FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
OCTOBER 14, 2003

Starvation of Terri Schiavo is the Future of Hospice

FOREST PARK, IL: Disability activists are saying the impending starvation of a brain-injured woman in a Florida hospice confirms their worst fears about "end of life" advocacy. Representatives of Not Dead Yet, a national disability rights group opposed to legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia, claim that the impending starvation of Terri Schiavo is both the tip of the iceberg and a sign of what's to come.

"Terri Schiavo is going to be killed in the hands of a hospice facility operated by the Hospice of the Florida Suncoast," says Stephen Drake, research analyst for Not Dead Yet. "This organization is one of the regional 'Rallying Points' of Last Acts, a mega-funded project which coordinates 'end of life' advocacy around the United States. The CEO of Hospice of the Florida Suncoast is on the board of directors of Partnership for Caring, the organization that coordinates funding for the 'Rallying Points.' Both organizations have received some of the estimated 150 million dollars the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has invested in 'end of life' concerns."

Drake also notes that George Felos, Michael Schiavo's attorney, was chair of the board of Hospice of the Florida Suncoast until he took Michael Schiavo on as a client. Since then, Felos has reportedly pocketed most of the $700,000 awarded for Terri's medical care in legal fees to end her life.

Earlier this summer, Not Dead Yet and over 40 disability organizations locked horns with Partnership for Caring, Last Acts and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. They charged that the coalition was actively conflating "terminal illness" with "disability" and promoting statutes that weaken legal protections for people like Terri Schiavo. He wonders to what extent the starvation of Terri Schiavo is a "Robert Wood Johnson - funded project."

Diane Coleman, president of Not Dead Yet, is concerned over the recent increase in legal efforts to make it easier to end the lives of people with brain injury, alzheimer's and mental retardation.

"Two weeks ago, the New York Times ran an article on the German Program of 'mercy killings' that resulted in the extermination of some 200,000 people with disabilities. The actual medical records indicated either a 'natural death' or a 'mercy killing' for the victim, many of whom were starved to death. But we all recognize now that the killings were based on a rationale that some lives were 'unworthy of life.' It has scary similarities to what we see happening now in the United States."

Coleman adds that hospice has already strayed from its traditional meaning. She fears the final body count of nonterminally ill disabled people starved in hospice could exceed anything done by the Germans in their "mercy killing" program.