Theresa Marie Schindler, better known as Terri Schiavo, was just 26 years old when her body collapsed in the early morning at her home in Florida. Behind that collapse were years of obsession with weight: as a teenager she weighed as much as 90 kilos at 1.60 meters tall, and an extreme diet brought her down to 49. The potassium imbalance it caused stopped her heart and cut off oxygen to her brain.
She came out of the coma, but she never fully came back. For 15 years she remained trapped in a persistent vegetative state, while her husband Michael Schiavo, appointed legal guardian, and her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, waged a legal war over whether she should live or die. The conflict escalated all the way to the United States Congress, the Supreme Court, and President George W. Bush himself.
On March 22, 2005, a judge denied her parents’ final appeal. Thirteen days later, without nutrition or hydration, Terri died at 41. The autopsy confirmed what had already been suspected: her brain was never going to recover.
