Opinion

The vilification of Michael Schiavo continues

As the first anniversary of the death of Terri Schiavo - the woman who had been in a “persistent vegetative state” since 1990, and whose case dominated the headlines and 24/7 cable television newscasts a year ago - approached, the battle over her life, which had taken place in the courts, in the nation's capital, and on the streets outside her hospice room, shifted to a battle over her legacy, which is being fought out in several state legislatures and at bookstores around the nation.

In a piece in The New Yorker magazine about the Bush Administration's protracted war on science, Michael Specter wrote that In 1998, when Michael Schiavo "asked that [Terri's] feeding tube be removed...a legal war with her parents [was ignited] that eventually turned into a national conflict."

After several years of legal wrangling, it came down to the passion-packed month of March, when regular press conferences were held by her parents, Mary and Bob Schindler and their mostly right wing political surrogates; demonstrations and vigils were organized by a cadre of longtime Christian right activists; fundraising pitches were sent by a host of Christian conservative organizations; and a well-orchestrated campaign was aimed at vilifying Michael Schiavo, Terri's husband.

With the encouragement of Terri's parents, religious right activists unleashed a 24/7, no-holds- barred campaign aimed at winning the battle over public opinion. What was a private family matter turned into a media feeding frenzy and a public spectacle.

'More than just Terri Schiavo'

For the right, the Terri Schiavo case was always bigger than whether she lived or died.

Speaking frankly at a March 23, 2005, Family Research Council-organized event at the Willard Hotel in Washington, then-Rep. Tom DeLay (R- TX.) laid out what the Schiavo case meant to the conservative movement:

"It is more than just Terri Schiavo. This is a critical issue for people in this position, and it is also a critical issue to fight that fight for life, whether it be euthanasia or abortion. I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, one thing God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo to elevate the visibility of what's going on in America. That Americans would be so barbaric as to pull a feeding tube out of a person that is lucid and starve them to death for two weeks. I mean, in America that's going to happen if we don't win this fight"

On March 31, 2005, soon after being removed from life support, Terri Schiavo died.

Mobilizing Conservatives

The final month of Terri Schiavo's life was akin to a made-for-television mini-series, with a cast of characters that included the nation's most powerful politicians including, President George W. Bush, his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist, DeLay, a host of longtime Christian conservative evangelical leaders and a horde of conservative pundits and media personalities -- exemplified by Fox Television's Sean Hannity.

Steeped as we are in a today's-news-trumps-all mentality -- author/playwright Gore Vidal has dubbed the U.S.A., the United States of Amnesia - the sound from the right was deafening on the first anniversary of Terri Schiavo's death. And the media paid little attention to some of the more egregious events that marked the run-up to Terri's death.

The White House didn't circulate footage of the president rushing back to the White House from the ranch in Crawford, Texas, to sign a hastily-crafted "emergency measure" that, as The New Yorker 's Michael Specter reported, "attempted to force the courts to review the Schiavo case and require that the feeding tube [that had been removed from Schiavo] be reinserted." After the Supreme Court "for the sixth time, declined to hear the case," the president - shortly after the second anniversary of the bloody war in Iraq - spoke out in favor of the "culture of life."

Florida Governor Jeb Bush passed the anniversary relatively quietly. Gov. Bush not only played a leading role in the case, but continued attacking Michael Schiavo even after "an autopsy supported" Schiavo's "contention that she was unaware of her condition and incapable of recovering," Specter reported. "Within days Jeb Bush...ordered a state prosecutor to investigate whether Schiavo's husband had purposely delayed calling an ambulance when she fell ill, in 1990." According to Specter, "Bush produced no evidence, and his actions alarmed even his Republican allies," and "the investigation was quickly dropped."

The office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R- Tenn.) didn't do anything to remind the public of the senator's keen ability to diagnose Schiavo's condition by viewing a knitted together video of her in her hospital room. (This year, according to the Associated Press, Frist said of the lessons learned from the Schiavo controversy: “The American people don't want you involved in these decisions.”)

The beleaguered, and indicted, former House Majority Leader, and now former Congressman, Tom DeLay, obviously too busy dealing with his own troubles, didn't reiterate last year's threats of retribution against judges.

