In The Faith - A Chronicle of the Christian Faith

Michael Schiavo’s role has ties to civil, biblical law. Schiavo insists that his wife would not have wanted to live in her current condition

PINELLAS PARK, Florida (AP)—Marianne Clark cannot understand why Mary Schindler—the woman who gave birth to Terri Schiavo, dried her tears, and nursed her cuts and bruises—counts less to the courts than the husband who asked that Schiavo’s feeding tube be removed.

“You have a husband who hasn’t been faithful, and he’s the one the judges all listen to,” the Sarasota woman said from a protest line outside the hospice where Schiavo was in her second week without food or water. “There’s nothing like a mother. A mother knows her child, and nobody else should be able to make that decision.”

Some Christian conservatives and others who want to prolong Schiavo’s life do not see why her husband gets to decide her fate. But the role of the spouse as next of kin and decision-maker has deep roots in both civil and biblical law.

“It’s odd that conservative Christians would be making this claim,” said Christopher Schroeder, director of the public law program at Duke University. “You can find biblical passages that say once you have a union like this, the union’s all that matters. The parents drop out of the picture.”

Bob and Mary Schindler say their daughter was a practicing Roman Catholic and would have wanted to be sustained after suffering severe brain damage in 1990. But the courts accepted Michael Schiavo’s testimony that his wife’s expressed wish was not to be kept alive artificially.

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Filed under: Ethics