The Terry Shiavo Story

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Terry Shiavo was a young female, who became sick after she had an accident in which left her brain dead for the rest of her life. Her husband, Michael Shiavo was her caretaker and was later appointed as her legal guardian on June 18, 1990. (http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/schiavo/). This was a struggle for Mr. Shiavo, as it would have been for me and many others. From this point on, Mr. Shiavo knew that he had a hard and long struggle dealing with the fact that his wife, whom he loved, is now brain dead, and he is the one left to care for her and make medical decision on her behalf. Her family was there for her also, and this is how all of this became a problem between Mr. Shiavo, and Terry's' parents Mr. and Mrs. Schindler.

Mr. Shiavo was doing his job as a caretaker for his wife, taking her to get the necessary treatment that she needed and required, and really and truly sticking by his wife in such a rough circumstance. He stated that "my wife had said she would never want to be kept alive if she were in a vegetative state". (http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/schiavo/). He was just honoring what she had wanted to do if this type of situation would ever happen, and he was obeying what she wanted. I have to totally agree with him, and how he tried and did take care of Terry. It gets hard on families and also it can take a toll of them when there is a sick family member who is in need of 24 hour care. Ethically, I see that Michael was right; however I am also in limbo to where I think he could have turned Terry's custody over to her parents, even though he did honor what she wanted. Sometimes families find themselves in a comfort zone by trying to come to peace with there loved ones by sitting there with there loved ones while they are on the machine. I couldn't imagine this struggle between Terry's family and Michael.

The main fight was about Michael removing the feeding tube in May 1998, which would result in allowing Terry to go on and pass away. That fight went on for many of years. On "July 29, 1993", Terry's parents wanted to take custody of there daughter.

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