspects—United States—Case studies. 3. Terminal care—Moral and ethical aspects—United States— Case studies. 4. Coma—Patients—United States—Biography. 5. Medical ethics— United States—Case studies. I. DeMoss, Robert G. II. Title.

  R726.G52 2006

  179.7—dc22

  2006013760

  For Terri Schiavo’s parents, Robert and Mary Schindler. You beautifully demonstrated a parent’s unconditional love for your disabled daughter.

  For my parents, David and Glorianne Gibbs. You loved and trained me, and showed me by your lives how to find great joy and purpose in serving others. Dad, you have been a role model and hero to me as a legal missionary attorney helping hurting people and defending right causes across our land.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  David Gibbs would like to thank . . .

  My wife, family, friends, and the entire team of outstanding professionals at Gibbs Law Firm for their support and advice while this book was being written.

  Bob DeMoss for helping me tell the story.

  Barbara Weller, Becky Wilson, and Dr. Robert and Dora DeMoss, for their many late nights of work to see this project through to completion.

  Kyle Duncan, Gary Johnson, Julie Smith, and the wonderful team at Bethany House for their commitment to the heart and soul of this book.

  Greg Johnson and WordServe Literary Group for finding us the perfect publishing home.

  The millions of people who watched, prayed, and stood with us in spirit from around the world as we legally represented Bob and Mary Schindler in their valiant final efforts to save the life of their daughter Terri Schiavo.

  The Creator of Life before whom every life has eternal worth.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  DAVID C. GIBBS defends the rights of churches and Christians nationwide as a legal missionary through Gibbs Law Firm and the Christian Law Association. He’s a graduate of Liberty University and received his law degree from Duke University. He co-hosts The Legal Alert, heard on more than one thousand radio stations daily, and he has appeared on many major news and talk shows, including Larry King Live, FOX & Friends, Hannity & Colmes, Nancy Grace, The Michael Reagan Show, and Face the Nation. David, his wife, and their four children make their home in Florida.

  Attorney David Gibbs can be contacted at [email protected].

  BOB DeMOSS served seven years as Youth Cultural Specialist for Dr. James Dobson and Focus on the Family. He has hosted his Learn to Discern: Help for a Generation at Risk seminar in more than three hundred cities worldwide and has appeared on numerous national radio and television shows, including Good Morning America. As a New York Times bestselling writer, he has coauthored books with Dennis Rainey, Tim LaHaye, and Point of Grace. A father of four, Bob lives with his family in Franklin, Tennessee.

  CONTENTS

  PART ONE :THIS DAY WE FIGHT

  1. Fighting for Dear Life

  2. Seeing Is Believing

  3. Life on Trial

  4. Terri’s Law

  5. Doctor’s Orders

  6. Is There a Doctor in the House?

  7. In Sickness and In Health

  8. Your Honor, I Object!

  9. Let’s Make a Deal

  PART TWO :TERRI’S FIGHT FOR LIFE

  10. Terri’s Only Crime

  11. Terri’s Last Meal

  12. The Big Lie

  13. Washington Weighs In

  14. Litigating at the Speed of Light

  15. A Mother’s Heart

  16. Until We Meet Again

  PART THREE :FIGHTING FOR OUR FUTURE

  17. Supreme Denial

  18. Examining the Medical Examiner’s Report

  19. The $64,000 Question

  20. A Life Worth Living

  21. Every Day’s a Gift

  22. The Least of These

  23. If There’s a Will There’s a Way

  24. Life Support in View of Eternity

  25. Brave New World?

  26. If My People

  Appendix A: Frequently Asked Questions: Terri and the Case

  Appendix B: Sample Form: Designation of Health Care Surrogate
/>   Appendix C: Full Text of Terri’s Law: October 2003

  Appendix D: Text of the Act of Congress: March 2005

  Notes

  PART ONE

  THIS DAY WE FIGHT

  CHAPTER ONE

  FIGHTING FOR

  DEAR LIFE

  The first duty of government is the protection of life, not its destruction. The chief purpose of government is to protect life. Abandon that and you have abandoned all.