Randall Terry, the anti-abortion activist who was designated by the Schiavo family as their spokesperson, and was one of the people expected to mobilize support for Schiavo amongst conservative Christians, was nowhere to be seen.

And, while the Schiavo Case is front-and-center in several races in Florida this year, The Christian Post reported that “Unlike last year, when Congress, President Bush and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush pressed to keep Schiavo alive, only one lawmaker was on hand with the Schindlers [at a Washington, DC, press conference held the day before the first anniversary of Terri's Schiavo's death], Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.”

Following the money

In his book, "Using Terri: The Religious Right's Conspiracy to Take Away Our Rights" (HarperCollins, 2005), Jon Eisenberg, an attorney working pro bono for Michael Schiavo, wrote that the case was a key battle in the religious right's culture wars which is being fought out on "multiple fronts," including "pushing for prayer and creationism in the public schools, and opposing stem-cell research, women's reproductive rights, and gay civil unions and marriage."

After returning to his home in Oakland, California from a hearing in Tallahassee, Florida, Eisenberg found himself wondering, "Who was funding the Schindlers' advocates." After visiting the Media Transparency Web site, Eisenberg "began to understand the think-tank machinery and its critical role in the Schiavo case. There is a money trail leading to virtually all of the lawyers for the Schindlers and Governor Jeb Bush, through more than a dozen religious Right organizations, from a handful of foundations that are quietly finding just about every ultraconservative cause on the political map."

Eisenberg identified a "three-tiered structure" that included "seven foundations...fourteen think tanks and other religious Right organizations ... and eighteen foot soldiers" behind the case:

"The lawyers, activists, and politicians" -- "The foot soldiers" included David Gibbs III and Barbara Weller, attorneys with the Tampa-area Gibbs Law Firm. Gibbs, whose family controls the Christian Law Association, started working on the case in 2003, and became lead attorney for the Schindlers in September 2004; Pat Anderson, the Schindler's lead attorney before Sept. 2004; Robert Destro, a law professor at Washington, D.C.'s Catholic University of America and "principal investigator for the antigay" Marriage Law Project, represented Jeb Bush "in litigation arising from the passage of 'Terri's Law' in 2003, and joined ... Gibbs III in representing the Schindlers in March 2005; Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the Pat Robertson- founded American Center for Law and Justice, was "one of the Schindler's attorneys in the 'Terri's Law' litigation"; Deborah Berliner and Brett Wood, "formally affiliated with ... Judicial Watch"; Wesley J. Smith, "the anti-euthanasia activist" served as a "behind-the-scenes 'informal advisor' to the Schindlers"; Rita Marker, the executive director of the anti-euthanasia International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide; Kenneth Connor, the former head of the Washington, D.C.- based Family Research Council, worked on "Terri's Law"; William Saunders and Jon Halisky, lawyers for the FRC's Center for Human Life and Bioethics; Max Lapertosa, Kenneth Walden, and Geoge Rahdert, disability rights lawyers; Rep. Tom DeLay who spearheaded congressional intervention' Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) "sponsored a version of the congressional bill that threw the Schiavo case into the federal courts; Governor Jeb Bush.

"Think tanks and other organizations that get money from the foundations to pursue their litigation, publication, activism, education, and lobbying strategies" -- "The officer corps" included the Alliance Defense Fund, Family Research Council, American Center for Law and Justice, Life Legal Defense Fund, National Right to Life Committee, Christian Law Association, Discovery Institute for Public Policy, Encounter Books, International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, National Organization on Disability, World Institute on Disability, Judicial Watch, Values Action Team, Alexander Strategy Group, a lobbying group founded by two former aides to DeLay.

"The foundations"--"The high command" included the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Scaife family foundations, Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation, Randolph Foundation, JM Foundation, Koch family foundations, Heritage Foundation.

"In some instances," Eisenberg wrote, "I was able to trace payments directly to a foot soldier...In other instances, I discovered broader financial connections where there was a constant flow of money to the foot soldiers, not discernibly earmarked for the Schiavo case in particular but generally financing the foot soldiers' work in the trenches of the culture wars, thus facilitating their work in the Schiavo battle."

