Terri Schiavo: Five Years Later

Today is the fifth anniversary of the court imposed death of Terri Schiavo by dehydration and starvation. Her brother Bobby Schindler comments on the meaning of her death to our society.

Perhaps the "Death Panels" Sarah Palin spoke of sounded like bombastic language. Yet when Palin added this term into our nation’s debate on health care, I believe she did not realize that many hospitals and facilities already have something frighteningly similar. Ethics committees are making many life and death decisions about patients, including whether to withhold simple provisions.

In a seemingly clandestine way, these ethics committees - comprised of medical and legal professionals - are empowering facilities to make life and death decisions independent of the family or a person’s own wishes.