  —THOMAS JEFFERSON1

  Terri Schiavo is dead.

  Nothing in this book will change that fact. The time for making motions and filing appeals is over. My clients, Bob and Mary Schindler, have no recourse. Terri, that precious daughter they carefully bundled up and carried home from a Philadelphia hospital back in December of 1963 was, on March 31, 2005, removed from their loving arms and reduced to ashes.

  As much as I’d like to bring Terri back from the grave, I can’t. You might be wondering why, then, would I write this book? What is the point of revisiting the painful details that have been rehashed a thousand times in the media? Let me offer three reasons why I feel compelled to tell Terri’s story. The first is quite simple.

  I was there.

  I witnessed firsthand what transpired both in the courtroom and behind the scenes. I sat and visited with Terri on numerous occasions. I looked into her eyes. I spoke and laughed with her. I watched Terri’s family interact with her in ways nobody in the media ever saw. And I was in her room the day her feeding tube was removed . . . as well as shortly before Terri took her final breath.

  Not one reporter from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX, the New York Times, or the international media community ever set foot in Terri’s room. I can’t blame them—they were denied entrance by Terri’s husband, Michael Schiavo. For reasons known only to Michael, he did not want the world to see Terri as she was: a disabled, yet fully alive, spirited woman.

  Perhaps more troubling was the behavior of Judge George Greer, who held the very heartbeat of Terri’s life in his hands. For reasons I still do not understand, Judge Greer refused to go and meet Terri Schiavo, watch her interact with her mother, or call her as a witness in his courtroom—even though he was assigned the task of deciding Terri’s ultimate fate.

  In this regard, I had unmatched access to the truth of Terri’s condition . . . the truth that has been withheld from you, the truth that we were not able to introduce as evidence in court. Indeed, I write because it’s impossible for me to remain silent. As one of the few eyewitnesses, I have an obligation to you and to our country. I must confront the gross misrepresentations and outright fabrications that some are using to justify future abuses against thousands of those whose ‘‘quality of life’’ has been called into question.

  What’s more, the wall-to-wall media coverage during Terri’s final days made her story one of the top media events of 2005. Yet a tremendous amount of confusion still lingers in the minds of most Americans as to what really happened. Everywhere I travel, people voice conflicting opinions about Terri’s story.

  Many people have told me they cannot understand why she had to die. They fear the judicial branch is unaccountable and out of control. They can’t comprehend why Michael Schiavo paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to secure his wife’s death—monies that should have been earmarked for her rehabilitation from a medical malpractice lawsuit. Others believe the Florida legislature, the U.S. Congress, and President George W. Bush had no business meddling in a ‘‘private’’ family affair. This confusion and division is especially evident in the legal, medical, and other professional communities.

  I believe the reason our country is wrestling with these questions is because, at some deeper level, we instinctively realize something profoundly wrong has happened. The Terri Schiavo case is to our generation what Roe v. Wade was to our parents’ generation.

  Life itself was on trial.

  I believe if ‘‘We the People’’ fail to stand for life in the wake of Terri’s death, the intrinsic value of life for the infirm, the elderly, and the disabled will be severely diluted. Even the self-proclaimed atheist and well-known liberal journalist Nat Hentoff called the dehydration and starvation of Terri Schiavo ‘‘the longest public execution in American history,’’2 and he believes America has already lost her way.

  There are some who say that our nation is simply unable or unwilling to appropriately face death as a culture. While I do agree that our nation is obsessed with youth and physical beauty, pro-euthanasia proponents claim that we are trying to run from death and avoid it at all costs. Their argument is that, although Terri wanted to die, her family and others simply did not want to face the ugly prospect of that fact. The Schindlers and I, and many millions of others who prayed that Terri’s life might be spared, however, are not denying death’s inevitability or suffering from some sense of cultural denial toward its prospect. I understand that modern medicine has the technology to keep a flatline corpse ‘‘alive’’ indefinitely if so desired. It’s entirely possible to keep the lungs working and the heart beating through machinery long after a person is dead. I’m not in favor of that. The Bible says there is ‘‘a time to be born, and a time to die’’ (Ecclesiastes 3:2). Sadly, the notion that Terri was already ‘‘dead and gone’’ was the most common misconception circulating about her.