Legislating Against Patients' Rights

On March 28, a joint press release from the Merger Watch Project and Compassion & Choice, two organizations “dedicated to protecting patients' right to self-determination,” warned that between the beginning of 2005 and mid-February 2006, forty-nine pieces of legislation had been introduced in twenty-three states that “would make honoring patients' wishes to forego life-sustaining treatment more difficult.”

According to the groups' research team, of the bills thus far proposed, forty “would restrict forgoing artificially administered nutrition and hydration”; twenty bills in thirteen states “are based on the National Right to Life Committee [NRLC] model legislation entitled “Starvation and Dehydration of Persons with Disabilities Prevention Act”; and fourteen contain “restrictions beyond” the NRLC model bill.

“This legislative push in the states demonstrates that some conservative religious leaders and politicians do not plan to stop with the Terri Schiavo case,” said Lois Uttley, Director of the Merger Watch Project. “They are trying to interfere with private medical decisions that should be made by patients and their families, based on sound medical advice and patients' own religious and moral values.”

Compassion & Choices President Barbara Coombs Lee pointed out that if passed, these laws “would authorize an army of vigilantes to challenge a family's decision to remove a feeding tube. Religious institutions, politicians and right to life groups could intrude in a family's most intimate and difficult decision, tying them up in court for years.”

Battle of the books

“This isn't about vengeance, it's about holding people accountable for what they did,” Michael Schiavo, the husband of Terri Schiavo, told Keith Olbermann in an interview aired on MSNBC's “Countdown” on Monday, March 27. “These politicians walked into our lives and tried to take it over,” Schiavo said.

During the media frenzy last March, he invited both President George W. Bush and Governor Jeb Bush to visit with him and Terri, Schiavo said, but they apparently weren't interested. And while Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) was making himself look ridiculous by diagnosing Terri's condition by viewing a series of knitted together video clips, “Tom DeLay used Terri to hide behind his own problems,” Schiavo charged.

Schiavo's appearance on “Countdown” was aimed at both publicizing his book called “Terri: The Truth” (written with Michael Hirsh), and promoting TerriPAC, Schiavo's newly established political action committee, which intends to raise money in order to hold elected officials accountable for their actions during the Schiavo case.

According to the book, the right wing-orchestrated campaign that unmercifully vilified Schiavo, led to a $250,000 bounty placed on his head “urging that I be tortured before I'm killed. I was condemned by the president of the United States, the majority leaders of the House and Senate, the governor of Florida, the Pope, Jesse Jackson and the right- wing media," Schiavo wrote.

The other book released just before the one-year anniversary of Terri's death was written by Bob and Mary Schindler, their son Bobby, and their daughter Suzanne Schindler Vitadamo, and is called "A Life That Matters: The Legacy of Terri Schiavo -- A Lesson For Us All." According to London's Telegraph newspaper, the Schindler book “recount[s] their failed legal struggle to keep the brain-damaged woman alive against the wishes of her husband and presenting accounts of his alleged violent temper.” It also keeps places Michael Schiavo front and center as the chief villain in the case; Reuters reported that “the Schindlers again accuse [him] of abusing Terri.”

At their press conference, the Schindlers' announced the reorganization of their foundation, the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation, and said that they intend “to mount a political attack on what they call 'the deliberate killing of the disabled or anyone deemed 'unworthy','” the Baltimore Sun reported.

"We have launched a battle with the euthanasia movement," Robert Schindler said in a phone interview.

Despite the opportunistic and often shameful conduct of the president, Governor Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and Tom DeLay, and a bevy of religious right organizations, the public ultimately believed that the outcome of the case should be based on honoring Terri's wishes as she had expressed them to her husband Michael. While national politicians have essentially chosen not to replay last year, conservative right-to-lifers have every intention of intruding in the lives of people that are facing difficult and personal family decisions, by pushing restrictive legislation in their states.

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Bill Berkowitz is a longtime observer of the conservative movement. His WorkingForChange column Conservative Watch documents the strategies, players, institutions, victories and defeats of the American Right.

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