Mixed, muted reaction follows Schiavo passing

Michael Miller

Over the last few weeks, Terri Schiavo became a presence in countless

Americans’ lives. Her immobilized face, with eyes staring vacantly

and mouth opened halfway, was a fixture on televisions, magazine

covers and more than a few websites.

To Jenny Bioche, a parishioner at Our Lady Queen of Angels Church

in Newport Beach, Schiavo meant more than a news item.

“This is a day of mourning,” Bioche said on Thursday, hours after

reports surfaced of Schiavo’s death. “I’ll be going through a

grieving process today for the loss of Terri, and then I’ll see what

direction the Lord is turning me in.”

Bioche, a mother of four, has donated money to Schiavo’s family

through a website dedicated to raising funds to save Schiavo’s life.

With that fight now over, she plans to undertake more activism --

although she hasn’t settled on a medium yet. She refers to the

patient’s dehydration and starvation death -- which came after

unprecedented actions by Congress and the president to stop -- as “a

murder.”

“For people like myself, who are pro-life in their thinking but

haven’t been active,” Bioche said, “now is the time.”

Schiavo had been in a vegetative state since 1990, able to breathe

on her own but unable to eat or speak. The 41-year-old’s husband

maintained she told him she would not want to be kept alive in such a

way. Her parents argued otherwise, an argument that repeatedly wound

its way through the country’s court system.

Schiavo’s death incited a number of reactions among local

residents, some expressing outrage at what they saw as an assault on

the right to life, others admitting relief that Schiavo’s 15-year

struggle was over. In some cases, people felt a bit of both.

“Basically, what we’re telling the congregation is that, for

Christians, our Easter faith assures us that the death of the body is

not the end of life,” said the Rev. Peter D. Haynes of St. Michael &

All Angels Episcopal Church in Newport Beach, “and to remember Terri

Schiavo and her husband, parents, caregivers and the judges and

lawyers involved, to remember them all in our prayers.”

Haynes noted that his church offers advanced health care directive

forms for members to fill out. Such forms allow individuals to assign

power of attorney for health care and to request that they not be put

on life support.

“Hopefully, Terri Schiavo’s legacy will be that we’ll all deal

with the situation to let our wishes be known in more fair ways than

she did, so that if what happened to her happens to us, our desires

will be known,” Haynes said.

Others in the religious community voiced sadness at the outcome of

Schiavo’s life.

“I think we have come to the place as a culture, after Dr.

Kevorkian and the other issues with assisted suicide, where the

dignity of life is not valued the way it used to be,” said Rick

Olsen, a pastor at Harbor Trinity Church. “The unfortunate part is

that the people who are healthy are left determining the quality of

life of those who are not, because they’re in the majority.

“The ones in wheelchairs, the ones who are unable to speak, they

don’t get a vote.”

However, a number of people said they were more concerned with

Schiavo’s personal well-being than with the moral implications of the

case.

“I support the husband’s decision,” said Costa Mesa attorney Kirk

McIntosh. “I don’t think many people in that situation would have

done differently than what the husband did. If my wife had been a

vegetable for 12 years, I probably would have pulled the plug.

“I wouldn’t prolong it for her, and I wouldn’t want her to prolong

it for me.”

McIntosh said that since the Schiavo case came to light, more

clients had asked him about health care directive forms.

“They do bring it up now,” he noted, “whereas before, it wasn’t

much of an issue.”

Mary Heinemann, a homemaker who attends the Church of Jesus Christ

of Latter-Day Saints in Newport Beach, believes that Schiavo’s case

brings up questions beyond the right to life. She noted that Schiavo

had first slipped into her vegetative state due to an eating

disorder.

“Many young women and men are battling bulimia today,” Heinemann

said. “Terri’s plight could help them understand the danger of eating

disorders before they too are injured irreversibly.

“The focus should be on the root of the problem rather than how

many hours it will be until Terri Schiavo dies.”

* MICHAEL MILLER covers education and may be reached at (714)

966-4617 or by e-mail at [email protected].