  We were not fighting against an inevitable or natural death; we were fighting against the unnatural, premature death of someone who did not deserve to die. There is a huge difference between fighting for legitimate life and being in denial when it’s simply ‘‘someone’s time to go.’’

  Quite simply, it was not Terri’s time to go.

  Second, I write because I was raised to love and respect America and the rule of law. When I was a child, my parents encouraged me to memorize the Pledge of Allegiance. They taught me about the faith of our forefathers who founded the United States with their sacrifice and blood. I came to believe America was the greatest, kindest, and most generous nation in the world. But when the Supreme Court refused to grant our final appeal to rescue Terri from death, I thought, Dear Lord, how, as a nation, have we reached this point? For the first time in my life, I was embarrassed to be an American.

  Here is what troubled me:

  America has sent men and women overseas to fight the atrocities and human abuses in Afghanistan and Iraq. For decades we have had a rich history of opposing brutal dictators—Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Adolf Hitler, among others—for torturing and gassing to death their own people. Yet here at home on our soil, with the full blessing of our courts and under the alleged authority of American law, we were engaged in an equally barbaric act.

  The third motivation for creating this eyewitness account flows from the tears of Mary Schindler, Terri’s mother. There are some things law school cannot prepare you for. One such event was the afternoon Mary and I walked out of Terri’s hospice room for what would be the last time Mary would see her daughter this side of heaven. Mary turned to me and said, ‘‘David, I’m no lawyer and I’m no doctor. But what I don’t understand is why did they have to kill my little girl?’’

  That is the troubling moral dilemma.

  When I first became involved with this case, Bob and Mary Schindler asked me to do anything that we could think of that was both legal and proper to save the life of their daughter. After Terri died, Bob and Mary asked me to tell what really happened—specifically the trial and error of this landmark case—so that many others would be spared from a similar fate.

  I make no apology that, from my perspective, what happened to Terri was wrong. Very wrong. Maybe you agree. Then again, maybe you disagree, or the jury is still out in your mind. I believe if you will join me as I present my case, you will come to understand:

  Why I fought for Terri.

  Why I’d do it again.

  And why I’d fight for you too.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SEEING IS BELIEVING

  Theresa Schiavo didn’t have a written living
will. She didn’t specify in writing what her wishes were, so we had to rely on oral statements.

  —GEORGE FELOS, ATTORNEY FOR MICHAEL SCHIAVO1

  I n the predawn hours of February 25, 1990, twenty-six-year-old Terri Schiavo collapsed while home alone with her husband. Deprived of oxygen for several minutes, Terri was rendered a brain-injured woman and later was diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state (known as PVS). More than fifteen years later the cause of her trauma remains unknown.

  On many occasions, through watching news reports as a concerned citizen, before I even knew the Schindlers or their daughter, I had heard various descriptions of Terri and her condition.

  However, some things defy description.

  Take the Grand Canyon. There are simply no words, pictures, or movies that can capture the magnitude of this 277-mile long, five-thousand-foot-deep breach in the earth’s crust. A postcard from the gift shop will never take your breath away. But to linger at the edge of the Grand Canyon’s North Rim—there’s nothing like it. It’s life changing.

  How about gazing upward at the impossibly massive arms of a six- hundred-year-old California Redwood . . . or swimming with the dolphins in the Florida Keys . . . or bringing a newborn baby home from the hospital? To comprehend and appreciate these things, you just have to experience them for yourself. Nothing else will do.

  Here’s the connection to Terri Schiavo.

  As an eyewitness, I can attest that there was a tremendous volume of misinformation circulated by some in the media about Terri. While many in the media genuinely understood and sympathized with Terri’s fight for life, in general, the American public was—and continues to be—misled as to the true nature of Terri’s medical condition prior to her death. Why? I particularly fault many in the mainstream press for their lack of due diligence. Rather than digging deep to authenticate her status—rather than pushing to see Terri for themselves—most chose to rehash secondhand, unverified information.